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Paul Graham: Y Combinator Companies Have Raised Over $1 Billion

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11–20 of 85 posts

Re: Paul Graham: Y Combinator Companies Have Raised Over $1 Billion

#11
What's interesting is that if 2-3 years ago, ycombinator had the ability to identify and pick winners. I have the impression that in the past year it became the other way around.

Y combinator by picking companies are in fact the kingmakers and are creating the winners.

Re: Paul Graham: Y Combinator Companies Have Raised Over $1 Billion

#12
post #5

How very Silicon Valley of the author to treat these numbers almost like they're profits, or any reasonable sort of "income" at all. The real question is: how much of that money has already been multiplied tenfold, through exits, IPOs or exorbitant profits?

Also would like to see how much of that money went to the same founders. I hear that after the getting funding after the first "success" gets easier.

Re: Paul Graham: Y Combinator Companies Have Raised Over $1 Billion

#13

What's interesting is that if 2-3 years ago, ycombinator had the ability to identify and pick winners. I have the impression that in the past year it became the other way around. Y combinator by picking companies are in fact the kingmakers and are creating the winners.

Not too clear about what your last sentence means. Could you please clarify?

Re: Paul Graham: Y Combinator Companies Have Raised Over $1 Billion

#16
post #13

What's interesting is that if 2-3 years ago, ycombinator had the ability to identify and pick winners. I have the impression that in the past year it became the other way around. Y combinator by picking companies are in fact the kingmakers and are creating the winners.

Not too clear about what your last sentence means. Could you please clarify?

He means that in the past, they made good guesses about which companies would be winners. Now, they have so much clout that merely by picking a company they can make it a winner.

Of course, they're still making smart picks. It's just easier for those picks to succeed.

Re: Paul Graham: Y Combinator Companies Have Raised Over $1 Billion

#17
post #13

What's interesting is that if 2-3 years ago, ycombinator had the ability to identify and pick winners. I have the impression that in the past year it became the other way around. Y combinator by picking companies are in fact the kingmakers and are creating the winners.

Not too clear about what your last sentence means. Could you please clarify?

Sorry about that - what I meant is that an investor role is to identify likely winners and support them until they get acquired or IPO. But ycombinator have more than the ability of identifying winners, I think they have achieved the status of turning people into winner just by picking them. Their true value is not by giving out money or knowing who are the winners, but by adding value to teams to a point where everything they touch turn into gold. People will want to get associated with anything ycombinator invests in, you can see that with the fact that the startfund is now offering $150k convertible note to any company getting accepted into YC. That is amazing.

_disclaimer:_ I tried getting into YC once but got rejected - but I still think of myself as a winner!

Re: Paul Graham: Y Combinator Companies Have Raised Over $1 Billion

#18
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not too clear about what your last sentence means. Could you please clarify?

He means that in the past, they made good guesses about which companies would be winners. Now, they have so much clout that merely by picking a company they can make it a winner. Of course, they're still making smart picks. It's just easier for those picks to succeed.

Thanks for translating it!

Re: Paul Graham: Y Combinator Companies Have Raised Over $1 Billion

#20
post #9

It's pretty incredible to think that YC is likely the highest performing venture fund in history. For 380 companies that works out to about $7.6 million invested into a portfolio of companies worth $7.78 billion. Assuming a 2-7% stake for YC(after dilution), that puts the value of YC's share at $155-$545 million on that $7 million invested.

More here - http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2854630
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