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Y Combinator, the X Factor of Tech (economist.com)
universe520 writes: Since 2005 YC has taken on batches of promising founders, and this month will celebrate the funding of its 1,000th startup. Though about half of its startups have failed, which is typical of early-stage investing, it has had a head-turning record of success. In addition to Airbnb, YC has had a hand in Dropbox, a cloud-storage firm, and Stripe, a payments company. Eight of its firms have become what Valley folk call 'unicorns', valued at $1 billion or more. Combined, the companies it has invested in are worth around $65 billion (based on their most recent funding round), although YC's share is only a small fraction of that total—perhaps $1 billion-$2 billion. It is because of this record that YC has become a juggernaut in Silicon Valley.
Is Airbnb really worth 25 billion? Really??? Dropbox at 10 billion?? And that's just somewhat successful YC stuff; Twitter, a company that is only good at losing investor money, is somehow valued at 19 billion.
The real story here is the silly amount of "value" in companies that produce no tangible products. When this bubble pops, it's going to be really messy.
....life. I can see how females understand they are in charge after all. All it takes is synthesis of one chromosone to render half of humanity redundant. Perhaps in the end the worst parts of species will be breed out?
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
the spirit of creation thrives on compassion.... connections
I hear the 90s calling. They want their dot-com bubble back.
Nae king! Nae laird! Nae yurrupiean pressedent! We willna be fooled again!
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I thought I read somewhere that none of Dropbox, Stripe or Airbnb actually make a profit? Is that really a success story if so?
Evidently "The X Factor" wasn't as successful in the US as it was in the UK, else this thread would already be full of jokes about Simon Cowell and Bread-and-Circuses talent show stars...
The human race would get along just fine without it. Eventually males will be totally removed from the equation and human kind can progress without their weaknesses.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
What an incredibly pretentious name.
So you deny that without your shitposting Slashdot would be far better off ?
Run Forrest Run !
P.S. ==> FUCK YOU !
-APK
True for some startups, but twitter's market cap is $19B. It's a publicly listed company with 676,300,000 shares outstanding which are being bought and sold for $28.17 each.
$28.17 x 676,300,000 = $19,051,371,000
Until people want to start literally giving away twitter shares, it's *actually* worth a fuckton of money.
...
You should value companies based on their future profits/cashflows. Anything else is just witchcraft. And there is nothing special about tech companies that exempts them from financial reality.
Yes, you should value companies that way, but no, other ways of valuing a company aren't whichcraft. Once you have a highly liquid public market willing to buy your shares, obviously it's okay to value a company (at least in the short-term) based on what people are willing to pay for it. If they're willing to pay *more* than the expected value of future profits, of course, then you should usually sell, but it's not witchcraft.
I've been self-funding my startup. At this time, I've invested $30,000 (real cash, no silly accountant created crap) into making it happen. I work 8-12 hours a day for my day job and I work 2-12 hours a day (plus weekends) on my startup. I have done so since July.
As of today, I have managed to build what looks like "a soon to be finished" product which genuinely works, is unique and has market disrupting potential in a big sector. I have written absolutely everything myself and that includes even writing an object oriented compiler.
If some jack-ass wanted 3 months of my time and additionally wanted 7% of my company just for $120-$180,000 I would run screaming. I can generate that much off of releasing my software early to raise funds in a few days based on current interest alone.
These guys sound like crooks and scam artists.
The only reason there's so much venture capital is that interest rates are near zero and investors are willing to gamble on a better return. Once the Fed returns rates to historically normal levels, money for these dumbass startups will disappear. Same with insane real estate prices. A monthly payment on a million dollar mortgage at 3% interest is a bit over 4 grand, but at historically average rates of 8 to 10% that monthly payment will more than double.