The Unicorn Explosion: Ammirati on Innovation

<p>The Big Themes:</p><ul><li><strong>Plotted on a bell curve:</strong> Some are amazing, and some are terrible – and some are in the middle.</li><li><strong>Stability is not the issue:</strong> 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.</li><li><strong>The term unicorn was coined:</strong> 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.</li><li><strong>Microsoft and Nuance:</strong> You have the sales, the partnership, and the marketing muscle that a company like Microsoft can provide.</li></ul><p> </p><p>The Big Quotes:</p><p>“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.”</p><p> </p><p>“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.”</p><p> </p><p>“And I think it's time for CFOs to stop worrying about just doing the logistics.”</p><p> </p><p>This episode is brought to you by BMC Software.</p>