[Ads-l] on the WOTY watch--"unicorn" and "unicorn poaching"

[ADSGarson O'Toole]

A single horn is now hopelessly passe. The Silicon Valley press
demands ten-horned beasts: decacorns.

Website: TechCrunch
Title: There Is No Silicon Valley Crash Coming -- For A While
Author: John Rampton
Date: August 23, 2015

http://techcrunch.com/2015/08/23/there-is-no-silicon-valley-crash-coming-at-least-for-a-while/

[Begin excerpt]
Additionally, the media points to the emergence of unicorns -- those
companies valued at more than $1 billion, like Slack -- and now the
"decacorns," which are those valued at more than $10 billion, like
Uber (which has been given the illustrious valuation of $50 billion).
[End excerpt]

Garson


On Fri, Aug 21, 2015 at 12:34 PM, Ben Zimmer <bgzimmer at gmail.com> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Ben Zimmer <bgzimmer at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: on the WOTY watch--"unicorn" and "unicorn poaching"
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Fri, Aug 21, 2015 at 12:12 PM, Laurence Horn wrote:
>>
>> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/19/technology/unicorns-hunt-for-talent-among-silicon-valleys-giants.html
>>
>> Ben will probably tell us that they've been around for a while, but I do
>> like trying to guess at what someone (like me) who encountered "unicorn
>> poaching" out of the blue would come up with for a meaning (perhaps
>> the preferred way to prepare unicorns if you're a health-savvy consumer,
>> perhaps with a garlic sriracha dipping sauce).
>
> I covered tech "unicorns" back in March for my WSJ column:
>
> http://www.wsj.com/articles/how-unicorns-became-silicon-valley-companies-1426861606
>
> (Now paywalled, but you can get around that by Googling for the
> headline, "How Unicorns Became Silicon Valley Companies.")
>
> More from me in this Fox Business interview:
>
> http://finance.yahoo.com/video/why-silicon-valley-calling-billion-181328298.html
>
> --bgz
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
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