THE NEWS WRAP: Dinosaurs will get their “ass kicked” by unicorns, says 500 Startups founder Dave McClure

Entrepreneur, investor and 500 Startups founder Dave McClure says while it’s likely many startup ‘unicorns’ are overvalued, few realise that the valuations of public companies might also be too high.

“Unless they innovate more rapidly (or acquire their internet peers), expect most S&P 500 Dinosaurs to be disrupted and destroyed by an endless march of VC-funded Unicorns that will bash their tiny little reptile brains in with software and internet marketing,” McClure says in a piece published on Medium.

“…the average public company P/E ration of 15-20 means Mr Market assumes Dinosaur Company X is going to have 15-20 years of continued cash and profits from business as usual. EXCEPT THIS ASSUMPTION IS VERY FUCKING WRONG – DINOSAUR COMPANY X IS GONNA GET ITS ASS KICKED BY A GODDAM UNICORN IN UNDER A DECADE.”

Apple Watch pre-orders in US likely to be about 1 million on first day

According to pre-order projections from Slice Intelligence, Apple received almost one million pre-orders on its first day of accepting orders for the Apple Watch, Quartz reports.

The projections, based on receipts from 9080 online shoppers, found almost two thirds of pre-orders were for the cheaper aluminium Sport Line, while the other third was for the stainless-steel Apple Watch collection. Unsurprisingly there were not enough orders of the $10,000 gold Edition series to appear in Slice Intelligence’s data.

LinkedIn launches Elevate

Social networking giant LinkedIn has launched Elevate, a new paid mobile and desktop app that suggests articles to its users, and then lets users schedule shares across LinkedIn and Twitter.

The app is being launched in a closed, paid pilot program, but the company plans to release it generally in the third quarter of this year.

Overnight

The Dow Jones Industrial Average is down 80.61 to 17,977.04. The Australian Dollar is currently trading at US76 cents.

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