Art Basel, the world's leading contemporary art fair, is on the horizon this week. New Yorker writer Gary Sernovitz thinks this annual assemblage of art world elite could teach some lessons to its tech parallel, namely, venture capitalists bent on creating unicorns, the term coined to describe start-up technology companies valued at a billion dollars or more. Perception and the money that follows come into play.

Sernovitz writes:

The art world knows about prices floating ever higher on abstraction and hope. The resonances aren’t completely coincidental. Both venture capitalists and art buyers are in the business of valuing the invaluable. Both stake their reputations on exquisite selection. Both nurture talent before it can support itself. Both have a soft spot for youth, for unbowed ego, for the myth of solitary genius, for the next new thing. Both operate in a world of frustratingly limited information and maddeningly unpredictable success. Both depend on consumer culture while holding themselves superior to it. And both the art market and venture investing have become increasingly winner-take-all games, with more clout to the companies and artists backed by the most powerful dealers or venture capitalists.