Unicorns and Uber
In November, 2013, Aileen Lee coined the term “Unicorn” to describe a certain type of company: “U.S.-based software companies started since 2003 and valued at over $1 billion by public or private market investors.” By that definition, Lee called Facebook the super-Unicorn! Today, just a year and a half after the term was coined, Fortune says we live in the “Age of the Unicorns” ! And the top companies on that list aren’t even all American anymore: Xiaomi, the Chinese smartphone manufacturer, tops the list and India’s Flipkart is number 7 with a valuation of $11 billion. At number 2 on the list is Uber ($41 billion), the ride sharing company that was in the news when one of its drivers raped a passenger in Delhi. What does “ride sharing” even mean? Here’s what it means: 1) When someone wants to go somewhere, they ask for a ride via the Uber app on their phone; 2) Uber finds a driver (someone who installed t...