<div dir="ltr">Born and raised in Stockholm I too read that article on the startup 'mystery' here, on the "why does healthy and wealthy people innovate?" theme, as per usual. (A: they do not spend their time looking for food and clean water for a start.)<div><br></div><div>About the unicorn, it's been a 4chan meme since at least six years, denoting an act of the (even to /b/) completely unexpected. Usually it is apologizing, or admitting someone else is more intelligent. Yes, 4chan invented trolling too. ;)</div><div>M.</div><div><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, Apr 8, 2015 at 7:13 PM Marc Weber <<a href="mailto:marc@webhistory.org">marc@webhistory.org</a>> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div style="word-wrap:break-word">Don’t forget that we have trolls too….<div></div></div><div style="word-wrap:break-word"><div><br><div><blockquote type="cite"><div>On Apr 8, 2015, at 09:39, Henry Lowood <<a href="mailto:lowood@stanford.edu" target="_blank">lowood@stanford.edu</a>> wrote:</div><br><div>
<div bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000">
Tom,<br>
Quick response from the Valley: From what I have read and heard, the
"unicorn company" concept is mostly attributed to TechCrunch. I
believe the article you cited was the unveiling of the term, but
TechCrunch has put out a series of posts and articles since then.<br>
And there are dragons, too:<br>
<a href="http://techcrunch.com/2014/12/14/unicorns-vs-dragons/" target="_blank">http://techcrunch.com/2014/12/14/unicorns-vs-dragons/</a><br>
This one ends, "All things being equal, I would rather back a dragon
than a unicorn." <br>
Henry<br>
<br>
<div>On 4/7/2015 9:23 PM, Thomas Haigh
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite">
<div><p class="MsoNormal">Dear SIGCIS,<u></u><u></u></p><p class="MsoNormal"><u></u> <u></u></p><p class="MsoNormal">To raise a question that may or may not
turn out to have an explanation within our domain of
expertise, I’ve been struck recently by frequent references to
“unicorns” in the business press. This crystalized over
breakfast last week when I noticed an article “Stockholm: The
Unicorn Factory” in my usually reserved Financial Times. <u></u><u></u></p><p class="MsoNormal"><u></u> <u></u></p><p class="MsoNormal">Apparently the consensus definition of a
“unicorn” in this context is a newish company worth more than
$1 billion. Stockholm has more per capita than anywhere but
Silicon Valley. A total output of five sounds more like an
atelier than a factory, and unicorns probably come from
unicorn farms rather than assembly lines, but that’s not
really the point.<u></u><u></u></p><p class="MsoNormal"><u></u> <u></u></p><p class="MsoNormal">The point is: unicorns are not just
vanishingly rare. They’re mythical. Until recently, if someone
told me I was pursuing a unicorn I’d have assumed they meant I
was wasting my time. So where does the metaphor come from?
Something that’s very rare but very valuable might be worth
pursuing. Something that is flat-out imaginary seems a bad
goal for investment dollars or public policy. <u></u><u></u></p><p class="MsoNormal"><u></u> <u></u></p><p class="MsoNormal">Is this something to do with the popularity
of fantasy literature in the tech field? Did it start as some
kind of joke and get out of hand? A quick Google search
suggests that it was popularized with <a href="http://techcrunch.com/2013/11/02/welcome-to-the-unicorn-club/" target="_blank">http://techcrunch.com/2013/11/02/welcome-to-the-unicorn-club/</a>,
which offers no particular justification for the term beyond
“to us, it means something extremely rare, and magical.”<u></u><u></u></p><p class="MsoNormal"><u></u> <u></u></p><p class="MsoNormal">Tom <u></u><u></u></p><p class="MsoNormal"><u></u> <u></u></p><p class="MsoNormal"><u></u> <u></u></p>
</div>
<br>
<fieldset></fieldset>
<br>
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</blockquote>
<br>
<pre cols="72">--
Henry Lowood
Curator for History of Science & Technology Collections;
Film & Media Collections
HSSG, Green Library, 557 Escondido Mall
Stanford University Libraries, Stanford CA 94305-6004
650-723-4602; <a href="mailto:lowood@stanford.edu" target="_blank">lowood@stanford.edu</a>; <a href="http://www.stanford.edu/~lowood" target="_blank">http://www.stanford.edu/~lowood</a>
</pre>
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