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.” This episode is brought to you by BMC Software.