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Comment by jimboyoungblood | Hacker News Reader

This is pointless and misleading.

For example: #3 on the "top" list is Danger. According to crunchbase (where this site gets its data from) it was acquired for $500MM. And the founder went on to start Android. Why does it matter that danger.com is now dormant?

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I agree, though I think it's more likely to be wrong in the other direction. There are definitely examples like Danger, but also many examples of effectively dead (or at least, zombie) companies where you can still reach a webserver.

So somebody bought Danger for $500MM, but it's now worthless? (I don't know the backstory, but reading between the lines.) The good fortune of the ex-founder isn't the focus of the page. The person doesn't seem to be saying "don't work in a startup", they're just measuring how much funding startups get that ends up with a dead server [1]. Pointless and misleading for HN startuppy-readers, but I can imagine there are people who might find it perfectly on-topic.

Edit: I'm not saying the data is correct, just that the page might have value for some participants. Hopefully the creators will include HN and other feedback on final outcomes.

[1] From the page: "3. Calculation

Calculate how much money was spent on startups which dns/http servers don't work at that time."

Not to mention #1 OakPacific.com is actually mop.com which is alive and very valuable.

From wikipedia:

Oak Pacific Interactive is the second-largest operator of social networking websites in China,[1] after taking ownership of one of the most viewed Web sites in China MOP.com.

The data is also skewed with false positive whereby the company appears alive but is not. My previous, now defunct startup's domain responds with a redirect to another domain.

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