Exactly. And maybe one non statistical result as well: A significant number of very successful people _believed_ that it was possible, otherwise they wouldn't have tried to go it alone.

Five times as many must have believed they needed cofounders. Either way I still think the take home message can be that successful single founder companies aren't an insignificant bizarro event.

Useless for an academic study, but great if you are a decision maker and need quick insight with incomplete data.

Very cool. Sometimes though, i think this is an ambiguous topic. There doesnt seem to be a strict definition of a founder?

Ian

I assume that in this context, founders are the people whose names show up on the incorporation filing.

agreed: almost useless as a guide for prospective founders unless it takes into account the statistics for ventures that _failed_. For this reason I would be more interested in the stats for ycombinator funded companies that either succeeded or threw in the towel.