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Comment by jbail | Hacker News Reader

I'd like to narrow the question down to which companies are profitable.

Successful and "make it big" are subjective. Profitable isn't. You either are or you aren't.

I don't work there or know anyone at the company personally, but I'll start the list with one that I remember reading was profitable pretty much right out of the gate: GazeHawk

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I don't think YC cares a lot about which companies are profitable. YC ideally wants homeruns. And homerun companies are rarely profitable because they are too busy growing. Take YouTube, Facebook etc. They all sacrificed profitability for growth. I bet there are YC companies in a similar position.

That's not true. Sitting in the Boston meetup recently they spoke directly to people who wanted a BIG exit and those who wanted a lifestyle company. They will fund either. Only VCs need the homeruns constantly to earn their risk/reward profile returns.

Thus the emphasis on a lot

That's interesting, in his interview on Mixergy, PG was asked about investing in lifestyle businesses and he did not seem enthused - "there’s got to be an exit for it, equity holders to get any money. I mean, maybe — maybe in the future there is some model where companies pay dividends instead of an exit that like we’ve never tried to get anybody to do that, and we don’t have any real hopes about it. So, no."

Wonder if there's a change in outlook or something else we're missing?

You're probably right. Most VCs want a liquidity event. I don't see why YC would be different --- except that they are more like a seed stage incubator than a traditional VC firm. Either way, they want a return, I'd think.

To me, startups that actually make profit are much more interesting primarily because so many just want to create some buzz then sell out.

I also wonder how many of TC featured startups are profitable, not only YC startups.

What about the big ones Does delicious.com make money? Or is it a loss-leader for Yahoo. Upcoming.org, do they make a dime on this app?

Flickr has pro accounts at $25 a year. But is it enough to be profitable?

And don't get me started on whether Twitter is profitable…

I would love to know whether Flickr is profitable. It's obviously an awesome service, but I imagine the running costs must be pretty high.

I hadn’t thought of digging in the Quora archives but according to some answers, Flickr seems to be profitable:

http://www.quora.com/Is-Flickr-profitable-for-Yahoo-and-by-h...

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