Unicorns are going extinct. In 2015 there were 124 new unicorns. In the last 3 years? Barely 17.

At the same time, trillions of dollars have been poured into AI, sold as the golden age of innovation. But here’s the paradox: if AI is so transformative, why are unicorns disappearing?

In this episode of The Forge of Unicorns, Michele Brissoni sits down with Paul O’Brien — Startup Economist, venture capitalist, and founder of MediaTech Ventures — to expose why accelerators are failing, how capital allocation is broken, and why venture studios are the future of predictable, software-driven success.

Paul pulls no punches:

“Most accelerators haven’t delivered results. When they present themselves as engines of entrepreneurship, founders are more likely to fail. And that’s what’s been happening.”

We explore how AI is sucking capital into a “black hole,” why cookie-cutter accelerators misfire, and how sector-specific venture studios — with deep expertise and owner-operator DNA — can finally tilt the odds of success.

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🔑 What You’ll Learn

- Why 90% of startups still fail — and how to move the needle from 10% to 20% success.

- The accelerator paradox: speeding up disruption by forcing it into rigid blueprints.

- How AI is reshaping capital allocation (and why that’s dangerous).

- The role of behavioral engineering in startup survival.

- Why venture studios are the operating system of success in a software-driven world.

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📌 Chapters

01:30 – Intro: Unicorn extinction & the AI paradox

07:30 – Why accelerators fail founders

16:30 – Digital transformation myths

24:30 – Behavioral engineering in startups

35:30 – Globalization, AI, and capital misallocation

49:30 – The venture studio model explained

01:03:30 – Governments, policy, and sector-specific studios

01:16:30 – Closing thoughts: doubling startup success rates

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⚔️ Forge Your Edge

👉 Subscribe to the newsletter for deep dives: https://go.brix.consulting/ForgeOfUnicorns

👉 Learn more about the Unicorns’ Ecosystem our Venture Studio operative system for software organization, born on Ferrari Formula 1 and improved with over 2 decades of research:

https://unicorns-ecosystem.com/

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