The median outcome of asking someone out, applying for a job, learning an instrument, starting a side project, writing a novel, picking up a sport, learning a language and any other of the thousands of things that make life interesting are all negative.
You fail, yielding zero value, and you could have done something safer with your time instead. But that's not a reason to not take chances.
If your startup fails, you can always go back to that cushy job at Microsoft. You're out 6-12 months - who cares?
Do you believe that the median YC graduate regrets their decision to enter the program?
Sequoia has been at work for alot more time than YC, and put alot more money to work than YC in that time. YC has a stake of at least several percent of that $13.7B figure, translating into about a billion of its own now by my reckoning. Doing pretty well I'd say.
With incubators, as with musicians, things seem to gravitate towards a superstar economy with rich rewards for the top handful of players in the Valley, and peanuts for your average village incubator in the sticks.
I personally believe YC is in a more enviable than Sequoia. Further, YC or at least the partners are in a position to participate in future rounds of funding for the YC companies, of course they will likely be paying a lot more for a lot less at that point...just like Sequoia.
> And Sequoia backed startups now have a combined valuation of almost a trillion. These statistics are a bit meaningless. I'll wager that the median YC company has a negative opportunity cost for the founders.
When reading your comment first I agreed and thought, Wow! YC is killing it. Then I read the next comment and thought, Hmm, perhaps not? Now I don't know what to believe.
YC has a diluted 6% of 13.7B. I would have an estimated 8.9286 x 10^-8% of 1.12 trillion.
Any VC can buy 10% of a company for $10 million. Doesn't mean that it's worth $100 million.
Valuations are usually complete bullshit. I wouldn't rely on their proxy. They're just another example of the anchoring bias.
Relevant quote: "either because they died, got acquired, or sold stock at a specific valuation."
1) YC startups have a combined valuation of $13.7B. Fact - groups of investors have valued YC startups individually, and in aggregate the current known valuation of the collective is $13.7B.
Does that number mean that much by itself? Perhaps not. Let's see what else we know.
2) That valuation has grown by $2B since June. Also fact. And pretty incredible, that's a 17% growth on valuation in 4-5 months.
Without making any comments on whether or not YC's success rate is higher/lower than average and whether or not YC is a benefit to the entrepreneurs it invests in (there's no data presented here to make that assessment, but I'm sure it wouldn't be hard to do), what YC has done in a short amount of time in helping build a tremendous amount of value in its companies is noteworthy - and that's what I take away from this article.
