Working for a startup is sort of depressing these days, and one essay writer described the change perfectly
But 2016 has become the year of the "unicorpse."
Many unprofitable, once high-flying startups are having their come-to-Jesus moments: they may have problematic products, can't easily raise more VC money, no one wants to buy them, and no one is interested in their IPOs.
And their employees, who were once proud, company-T-shirt-wearing loyalists, are starting to wake up and feel a sense of quiet desperation.
The poster children startups for the unicorpse era: blood-testing startup Theranos, which is now under criminal investigation; fintech startup Powa Technologies, which declared bankruptcy; and Zenefits, whose CEO resigned amidst a regulatory scandal and layoffs followed.
But all of Silicon Valley is feeling the pall because VC money is tighter. A few days ago, venture investor Bill Gurley wrote a detailed explanation of why the unicorn situation "just became dangerous ... for all involved" in the startup world.
People are reading a new book by Dan Lyons, a writer for the HBO Show "Silicon Valley," that exposes his experience in the over-the-top startup world, called "Disrupted: My misadventure in the startup bubble."
And now everyone in the Valley is reading a post called "Uncanny Valley" by writer Anna Wiener for N+1, which portends to be a first-person account of life at a dying startup.
It begins (emphasis ours):
And it offers other jewels like:
... and like this:
... and this:
And people are talking about it: