that “is known as a liquidation preference… And that may be one big reason valuations in Silicon Valley are so disconnected from the public markets… Higher valuations create higher expectations, and failure to meet them can set off adownward spiral… In that event, the venture capitalists are paid first, leaving ‘unicorpses’ in their wake and the founders with nothing… it can simply mean that the newly foaled unicorn has made a Faustian bargain”.
– The Hidden Risk of a Billion-Dollar Valuation in Silicon Valley By Steven Davidoff Solomon. NY Times September 23, 2015.

“The proliferation of unicorns, venture-backed companies valued at over $1 billion, is raising concerns… Software company Palantir, with a $20 billion valuation, is up against established, deep-pocketed tech titans. If this bubble bursts… the damage could spread to the public markets”.
– International Business Times, by Mike Brown. August 20 2015

‘Unicorn’ is the term du jour in Silicon Valley, used to describe a startup with a valuation of more than a billion dollars… But there’s another kind of unicorn… the World Wide Web was a Unicorn, even though it didn’t make Tim Berners-Lee a billionaire… So, what makes a real unicorn?… Michael Schrage wrote… “Successful innovators don’t ask customers and clients to do something different; they ask them to become someone different. Facebook asked its users to become more open and sharing with their personal information, even if they might be less extroverted in real life…” “We’ve Got This Whole Unicorn Thing All Wrong! By Tim O’Reilly, September 25,2015