Description
Book SynopsisA Globe and Mail Top 100 Selection
Longlisted, National Business Book Award
A CBC New Brunswick Book List Selection
As tech investors the world over search for elusive unicorns (start-ups valued at over $1 billion), acclaimed business journalist Gordon Pitts asks whether there can be a place for high-tech innovation and unicorn-like value creation outside of major urban centres, whether in Atlantic Canada, rust-belt New York, or Northern Ontario.
Journeying back to the origins of Radian6 and Q1 Labs — two New Brunswick companies that sold for a combined $1 billion — in the basements and offices of a group of geeks and dreamers, Pitts tells a story of two remarkable companies and the legacies that continue to this day. But theirs was not a simple tale of overnight success; there were sellouts and firings, comebacks and vindication, and still unfulfilled promise.
This is a story of high-tech value creation far from Silicon Valley, a story of the mythical unicorn in the woods. Are the stories of Radian6 and Q1 Labs outliers, rogue datapoints that should be discarded, or the foundation for a new knowledge economy outside of the mainstream?
Trade Review"You can’t beat Gordon Pitts. No guff, straight-up, Pitts always gets to the guts of things and keeps the story moving.
Unicorn in the Woods is an engrossing read for anyone interested in the future of Canadian innovation and the promise of a new age of prosperity for a part of the country looking to write a proud new chapter in its economic history." -- Howard Green, author of
Railroader and founding anchor, Business News Network
"From deals and development to the biographies of their creators,
Unicorn in the Woods presents a series of events that educate readers not just about business development, but the kinds of relationships and vision that lead to extraordinary results." *
Midwest Book Review *
