The Unicorn Explosion: Ammirati on Innovation

The Big Themes:

• Plotted on a bell curve: Some are amazing, and some are terrible – and some are in the middle.
• Stability is not the issue: There’s capital behind these companies that give you the same amount of runway you could expect from any of the other kinds of companies.
• The term unicorn was coined: You needed to raise money at least a billion dollar valuation from one company in your portfolio to make that portfolio be a top performing venture portfolio.
• Microsoft and Nuance: You have the sales, the partnership, and the marketing muscle that a company like Microsoft can provide.

The Big Quotes:

“But the more interesting thing to me was that in the first five months of 2021, there were 187 companies that for the first time raised money at over a billion-dollar valuation.”

“The thing that's more concerning to me is I think there's a lot of reflection we, as an industry, need to do on the right way to create healthy corporate governance among these companies.”

“And I think it's time for CFOs to stop worrying about just doing the logistics.”

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