Being acquired or acqui-hired(soft landing) means the company (and probably the culture) is gone. I worked at BBN Technologies back in the mid 2000's. This is the company that co-founded the internet, they have the second domain name ever registered (bbn.com)[1], their engineers co-invented foundational technologies that make the internet work today. In 2009, they were acquired by Raytheon[2]. As a stand alone company, BBN was not able to generate sustainable value, but Raytheon as the prime contractor is able to.
Also, being private longer but losing money is not sustainable. If companies are private and profitable, then that's a different story. AirBnB is still raising money[3] and their valuation is almost too big for them to get acquired. Their only successful exit is an IPO or becoming so profitable that they can buy out their investors. Coinbase is making a killing so they might be sustainable especially with the growth of the cryptocurrency market over the past 2-3 years (And the fees they keep charging me). SalesForce & Condé Nast have generated more value out of Heorku and Reddit than YC.
Don't get me wrong — I love YC products. I stayed at an AirBnB in March in Vancouver, I bought some Ethereum today on Coinbase, I updated a site I maintain[4] which has been running on a free Heroku Dyno for 5 years+ and my Reddit birthday is January 19, 2010.
YC companies have the same challenges that everyone else has even with their power and influence. There needs to be more of a track record of YC companies succeeding disproportionally to other companies before I could classify them as kingmakers.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_oldest_currently_r...
[2] - https://www.raytheon.com/ourcompany/bbn/
[3] - https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/airbnb/funding_round...
[4] - https://gitignore.io
Also, being private longer but losing money is not sustainable. If companies are private and profitable, then that's a different story. AirBnB is still raising money[3] and their valuation is almost too big for them to get acquired. Their only successful exit is an IPO or becoming so profitable that they can buy out their investors. Coinbase is making a killing so they might be sustainable especially with the growth of the cryptocurrency market over the past 2-3 years (And the fees they keep charging me). SalesForce & Condé Nast have generated more value out of Heorku and Reddit than YC.
Don't get me wrong — I love YC products. I stayed at an AirBnB in March in Vancouver, I bought some Ethereum today on Coinbase, I updated a site I maintain[4] which has been running on a free Heroku Dyno for 5 years+ and my Reddit birthday is January 19, 2010.
YC companies have the same challenges that everyone else has even with their power and influence. There needs to be more of a track record of YC companies succeeding disproportionally to other companies before I could classify them as kingmakers.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_oldest_currently_r...
[2] - https://www.raytheon.com/ourcompany/bbn/
[3] - https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/airbnb/funding_round...
[4] - https://gitignore.io