Slashdot Mirror
Are Top US Startups Really Startups? (om.co)
Veteran technology reporter and columnist Om Malik writes: Pitchbook, a data research company has come up with a list of top 14 most valuable startups in the United States. There are no real surprises -- they are all ranked by valuation and they all are valued at north of $4 billion. They are all household names -- barring Outcome Health and Samumed. And they have been around forever. They have thousands of employees and many have billions in revenue. What they are not is liquid on public markets. They have not IPO'd. In a different Silicon Valley, they will all be public companies and they won't be deemed startups. Revenue, growth, relative size, market share -- pick a metric (except for lack of profits in many cases) and you know they aren't really startups. So can we stop calling them startups -- and instead maybe call them VC-backed private companies -- otherwise the label startup loses its meaning.
There are many large private companies that could in no way be considered start-ups.
Is Mars (the candy people) considered a start-up? Bechtel? LEGO?
PitchBook doesn't seem to state their criteria for a "startup" (and I looked), but it seems whatever measure they use is off.
My 15 year old "startup" isn't publicly traded and definitely doesn't make a profit.
Offers above $4 Billion please
Only if it leverages a blockchain to enable an IoT device to sync to the cloud, thereby allowing you to monetize big data utilizing a crowdsourced, "self-employed"(gig) workforce.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
You forgot the hashtags to make sure your overhyped keywords are well publicized
Only if it leverages a #blockchain to enable an #IoT device to sync to the #cloud, thereby allowing you to #monetize #bigdata utilizing a #crowdsourced, "self-employed"(#gig) workforce.
FTFY
Now I am the one getting rich! XD
Pitchbook, a data research company has come up with a list of top 14 most valuable startups in the United States[om.co].
Here is a link to the actual list by Pitchbook, rather than linking to the reporter's own article on the subject. msmash, it would probably be good to update the summary to use that url for the first link, since that's where people will expect it to go.
A recursive sig
Can impart wisdom and truth
Call proc signature()
I work for a company that is making a ton of money and serving a lot of customers and has been around for years, but it still considers itself a startup. I wondered about this.
The CFO explained it in an internal meeting: his definition is that a startup is a company that is still focused on growth above all else. And it's true, the company I work for is plowing a lot of revenue into expansion opportunities, going for growth rather than profits.
When a company has a stable position in its market and starts focusing on making lots of money and/or paying out good dividends on its stock, at that point it is definitely no longer a startup.
I don't know how universal this definition of "startup" is but it makes sense to me, and it nicely handles some of the corner cases discussed in the previous threads here today.
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely