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Comment by bhousel | Hacker News Reader

Wow, what industry? Healthcare? Telecom? Can't think of too many that could credibly claim a $1B exit.

Huh? I have been assuming that a large fraction of VC-funded startups try for exits of at least $1 billion. (The more rational ones know they will probably fail, but that does not prevent their sincerely aiming for that target.)

I am almost certain their investors want them to aim at least that high.

Are you sure you're not confusing billion and trillion?

ADDED. I'm not trying to appear bad-ass or hardcore (and in fact, I've never been a founder because I judge that I cannot afford that level of risk of being left with a severely suboptimal monetary reward for my efforts). I am honestly trying to understand VC-funded startups.

It would be good to see some stats on the number of companies per exit/valuation i.e.

50 billion 4 --- 10 billion : 100 --- 1 Billion : 10,000

I had the same reaction as you.

But to answer your question and being a startup founder myself - doing a startup is just an amazing experience. It's a bit like trying heroin (not that I've done that, but from what I hear). The highs are extremely high and the lows are extremely low. Going back to a "normal" job after doing a startup is like taking methadone.

Sometimes I wish I could think rationally around this (like you) and just take a normal job again. That would most likely be better for me in every measurable way (salary, benefits etc) but I'm just having too much fun doing startups.

Just to clarify: some young men find life (making friends, college, dating, getting and holding a good job) easy, and for those young men, I do not doubt that founding a startup is the rational path -- especially if they care as much about improving the world as they do about themselves. (If you're trying to improve the world, a 1% chance of making 5 billion dollars is a much more attractive choice than it is if you care only about yourself and your family and close friends because your ability to improve the world is approximately linear in how much money you can spend whereas your ability to stay safe and happy and to keep your friends and family safe and happy is distinctly sub-linear in "spending power" once spending power gets above $100,000 a year.)

However, I do not find life easy (nor am I young).

Investors generally aim for a 10x+ return, so if an investor invests $3m at $10m pre-val they'd be aiming for a $100m+ exit.

They're definitely not only aiming for $1bn+ exits although obviously they're a bonus (in the last decade there have probably been under 50 billion dollar exits in the tech space).

PG is an investor and he has stated multiple times that he'd prefer that all of his investments were aimed at the high end of the range of possible outcomes (mentioning Google's exit more than once in this context). Of course he has also stated that he understands that it is usually not in the best interests of the founders, so no pressure.

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