zlacker

>>sandsl+(OP)
I'm sure this will get downvoted into oblivion, but why should I or other engineers/entrepreneurs look at Sam Altman as a massive startup success story when his lone startup Loopt never really achieved product-market fit, and ended up in a firesale?

Across 5 funding rounds, Crunchbase lists Loopt as having raised $39 million and then was acquired (acqui-hired?) for $43 million. He didn't create any multiples of value for his investors. Loopt wasn't a breakout hit like so many other YC startups have been. It was certainly one of the first interesting location-based apps in the App Store, but soon was surrounded by other location-based apps and never really appeared to surface and gain traction.

Obviously Sam runs YC now and has dramatically improved it, but in the lens of being an entrepreneur, isn't he still essentially unproven, and not a success story in the startup world?

>>flyosi+ib
By top 10 YC startup standards, Paul Graham's Viaweb success isn't all that interesting either.

But, of course: if the model they're building with YC works, this is the outcome you'd expect. YC wouldn't be very interesting if its outcomes were capped to Viaweb's and Loopt's.

>>tptace+Hd
Paul Graham started Y Combinator, which is a company.

Paul Graham was a borderline founder of Reddit, as well.

>>CptJam+bi
By YC startup standards again, Reddit isn't a very successful company. The amount of early investment that went into it has certainly paid off, but monetization is a seriously hard problem for them.

>>dwaxe+Gl
Reddit's last round valued them at $500 million, and it is something like the 25th most visited site on the Internet.

That's a successful company by any standard.

>>CptJam+Zq
> Reddit's last round valued them at $500 million

> That's a successful company by any standard.

Simply being "valued" at some dollar amount doesn't actually mean success. Revenue and positive net profit mean success...

>>Alupis+ds
What if Reddit is around for 50 years, paying dozens of employees the whole time while never making a net profit. Would that not be a successful company to essentially everyone? (except the investors)

>>Reedx+vy
If all your business does it extract money from investors and deposit it into employee's pockets (and never generates self sustaining revenue, let alone turn profits), I think we'd call that a charity, more than anything.

>>Alupis+6E
Yeah, I should have been clearer - the assumption is that it would have self sustaining revenue at some point (I can't imagine many investors would keep putting $ into it after 50 years). It would just be a break even business.

That's why I would say it's a success to everyone but the investors who never got their payday.