硅谷最著名的创业孵化器 Y Combinator （YC）曾给出了这么一个事实：从 YC 毕业的 511 家初创公司，在经过 5 年之后，只有 37 家公司被认定是“成功”的 。这里，YC 对“成功”的定义是：价值超过 4000 万美元。这是一个不成文的标准，被美国的许多企业家和投资人认可。37 / 511 ≈ 7%，也就是说，另外 93% 都是失败者。

Y Combinator (YC), the most famous startup incubator in Silicon Valley, has given such a fact: of the 511 startups graduating from YC, after five years, only 37 companies were found to be “successful”. Here, the definition of “success” by YC is that the value of the company must be over 40 million U.S. dollars. This is an unwritten standard recognized by many entrepreneurs and investors in the United States. 37 / 511 ≈ 7% means the remaining 93% werelosers.

YC 是硅谷顶级的创业孵化器，其孕育出的初创公司，可谓星光闪耀，有：OMGPOP（被 Zynga 以 1.8亿美元收购），Reddit（一个基于新闻的社交 BBS，估值 2.4 亿美元 ），Airbnb（在线短租网站，估值 25 亿美元 ），Dropbox（云存储服务，估值超过 40 亿美元 ），等等。YC 每年提供两次入驻培训，总共会收到数千份初创团队的申请，其中只有 3%~5% 的幸运者能够雀屏中选，“入赘”成功。由此可见，想从 YC 这条路径上获得初创成功，其比率约在 0.21%~0.35% 之间（3%_7%~%5_7%），而失败的比率超过了 99.6%。

As the top startup incubator in Silicon Valley, YC has given birth to many excellent startups: OMGPOP (acquired by Zynga with $ 180 million), Reddit (a news-based social BBS with an estimated value of $ 240 million), Airbnb (online site about short rental with an estimated value of $ 2.5 billion), Dropbox (a cloud storage service provider with an estimated value of more than 4 billion U.S.dollars), and so on. YC provides stationed training twice a year, and will receive thousands of applications from startup teams, but only 3%~5% lucky ones areable to be selected with great surprise and delight. From that, we can see that the rate of success of startups through YC is about 0.21% to 0.35% (3% _7% ~%5_7%), while the failure rate is more than 99.6%.

当然，这只是来自 YC 的数据，但我们没有理由去相信那些与 YC 无关的初创企业会有更大的成功概率，就像没有人会认为来自杭州师范学院的学生会比北大清华的学生更容易成功。

Of course, that is the data just from YC, but we have no reason to believe that those startups unrelated to YC will have greater probability of success, justas no one would think that students from Hangzhou Normal University are more likely to succeed than the ones from Peking University and Tsinghua University.

即使一个初创企业成功迈过了 5 年的检验期，后面的道路也还是荆棘密布。如果以“三十而立”来做为硅谷高科技企业的“高寿”标准，那么一个公司能够创业成功，并“善始善终”的概率就更加微乎其微了。

Even a startup has survived the five-year test period, there’s still a long way ahead to go. If 30 years is used as the standard that measures if high-tech enterprises in Silicon Valley are time-honored, the rate of startups that have a good beginning and a good ending will be very little.

人们常说，时间是一面筛子，但这面筛子并不总是汰沙而存金，尤其是在硅谷高科技的商业史上，有许多曾经代表了某个时段的最先进技术，竟尔未能在商业战场上生存下来，着实令人唏嘘。那么，在极其艰难的创业或商业道路上，时间的神谕究竟会选择谁走向成功？

People often say that time is a sifter, but it doesn’t always separate the gold from the sand, especially in the history of Silicon Valley’s high-tech commerce. Many companies that once had represented the most advanced technology in a period of time, actually failed to survive in the business battlefield. What a pity! So, on the extremely difficult business or commercial road, who will be chosen by the oracleof time to get success?

当有一天，硅谷里满是黄沙与落日的时候，不知道还有没有人能回忆起那些孤独可爱的创业者，她 / 他们的青春就埋在这里，梦也埋在这里。

When one day everything has changed with the passage of time and all the prosperities have faded away in Silicon Valley, will someone recall those lonely and lovely entrepreneurs? Their youth and dreams are buried here.

来源: 译世界

翻译: Ashley，深圳市昆仲科技有限公司