easy to estimate YCombinator’s returns — they must be top quartile and they’ve been that way for two decades. Which is amazing. 1. Assume their top ten bets are 90% of returns (the power law) 2. Assume their 7% ownership was diluted to 3% at IPO or exit 3. Might take our openAI for now, as that was a nonprofit and who knows if they got any equity 4. Assume they distributed at the ipo like most firms do For example if DoorDash went out at $40b, and YC owned 2-3%, that deal alone generated $800m to 1.2b in returns And if YC has invested in 5,000+ startups / 600-800m+ deployed That means their top returner alone has returned 1-2x their total deployed capital! Everything else is pure returns My guess is that the model is a 3-4x cash on cash return historically — which is absurdly hard to do in venture This doesn’t take into account their carry and fees, which must be absurd at this point. Wouldn’t be surprised if they can command 35%+ carry + fees Someone has certainly leaked the per fund returns @grok please check my math above and search the web for yc’s returns by find and overall(@jason)