The Daunting Odds of Venture Capital Startups

The first truly massive startup win for Los Angeles: Snap, Inc. For at least my part, I hadn't expected a social network from our media- and business services-centric community. Although, to be fair, Snap doesn't consider themselves a social network.

The coverage of Snap's IPO at the Wall Street Journal had a nice nugget:

Of the more than 14,300 U.S. companies that raised venture capital in the past decade, Snap will become one of just 30, or 0.2%, that later got valued in an IPO at $1 billion or more, according to Dow Jones VentureSource.

A meaningful reminder of how truly hard startups are and how truly rare becoming ridiculously wealthy is.