Technology companies follow an extreme power law curve.
Of all tech companies started in the US in any one year, around 15 ever generate $100M in annual revenue.
Those 15 companies are ultimately be responsible for 97% of the market cap for all companies started that year.
15 companies! That’s way harder than making the NBA in any given year – most of you would never attempt such a difficult thing. And yet here you are.
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Wow.
Edit: I mean you hear a lot about it's near impossible to have a super profitable startup and that most fail, but when you say 15 only ever generate 100mm in revenue, that puts a new perspective on it. For me anyway.
100mm lifetime is still one hell of an achievement, but I'd imagine significantly more reach it than 3%. Lots of B2B companies survive for a few years with 8 figure annual rev.
The counter-complimenting (but not contradictory) point is that it's also true that you could create a business, especially a purely software-based business in terms of how it scales, and it could hit only say $1M or even $200k in revenue or profit each year, and that would be a huge success -- as long as you kept the team small, the ownership in your hands, etc., ideally as close to 1-2 people as possible even. Getting say $200k/year of mostly passive income would be a huge life-changing state of affairs. We don't all need to become GitHub or Pinterest or Facebook, etc. In business, a homerun is relative. FU money for a single founder with 100% ownership is pretty small in the grand scheme of things.
jasonshen, you misspelled at least 4 of the names of the people you covered. I wouldn't have said anything if it was just one or two (everyone makes mistakes), but 4 (at least) is kind of excessive.
Edit: in fear of downvotes for calling jason out on such a detail: I think getting people's names right is important; it shows attention to detail and respect for the people you're naming. (It's also a pet peeve of mine, but that's irrelevant). So my comment is meant to be constructive criticism. BTW, the names that are misspelled (that I know of) are:
Woops, thanks! Meant to go back and fix those at the end but forgot. Fixed Travis Kalanick and Tom Preston Werner but didn't see any other typos - which were they?
edit: got the rest, thanks! You might have to hard refresh to see the changes.
Of all tech companies started in the US in any one year, around 15 ever generate $100M in annual revenue.
Those 15 companies are ultimately be responsible for 97% of the market cap for all companies started that year. 15 companies! That’s way harder than making the NBA in any given year – most of you would never attempt such a difficult thing. And yet here you are.
---
Wow.
Edit: I mean you hear a lot about it's near impossible to have a super profitable startup and that most fail, but when you say 15 only ever generate 100mm in revenue, that puts a new perspective on it. For me anyway.