
The Speed of a Unicorn - ramadis
https://fleximize.com/unicorns/
======
eterm
This list is quite confusing.

What defines "start-up"?

Take go-pro, they're a product company that had huge success with a hit
product. They successfully re-invested to keep that product business
successful and the business grew to 1bn.

Does unicorn just mean non-publically traded company worth > 1bn?

~~~
saganus
This.

How is it that Avast is still a "startup" when it was founded in 1988?

I mean.. they were founded even before the dot com bubble!

Edit: I know there's always a problem when trying to define what is and isn't
a startup...but by all metrics I could think, Avast isn't one of them. I mean,
otherwise we would also need to include the likes of Microsoft, Oracle,
Google, Amazon as other unicorn startups, no?

~~~
anovikov
A unicorn is a company that has reached 1bn valuation while staying private.
So Microsoft, Oracle, Google and Amazon don't qualify (while Google definitely
was one for some time, it's just that the term didn't exist back then). Of
course it also puts PwC and Bechtel in this league...

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rubiquity
Crazy thought: If there's so many billion dollar startups now, maybe we
shouldn't be referring to them as Unicorns anymore? Taking a term that was
used to refer to exceptional businesses and proliferating the use of it makes
me even more weary of VC-run companies than I already am.

~~~
impostervt
We need something for the > $10 billion club. Hippogriffs?

~~~
shalmanese
decacorn.

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seibelj
Does anyone know anybody who has ever ordered something from jet.com? No one
I've asked has ever heard of it, and they did an enormous media blitz in
Boston.

~~~
azylman
I ordered something from jet.com, was a terrible experience, would not
recommend. They apparently decided that my order was fraudulent, cancelled my
order, locked my account, _did not tell me and continued to send me marketing
spam_. I only found out when I emailed them a few weeks later to ask "what
gives?"

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amelius
It would be nice to see the same graph from parallel universes, to determine
which of these companies became unicorns by mere luck.

~~~
jedmeyers
Luck is necessary, but not sufficient condition for becoming a successful
company.

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jbmorgado
It's quite scary to see so many names I've never even heard about before, and
then to see some names that clearly make no sense also there.

Let's face it, for instance, Avast? Seriously who came up with that insane
valuation for a company like Avast?

~~~
js8
AFAIK Avast is betting on monetizing anti-virus usage data.

I wonder why Mojang is not on the list, though.

~~~
x1024
Either "Games aren't real software", "If it's not in the US, we mostly don't
care" or "Real Unicorns take VC and get acquired by Facebook, Microsoft
acquisitions don't count".

Pick your poison.

~~~
debacle
Garena is on the list, and they are in the gaming industry.

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grabcocque
Does nobody seem bothered by the fact that "valuation" is usually bulshytt?

~~~
randomname2
fab.com (included in the list as once having a 1B valuation) was sold in a
$15M fire sale [1], which does make one wonder..

[1] [http://qz.com/300825/how-fab-com-went-from-a-1-billion-
valua...](http://qz.com/300825/how-fab-com-went-from-a-1-billion-valuation-
to-a-15-million-fire-sale/)

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greghendershott
Prior to an IPO or acquisition, valuations have approximately the precision
and accuracy of agile estimates chosen from a drop-down list populated with
values from an echo chamber inhabited by....

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spoiler
At first I thought these were page load times until I read the description.

On topicL I am not from the US, and I've never hear of Jet, but so have none
of 8 randomly selectedfriends from the US.

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dk8996
Very nice work but it seems like some companies are not in the right category.
Like Zenefits is in Fintech category.

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tschellenbach
Building a business is hard. Really respect the achievement of these
companies.

