A sociologist discussing modernism can offer many insights for the business world as well.
Countries that try to imitate modern countries in the hopes of becoming modern themselves end up becoming not modern, but merely modernizing -imitative, insecure, and defensive.
To be genuinely modern a country has to create its own values and critically engage with them, giving rise to a cultural environment or canon that includes both defenders and critics. In other words, a crisis must exist; and one must have the intellectual capacity to critique that crisis and construct new paths. This capability for self-critique and reconstruction is what makes a society modern.
Likewise, companies that follow unicorn firms in hopes of becoming a unicorn themselves often become mere imitations. They exhibit the same characteristics as countries in a state of modernization, rather than genuine modernity.
These countries and companies collapse in times of crisis, because they've opted to import a mindset capable of critique rather than developing one themselves.
A company that can construct a culture capable of critically assessing crises and finding new ways forward on its own terms—and that possesses systems to discover better methods rather than imitating—is able to continue on its path without issue when it achieves its desired state.
To construct, one needs to establish a system, and to establish a system, a critical internal structure is required. Setting aside issues like competition, market advantage, and unique value propositions, I can say that companies capable of doing this are, in my opinion, the potential unicorns of the future.