I wandered through an expansive unfurnished wing of the office. Who was paying for this? And why? What exactly was a NerdWallet? A woman at the party had tried to explain the company to me, but since she was a newish hire, she didn’t seem quite sure, either.

[...] One described its executive ranks as “treacherous, languishing souls who want to claw as much money as possible” from investors, employees, and clients. Said another, “It’s unclear what the product is.”

This company, an enigma even to its own staff, claimed to have thirty million users, although this was impossible to verify. More interesting, it had just secured “an outsized sum” from one of the Valley’s top VC firms, Institutional Venture Partners. As Reuters reported, NerdWallet raised $64 million in its first fundraising round—“far more cash than it needs”—with a valuation in the “mid-hundred millions.” This was an indication that some big-time players in Silicon Valley hoped NerdWallet would be the next “unicorn”—a company valued at $1 billion or more. By proving its ambition with such a large investment, NerdWallet would be able to attract even more money later, which would further validate its future-unicorn status and hoover up still more money as, if all went according to plan, the company became a household name. Thus were the unicorns of Silicon Valley literally wished into being. It was the most magical thing about them.