These Companies Will Produce the Next Great Wave of Entrepreneurs, Survey Says The annual State of Startups survey also reveals bias in tech and optimism for 2019.
By Stephen J. Bronner Edited by Dan Bova
Uber finally seemed to shake its bad reputation last year to become a boring but dependable company, thanks in part to the leadership of CEO Dara Khosrowshahi. That perception has created a lot of optomism around the company, to the point where 23 percent of venture capital-backed founders surveyed by First Round said they believed Uber will be the launching point for the next generation of notable founders. The State of Startups respondents also said employees of Slack (16 percent), Stripe (15 percent) and Airbnb (14 percent) will be the future.
The survey also revealed that 37 percent of founders believed investors are biased against older entrepreneurs, compared to 28 percent who said gender was the biggest bias factor and 26 percent race. In general, a staggering 89 percent of respondents said that older people -- starting at 46 years old -- face age discrimination in the tech industry.
Related: Survey Shows Founders Ignored by VCs Are Succeeding With Equity
The surveyed founders were also optimistic about 2019's IPOs, which may include Uber, Slack and Palantir. They also said they expect the valuations of some of tech's biggest companies to rise, including Stripe, SpaceX, Coinbase, Slack and Airbnb.
For more insights from the survey, click the slides below.
