If you take that page and apply one simple filter, that is which of these are actually profitable standalone businesses as of 2026, the list collapses fast. And only a small minority, Stripe, Airbnb, Dropbox, maybe Uber after 13 years...are slightly profitable. Many others were acquired early, remain VC subsidized, or are open source projects.

This list does not show HN is bad at predicting outcomes, it shows how strong survivorship bias can be, when only remembering the rare successes.

Remember the founders of Google, tried to sell their business for one 1 million dollars, even discounting at a point to 750k... and still had no takers...