Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Y Combinator, Backer of Dropbox, Vaults from Experiment to Kingmaker

wsj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 80 posts

Re: Y Combinator, Backer of Dropbox, Vaults from Experiment to Kingmaker

#71

Post by tim333 »

simonebrunozzi wrote: post #57

Does anybody know if the terms they offer to startups are negotiable / have been negotiated before? I believe that it's currently $120k for 7% of the company, with pro rata rights. (it roughly equates to investing $120k at a 1.7M cap).

I think I heard it said there has been the odd exception but the vast majority are that deal.

Update: "While we may deviate from this in exceptional cases, it will still be the case for almost all of the companies we fund." https://blog.ycombinator.com/the-new-deal/

Re: Y Combinator, Backer of Dropbox, Vaults from Experiment to Kingmaker

#72

Post by sanderjd »

austenallred wrote: post #58
sanderjd wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The measure that determines whether it’s a vanity metric or not is liquidity. Ok, are those figures available?

There’s not really a way to get those numbers outside of asking a bunch of random people. I can say that I worked at a company that wasn’t in the top 50 and the market for shares was completely liquid. Most of the time at $100m+ valuation it should pretty active.

> I can say that I worked at a company that wasn’t in the top 50 and the market for shares was completely liquid. Most of the time at $100m+ valuation it should pretty active.

In the top 50 what? The top 50 private companies?

Re: Y Combinator, Backer of Dropbox, Vaults from Experiment to Kingmaker

#73

Post by sanderjd »

austenallred wrote: post #67
dsacco wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you should clarify what liquidity means in your anecdote, because liquidity is a function of time and volume. Definitionally speaking, shares in a private company are not as liquid as shares in a public company. So what does "completely liquid" mean? Could every owner of private shares find a buyer if they wanted to? If not, what subset could? That these figures are not public is a very important discussion p…

It means I had shares that I could sell a ton a moments notice on a secondary market, and so far as I could tell the market for those shares was enormous. I’d guess anyone, including VCs and founders, at the top 50 or so YC companies could sell their shares at any time to a large number of willing buyers, given the ability to do so. Therefore I’d argue that the value of those shares is far different from a “vanity me…

> anyone, including VCs and founders

What about non-founder employees?

Re: Y Combinator, Backer of Dropbox, Vaults from Experiment to Kingmaker

#74

Post by austenallred »

sanderjd wrote: post #72
austenallred wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s not really a way to get those numbers outside of asking a bunch of random people. I can say that I worked at a company that wasn’t in the top 50 and the market for shares was completely liquid. Most of the time at $100m+ valuation it should pretty active.

> I can say that I worked at a company that wasn’t in the top 50 and the market for shares was completely liquid. Most of the time at $100m+ valuation it should pretty active. In the top 50 what? The top 50 private companies?

The top 50 YC companies as measured by valuation

Re: Y Combinator, Backer of Dropbox, Vaults from Experiment to Kingmaker

#75

Post by austenallred »

sanderjd wrote: post #73
austenallred wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It means I had shares that I could sell a ton a moments notice on a secondary market, and so far as I could tell the market for those shares was enormous. I’d guess anyone, including VCs and founders, at the top 50 or so YC companies could sell their shares at any time to a large number of willing buyers, given the ability to do so. Therefore I’d argue that the value of those shares is far different from a “vanity me…

> anyone, including VCs and founders What about non-founder employees?

Yes them too (I wasn’t a founder)

Re: Y Combinator, Backer of Dropbox, Vaults from Experiment to Kingmaker

#76

Post by dsacco »

austenallred wrote: post #65
dsacco wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If there are a dozen investors willing to buy stock at $x it’s worth $x. This is not a correct representation of liquidity, and thinking about it under this definition can be very dangerous. You need to consider: 1. How many shares are there outstanding? 2. What is the ask price of those shares on paper? 3. What is the bid price of those shares by investors willing to purchase them on the private market? 4. How man…

Of course there’s a lot of nuance there. But certainly we can all agree on two things: 1. YC has not had good returns because it has only had one IPO (apparently selling Twitch and Cruise for $1B each don’t count as a win?) 2. While it’s difficult to know what the true value of YC companies is, the fact that there are nearly 100 companies valued at $100m+ is not just a “vanity metric.” Especially st the later stages…

Sure, I agree with those two points.

Re: Y Combinator, Backer of Dropbox, Vaults from Experiment to Kingmaker

#77

Post by sanderjd »

austenallred wrote: post #75
sanderjd wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> anyone, including VCs and founders What about non-founder employees?

Yes them too (I wasn’t a founder)

Are there any limitations to who can do what in the secondary markets? (Thanks for your answers to my questions - it's not easy to find information on this and I don't know anybody at a company like this to ask.)

Re: Y Combinator, Backer of Dropbox, Vaults from Experiment to Kingmaker

#78

Post by joeblau »

stale2002 wrote: post #52
joeblau wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being acquired or acqui-hired(soft landing) means the company (and probably the culture) is gone. I worked at BBN Technologies back in the mid 2000's. This is the company that co-founded the internet, they have the second domain name ever registered (bbn.com)[1], their engineers co-invented foundational technologies that make the internet work today. In 2009, they were acquired by Raytheon[2]. As a stand alone compan…

> Being acquired or acqui-hired(soft landing) means the company (and probably the culture) is gone. So what? An exit is an exit, as it means the investor gets their money. The one and only metric to look at is total value or total returns on investment.

An exit is not an exit for everyone. In a lot of cases, employees are investors too and sometimes acquihires are only wins for people that own preferred stock (vC's, founders), not common stock.

Re: Y Combinator, Backer of Dropbox, Vaults from Experiment to Kingmaker

#80

Post by ec109685 »

koolba wrote: post #11
jey wrote: post #3

Via outline.com: https://outline.com/VY5L3z

While I love the utility of it, how the hell is that website legal? It’s stated purpose is to violate copyright law?! From the page trailer: > Outline is a free service that makes websites more readable. We remove the clutter, like ads, related links, and comments—so you can read comfortably.

They have a convoluted dmca take down process, which is described here and may keep them in clear?: https://www.outline.com/dmca.html
Post reply on HN