75% of venture-backed startups fail

80% of a VC firm's returns come from 20% of the deals, per VC's 'power law'

Early-stage startups are highly risky investments. Many companies in a VC portfolio will not provide any significant return.

Unlike small businesses, startups aim to disrupt entire industries

They also differ from small businesses in that startups have a higher level of risk, may take on outside funding from venture capital firms to boost growth, and more.

Venture capital is a form of funding provided to early-stage companies with high growth potential, typically in exchange for an equity (or ownership) stake

Theranos and Pets.com are among some of the biggest startup failures ever

You might have heard of Theranos, Elizabeth Holmes’s one-time blood testing company that landed the founder in prison for more than a decade after she was charged with fraud. The rest of the startups on a list of five of the biggest startup failures ever might not be as famous as Theranos, but they were met with similarly disastrous fates.

Why women are underrepresented in VC

Only about 11% of investing partners at venture capital firms are women, according to Harvard Kennedy School research. What’s more, only about 13% of VC dollars go to startups with a woman on the founding team. To learn more about why women are so often sidelined on both sides of the venture capital equation, click here.

Venture capital is a type of financing that firms and funds use to invest in startups they believe have the potential for long-term growth

Household name companies such as Airbnb and Uber might not exist without venture capital, which is commonly referred to as "VC" for short.

Working at a startup isn't for everyone, and is often more fast-paced than a run-of-the-mill job

Some argue that ideal startup employees have to be better than the average worker at managing uncertainty, acting with an "ownership" mindset rather than being a cog in the machine, and pushing limits.

Early-stage investors say ‘no’ to the vast majority of funding pitches

Angel investor Alicia Syrett details the top reasons investors turn down entrepreneurs. For example, the entrepreneur didn’t do their homework by, for instance, not researching the investor.

Stanford and Harvard are among the universities producing the most startup founders

Not all startup founders are created equal. This data visualization of the universities that produce the most startup founders is based on the number of alumni who have raised venture capital funding for their companies. That means these alums had to do much more than put "entrepreneur" in their LinkedIn bio to be considered startup founders.

Y Combinator has a roughly 1% acceptance rate

That’s lower than the most elite universities and colleges in the world—but insiders have some tips about how applicants can have the best shot of being accepted to the selective startup accelerator.

The 50-100-500 rule: when a startup is no longer a startup

According to startup expert Alex Wilhelm, a company cannot be considered a startup if it generates revenue exceeding $50M, employs more than 100 people, and has a valuation of $500M or more. However, Wilhelm modified the rule in 2018 to $100M in revenue, over 500 employees, and a valuation of $2.5B or more.

Startup accelerators offer mentorship and seed funding in exchange for equity

Those programs, such as Y Combinator and Techstars, not only offer expert advice to founders, but also seed funding in exchange for equity. The goal is to help young startups learn from successful companies, making it more likely they attract venture capital.

Just because a big name company is going public doesn’t guarantee a successful stock

A reporter dove into how highly anticipated IPOs can still be risky, and why retail investors should be wary of investing right away.

Elon Musk's $100M investment in SpaceX was lost to three failed rocket launches

The attempts with Falcon 1 endangered the company's future but provided valuable information from which to iterate and follow up with the successful first privately funded orbital launch in history and multiple ISS resupply missions.

No, 90% of restaurants do not close in their first year

Although opening a restaurant has long been considered a financial gamble, industry publication Datassential found that less than 1% of restaurants opened in 2025 closed within their first year. A Bureau of Labor Statistics report from 2014 had the number slightly higher—at 17%—though it was still significantly lower than the 90% figure most people cite.

Many startup founders pull out-of-the-box stunts to get their businesses off the ground

Do you know Airbnb’s founders used cereal (yes, as in the breakfast food) to secure their initial round of funding? Or that PayPal’s founders once gave out free money to get people to sign up for the platform? These stories might be crazy, but they’re not uncommon.

The fintech industry was worth roughly $340B as of 2025

Venture capitalists have been bullish on the industry’s future in recent years, too. Some estimate that global investment in fintech increased by 12,000% between 2008 and 2020.

More than 650 companies went public in the US in 1996

As the dot-com bubble reached its peak, most dot-com companies went public with little proof of being profitable and were often overvalued. In 1999, the Nasdaq's price-to-earnings ratio (a tool used to determine a stock's value that divides its price by earnings) hit 90.2, signaling that many companies were operating at a net loss. Startups promised investors that more time and money would help scale their businesses and become profitable.

Legendary venture capitalist Peter Thiel once wrote that 'competition is for losers'

With Peter Thiel's "Monopoly Theory," the Founders Fund partner argued that investing in companies that create new categories, rather than those that compete with other businesses in existing ones, is a best practice in venture capital.

Why did WeWork fail and why it's still around

Once valued at $47B, WeWork promised to revolutionize office space—but rapid expansion, financial red flags, and a pandemic-driven shift in work culture led to its 2023 bankruptcy. This overview looks at its rise and fall, and what’s next for the coworking giant.

'In my experience, each failure contains the seeds of your next success—if you are willing to learn from it.'

- Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen (1953–2018)

Family CEOs tend to prioritize a non-economic goal: keeping the business in the family

Companies led by family CEOs tend to prioritize corporate social responsibility, but they also tend to invest less in innovation and international growth. They also have more debt on average.

Tech, finance, and consulting industries hire roughly 70% of students from top MBA programs

However, hiring in these sectors has slowed in recent years due to overhiring and other factors, making the job search more difficult for recent MBA grads. This Wall Street Journal podcast episode has more details.

Less than half of TikTok's US users have posted a video

Like most platforms, content is driven by a small number of active users—in TikTok's case, 25% of accounts are responsible for an estimated 98% of content posted.

SpaceX's S-1 or 'prospectus' revealed many previously unknown details about the company, including its unprofitability despite doing $18.7B in revenue in 2025, exactly how many voting shares Elon Musk will have in the company (roughly 85%), and more.

Only about 0.0001% of sperm, on average, successfully reach the uterine cavity

We've evolved to make pregnancy a complex and difficult process. From the initial development of the blastocyst, to the energy and nutrients needed to grow a new human, our bodies are both fighting and supporting fetal development.

Surviving the crash: a personal story of burnout

Jennifer Moss founded a tech company, had a baby in the middle of the start-up process, and crashed after months of rising exhaustion and disconnection from a career she once felt passionate about. She shared her story of burnout and the techniques she used to turn her life around and repair her relationships in this piece.

Indefinite cloning of some endangered species may not sustain their longevity because cloning success rates decrease as genetic mutations accumulate.

The Nasdaq's 'Magnificent 7' companies are responsible for roughly 40% of the Nasdaq 100 index's gains, while the remaining 93 companies account for the other 60%.

The name 'Silicon Valley' arose from the founding of Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory in Fairchild Semiconductor in 1956-57, founded near Stanford University in Palo Alto

A Yale student wrote a profound essay about the consulting industry's influence on elite college students that was published in a book of her writing after she died in a post-graduation car accident.

Children are now three times more likely to say they want to be a YouTuber when they grow up than an astronaut, with some even attending 'YouTube camps' that teach kids how to create content for the platform.

US housing costs have risen by roughly 175% between 1991 and 2026—but a growing number of Gen Zers are becoming homeowners anyway. In 2025, 4% of homebuyers were Gen Z, up from 3% the year before.

Despite being favored by 87% of Americans, Congress does not have term limits.

About 2,000 US babies are born annually without some portion of their limbs, potentially leading to a lifetime of pricey prosthetics.

The deadliest aspect of volcanic eruptions is often not lava, but pyroclastic flows—avalanches of ash, gas, and rock that can move more than half the speed of sound.

Up to a million Girl Scouts sell about 200 million cookie boxes every spring, generating $800 million, largely because refusing a child is frowned upon

Domino's Pizza's 30-minute delivery guarantee was responsible for the chain's 1980s surge, but it was discontinued after the company was found liable for delivery driver accidents.

About 12.5% of US adults experience a phobia in their lifetime, a diagnosis that hinges on the intense fear interfering with daily life and persisting for at least six months.

Human-to-human transmission of hantavirus remains extremely rare, so the 2026 hantavirus cruise ship outbreak doesn't mean we're facing a COVID-style pandemic risk.

Telehealth demand for GLP-1s for weight loss is booming as consumers seek easier access.

Art theft is the third-largest source of criminal revenues worldwide, thanks in part to the subjective nature of valuing a work of art.

Chaos theory—informally known as the butterfly effect—is the reason why weather forecasts are presented with probabilities rather than certainties.

Most of the observable universe's volume consists of voids and supervoids—enormous regions of space with little to no galaxies, stars, or light.

Discover the catastrophic consequences of a failure of the US electrical grid—something that is more likely than many Americans think.

Louisiana's 'Cancer Alley' is infamous for having some of the highest industrial pollution, toxic air emissions, and cancer risks in the US.

A vending machine run with Anthropic's AI went out of business after it was convinced to give away items for free and sell a video game console.

Hear 50 years of iconic hip-hop samples, the genre's foundational looped tracks

44% of Americans say they pray at least once a day—discover how your state's religiosity stacks up against the rest of the country.

The Beatles' US label rejected the band's first two singles, 'Please Please Me' and 'From Me to You,' with one executive calling the band 'dead in the water.'