
Headquarter Locations of Top 101 Y Combinator Companies - beavershaw
https://merchantmachine.co.uk/yc-101/
======
jedberg
Back in the day, there was a single apartment building in SF where many of the
YC companies started out. We used to joke that it might be more efficient for
YC to just buy the building, since 1/2 of the money they were giving the
startups was going to the landlord. This probably helped create a nexus in SF
for YC. Heck, even YC itself develops all their software in SF.

But even besides that, it still makes sense. While it is true that there are
many people all around the world with the skills necessary for working at a
startup, many of them congregate in SF. If you want the largest possible
hiring pool and you're set on having a physical office, SF will give you the
deepest pool, since you probably can't afford to pay to move someone to SF.

I'm personally running my company fully remote so I can tap into the talent
that has chosen not to move to SF (despite being here myself), and I suspect
that trend will continue to grow, making it more likely for more companies to
not be based in SF. On the flip side, even if the talent is elsewhere, it's
still a huge advantage for our HQ and me to be here, because it's where all
the investors and advisors are.

~~~
danpalmer
> Heck, even YC itself develops all their software in SF.

A little off topic, but what software does YC develop?

Obviously there's HN, Bookface, and there's probably a bit of web development
that needs doing for things like the Top 100 companies list, is there much
else?

More generally, I realise that YC is a tech incubator so they're likely to
develop software for things that other companies wouldn't, but do they really
need a dev team? The blog could be Wordpress/etc, HN and Bookface could be
Discourse. Is it all being over-engineered? Is there a large dev team where
other organisations of a similar size might have one or two IT people?

~~~
snowmaker
Like many companies, the software at YC is like an iceberg: most of it lies
beneath the surface.

Here are some of the things we build that you might not be thinking of:

[https://apply.ycombinator.com/](https://apply.ycombinator.com/) \- the whole
process of receiving and processing 10,000 YC applications / batch

[https://workatastartup.com](https://workatastartup.com) \- a site to help
people find jobs at a startup

[https://startupschool.org/](https://startupschool.org/) \- a free online
course in how to start a startup

[https://leap.ycombinator.com/](https://leap.ycombinator.com/) \- a private
community for women in tech

~~~
erohead
^Jared runs the sw team at YC and we are hiring
[https://jobs.lever.co/ycombinator/8703c1d9-af67-4826-90e4-74...](https://jobs.lever.co/ycombinator/8703c1d9-af67-4826-90e4-74b5067c4dd7)

~~~
mr_puzzled
Does YC sponsor h1b visas for people not authorized to work in the US?

------
shazow
Headquarter location is kind of an arbitrary line to draw, especially with
poor data. Many of these companies are fully remote or have multiple large
offices.

Just off the top of my head: PagerDuty has a large office in Toronto. GitLab
and Zapier are very remote-first focused, I'm sure there's a dozen more on
that list.

The problem is that almost all of these companies started out in the Bay Area
when they did YC there. It's hard to find up to date information about how SF-
centric they are now that they've matured, but it's easy to assume that they
are by default.

This feels as useful as talking about incorporation state (so much Delaware!).
I'd love to see more data about how distributed companies are these days vs
being monolithic offices in SF.

~~~
httpz
It's not completely arbitrary. Where the HQ is usually shows where the company
got started and experienced its initial growth. Also, while a company may have
multiple remote offices, most execs will be in HQ and that can have a huge
impact on the culture of the company. A Google office in Japan may feel more
like a Silicon Valley company than a Japanese company's office in Silicon
Valley.

~~~
RobLach
I do believe that but this particular data set will demonstrate very little
evidence of that since since the very likely biggest reason Y Combinator
companies seem to be centered around SV is because that's where SV is; and so
the data is biased beyond usability in this manner.

------
jppope
I think more than anything this information shines a light on how much
opportunity there is for investment elsewhere.

------
hiyou102
I'm a little surprised that there isn't a single "top" YC company in Seattle.
Why is that? It seems like the city has talent and capital.

------
zckao
This seems like an instance where visualization confuses more than clarifies.
The paragraph at the bottom of the page presented as a table would be more
comprehensible.

------
bsvalley
Technically speaking they’re all Delaware C-corps ;)

------
theandrewbailey
Is the map keyed incorrectly? California is colored purple, but that means
only 4 HQs are located there, not 74.

~~~
ndonnellan
Kind of hard to see, but I believe there is a black dot (74) on the bay area

------
sbilstein
Makes sense to me. If you really want to make it big in fashion, you move to a
fashion city. If you want to make it big in music, you probably move to LA,
Brooklyn, or Nashville. Startups are a scene too; you can succeed elsewhere
but why make it harder for yourself?

~~~
r_singh
While your comment makes sense, I think you're underestimating the size of the
world outside of YC's circle.

It's incorrect to be in the delusion that you have to move to the valley to be
a top company, but that depends on the definition of top, which here is
valuation and it's hard to beat valuations that the Silicon Valley can afford
and help realise because of the ecosystem that's formed over the years.

YC is based in the USA, so it's not really a surprise that you'd have to move
there to be a top YC company.

You can build a top company anywhere in the world, even if your definition is
that of valuation, the process remains by and large the same that YC advocates
in documents such as the startup playbook and the startup school courses (the
parlance may be different in material from different sources), and I believe
that it gets easier to build a top company where you are if you make your own
definition of top as valuations could be deceiving.

You don't necessarily have to move to SV to make a top company by valuation,
top YC company: stats suggest yes, but I still believe there's slim chances
you could do it from anywhere, YC tries hard to be inclusive, however their
location presents them with constraints, hence the stats.

To decide where to move in order to build a top company, first understand what
is your definition of a top company and whether you really want to disrupt
your life, move to the valley, and build what the world calls a top company.

PS - No disrespect to valuations, the Silicon Valley or anyone's ideologies.

~~~
sbilstein
I don't think we actually disagree on any of those points. You can definitely
build businesses anywhere in the world but people move to scenes to increase
their chances of an outsize success. Plenty great bands come from small towns
and regional scenes but a disproportionate amount of famous, world-touring
bands are based out of Brooklyn or LA and the musicians you might meet there
are aiming for that lifestyle.

If you define success differently, it's all up for grabs. If you want to build
the next Uber, you are giving yourself a bigger shot (and tough competition)
by moving to SF. Of course, companies like Mailchimp are massively successful
outside of the bubble but there just isn't the same pressure and rising tide
in a city like Atlanta than there is in SF.

I suspect many people end up in the Bay Area not to risk it all, disrupt their
lives and start a company but simply because they got an awesome job at a
growing company. Further down the line the scene makes them consider 'maybe I
could do this too'.

FWIW, I got advice when starting my business to move out of the Bay Area and
somewhere way cheaper to extend my runway. I'm glad I didn't because even with
smaller monthly expenses I'd lose out on the small network I have and the luck
afforded to me simply by being here.

~~~
r_singh
I never assumed any disagreement; just felt the need to add the following.

------
drb91
There’s a huge amount of selection bias here when YC itself is located in SV.

------
christefano
I was glad to see Portland represented (hey, inDinero, greetings from NE
Portland!). Sometimes startups refer to this part of the Pacific Northwest as
“Silicon Forest”, though that hasn’t seemed to take off.

My old stomping grounds in Los Angeles made a good showing (Hush, SFOX, GOAT,
and Soylent), and my bet is more and more future startups will be based there
than anywhere else outside of SF and NYC.

Sometimes called Silicon Beach, which was originally the name for San Diego’s
startup scene and later claimed by Venice & Santa Monica — though it really
refers to all of LA at this point.

------
ralph84
Non-competes aren't enforceable in California. I think that is something often
overlooked but key to why California continues to overwhelmingly dominate for
startups.

------
pg_bot
The most striking thing about this map to me was that you could draw a
straight line from the bottom of Virginia all the way across the United States
and you wouldn't find a single top company until you hit Los Angeles. There
are about 100 million people that live in that area so it's surprising that
there isn't at least 1 company headquartered there.

~~~
dragonwriter
> The most striking thing about this map to me was that you could draw a
> straight line from the bottom of Virginia all the way across the United
> States and you wouldn't find a single top company until you hit Los Angeles.

Why is it surprising? YC has historically _required_ relocating to the Bay, so
it's not really surprising that the vast majority of top 101 YC companies are
in the Bay, or that of the 27 that aren't, there are _many_ paths on the
Earth's surface that include 100 million people and none of those relocated
top YC companies; and that is even before considering the (also unsurprising)
concentration of non-Bay top YC companies in NYC, which leaves even fewer for
the rest of the planet.

~~~
pg_bot
I didn't say _surprising_ , I said _striking_. No one has decided to relocate
to San Diego, Austin, Dallas, San Antonio, Houston, Phoenix, Atlanta, New
Orleans, Miami, Nashville, or Charlotte? I think it would be silly to equate
populations of people that differ wildly in language, customs, and economic
opportunity. The world is not evenly distributed. Besides there aren't that
many ways to divide the world by 100 Million people, there are 76.

~~~
nostrademons
"Besides there aren't that many ways to divide the world by 100 Million
people, there are 76."

There are (7.6B choose 100M) = (7600000000! / (100000000! * 7500000000!)) >
well over a googol. Different ways to slice up the world do not have to be
disjoint.

~~~
pg_bot
You know what I meant, stop being pedantic.

~~~
nostrademons
What you meant is nonsensical.

If you want to return to the original question of why 76 out of the top 100 YC
startups are in the Bay Area and zero of them are in the South, east of LA -
it's because the only populations that matter for a tech startup are founders,
early adopters, angel investors, venture capitalists, executives who have
scaled a company by 100,000x, corporate lawyers, digital marketers, engineers,
DevOps/SRE, UX researchers, UI designers, product managers, and (for a B2B
startup) enterprise sales reps. All of these populations are abundant in the
Bay Area. Many of them are missing entirely in the South, or if they're
present, they're rare enough that there isn't a liquid market for them. If
you're a founder, you can go wherever you want, but you're only _one_ of the
limiting regents for a startup. Without the other, less glamorous ones, your
startup is not going to take off.

~~~
pg_bot
I think the advantages of the Bay area are overhyped. If you take a look at
the of number of people that are employed by these companies, few of them
employ more than 500 people. A lot of them employ less than 100 people. I
think you can find 100 qualified people to do all of the tasks you need in any
US city that has over a million people. VCs and angel investors have to beg
great companies to take their money. However, it's best to not need outside
investment at all. It's easier to keep the burn rate low if you're in a
cheaper city.

[https://www.ycombinator.com/topcompanies/](https://www.ycombinator.com/topcompanies/)

~~~
nostrademons
It's certainly possible, and I see from your profile that you've put your
money where your mouth is. It's interesting that this holds true out of the
_100 most valuable YC companies_ , though. YC has funded close to 3000
companies, which is pretty close to a representative sample, and those
companies _originate_ from all over the world. If the Bay Area didn't have a
real advantage in growing & scaling companies and it was all hype, I would
expect the market to wash it out of this sample.

------
juhq
It's neat that on the map usa is divided into states but other countries are,
well, just countries. Why not draw the countries into smaller pieces as well?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federated_state](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federated_state)

~~~
nine_k
If there were many companies per "other country", that would make sense. There
are very few companies outside US in the list, and the only country with two
entries is UK; both companies are in London.

If the chart had, say, 10 companies from India, showing the borders of India's
states on the map would definitely make sense.

~~~
nsgi
Canada also has two entries

------
kozikow
IMO the key factor is that so many investors are in California and investors
prefer to have a founding team locally accessible.

What else? Talent? Yes, but at a cost that is becoming unbearable for early-
stage startups. Customers? Maybe if you are B2B technology, but most startups
are not.

------
r_singh
The HQ state for RazorPay (the company located in India), is Karnataka.

------
1024core
What, they couldn't figure out the state in which Bangalore (India) is
located?

------
sroussey
So why isn’t YC in SF?

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kjullien
I can't tell if this shows a terrible bias towards NA or if people who aren't
from NA don't even bother applying for X reason(s) or get rejected.

edit: I am getting downvoted to hell for some reason when I'm simply trying to
start a discussion based on a fact... hmmm... I don't get HN...

"The only other countries with top companies were Canada (2), the UK (2),
Colombia, India and the Netherlands."

"94 of the top 101 companies are based in the US."

~~~
tlb
The map shows headquarters location, not where the founders are from. Many
founding teams came from around the world, but put their company headquarters
in the Bay Area because of access to engineering and design talent and later-
stage investors.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Many founding teams came from around the world, but put their company
> headquarters in the Bay Area because

...they have to for at least 3 months to be a YC company, and after that the
question is _what is the compelling reason to move?_

