[ajiang]

Holy negativity. Why is the overall sentiment of the comment pool so cranky and skeptical?

1) YC startups have a combined valuation of $13.7B. Fact - groups of investors have valued YC startups individually, and in aggregate the current known valuation of the collective is $13.7B.

Does that number mean that much by itself? Perhaps not. Let's see what else we know.

2) That valuation has grown by $2B since June. Also fact. And pretty incredible, that's a 17% growth on valuation in 4-5 months.

Without making any comments on whether or not YC's success rate is higher/lower than average and whether or not YC is a benefit to the entrepreneurs it invests in (there's no data presented here to make that assessment, but I'm sure it wouldn't be hard to do), what YC has done in a short amount of time in helping build a tremendous amount of value in its companies is noteworthy - and that's what I take away from this article.