They use a strange metric for success, in that the company has to go public. I'd say a good acquisition is clearly also a "success". Assuming that far fewer companies go public than are acquired (and make the founders wealthy), their numbers are quite a bit low.
At any rate, those numbers are already HUGELY higher than I had thought.
I think issuing dividends on a consistent basis (applies to public & private companies) & total profitability is a better measure of success than going public or getting acquired. The latter two rely too much on someone else.
"The findings are similar if we define success to also include firms that were acquired or merged."
Also numbers seem to be ok (about 1-in-5 for the first time enterpreneurs, 1-in-3 for the already successful ones and 1-in-4 overall), considering these are all venture backed companies, thus pre-selected from a much larger pool.
Plus, if you check the list of 40 VCs (Kleiner Perkins, Sequoia, Benchmark, Bessemer, Greylock, Accel, etc.), these are also skewed toward the top of the distribution, so there is another level of pre-selection.
At any rate, those numbers are already HUGELY higher than I had thought.