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Comment by zmitri | Hacker News Reader

I don't think anyone questioned if it was becoming more viable, but if you are concerned with macro figures I think this one is much more telling:

SV: Largest exit so far 2014: WhatsApp: 19B

NY: Top 5 exits since 2009: Tumblr: 1.1B Indeed: 1.0B Buddy Media: 745M Shutterstock: 570M Ascend Health: 500M

Not sure where the parody or detachment from reality factors in.

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Is it really fair to compare the exit of WhatsApp with Tumblr? Tumblr has been around much longer, is used regularly by a lot of people, and isn't too hard to monetise via advertising. WhatsApp was purchased by a giant with a lot of money simply to prevent it's competitors from getting it. Obviously WhatsApp provided a lot more value to it's investors but the comparison just doesn't seem fair to me.

Edit:

It's also important to realise that our idea of a huge exit has changed rapidly over the last few years largely because of Facebook. A couple of years ago Instagram's $1bn astonished people. And yet Tumblr's $1.1bn isn't considered huge?

I wasn't trying to compare WhatsApp to Tumblr, I was trying to compare one exit this year vs the top exists from an entire ecosystem over the past 5 years.

I think New York is great, and I think Tumblr is great, but I think if Tumblr were perhaps in SV, things could have went differently.

This isn't what people are concerned with - a pissing match of exits. They're concerned with "is this a viable place to raise money for a startup." The answer, based on the momentum (200% growth in investments over 5 years) and overall figures is undeniably "YES".

An order of magnitude difference the top 5 exists in 5 years vs the top exit of this year isn't a pissing match -- it's complete domination.

surely you're joking by including WhatsApp in this list.

we can't all be privy to Mark Zuckerberg's paroxysms. let's not confuse the astronomically weird actions of child with too much money for anything resembling reasonable investment behavior.

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