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The real question is how much of that is actually real?

Any VC can buy 10% of a company for $10 million. Doesn't mean that it's worth $100 million.

Valuations are usually complete bullshit. I wouldn't rely on their proxy. They're just another example of the anchoring bias.

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I would argue that they're definitely made up, but not completely bullshit. It's a yardstick for a sale price: if the investors need to get out at least X, then that's a good starting place to start shopping the company around. If the entrepreneur is forward thinking it also means they know they need to find a way to get annual revenues up to $Y to justify the investment and give back any semblance of a return. So not a great judge of a company's "worth", but outside of revenue, probably the best thing we have.

Doesn't PG use a pretty conservative mechanism for valuing companies? If I remember correctly, he has said that there a significant number of YC companies that he simply doesn't include in the value since there is no reliable mechanism for valuing them.

Relevant quote: "either because they died, got acquired, or sold stock at a specific valuation."

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