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Scale Ruins Everything

(coldwaters.substack.com)
175 points drc500free | 5 comments | | HN request time: 0.503s | source
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daxfohl ◴[] No.41841448[source]
Given that we've been throwing cash at every conceivable idea for the last ten plus years, yet when speaking of unicorns we still have to refer back to airbnb and uber, seems like we're well past "peak unicorn" and well into the "horse with a mild concussion" era.
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1. MichaelZuo ◴[] No.41842899[source]
That’s a pretty good point.

Are there any, at least somewhat credible, unicorns that have appeared over the last 5 years?

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2. al_borland ◴[] No.41843106[source]
Does OpenAI count? Founded 8 years ago, but have completely blown up in the last couple years.
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3. MichaelZuo ◴[] No.41843269[source]
Ehh that’s pretty iffy, since I think they were already worth more than a billion dollars well before Oct. 2019…
4. reissbaker ◴[] No.41848011[source]
Zepto is the largest grocery delivery service in India and was YC Winter 2021, and currently is valued at $5B.

Realistically people were making these kinds of points back in 2015, and now a large percentage of the lists of unicorns were from somewhere around 2015. It just takes time for most of these companies to become well-known unicorns. The last five years is always the worst five years, until you wait another five years and in hindsight consider it a golden era.

Edit: although I do think that the couple years of high interest rates will slow the growth of startups from this era, since it has a meaningful impact on how much cash VCs can spend. The AI boom at the tail end of high interest rates will probably cover a bit of that though; OpenAI is the first runaway success but I'm pretty sure it's not going to be the last.

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5. MichaelZuo ◴[] No.41848716[source]
Thanks, that does seem like a bonafide ‘unicorn’ by any metric.