That’s not the raw data, it’s adjusted to match groups for a comparison. If you look elsewhere in the paper:
The overall success rate on first time ventures is 25.3%. Not surprisingly, serial
entrepreneurs have an above-average success rate of 36.9% on their first ventures: venture
capitalists are more likely to be more enthusiastic about financing a successful entrepreneur
than one who has previously failed.
That’s for IPOs only, adding in companies that were acquired, and companies that remained private but made their owners a good amount of money via compensation packages and future sale or IPO would further boost the stats. See my 80,000 hours posts on this.
I’ve spoken to Carl about the subject and he pointed me to this paper: http://www.nber.org/papers/w14219
This paper puts the success rate of venture-backed companies at ~18%.
Not everyone gets VC backing, though, which lowers your odds.
That’s not the raw data, it’s adjusted to match groups for a comparison. If you look elsewhere in the paper:
That’s for IPOs only, adding in companies that were acquired, and companies that remained private but made their owners a good amount of money via compensation packages and future sale or IPO would further boost the stats. See my 80,000 hours posts on this.