Jason Calacanis said in September 2020 that for early‑stage investors, “we’re not going to count unicorns anymore. We’re going to count SPACs. We’re going to count public listings.”(podscripts.co)

What happened next contradicts this:

1. SPACs were a short‑lived boom, then a bust, not a new core metric.

   • SPAC issuance exploded in 2020–2021 (nearly 250 SPAC IPOs raising $83B in 2020; 613 SPAC IPOs raising ~$162B in 2021).(en.wikipedia.org)
   • Performance and quality problems led to sharp declines: by 2022 SPAC IPOs and completed mergers dropped dramatically, with many SPACs liquidating without deals and media describing the “SPAC boom” as a failure or bust.(spglobal.com)
   • By 2025 there is a resurgence but at far from peak dominance: SPACs account for ~38% of IPOs vs 64% in 2021 and raise about $14.7B YTD—significant, but just one listing path among others, not the central scoreboard for VCs.(axios.com)

2. Unicorn counts remain a primary success metric for VCs and ecosystems.

   • The global number of unicorns is still systematically tracked and publicized by CB Insights, Dealroom, and others; estimates rise from ~803 in 2021 to over 1,200+ by 2024–2025, showing the category is alive and central.(en.wikipedia.org)
   • Major reports explicitly rank investors by how many unicorns they’ve backed, e.g., Hurun’s 2022 "Unicorn Investors Top 100" (Sequoia, SoftBank, Tiger Global, etc., listed with their unicorn counts).(mp.hurun.co.uk)
   • Current commentary still evaluates top early‑stage and growth VCs by the number of unicorns they’ve produced (e.g., Dealroom‑based LinkedIn analyses and academic VC studies counting Y Combinator, Sequoia, a16z, etc., by unicorn tallies).(linkedin.com)
   • Media and data providers continue to highlight cities, countries, and individual firms by unicorn counts, and regional funding reports in 2024–2025 still treat “new unicorns” (or the lack of them) as a key headline metric.(en.wikipedia.org)

3. VCs have not habitually switched to “counting SPACs/public listings” instead of unicorns.

   • Industry exit reports for 2022–2024 focus on total IPO/M&A exit value and number of IPOs broadly, but they do not present rankings of early‑stage funds by SPAC count in the same way unicorn rankings do.(aeen.org)
   • The visible bragging/benchmarking in venture (press, LP marketing, analyst reports) overwhelmingly still centers on unicorn creation and valuation milestones, with SPACs treated as a (controversial) mechanism for some exits, not the primary yardstick for early‑stage fund performance.

Because unicorn counts remain a core way early‑stage VCs and observers measure and market success, while SPAC/public‑listing counts did not replace that role, Jason’s prediction that investors would “not…count unicorns anymore” and instead primarily “count SPACs” and listings has not come true.