Unicorn Jobs

Question #4: are you a virgin? According to Wikipedia, "In the Middle Ages and Renaissance, [the unicorn] was commonly described as an extremely wild woodland creature, a symbol of purity and grace, which could only be captured by a virgin."

Now that explains why I can't get a unicorn job!

In a more serious note, while it's a well written article, it has a very narrow scope, since you can really say the same stuff about almost every aspect in life.

Not only there are no unicorn jobs, there no unicorn hobby projects either. You can every easily feel "trapped" and tired from your own hobby project.

Oh wait! There are no unicorn relationships either! And there are no... well you get the idea.

The reason is simple of course; everything "unicorn" assumes that a certain something (you, your projects goals, the market, etc) stays the same, while the whole world around you is constantly changing and evolving.

There are unicorns. And you can catch them.

I was lucky to start a small startup which functioned like a 'unicorn' job. It allowed me to work exactly on what I was interested in for 4 years, while making more money than I had been. The only drawback was the amount of time managing advertising.

So, don't leave out 'start a business!'. Surprised to not see that possibility mentioned in the article... This is HN, after all. You don't need an employer to have a job.

He currently works at Dropbox, and it looks like he took his 50% deal with him: "In January 2013 I joined Dropbox. I work on various Dropbox products and have 50% for my Python work, no strings attached" [1]

[1] http://www.python.org/~guido/