Indirectly, YC quite possibly are ripping most founders off financially, even though the average company return is high (power-law — few winners and many losers[1]). It is hard to find good figures, because we have reliable dollar estimates for the companies that win, but a paucity of information about the founders that lose, or what individual founders made[2].
When YC only selects the best 1 of ## applicants, it is hard to remove selection bias from any later analyses of returns for founders.
Value and opportunity-cost are messy, so measuring the returns for “loser” founders is really difficult. I am unsure if founders’ own self-assessment would be trustworthy information.
Indirectly, YC quite possibly are ripping most founders off financially, even though the average company return is high (power-law — few winners and many losers[1]). It is hard to find good figures, because we have reliable dollar estimates for the companies that win, but a paucity of information about the founders that lose, or what individual founders made[2].
When YC only selects the best 1 of ## applicants, it is hard to remove selection bias from any later analyses of returns for founders.
Value and opportunity-cost are messy, so measuring the returns for “loser” founders is really difficult. I am unsure if founders’ own self-assessment would be trustworthy information.
Here is an analysis from 2014 on YC founder returns: https://80000hours.org/2014/05/how-much-do-y-combinator-foun...
I would expect early employees to have worse odds of good payouts.
[1] startup valuations tend to fall along a steep power law curve and YC startups fall along one nearly perfectly: https://medium.com/swlh/on-300b-of-y-combinator-startup-succ...
[2] company returns are easier to find than individual founder returns.