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Hype and plunder: Domo a new low for self-indulgent IPOs

latimes.com

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Re: Hype and plunder: Domo a new low for self-indulgent IPOs

#61

Post by mabey »

tntn wrote: post #41
dpark wrote: post #29

> Domo actually is part of the Salt Lake City region’s “Silicon Slope,” one of several regional offshoots of Silicon Valley. Going off on a tangent, this is really dumb. It’s not an “offshoot” of Silicon Valley. It’s a distant, unrelated region that happens to also have a tech industry. Are Austin, Seattle, and Portland also “offshoots” of Silicon Valley? How about New York? Zurich?

Right on. "Silicon Slopes" is surprisingly effective attempt by Utah County people to get investors to dump money there. Quick summary of the companies in "Silicon Slopes": Qualtrics (surveys), Domo (vapor), Adobe, Micron (fab only, but claim to "silicon" in the name), Nu Skin (MLM cosmetics/diet supplements) , doterra (essential oil MLM), NatureSunshine (MLM). Great place to be. Lots of innovation in MLMs.

I hate MLMs as much as the next guy, but "Silicon Slopes" does have some legitimate tech companies as well: Podium, Canopy Tax, MX, InsideSales, Pluralsight, Lucid, HireVue, Entrata, Workfront, Ancestry, Jolt, Teem to name a few.

Re: Hype and plunder: Domo a new low for self-indulgent IPOs

#62

Post by HelloNurse »

fjsolwmv wrote: post #13
yazr wrote: post #12

> $3,276 per flight hour [for a leased private jet] I am no expert. But this seems cheap to me ? Can you really cross the USA in a private jet for less than $20K ? Edit: i am assuming this is not a new fancy Drone ..

Per web search, that's a normal price. The question is if that's a good use of investor funds for a low value xompany.

It's a matter of utility, not low value. One hour of rental jet costs like 33 $100 airline tickets: even considering saved time, many people need to go to the same place at the same time, and it has to be a rather distant place (Utah either coast?), to make a rental convenient.

Re: Hype and plunder: Domo a new low for self-indulgent IPOs

#64

Post by s73v3r_ »

throwaway5752 wrote: post #35
jmull wrote: post #22

I take this as one of the two central themes of this article: "...points to a persistent flaw in Silicon Valley financing: the willingness to give start-up founders unassailable control of their companies, to the point that investors have no recourse if things go blooey." That's not a flaw, it's a fundamental part of how it is meant to work. The investors generally don't want to invest in companies run by a committee…

Practically speaking Satya Nadella runs MSFT, not the board of directors. Nadella does not have control of MSFT (he isn't the majority holder of shareholder voting rights), though. Investors don't want to run the company. But the question is should they be able to fire the person running the company, even if that person is acting against the interests of the rest of the shareholders. * ps, yes, the BoD can fire a CEO…

Shouldn't the law prevent the CEO from doing just that? I mean, the board is presumably the only check on the CEO's power, so even if the CEO is the majority shareholder, they shouldn't be able to control the board.

Re: Hype and plunder: Domo a new low for self-indulgent IPOs

#65

Post by NorthOf33rd »

NorthOf33rd wrote: post #49

I'd love to see the LA Times go back and revisit the Utah Valley region and the culture that helped contribute to this. The Utah Valley is chock full of startups with a serious inferiority complex to their big brothers in Silicon Valley, hence derivative name. More importantly, Utah is the “multi-level marketing capital of the world [1]” This kind of sales and growth tactic is not limited to the diet smoothie and cos…

I should say, in full disclosure, that it worries me because I'm a product manager in the region. So, I am concerned about economic blow back to firms that have better business practices and therefore my ability to practice here. Though, I'm currently seeking remote work opportunities as this is a pervasive issue.

Re: Hype and plunder: Domo a new low for self-indulgent IPOs

#67

Post by tntn »

mabey wrote: post #61
tntn wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right on. "Silicon Slopes" is surprisingly effective attempt by Utah County people to get investors to dump money there. Quick summary of the companies in "Silicon Slopes": Qualtrics (surveys), Domo (vapor), Adobe, Micron (fab only, but claim to "silicon" in the name), Nu Skin (MLM cosmetics/diet supplements) , doterra (essential oil MLM), NatureSunshine (MLM). Great place to be. Lots of innovation in MLMs.

I hate MLMs as much as the next guy, but "Silicon Slopes" does have some legitimate tech companies as well: Podium, Canopy Tax, MX, InsideSales, Pluralsight, Lucid, HireVue, Entrata, Workfront, Ancestry, Jolt, Teem to name a few.

I know. I also listed some (Qualtrics, Adobe). However, I have no way of telling if some of the companies on your list are any more legitimate than Domo, which has for years been heralded as a legitimate tech company in the area.

To clarify (since not all of the companies you listed are in Utah Valley), my criticism was directed specifically at Utah County, not the whole state (i.e. not Salt Lake City or Davis county).

Re: Hype and plunder: Domo a new low for self-indulgent IPOs

#68

Post by mv4 »

thisisit wrote: post #9

I first heard of Domo last year when we were trying to find a better alternative our BI system. And boy, we were in for a ride. The first warning sign was that their pitch was full of cool sounding words. They kept referring to the product as a "cloud based operating system", whatever that meant. When we asked them to demo, their presales consultant struggled to create anything other than a canned demo. Personally, I…

I remember seeing their ads all over LinkedIn for a while.

Two observations:

1. the ads made fun of Excel. "Still using Excel for data analysis? lol"

2. all top comments were invariably like "what's wrong with Excel for data analysis?", but Domo didn't care

Re: Hype and plunder: Domo a new low for self-indulgent IPOs

#69

Post by dustinlocke »

alasdair_ wrote: post #58
tntn wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right on. "Silicon Slopes" is surprisingly effective attempt by Utah County people to get investors to dump money there. Quick summary of the companies in "Silicon Slopes": Qualtrics (surveys), Domo (vapor), Adobe, Micron (fab only, but claim to "silicon" in the name), Nu Skin (MLM cosmetics/diet supplements) , doterra (essential oil MLM), NatureSunshine (MLM). Great place to be. Lots of innovation in MLMs.

>Great place to be. Lots of innovation in MLMs. Religion and MLM companies seem to be strongly correlated.

Built-in social network. Most church-goers automatically have access to a couple hundred people in the neighborhood.

I live in Utah and I hate MLMs so much.

Re: Hype and plunder: Domo a new low for self-indulgent IPOs

#70

Post by tntn »

alasdair_ wrote: post #58
tntn wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right on. "Silicon Slopes" is surprisingly effective attempt by Utah County people to get investors to dump money there. Quick summary of the companies in "Silicon Slopes": Qualtrics (surveys), Domo (vapor), Adobe, Micron (fab only, but claim to "silicon" in the name), Nu Skin (MLM cosmetics/diet supplements) , doterra (essential oil MLM), NatureSunshine (MLM). Great place to be. Lots of innovation in MLMs.

>Great place to be. Lots of innovation in MLMs. Religion and MLM companies seem to be strongly correlated.

It's mostly just that particular part of Utah. Mormonism is also highly correlated with successful and honest businesses. See https://www.economist.com/node/21554173
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