Open Thread: What's the hottest private Silicon Valley company right now?
Folks, we’re working hard on a project today, so while we put our heads down, we want to hear your thoughts about something.
People often ask us which companies we think are hot, i.e, have the highest chance of making them a millionaire, either through a pending sale or an IPO? Key question for job-seekers. Two companies come to mind for us: Facebook, which stole the first-mover advantage on college campuses, and which we heard raised a VC round at a ridiculously high valuation (way into nine digits); and YouTube, which has amazing momentum in the video-hosting space, but which is riskier than Facebook, because of competitors. But don’t let us bias you. This is off the top of our head; indeed, both have failed to make much headway yet in ramping up revenues, so we could be way off.
What do you guys think? Make sure to give a one-liner or so on why. (Feel free to sound off on other things too.)
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About the Author, Matt Marshall
Matt launched VentureBeat in September of 2006, with the realization that no one else was covering the entrepreneurial and tech innovation scene with the velocity or depth that he was. Prior to founding VentureBeat, he covered venture capital for the San Jose Mercury News from 2001 to 2006. In 2002, Matt was awarded "Journalist of the Year" by the Northern California Society of Professional Journalists. Prior to working at the Merc, he was a correspondent for the Wall Street Journal in Bonn, Germany from 1995 to 1998, and a writer for the Washington Post in 1994. Matt holds a PhD in Government and an MA in German and European Studies from Georgetown University. In addition to VentureBeat, Matt is also the Executive Producer of DEMO, the leading launchpad event for emerging technologies.
