Dinocorns and New Ventures

In Gina Neff's Venture Labor she discusses the rise of the dot-com boom as a result of a changing cultural landscape and a re-framing of economic risks as a narrow spectrum of possibility in the era of the Internet.

The Internet and the re-framing of risk inspired a lot of new ventures because people felt that since risk was becoming more individualized anyway, it only made sense for them to pursue ventures that they were 100% invested and in control of.  This ties in as well to Ayn Rand's objectivist philosophy as discussed in the documentary All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace. Rand's philosophy is that everyone deserves to work for themselves and act selfishly to make a profit, and if they do so they will find success.

I believe that this philosophy as well as the framing of risk is what allows new ventures to exist, such as the microchip discussed in the Silicon Valley documentary.  If people were not convinced by the idea that risk creates capital, in addition to the greed for capital, there would likely be fewer new ventures that we now see as essentials.  The idea that risk is needed in order to create capital is also an idea perpetuated by the American Dream and what drives business culture to success.

A contemporary example of new ventures as a result of risks are startup apps such as Snapchat and Evernote.  These startups were extremely successful, earning the title of "unicorn" (a private startup that reaches a $1 billion value).  It is interesting that they were so successful because until they existed there never really seemed to be a need for them, so the risk was great.

What is especially interesting about these startups is that though they were founded approximately only seven years ago, they have earned the title "dino-corns," because of their old age and unchanging status in a constantly evolving market.  In this Mashable Article,  it discusses that these apps may be in trouble, but the public would never know since they are private companies who have no need to divulge such information to the public.

To me, the necessary youthfulness that startup apps require in order to be considered profitable is an additional risk "new venturers" take when they aim to create an app. It seems like a great risk to create a company based on a product that only has staying power of about seven years, and it forces creators to consider other ventures long before it seems their companies should be out of money.


If the embedded link doesn't work you can check it out here:
http://mashable.com/2015/10/19/unicorns-dinocorns-uber-snapchat/#l3gjMr3TJaqr