“We are looking for the best and brightest talent to join our unicorn hunt. Our compensation package is north of 6 figures and we offer the standard start-up percs of free pizza, gym, air hockeym ping pong etc.” Other offers to the starting engineer read “A career with our firm as a manufacturing engineer starts with an unpaid internship. Those people who progress (read survive) to the point where they have senior talent can look forward to a $50,000 salary with unlimited overtime.” Mind you, unicorn hunting is not easy. It requires that you are flawless in writing the latest code. can pivot on a dime when you hit a dead end, and can spot a path where others cannot see one. Surprisingly a tiny number of engineers pick option B. I suspect they are the ones who do not understand financial profit. The legacy companies continue to follow their stodgy path because they choose not to acquire the top flight talent needed to grow. The employees in those firms become mired in a system of layoffs, pay cuts, cost cutting, reorganization etc.
Gold rushes are not a new phenomenon. The first prospectors who worked the California gold fields in 1849 could earn 10 to 15 times what east coast wage earners made at the time. This level of financial incentive motivates many people. Unicorn hunters are in the same category. The success of the original “Facebook” entrepreneurs launched many copycats. Just as the late arrivals to the California gold fields discovered, the big financial success is enjoyed by the pioneers. Currently there are about eight million apps offered for sale. Fewer than three percent of those apps had enough sales to recover the $100,000 investment needed to create the app. This herd mentality sets the stage for the next gold rush. The big salaries funded by venture capitalist have siphoned away the engineering talent that normal companies need to survive. A persistent talent vacuum sets the stage for a big disruption in unexpected sectors.
Napoleon Hill in his book “Acres of Diamonds” did a great job of explaining how this happens. In his book a farmer sells his land to search the world for diamonds. He returns 20 years later to discover that his land is now a diamond mine. Similar stories will be told about today’s unicorn hunters. After a string of unicorn hunts in regions where all of the unicorns have been harvested, searchers will return to discover that the best opportunities are in places that have not been trampled by the herd.