Bleeding Edge

A unicorn, is a startup with a valuation of a billion dollars or more.

Got that?

Valuation.

Not evaluation.

Not an appraisal.

Nothing to do with proper accounting of a company’s value…

Just an arbitrary number dreamed up and drawn in a piece of paper by a posse of self interested VCs and CEOs and their PR whores, that are colluding and are keen to swindle you out of a few quid from your pocket.

Or maybe a billion or two of the monopoly money we call mullah, colloquially known as United States Dollars, promissory notes issued by the Treasury of this Great Country. Of course these dollar bills are not backed by anything since the Nixon shock times, same as the securities they buy with them. It’s all a make believe  system of fun and games. But we digress…. so let’s get back to the Unicorns that so many high networth institutional investors suddenly can’t stop loving.

So we have a whole stable of racing Unicorns that are rearing to go places except they are only allowed to go out before dark lest the sun gives them a sunburn, or upon close examination under the harsh light of day, they are found to be donkeys with a goat horn strapped to their forehead. Still a whole army of otherwise smart and conservative investors have been smitten by these creatures of the night, and have started falling seriously for them. Nothing like a Spring time fling eh?

And then along come the pathetic media types that love the hype and start aping the insane dollar figures the investors paid for these girlfriend shares — and they hype it even more ad infinitum, or until it makes you sick to hear of it. But like the jingle bells at Christmas time this becomes a mantra, the people accept it, and the Valuation sticks.

This is how you grow a unicorn: Get somebody who is a greater fool than you, to buy even One Share, at some exorbitant and extraterrestrial price valuation and hoopty-do — your company’s Unicorn status has now been set in stone. Or so the story goes. Except there is risk… of discovery and people recovering their lost sense of proportion. Gravity and sobriety take effect and the unicorns are slayed.

But let’s fix on the successful (horned donkeys) ahem … Unicorns, that now comprise a rather poor showing, because the new gold standard is the decacorn — and that is what we call a startup company with a $10 billion valuation and above.

Naturally then we also have the Twentycorns — that is companies with a valuation hovering around twenty billion USD and up.

And at the level of Uber we have a full stag with a compliment of horn tips to be a full on Scottish antler head, that can give a horn rim job even to the Saudi sovereign fund managers that went out of their way to throw 3.5 billion dollars down the drain or rather down the Uber company’s drain in one swift tranche.

Would we call that a FiftyCorn? or a Canadian Moosehead? Haven’t decided yet, but wait because am thinking hard about it. The operative word here is “hard.” And am sure to let you know when I stop drinking and driving while I dictate this little piece to my lovely and promiscuous uber-chested blonde and frisky assistant named Betsy.

So maybe the Saudi Prince of Wealth Distribution should decide to redistribute the Kingdom’s wealth by giving it all up to Uber. And then he can join Lix Lizzie as a streetwalker in the Boulevard of broken dreams. Or is that what Sunset Boulevard is really called?

Now please tell me this:  What could go wrong with that?

Nothing.

By the way — Do you want a ride with a Somali Uber driver to go with that investment?

Still methinks, that we must teach those desert dwellers along with the assorted camel jockeys proper finance. Cause that’s a far better investment than having to fight their wars for them every time they misplace a few billion mullah.

Let’s start with the Basics.

Lesson Number One: Having a lot of money laying around in petrodollar accounts in the Citi holding pens is not a smart thing.

Lesson Number Two: But having your billions of mullah inside the coffers of Uber at the beck & claws of Kalanick et company — is smarter. Or it’s even stupider. I’ll leave it up to you to decide.

Got that?

So here it goes: The God Awful Truth. Allah the great, Peace be upon him. The One and only… and his seven pillars of wisdom taught me the Art of Intelligence and Thrift.

So am falling on the camp of the ones who say that giving your mullah to Travis boy is an even Stupider financial decision than when you gave your money to the blonde Lizzie sex goddess. And it is even stupider camel riding exercise, mainly because when – not if – things go south and the company loses significant parts of its valuation, the unicorn would turn into a “unicorpse” before you can say Allahu Akbar. And therefore here comes me that I want to offer this bit of advise as a Public Service Announcement to my Saudi Finance and Commercial friends, and to Prince Mohammed because I must warn you that this particular type of camel, can’t “hunt.” And it cannot do the other thing you like to do with camels either.

Of course at $ 62,5 Billion valuation we can get a bunch of hunting hawks to lift the camel up to the sky if you want and then we can hunt all day from up above, but as it stands this dog can’t hunt.

But keep at it because am waiting for the day that this special Uber vehicle made up of Somali  terrorist drivers, gets to the uber valuation of 69 Billion so I can officially christen it the “SixtyNineCorn” company. I will trademark this so don’t go stealing it… but you can use it with proper Creative Commons attribution and due reference to my esteemed authorship.

Open Source this, baby…

Now back to my Saudi friends and specifically Prince Mohammed, in order to dispense with my sage advise and to attempt to save the dear clueless prince from himself:

“Dear Mohammed, Do You remember your other investment in another high flying Startup callled Theranos that was led by a beautiful little hottie, the boobsie blonde, aptly named Lizzie? Or Elizabeth to you. Remember her? ”

Yep, that Elizabeth…

Now her company Theranos, has officially been renamed a Unicorpse and her net worth reconfigured downwards to zero, by none other than Forbes “The Capitalist Tool” magazine. The people at Forbes Magazine, really call themselves that: “Capitalist Tool” as they should be since up until now they were signing her praises and after examining her patents they had found her to be a prodigy. A genius. A once in a Life time Entrepreneur. And their Forbes fawning articles enabled Elizabeth to snag upwards of half a Billion in cash from your unsuspecting and fairly clueless finance types managing other people’s money with the Capitalist Tool as a wayfinder.

That’s how a vampire can draw blood out of you. A pinprick at a time. Bleed you to death… with a billion pin pricks. What’s a prick?

Holmes and Theranos are no longer famous for showing the world what a young woman with a dream can do. They’re both now infamous for trashing half a Billion in cash and having nothing to show for it. Now that’s an example of the havoc that a manipulative, yuppie, white privileged woman can wreak. She can walk and talk and can fvck you out of your wallet at the same time. Let’s give her a Nobel Prize in Medicine. That or maybe a street corner on Sunset Boulevard. Up to you to decide…

Forbes wants to give her both. A few months ago the Nobel, and now the street corner hawking her charms. Both wonderful things albeit not at the same time. Well Done Capitalist Tool. Now you found religion? A bit late, don’t you think?

I am not making it up.  The old gay Malcolm Forbes dude, had a chuckle every time he would call his magazine the “Tool” but am afraid the current Malcolm is too “stiff” for humor of this kind. Still his parties in the old Tangiers palace of his, were legendary and I can’t even remember whatever happened to me there, or what kinds of fun we all had. Best that way…

Still last time I saw him and asked him how the “Tool” is doing — he didn’t get the joke and told me that they’ve gone PC now and please don’t talk like that. That Malcolm junior also run for President and he was so terribly stiff that even his campaign manger quit because of the deep setting in of incurable boredom.

Yet the junior Malcolm persisted in giving us healthy financial advise in between bouts of driving his magazine to bankruptcy and acquisition by Hong Kong shysters… and now he is back in court for defrauding his investors. What a tool…

But he is not alone. From WSJ to Washington Post and the New York Times, the same publications that loved Theranos and lying Lizzie just a few months ago,are now trying to bring her down. Outlets that called Holmes “the next Steve Jobs” are now claiming that she’s the face of deceit and excess.

Am fairly certain that his daddy would be now rolling in his grave floor laughing along with his male lover and having a legendary party like in the good Morocco days of yore… at the expense of the hapless Junior.

What a tool…

Yours,

Not the Dr Pano Churchill — Just his Anger Management Consultant — Call me Mr XL Biggie & Ultra Green FigLeaf

PS:

As for the Saudi camel riding finance tools — they are uber fools to invest in Uber this much mullah, and not on Elizabeth Holmes new sex tape that is getting produced at present moment, under the auspices of the Gawker Media, without adult supervision, and with plenty of market penetration — so that it will raise a few billion dollars, to come into  the market via old reliable WallGreens.

I hear that’s gonna be Yuuuuge.

So my dearest ragheaded camel jockeys, please after you pray the requisite fifty times per day facing East, please ask your Mulah where to put your mullah, before you jump with both feet into the ride of your life inside an Uber driven by a friendly Somali driver that speaks No English and he will take you to the airport via a fortifying stop at his greengrocer for some fresh ganza, and a side trip to Disneyland…

Then again you might also want to see the sex tape Minnie Mouse is working on, and you can invest in that one too. We’ll make you a deal, A twofer of sex tapes for one small price of three Billion dollars. That should tie her over till Christmas because Lizzie is a woman of substance and she can walk and talk at the same time and do the nasty as we speak too…

So, to conclude — my friend Prince Mohammed, Salam Alecum, Peace be upon You, and I wish you continued Good Luck with your forays into the Startup world. And from time to time, please let me know How’s that working for You because we’ve got more where that’s coming from…

Dog juice from heaven drip by sweet drip.

PC:

And for my PC friends out there, I offer a friendly reminder that the word ragheaded means no disparagement to our otherwise beautifully attired Saudi oil potentates and assorted princes of Finance. It is just the best way to describe the method of protection that works best against the merciless sun of the Sahara desert where they habitually dwell as they prefer to consort with camels.

Therefore be assured that am not interested in insulting those wise and willy Bedouin people. Just the tools that masquerade as their Chiefs and their Financial officers that pretend to manage their wealth into submission, like they do with their women, their camels and their goats, and not necessarily in that order.

And if any of you gets all PC on me and starts complaining — please stop before I start telling you what they really do with their camels, and why they name them with female names regardless of the big beast’s sexual orientation.

That’s another something the old Capitalist Tool Malcolm, would have known a thing or two about — but he ain’t talking.

And if any of you remain still not offended — please stay put in your PC soft & woollie whole body hoodie pajamas and stay stewing quietly in your own fumes, while I go prepare another missive that will be sure to offend you personally. Meanwhile go smoke a doobie and chill out with a bag of chips because you might have to wait a while since I do have another far more respectable job than writing silly little missives to the likes of you.

Capice?

So I have to bid you Adios now and make my way to my crib…

So long Amigos, and hope some day you get to make your own sex tape and become just as famous as Kim Kardashian and her friend The Donald.

Ohhhh, You haven’t seen that tape yet? You will soon. She’ll be his running mate too.

Bottoms up, Cheers, Skoll, Nastrovia, and Besalamati… and hope your glass is always full with some single malt scotch, and not some gay foofoo drink all blended and smelly of smoked wood, or perfume, or lace, and tinder action.

But for me Grinder is where the action is, cause I hear that this Grinder startup is a really hot Unicorn with some steamy action to boot too.

So…

Suck it up Bros.

You too bitches.