[Ads-l] unicorn, dead unicorn

[ADSGarson O'Toole]

Website: Fortune
Article title: Bill Gurley predicts 'dead unicorns' in startup-land this year
Article author: Erin Griffith
Date: March 15, 2015

http://fortune.com/2015/03/15/bill-gurley-predicts-dead-unicorns-in-startup-land-this-year/

[Begin excerpt]
"There is no fear in Silicon Valley right now," he said. "A complete
absence of fear." He added that more people are employed by
money-losing companies in Silicon Valley than ever before.

Will there be a crash? "I do think you'll see some dead unicorns this
year," he said, using the term used to describe startups with
valuations higher than $1 billion. (For more on startup unicorns and
Bill Gurley, see Fortune's February 2015 cover story, "The Age of
Unicorns.")
[End excerpt]


Word Spy: unicorn
http://www.wordspy.com/index.php?word=unicorn
[Begin excerpt]
2013 (earliest)
We found 39 companies belong to what we call the "Unicorn Club" (by
our definition, U.S.-based software companies started since 2003 and
valued at over $1 billion by public or private market investors). ...

On average, four unicorns were born per year in the past decade, with
Facebook being the breakout "super-unicorn" (worth >$100 billion).
--Aileen Lee, "Welcome to the Unicorn Club: Learning From
Billion-Dollar Startups," TechCrunch, November 2, 2013
[End excerpt]

Garson

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