[citizenkeys]

That number seems to be based on total valuations based on money raised. For example, if a YC company raises $1 million in exchange for 10% of the company then the company's total valuation is $10 million. However, unless there's a profitable exit strategy or YC sells its stake, YC gains nothing.

[dreamux]

I wonder how much equity of that 3B YC owns. Even at 5% (150M), that's a pretty solid return for 5M invested -- even if still mostly illiquid.

[DevX101 → dreamux]

It would probably be less than 5% since they typically come in at 6% and get diluted along the way when VCs come in later.

[jentulman]

Far less if you use Google Reader... http://twitpic.com/51ylyy

[tybris]

If you don't factor in risk that number looks impressive. This is how the financial crisis started.

[kylelibra]

This would be interesting to see in the context of average value per company and also compared to the value of companies from other tech incubators.

[hugh3 → kylelibra]

Too hard to make it a meaningful calculation. The average age of a YC startup is... what, two and a bit years? The average age of a startup from any other incubator is less, so the average value will be less.

You could break it down by year, but then you're into such small numbers of actual companies, with such a wide range of current valuations from zero to many millions, that it's an even less useful metric.

[seats → hugh3]

Maybe for comparison there would be a way to time normalize the valuations.

I'd be shocked if any other incubator even came close with any comparative measure though.

[kmfrk]

Even so, YC only broke even with the flip of Heroku.

It's not all the fun and Benjamins some people crack it up to be.

[taphangum → kmfrk]

I assumed that they made a lot of money on that acquisition.

Care to elaborate?