With all the “year end roundup” stuff happening, I got an email from TechCrunch mentioning their Unicorn Leaderboard, which I had never visited before. As you might guess, it is a compilation of all the funded private companies which ostensibly are worth more than a billion bucks. The sum total is at the top, showing the not-quite-plausible $2 trillion valuation of all these outfits, almost none of which I’ve ever heard of.
At the very top is ANT Financial (umm – – who?) with a $150 billion valuation, which makes it one of the biggest corporations on the planet. I consider myself decently well-read, but I seriously have no clue who any of these top three firms are.
Looking farther down the list, I start to recognize some names, but I really have to question these valuations. JUUL, for instance, has been absolutely pilloried all year, as cities all over the country ban vape sales and vaping in general. And that is their only product. On top of which, God knows how many civil lawsuits are going to be aimed at this company.
Then there is Magic Leap, a firm which I should probably dedicate an entire post before long. This is truly the Duke Nukem of the tech world. They have $2.6 billion in funding and, to my knowledge, still haven’t sold a single product to a consumer.
And………..do I even have to add anything here?
To which I grandly conclude: two trillion dollars my ass.
