[Lukeas14]

The metric that 0.2% of all companies represent a whopping 16% of winners is not a relevant statistic. It's based on the premise that there are 500,000 new startups in the U.S. every year. I'm guessing this number is counting every incorporation which means many companies would be double or triple counted. 500,000 separate companies would mean that 1 out of every 7 people are starting a new company every year. Regardless, this does not represent the total field of companies that a reporter can choose from to write about. The percentage of relevant companies in the 1000 that are VC backed is going to be much higher than the percentage of relevant companies in all 500,000 incorporated.

I also don't agree that a reporters job is to predict winners. If you're beat is startups, then in my opinion, it should be enough to simply cover companies that your userbase would find interesting or useful. As long as the story succeeds in delighting your readers there's no shame in reporting on a company that ultimately fails.