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Comment by jacquesm | Hacker News Reader

Why do you like it? Do you enjoy the misery of others?

Start-ups fail, they did so in the past, they will do so in the future and giving those failures cutesy names to make fun of them is a pretty nasty thing to do. Behind every start-up that fails (ok, almost every) are people working their asses off to try to make a success and in some (again, not all) cases to make a difference.

The number of things they have to get right is pretty vast and all it takes is for one of those 'and' gates not to fire or to fire at the wrong moment and all that work was for nothing.

Most start-ups are pretty realistic about their chances of success and to exhibit glee at the prospect of failure of others is a negative trait. Suggestion: instead of standing by the wayside and making fun of those that try, try it yourself, give your best idea your best shot and see how that works out. And if you fail, I'll give you props for trying anyway.

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I appreciate this sentiment but if companies want to be regarded as unicorns when things are going well, it seems fair to give them a cute'sy but ridiculous name, unicorpse, when they're on their way down.

Many startups actively seek out the unicorn label as it helps them with getting press, recruiting employees, etc. Being a unicorn is shorthand to folks that this company might be big and successful. Unicorpse is shorthand for this company is dying. That seems fair.

You said it perfectly.

Allow me to address the larger, hurt feelings behind this post, with a reminder of the difference between a cult and a religion:

> If, on appropriate occasions, the members tell, enjoy, trade, and/or devise transgressively funny jokes about their denomination, it’s a church.

> If such jokes reliably meet with stifling social disapproval, it’s a cult. [1]

The phrase "Cult of growth" comes to mind. While I don't know if it actually exists ( ask PG? ), I do believe that the way communities censor humor can shine a light on their insecurities. As in, the community may be actively avoiding an uncomfortable truth by stamping out the slightest whiff of satire.

Not always, of course. Sometimes, the community wishes to remove "kidding in the square" or other insidious sleight-of-mind tricks from their discourse.

For me, restricting the band of humor is fine if it arises from a thoughtful & honest discussion, as opposed to knee-jerk emotion. The more the latter happens, the more insecure the community perhaps (and vica versa).

In any case, I'm glad to know that most people here don't seem to be flipping out over a fun neologism.

[1] http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/006152.html#00... (originally seen at http://www.fluff.info/blog/arch/00000127.htm)

That's not a bad rule of thumb. People who invoke it usually miss the detail that it's the members who need to be able to tell jokes, not outsiders. People will say feminism is a cult under this rule when a feminist suggests that people without firsthand experience shouldn't joke about certain topics.

The same issue comes up with racism. Activists will complain about race jokes being made by white people, with exactly the same characterization: "[black lives matter/brainwashed university liberals are] actively avoiding an uncomfortable truth by stamping out the slightest whiff of satire!"

But of course they are making satirical remarks constantly within their ranks. It's satire from the outside that loses it's protection because from the outside it is just a pattern of abuse. Only from within is it the necessary ingredient for healthy discourse you describe.

And of course I don't mean outside/inside to be white/black or man/woman. It's just the distinction of whether you're coming from within the movement or without. It's not hard to make jokes about feminists if you're coming from within that intellectual tradition, even if you're a man.

> Many startups actively seek out the unicorn label

Such as?

Possibly all of them given its arguably a rational thing to do. If you look at a list of unicorns, you will see a huge glut of them are valued at precisely 1B.

People say that this is not chance that so many different businesses happen to be worth the same but that they have accepted punitive terms to stretch their valuation to 1B because the press advantages are worth the cost. This effect will also have applied to all the companies now valued above 1B because they played the same game when they were <1B and "reached" to get the label.

We maintain a real-time list of unicorns and regularly have companies reach out requesting to be added.

They're interested enough that they provide paperwork to prove the valuation when we are unable to independently verify.

https://www.cbinsights.com/research-unicorn-companies

> Do you enjoy the misery of others?

That seems like a pretty loaded question.

You have attributed malice to something that may have been an understanding. Liking how a potential buzzword sounds shouldn't (in my opinion) be equated to enjoying the misery of others.

"Unicorpse" is a fun word (in my opinion). Although it might be offensive, it is also fun to say. I don't think the user was showing "glee at the prospect of failure of others" as much as he or she was commenting on how fun it is to say.

> "Unicorpse" is a fun word (in my opinion). Although it might be offensive, it is also fun to say. I don't think the user was showing "glee at the prospect of failure of others" as much as he or she was commenting on how fun it is to say.

Correct.

It's not loaded, the GGP has the following passage:

"hopefully it becomes out go-to word to describe the upcoming batch of startup failures"

It smacks of 'schadenfreude' (for which there is an English term but I can't remember it).

Everyone enjoys seeing someone else get their comeuppance (which may or may not be the word you were looking for). Is that something to be proud of? Certainly not, but neither should it be particularly shocking.

If you wanna wage a campaign against this, then you might as well start with the term "unicorn", which is itself subtly mocking; after all, unicorns aren't rare: they are non-existent. The root term implies the same thing that bothers you about the derived -corpse: these valuations are irrational, and a reckoning will be had.

That's something else entirely, it does not point at all start-ups. Anyway, I disagree with the 'unicorn' bullshit as much as anybody else, the whole idea that some start-ups are 'special' before they've actually reached the cashflow positive state is a troublesome development. The cycle of hype definitely could use some pushback but to label failed start-ups with a thinly veiled form of name-calling is imho not fair.

We'll make an exception for those start-ups that call themselves unicorns.

> It smacks of 'schadenfreude' (for which there is an English term but I can't remember it).

"Comeuppance," maybe? I don't take pleasure in the misery of others in general, but when smarmy hucksters are brought low, I can't help but feel a little twinge of satisfaction. It feels a bit like justice...

We have understood the same sentence in two different ways.

Such is the beauty of language, and the absurdity of communicating through it.

Suggestion: instead of standing by the wayside and making fun of those that try, try it yourself

Musicians will still be telling rock critics to try making their own music when the sun burns out, but it won't be a valid complaint, even then.

>Start-ups fail

I see everyone else disagreeing with your points regarding the use of the word "unicorpse". To me, however, that's not the most interesting part of your post. The most interesting part of your post is the implication that Living Social is a start-up. According to the article, at its peak, Living Social had 4,500 employees (more than Twitter has right now!). If Living Social is a "start-up", then so are Facebook, Google, and heck, even Microsoft.

>The number of things they have to get right is pretty vast and all it takes is for one of those 'and' gates not to fire or to fire at the wrong moment and all that work was for nothing.

I find that statement to be disingenuous for this example. Living Social wasn't brought down by "bad luck". They grew too fast without having a clear road to profitability (something that they themselves admit in the article) and now they're paying the price for their poor decisionmaking in the past. The troubles they're running into are of their own making, and the schadenfreude they're getting is reflective of that.

I think many of us are worried and/or not happy that poor decisions at some large unicorns may reflect on or tar the whole sector.

They appear to have vaporized .9 billion dollars!

>Why do you like it?

Because everyone knows real unicorns have an aura of otherworldly beauty and carry an innate magic that shields them from all but the most innocent of maidens.

So the term "unicorn" completely fails to match "overvalued Silicon Valley company".

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