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Stripe Is Now a $20B Company

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Re: Stripe Is Now a $20B Company

#81

Post by gammateam »

ransom1538 wrote: post #40
haaen wrote: post #17

Stripe is the second most valuable YC company. Total valuation of all companies that YC funded (more than 1,900) now exceeds 100 billon dollars. Airbnb has a private valuation of 31 billion. Stripe has a private valuation of 20 billion. Dropbox has a public valuation (DBX) of 11 billion. So the two most valuable companies account for about half the total value of all the YC companies. This is what a power law looks l…

"This is what a power law looks like!" Exactly. That is why, now, if a VC looks at your company they think: "Will this company be worth more than all the companies we have ever funded combined". So if the idea isn't something close to that power law, they are out. My 'buy Japanese bubble gum' idea might not hit that.

No., they invest on the merit of the idea and any Venture Capitalist's funding is validation of the idea in and of itself!

SYKE

Re: Stripe Is Now a $20B Company

#82

Post by gakos »

byron_fast wrote: post #79
byron_fast wrote: post #77

It would be great if they never go public.

They are a great example of how an API is all that really matters. Anyone could have done their biz, but they made a good API.

I agree that their API is great, but there's so much more to building a business - most of all perseverance. Many people can make a good or great API but very few can execute on the rest.

Re: Stripe Is Now a $20B Company

#83

Post by AndrewWarner »

As a client, I love working with them. I never thought I'd say that about a payment processor.

I get pitched lower rates by their competitors all the time, but their software sucks. Giving a refund on Authorize.net feels like I'm being forced to travel back to the 1990s web.

Stripe's site is intuitive, their rates are good, they integrate easily with every software I use and their customer service speaks to me like humans. (Plus they have patio11)

Re: Stripe Is Now a $20B Company

#84

Post by thegeomaster »

chadash wrote: post #51
haaen wrote: post #17

Stripe is the second most valuable YC company. Total valuation of all companies that YC funded (more than 1,900) now exceeds 100 billon dollars. Airbnb has a private valuation of 31 billion. Stripe has a private valuation of 20 billion. Dropbox has a public valuation (DBX) of 11 billion. So the two most valuable companies account for about half the total value of all the YC companies. This is what a power law looks l…

And this is why Y Combinator may not be right for your startup. The 100 billion dollars of valuation listed on YC's website may not be up to date, but it's clear that the top 10% of companies make up the overwhelming majority of their portfolio. So they go for moonshots. And they also invest in multiple competitors in the same space in the hopes that one will pan out. So if you're building the kind of company that mi…

It appears to me that almost all companies theoretically have a chance of growing that big. You never know what area they'll pivot into and if they'll find unexpected growth along the way. And so I think that there wouldn't be YCombinator's top 10% without the long tail of lesser-valued (and even longer tail of failed) startups. A lot of it comes down to the people who run them and pure chance. So it doesn't make much sense to say that a startup will not be worth $SOME_VALUATION at some indeterminate point in the future. We see these 180° changes a lot when looking at successful companies in retrospect, and they can deliver order of magnitude differences in market cap.

Of course, if you're not building a startup but an "ordinary", self-sustainable company (37Signals is a widely known example), then VCs and YCombinator are not for you. But that kind of follows from the definition.

Re: Stripe Is Now a $20B Company

#85

Post by Liron »

haaen wrote: post #17

Stripe is the second most valuable YC company. Total valuation of all companies that YC funded (more than 1,900) now exceeds 100 billon dollars. Airbnb has a private valuation of 31 billion. Stripe has a private valuation of 20 billion. Dropbox has a public valuation (DBX) of 11 billion. So the two most valuable companies account for about half the total value of all the YC companies. This is what a power law looks l…

Crazy that Elon Musk's top 3 founded companies (PayPal, Tesla, SpaceX) are higher valuation than YC's top 3 investment companies (AirBnB, Stripe, Dropbox).

Interestingly PayPal and Stripe are both competing for some of the same integrations. PayPal increased our revenues by 20% when we started using it in addition to Stripe.

Re: Stripe Is Now a $20B Company

#86

Post by anujabro »

fanzhang wrote: post #62
chadash wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And this is why Y Combinator may not be right for your startup. The 100 billion dollars of valuation listed on YC's website may not be up to date, but it's clear that the top 10% of companies make up the overwhelming majority of their portfolio. So they go for moonshots. And they also invest in multiple competitors in the same space in the hopes that one will pan out. So if you're building the kind of company that mi…

What is an accelerator or a funding group for whom the portfolio is not following that power law? For example one where the top 20 companies each comprise say appx 2% of the portfolio?

One that all have similar successes (e.g. all fail)

Odds are most early stage venture portfolios have a power law distribution, but of different magnitude.

Later stage you go, the more normal the distribution will look

Re: Stripe Is Now a $20B Company

#88

Post by joshmn »

I want to love Stripe, and I do wish them well, but I've gotten such weird feelings about some of their offerings.

On HN and other parts of the internet, representatives go out of their way to make themselves seem available if you have an issue, or have a problem. But when you finally do reach out, I haven't found them to be as receptive as they otherwise portray themselves to be.

Maybe it's miscommunication internally, or maybe it's employees not being well-equipped. But when you send a thoughtful, well-written message and don't hear anything back, it makes you wonder if it's just lip service.

Whatever it is, good on them for hitting such a great milestone. I know I'll never hit $20B in anything except in Zimbabwean dollars.

Re: Stripe Is Now a $20B Company

#89

Post by byron_fast »

gakos wrote: post #82
byron_fast wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are a great example of how an API is all that really matters. Anyone could have done their biz, but they made a good API.

I agree that their API is great, but there's so much more to building a business - most of all perseverance. Many people can make a good or great API but very few can execute on the rest.

Well in this case their API is backed by a connection to credit card systems... the hard part. The card companies could have done it, but they needed Stripe to show how obvious it is.

Re: Stripe Is Now a $20B Company

#90

Post by totoglazer »

Liron wrote: post #85
haaen wrote: post #17

Stripe is the second most valuable YC company. Total valuation of all companies that YC funded (more than 1,900) now exceeds 100 billon dollars. Airbnb has a private valuation of 31 billion. Stripe has a private valuation of 20 billion. Dropbox has a public valuation (DBX) of 11 billion. So the two most valuable companies account for about half the total value of all the YC companies. This is what a power law looks l…

Crazy that Elon Musk's top 3 founded companies (PayPal, Tesla, SpaceX) are higher valuation than YC's top 3 investment companies (AirBnB, Stripe, Dropbox). Interestingly PayPal and Stripe are both competing for some of the same integrations. PayPal increased our revenues by 20% when we started using it in addition to Stripe.

Although only spacex is clearly Musk founded.
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