Why a lot of startups will come to regret their unicorn status

IN JULY 2006 Yahoo, a faded internet giant, offered to buy Facebook, then a fledgling, for $1bn. Billion-dollar offers for startups were then quite rare. “I thought we should at least consider it,” recalls Peter Thiel, an early Facebook backer, in his book, “Zero to One”. The initial reaction of Mark Zuckerberg, its founder, was firmly to say no. “This is just a formality,” he told his board. “We’re obviously not going to sell here.”