Comment by nl

Bullshit.

Salesforce.com (you know? That company that just bought Heroku?) was founded in 1999, went public in 2004 and is currently worth ~$20B.

VMWare were founded in 1998, and is worth ~$37B now.

http://www.renaissancecapital.com/IPOHome/Press/IPOIndustry.... shows there have been 37 tech IPOs in 2010, worth ~$5B

http://www.renaissancecapital.com/IPOHome/Press/IPOPricings.... shows IPOs/year. Obviously not all are tech, but a large number are.

Additionally, we all know that there are many companies which are very successful but are deliberately not going public.