Unicorns have provided some of the wildest rides of the past
decade. The concepts of ‘rocket fuel’ venture capital funding,
‘hero’ founders, public and private valuations seemingly
decoupled from convention, high-vote founder shares and voting
agreements, a forward-leaning lingo of ‘disruption’, ‘space
race’, ‘massively scalable’ and ‘paradigm shift’ have all been the
hallmarks of a trend whose time has come and, perhaps, is moving
into a new phase. This has been accompanied by some of the
most notable governance trends and events of the fi nancial cycle,
many of them surrounding the question of the proper balance
between founder autonomy and board and shareholder oversight.
This panel will explore some of these themes, including some
predictions of how they may continue to evolve going forward.