I work at a unicorn company... that is technically not a unicorn, and not listed on most of the unicorn lists. For most of these lists the companies considered unicorns are ones that have a valuation of over $1B and it took less then 10 years for the company to get there.<p>The company I work at took... 11 years to get to this valuation, so it's not on the list. It took this long because there were very few investment rounds, as the company has been profitable from year 3 onwards.<p>I am pretty amused at how it's only the valuation that counts to be a unicorn - for example there are some companies who took $300M in investment, are burning really heavy cash, and have the $1B valuation since the last, $200M round. The media covers these companies much more extensively then they have ever covered us, or similar companies who are doing well and just don't take further investment. Just looknig at the financial structure, cash flow and market saturation, there are good unicorns, bad unicors and then the ones in between.<p>Before joining any company, unicorn or not, just do your due diligence. All companies will tell you how insanely much the options will be worth assuming the 50% annual growth the next 5 years, and winning big in the market. But a share or option is only a promise, and it's only as good as the company, the team, the founders - and the economy.