Fast Company™: Lessons from Silicon Valley's Biggest Mistakes from 2016
Failure as Teacher, even for Unicorns
One of the game changing principles of success is the value of failure as teacher. If you can learn from others’ mistakes, you can save yourself a lot of heartache.
Investopedia defines a Unicorn as any tech startup company that reaches a $1 billion dollar market value as determined by private or public investment, often without a track record. The term was first popularized by the venture capitalist Aileen Lee, founder of CowboyVC, a seed stage venture capital fund based in Palo Alto, California. In her article, “Welcome To The Unicorn Club: Learning From Billion-Dollar Startups,” she looked at software startups founded in the 2000s and estimated that only .07% of them ever reach $1 billion valuation. Those that do reach the $1 billion mark are so rare that finding one is as difficult as finding a unicorn.
Ruth Reader is a Brooklyn based writer for Fast Company that covers startups, company culture, and financial technology. She wrote this article for her publication that provides excellent learning from failure of some of the world’s most famous unicorns in Silicon Valley.
Click HERE to read her article.
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