Built to Flip: Y Combinator's Startups

valleywag.com

1 pointSam_Odio4 comments

Y Combinator's one success story, Reddit, sold before it was making revenue.

Actually, reddit did have revenue when it was sold. I think it was also profitable. To be fair, the revenue was low (my wild guess is about $50-$150k/yr). A big reason why it was so low was because they decided to focus on speed & usability over advertising/profit. They probably could've made much more had they been trying to monetize their traffic.

Valleywag's been rather negative about YC & it's startups recently. Seems like they're trolling for linkbait.

There's a very narrow view that's become popular regarding YC. No one is claiming 100% success rate, or even a guarantee of good value companies. Take the program for what it is -- an invaluable launching pad for entrepreneurs who can make the most of YC's added value.

Its a reaction to the fog of smug that surrounds YC.

It really needs to be dissipated.

For some reason if a VC dumps $10m each into 100 companies and none of them is very successful, it's part of the business.

YC puts $15-20k into 20 companies and one has a (major) liquidity event and that's a failure? wtf?

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