State of Startups 2017 Survey Results | Hacker News Reader

State of Startups 2017 Survey Results

stateofstartups.firstround.com

118 pointsredm78 comments

I love this one:

How confident are you that you're building a billion dollar company?

    18.6%  I'm certain we will
    41.8%  I'm confident we have a decent shot
    23.2%  It's possible, but I'm not so sure
    10.1%  I doubt it
     6.4%  Definitely not

They interviewed 869 venture-backed founders to get the data.

As of December 2017, WSJ lists 168 VC-backed private companies valued at over $1B in the entire world.

Meanwhile, how many years until you think you'll be profitable?

    14.4%  Already profitable
    18.3%  <1
    50.2%  1-2
    13.7%  3-5
     3.5%  >5

Isn't delusional overconfidence practically a prerequisite to get through the VC filter? Chris Sacca for instance once praised Systrom for talking in radical future-spect when raising seed funding (paraphrasing, 'once we reach 50 million users, we'll add this...').

If the VC community is applying selective pressure to identify that type of person, then it's no surprise that these kinds of surveys will reflect that. VCs know most of these companies will fail, but their portfolio mechanics still make it the right game to play. On the flip side, entrepreneurs know they have to deploy an airtight reality distortion field. Bidirectional obfuscation is practically an emergent property of the industry.

On the flip side, entrepreneurs know they have to deploy an airtight reality distortion field.

When dealing with the outside world, sure, the appearance of having faith in your business is important. But believing your own hype to the point of wildly overestimating your prospects doesn't seem like a healthy characteristic in anyone running a business. At some point it's probably going to lead to bad decision-making.

People seem unlikely to consider a VC survey to be the place to confess their deepest fears honestly.

As in a job interview, if someone asked "What is your biggest flaw as an employee?" They are unlikely to get a useful reply: "Sometimes I work so hard that I make other people feel bad" perhaps

#33 What’s the hardest executive hire you've made? (Choose one)

2.6% Finance

Well, I see some sort of correlation here.

*EDIT: Two options - either there are so many brilliant finance people looking for jobs or finance is not so important (although it obviously should be).

A finance employee isn't necessary until you're bigger. Like the two companies I know who have one part-time and mainly got them for Credit Control because they were actually making money and they were in an industry with lots of late payers.

The need for a finance executive? Comes when you start getting silly money.

Accounting always was and always will be more important at a startup. Finance is a distraction and doesn’t become important until you’re big enough to care about it.

To be fair to their sense of confidence, there are a number of billion dollar companies that still aren't profitable, correct?

Feels like more of a pamphlet illustrating the deranged state of US culture and politics more than anything else.

#36 asked "A person's political affiliation would influence how you think about:"

If it is possible I really want to see this broken down by political views of the respondent. I feel like that would be a really good data point about if the left wants diversity in thought or not.

My hunch is if you broke it down on left/center/right you would see more poltical bias on the left. That said, since SV is so left leaning it might simply be because those on the left can do it and still find good people while those on the right cannot.

^ This, but from #51 the Bay Area only represents 38% of respondents (headquarters). Overall, still a huge bicoastal bias, but there's definitely representation outside SV too where the political climate is not as left leaning.

#53 is interesting!

I assumed that there would be more 20-something founders. But 31-35 year olds account for 23%, and 41-50 year olds account for 30%

I tend to see a lot more 30+ founders outside of the bubble around high-profile, high-tech businesses, which naturally gets a lot of coverage on sites like HN.

Also, they're talking about startups that were in good enough shape to raise VC funding. It's possible that a lot more than 1 in 7 of all startups is founded by under-30s but that the lack of experience means those startups disproportionately fail to reach a stage where they are worth funding by VCs.

Same here, but on the other hand I never worked with <30 founders. A few friends of mine founded right after university, but that was it.

Maybe this feeling comes up because they prefer to hire <30 people because they are cheaper?

Most start ups want you to have a lot of experience so they don't have to train you. That level of experience isn't found in most people in their 20s. The older age bracket I'd wager are finance and venture capital types. Startups are mostly toys for rich people

Sure, but this doesn't explain why most people working in startups are in their twenties.

> Sure, but this doesn't explain why most people working in startups are in their twenties.

The data isn't for people working at startups — they only survey founders, and I think CEOs if the CEO is a non-founder.

Is that true? Or is that just what people want to see?

Avg age at my company (Series A funded, 50-ish people) is >30. Founders started at 35 & 36. Now they’re not-quite-40 and 40. Your sample size may vary.

It would be nice to see more data collection here around employees. Maybe AngelList would be a good co to collect it?

At my startup, in my late 20s, I'm one of the older employees, excluding founders & management.

Though #54 is "How long ago did you start your company?" for which the average is 4-5 years. So, subtract that off for the age at founding I guess.

#9 reveals the prejudice of the authors. It's about founders who experienced difficulty in fundraising because of their sex. Last sentence of that paragraph, in bold:

To the 12 men who said it hurt their chances... really?

I was irritated by that comment as well. Obviously some groups are subject to prejudice more often than others, but measures like reverse discrimination and quotas cause their share of problems for the opposite groups as well. Likewise, some groups may be more subject to unwanted advances at work than others, but again that doesn't mean no-one in the opposite groups is. It's hardly inconceivable that 1-2% of male respondents in a survey like this would have been affected by such issues in one form or another.

#15 under Complete Survey Results asks "Has your gender helped or hindered your ability to fundraise?"

58.2% said their gender directly hindered them. Unless the majority of respondents to this survey are female I don't see how the numbers can add up if only 12 men make up that 58.2%?

This quote demonstrates a VC firm (First Round) questioning and implicitly belittling founders who expressed feelings of being discriminated against by VC firms. Really shouldn't be surprising given the rest of the survey results, unfortunately.

Since 3 out of 9 are about sexual harassment and one is about politics, I was hoping to get your thoughts.

These days, people feel increasingly under fire. We have to watch what we say, what we do, who we offend, what our political affiliations are, and whether we are crossing any lines.

A little anecdote: I was hacking away on a couch in a mall, and a couple of techies came up to me doing a user study. They asked me whether their flyer might attract customers and what I thought would help. I complimented them that they were out trying to talk to users and thinking of ways to increase their growth rate. Their product looked genuinely interesting, so I asked if they'd be willing to shoot me a text message to keep in touch.

This was something I'd done twice before. Both of the times led to getting contacts that turned into a friendship or a lucrative gig.

I found myself unconsciously willing that the guy I was talking to would pull out his phone. But she offered first. I gave her my number, and she typed it in wrong. I corrected it, and she wrote a text message but didn't hit send. And I was surprised to feel relieved that she didn't actually text me.

This goes the other way too: A female friend's company recently made it to the interview stage at YC, and right away the founder started treating her differently. We couldn't figure out why. Then she remembered he made some joke about having to room together like they were in college. She couldn't help but wonder if her being female had something to do with the awkwardness.

But here's the thing. I know what's in my heart, and it's nothing but positive intentions. I'm rooting for equality, and I think everyone who's oppressed or experiencing discrimination needs to have a way of voicing those concerns.

How can we relax knowing that our political beliefs determine whether someone will want to work with us? Whether an inappropriate joke might haunt us? Whether a comment like "I don't think gender reassignment surgery on minors is a good idea" will be seen as oppressive and intolerant, and we might lose our jobs for it? What do we do if we want to participate in BDSM but have to live in fear of being stripped of our titles and leadership roles? https://www.sonyaellenmann.com/2017/10/drupal-gor-ayelet.htm...

I'm asking openly and genuinely. We should be coming together and finding ways to work as a unit in spite of philosophical or political differences. It shouldn't be a rush to spot someone saying the wrong thing or trying to catch someone doing something inappropriate.

None of this is to downplay or excuse any of the awful things that have recently come to light. It's a relief to see it being resolved. I'm merely trying to talk about the other side of the situation.

An open source project was looking for a code of conduct to adopt. They were considering the contributor covenant, since babel and other large projects use it. I tried to point out that it was a little controversial and that it may foster a more productive working environment to adopt a different model. The comment was deleted and the PR was locked until it was merged.

When ideas can't be discussed, pressure builds.

I thought maybe it was just me, but a friend of mine was recently at a risque party, and they said they happened to run into a young male techie. They joked that the party was pretty rowdy, and that there was all this inappropriate behavior going on, even though it was the point of the party. "Honestly," he said, "My biggest concern is running into someone I know from the tech scene."

How should we act in an era when one mistake will haunt us forever? Is there a point at which we're being too cautious? Or is it just the smart thing to do?

I don't know. I guess I was just hoping we could talk about some of this. It's feeling like people aren't allowed to have flaws.

> We have to watch what we say, what we do, who we offend, what our political affiliations are, and whether we are crossing any lines.

People felt the same way in the 90s when the "Political Correctness" movement really took off. It did feel like a bit much at the time, and if tumblr existed in 1991, surely it would have gone overboard... but at the end of it all, we did move to a culture that was more conscious of diversity and developed communication styles that didn't exclude people.

I think we're in the same place now -- hyperaware of what actions we take, and how everything is being perceived, with some people struggling to recognize and adjust their own behavior to match new cultural norms that they never thought were a problem in the first place.

And in 10-20 years, we'll likely end up with a better culture for it, even though not everyone is going to enjoy how we get there.

I don't agree that we ended up in a culture that is more conscious of diversity. I think we moved to a a culture of adversity between social justice warriors and those who outright rebel against their ridiculous campaign. If it wasn't for that dynamic, we'd have a different President right now.

For what it's worth, I agree with you. It feels like we're entering into a new age of McCarthyism[1], where anyone perceived to have the wrong politics are considered guilty until proven innocent. Nonliberal politics are completely disallowed from corporate environments, while liberal politics are accepted in earnest. It's just going to make extremism worse IMO.

People should be able to have and express their own opinions on multiculturalism, affirmative action, gender norms, family structures, and immigration in their private lives(Facebook, Instagram, etc) without risking their careers.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthyism

We have gone way past 'innocent until proven guilty'. If it is in any way profitable to take you down (promotion/fame/facebook likes) avoid contact with anyone except in the most professional setting with a lot of witnesses.

And it does not even have to be malice: a simple misunderstanding will do. After 20 years of the Daily Show/Colbert/the Internet people are more primed than ever to notice a "problematic" look, comment or action. As you said, it gives people a rush.

Didn't get the reference of Daily show and Colbert there. Care to elaborate?

These types of shows were based on showing short clips of someone saying something, then cutting back to Stewart with a shocked face.

Reminds me of this comment on Hacker News: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11104428 The poster does not know Fry, the award winner or their relationship but the first thing that comes to mind is shock: How could he say such a thing when we can interpret it in the worst possible way.

This is in no way unique to The Daily Show or The Colbert Report (both of which were on a Comedy channel, but I digress).

Lots of TV news programs are attempting to curate your opinion based on carefully cherry picked nuggets of information. Nancy Grace, Rachel Maddow, Bill O'Reilly (used to be at least), et al. The 'show clip -> explain outrage' is a news trope that won't be going anywhere anytime soon. Maybe we should focus on the individual merits of these shows instead of unilaterally deciding that they are a general cause of some aspect of society that you may think is problematic.

It seems like you're over-thinking this. There are clear things that are bad (making sexual jokes about a coworker or business partners). There are other areas that are more gray, and sometimes you might say the wrong thing. Sometimes we'll all say the wrong thing. Apologize, don't try to justify your remarks, move on and realize that everyone has different things that might offend or make them uncomfortable. That's really all you can do. The high-profile things you're hearing about aren't generally one-time slip ups, it's people exhibiting a pattern of bad behavior.

These days, people feel increasingly under fire. We have to watch what we say, what we do, who we offend, what our political affiliations are, and whether we are crossing any lines.

For everyone else but white men, that was always the case.

I think this mindset is part of what the poster is asking about. It seems like you are celebrating the pulling down of white men instead of being sad we cannot elevate everyone else to phycological safety.

I'm a white man too, and I don't understand what it means to "elevate" the rest of the population without white men having to change their ways.

There's a strange Marie Antoinette quality to this discussion. The young queen just wanted everyone to be happy -- why couldn't the poor eat cake too? It's the same with men who sit on top of the present power structure and can't seem to understand why everyone else couldn't simply do the same.

My current understanding of the idea of white privilege is that white men have structural advantages so that it is easy for them to succeed. Part of this is being unaware of the privilege and having the luxury of not having to notice things.

I like you cake example. I agree with your implied point that not everyone has cake. I think there is a spectrum of solutions to some people having cake and others not. On one side it is to make sure no one has cake (pull down), on the other, it is to make sure everyone has cake (elevate).

A lot of cis white men feel that various equality movements are okay if cis white men end up with no cake. Some even feel like movements are actively trying to take their cake while telling them it is a good thing.

While you might dispute if cake is being taken, that is how some men feel. With my previous comment, I was trying to highlight that the above statement reenforces that worldview.

Cake is a gross oversimplification of a complicated problem but I think it works to get the point across.

The problem is that people who have millions/billions of cakes is convincing people who have one cake that when the distribution happens, they're going to take your only cake.

> I know what's in my heart, and it's nothing but positive intentions.

I’m sure you mean the very best.

However, one of the most interesting things about racism, sexism etc is happens not because people are evil assholes—it’s that we’ve all grown up in society that is still kinda sexist and racist, and that becomes part of us whether we want it or not.

My heart has the best intentions too, but I also recognize that I don’t always see others perfectly fairly because of these built-in models. My goal is to recognize and examine those thoughts that so I think them less—not give myself a pass because I’m a “good person”.

I think the biggest problem in those issues is lack of respect. it’s very common for discussion to become a heated conflict because of lack of respect. Sexual harassment happens because of lack of respect. All political conflicts rise from lack of respect (calling liberals as snowflakes and so on).

So to avoid any problems with women, just treat them as males, with equal respect and without any hidden sexual agenda and do everything with agreement from bith sides. It’s not that difficult. But I fear that level of respect or valuation of respect has decreased significantly and it will be difficult to bounce back.

The article on drupal controversy somehow misses last drupal association statement - the one written after investigations were over: https://www.drupal.org/association/blog/drupal-association-a...

Their lawyers believed there is legal and ethical risks to the Drupal project and investigation was under way. it is quite clear that situation was solved badly and their communication muddled. However, the girlfriend being muted, autistic and unable to communicate with people does complicate the legal issues and their perception. Framing this as simple case of participating in BDSM is disingenuous. Her inability to say "yes I want to be slave and enjoy being punished by him on the whim when I disobey" (the basis of Gorean lifestyle) was big contributor to the issues and to perception.

It gets constantly framed as if it would be BDSM as in hobby confined to privacy of bed, because that is how Garfield liked to frame issues on his blog while investigations were on the way.

Nevertheless, someone doing BDSM in privacy of his bed (majority of BDSM is not public) and with participants able to talk is not nearly the same situation.

I'm glad you brought up that article, because it illustrates that two consenting adults were participating in their own life choices -- choices which we as a community feel obliged to be inclusive of, no matter how much they offend us or make us uncomfortable; the essence of tolerance -- and yet once Larry was cleared of wrongdoing, he wasn't reinstated. In fact, he was asked to resign before the investigation was even completed.

I would not trust him much, after I have seen the difference between how he framed situation and what the issue turned out to be. It sounds like the people in drupal organization ended with same opinion. Framing it being issue if comfortability is just manipulation.

I don't know who it is "we" in what you wrote.

I for one, feel no duty to include things that offend me. People, both men and women defend themselves when they are offended and those who don't are perceived as weak and treated as such. Also, trying to frame disagreements or ethical issues as "being offended" is yet another lately popular disengous framing.

None of that has anything to do with lack of trust toward Garfield.

> These days, people feel increasingly under fire. We have to watch what we say, what we do, who we offend, what our political affiliations are, and whether we are crossing any lines.

Is it just "these days"? Maybe I'm too young but I can't recall a time feeling like this was not a case. People judge you based on what you do, especially when they first meet you. I don't feel like this is a new phenomenon but maybe I'm just a judgmental person..

Maybe the standards and consequences have changed.

> These days, people feel increasingly under fire. We have to watch what we say

To second what some other folks've said: (AFAIK) this is what non-white-males experience.

I think what they're missing, then, is that there are people out there who know what to do - minorities who've felt this and dealt with it. Find them and listen?

> It shouldn't be a rush to spot someone saying the wrong thing or trying to catch someone doing something inappropriate.

Those people need to attack behavior, not people. Just so, your issue is not with the movement and this new awareness, but some folks behaving with mean spirit.

> When ideas can't be discussed, pressure builds. > It's feeling like people aren't allowed to have flaws.

"Everything goes wrong when you stop asking questions"

---

I think a solid meta-principle for your everyday interactions is to "look for ways to hand power to the other person"; unbalanced power is inherent to sexual harassment - so balance it.

A simple application is in conversation: look for opportunities to let someone else talk. This is you handing power to them. Other examples include "How do you imagine [this] working?", "Would you like to make this decision?", etc. Notice all my examples are questions. What's neat is that this also works as an enabler; a way to use your privilege to empower someone else, regardless of if you have anything to do with their disempowerment. It's great!

If you're still worried... Honestly, contact your local kink scene and ask for a (non-sexual) consent workshop. They're the people that probably spend the most time both thinking about and practicing consent and can have really excellent exercises and advice.

And for the people you're still worried about? Deal with them like you deal with anyone else who's toxic, because they probably are.

---

> How should we act in an era when one mistake will haunt us forever?

There's "mistakes" and there's "fucking up". Don't fuck up. If you make a mistake, find a way to apologize and talk about; and spend some time to make sure you're doing that part right. Remember: Everything goes wrong when you stop asking questions.

> It's feeling like people aren't allowed to have flaws.

Don't have flaws that you're not dealing with. When you find a flaw, start dealing with it. If the people who're in your life don't respond well to you trying to deal with your mistakes and the flaws that led to them, I'd bet they're not the sort of people who you should have in your life.

YMMV, and everything (AFAIK) changes when you become rich/powerful/famous enough to be a target.

Anyway! Thanks for sharing, and those are some of my thoughts.

PS - For me at least, politics mostly falls into two categories: "Tolerance is a peace treaty", and everything else. One of these we can talk about over lunch. The other we can talk about while you're leaving.

PPS - If you're worried about the difference between "fucking up" and "making mistakes", go actually read the shit Weinstein pulled. Puts it into perspective.

> I was surprised to feel relieved that she didn't actually text me.

Why?

It was a spur of the moment thing. I just didn't like feeling like I was asking for her number when it was only about the product.

Obviously, this is a dumb way to feel. But from what I've heard on HN and other places, this type of thing is starting to become more common. Men are starting to take precautions like never having a one on one meeting alone with a female coworker.

How much worry is the correct amount of worry? We only get to make one mistake before we're labeled and it follows us around the rest of our lives.

That's not a new thing. FYI there's a reason many conference rooms have glass windows and people have open door meetings.

> But she offered first

I think it’s mild paranoia. Don’t worry about it. As someone else said here, the best way is to pretend that you’re interacting with a male. Without the bro jokes..

I'd agree, but... Well, she mistyped the number, then typed out a text and didn't send it. One hypothesis: it was creepy for some guy she just met while working on her product to be asking for her number. Which is true.

You can't really pretend you're with a male, any more than women can pretend they're with a woman. I wish you could.

It’s entirely possible that you’re misreading the situation. Here’s my anecdote, which is similar to the girl’s:

I used to be really tensed in public, and when I have to take a phone number from someone (networking event etc) I would fumble a lot, make all sorts of silly mistakes while feeling the intense pressure of the other watching me. Sometimes I give up, pretend that I’ve taken the details, and smile, half friendly, half apologetically. Then I’d go away feeling super bad.

Now I understand that it was silly to feel pressured in the first place. But you know, it happens.

>You can't really pretend you're interacting with a male

Well yes, with practice. Just how you learnt to overlook skin colour, height, dreadlocks etc, by understanding that we’re all fundamentally humans.

Can’t comment much about humour, I’m an ethnic minority so have the unusual advantage that some banters are forgivable ;)

What is a mistake, in your mind?

>When ideas can't be discussed, pressure builds.

Sexual harassment is not an idea, it's a form of assault.

Larry was axed because people were afraid he was assaulting someone. They were wrong about that. But he lost all his leadership roles anyway.

Who is Larry?

Are we still pushing the idea that superficial diversity is something to strive for? How about diversity of thought?

those two things go hand in hand.

Clearly not, because after all the effort, at least the valley has been making, it's still a cesspool of the same ideology. Even with VPs of dieversity and correct think

Part of the difficult of achieving diversity in the startup world is that the first filter everyone has to pass is drinking the ideological Kool-Aid.

Tough to attract diversity of thought when you directly screen it out.

You're begging the question (petitio prinicipii) of whether initiatives have been successful. As far as I can tell tech is still mostly white and male. When it's not and ideologies are still the same then you'll have a case.

It's good to see that they didn't go with headache inducing "morphing background color as you scroll" design this year: stateofstartups.firstround.com/2016/

Had a question about number 7, do they mean that founders who struggle to fundraise also have tendency to make more mistakes or that the struggle to fundraise causes more mistakes? And I guess they meant based on people who fundraised easily or who thought fundraising was easy?

I read it as "of those who struggled to fundraise, these are the mistakes they believed they made expressed as a multiplier of those who did not struggle".

Makes me suspicious about the presenters intentions because that type of convolution is often to facilitate cherry picking. More charitably, it might be an attempt to give advice to those experiencing difficulty fund-raising about where their problems may lie.

Sexual harassment is a scorn that refuses to die. In any industry.

Because in human history it's unlikely that people who perpetrate it will ever realize and/or admit it. And so it goes.

The numbers kinda prove this point. 35% of these founders believing sexual harassment isn’t under-reported is a problem. That’s how you get here, people willfully living under a rock.

Wait, why are autonomous vehicles not AI anymore?

The general rule is: Nothing is called AI anymore once it works.

Like with magic tricks, once we know how it works it seems a lot less impressive. So we stop calling it AI. When you think about it, everything computers do could be considered AI.

> everything computers do could be considered AI.

That's like saying everything a human does is art.

Ai involves actions by computers which are not specifically programmed

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