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Grand jury indicts Trevor Milton, Nikola founder, on three counts of fraud

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Re: Grand jury indicts Trevor Milton, Nikola founder, on three counts of fraud

#261

Post by gamblor956 »

mbesto wrote: post #208
chirau wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am more surprised that Mazda's market cap is only $5B. That's just about the same as Duolingo. Interesting times we live in, really.

One company has endless growth potential, 80% gross margins, and every new customer served has marginal cost implications to the business. The other one does not. I think you can guess which one is which. For the record - I'm just as skeptical as many others are about tech valuations, but there is a legitimate reason to value companies they way we do, it's just not always a "its tech, so it has to be valued at BLAH",…

One company has endless growth potential, 80% gross margins, and every new customer served has marginal cost implications to the business.

Mazda?

Because according to their SEC filings Duolingo has pretty limited growth potential, increasing losses (or in other words, negative gross margins), and they spend a significant amount of money to attract each new paying customer. They only approach 80% gross margins if you use fantasy unicorn accounting instead of GAAP.

Re: Grand jury indicts Trevor Milton, Nikola founder, on three counts of fraud

#262

Post by hef19898 »

hogFeast wrote: post #243
hef19898 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am by no means an economic expert, far from it. To me it seems so, that there is way to much money flowing around, looking for an outlet. And with interest rates being all time lows since 2008 parking that money at a bank doesn't work anymore. Before 2007/8, the problem was too much money being made too easily. We solved that by creating more money. And we repeated that with Covid.

I have thought a lot about this. I am not sure that I have an answer because the way in which everyone (inc. myself) thinks about financial markets appears to be totally wrong (I am in the UK, we have had several rounds of QE since 2010...every time, the BoE gave a different explanation of how QE works). But it is easier to comprehend that, most obviously in the EU, there is a shortage of risk-free assets. It is less…

That makes more sense, thanks for the post!

Re: Grand jury indicts Trevor Milton, Nikola founder, on three counts of fraud

#263

Post by [deleted] »

gamblor956 wrote: post #261
mbesto wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One company has endless growth potential, 80% gross margins, and every new customer served has marginal cost implications to the business. The other one does not. I think you can guess which one is which. For the record - I'm just as skeptical as many others are about tech valuations, but there is a legitimate reason to value companies they way we do, it's just not always a "its tech, so it has to be valued at BLAH",…

One company has endless growth potential, 80% gross margins, and every new customer served has marginal cost implications to the business. Mazda? Because according to their SEC filings Duolingo has pretty limited growth potential, increasing losses (or in other words, negative gross margins), and they spend a significant amount of money to attract each new paying customer. They only approach 80% gross margins if you…

[deleted]

Re: Grand jury indicts Trevor Milton, Nikola founder, on three counts of fraud

#264

Post by runbathtime »

qeternity wrote: post #249
TameAntelope wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Importantly, every public company is not doing this. Were it a private company, like most startups at this stage tend to be, these lies would not have been securities fraud, I don't think. IMO this would have been a negative case of misrepresentation were this a private startup, but probably not more than a single standard deviation away from the norm, at least in my admittedly fairly limited understanding of the ind…

> Were it a private company, like most startups at this stage tend to be, these lies would not have been securities fraud, I don't think. Theranos has entered the chat Private placements are still securities.

That is exactly what I was thinking.

Elizabeth Holmes.

I think even if you are a private company, lying is still a type of fraud. And private companies still have shareholders. Just because they are not public companies doesn't mean they can just lie to their shareholders, although perhaps it is more difficult to prove?

The only area that I can think of where you can get away with lying about an industry or asset is when it comes to crypto. You can make sky high predictions and because they aren't labeled as securities there is no victim. Because they use the word decentralized there is no one responsible.

Re: Grand jury indicts Trevor Milton, Nikola founder, on three counts of fraud

#266

Post by mbesto »

gamblor956 wrote: post #261
mbesto wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One company has endless growth potential, 80% gross margins, and every new customer served has marginal cost implications to the business. The other one does not. I think you can guess which one is which. For the record - I'm just as skeptical as many others are about tech valuations, but there is a legitimate reason to value companies they way we do, it's just not always a "its tech, so it has to be valued at BLAH",…

One company has endless growth potential, 80% gross margins, and every new customer served has marginal cost implications to the business. Mazda? Because according to their SEC filings Duolingo has pretty limited growth potential, increasing losses (or in other words, negative gross margins), and they spend a significant amount of money to attract each new paying customer. They only approach 80% gross margins if you…

Are you trolling?

> Because according to their SEC filings Duolingo has pretty limited growth potential,

    The global market for direct-to-consumer language learning is large, growing, and shifting online. According to HolonIQ, total consumer spend on both online and offline language learning represented a $61 billion market in 2019, and will grow to $115 billion in 2025, implying a CAGR of 11% over this period. Online language learning is the fastest-growing market segment, projected to grow from $12 billion in 2019 to $47 billion in 2025, representing a CAGR of approximately 26% over this period, and to comprise 41% of total consumer spend on language learning in 2025. We believe that growth in digital spend will be driven in part by a shift away from offline offerings, as consumers seek more affordable, convenient, and higher quality online solutions.[0]
> increasing losses (or in other words, negative gross margins)

That's not how losses and negative gross margins work. I just double checked, gross profit for DuoLingo in 2020 was 71.55% (sorry not 80%). Compare that to Mazda's abysmal 21.7%. Cars specifically require heavy R&D (which does not go into COGS), so the comparison is a nice one since R&D for DuoLingo also requires heavy R&D.

> spend a significant amount of money to attract each new paying customer

Customers who pay subscriptions, not a one-time car cost. Every new car created requires upfront capital to build the car. SaaS CLV vs a car CLV requires WAY less costly touch-points after the initial sell.[1]

[0] - https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1562088/000162828021...

[1] - https://a16z.com/2014/05/13/understanding-saas-valuation-pri...

Re: Grand jury indicts Trevor Milton, Nikola founder, on three counts of fraud

#267

Post by yumraj »

ashtonkem wrote: post #228
anyfactor wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I browse through a lot of niche investing social media groups. One of the more liked posts on a Nikola investment group was, "If "they" cared about the future, the earth and the renewable energy issue, they would let whatever Trevor did slide." Surprisingly, I saw similar posts about Musk on the Thailand rescuer tweet and the price too high tweet. You are not betting against the fundamentals or the realities of the s…

I’ve learned to cast a more cynical eye towards companies claiming to be accomplishing grand, ethical aims. Sometimes they’re right, of course, but it’s also a phenomenal way to sweep abuse and fraud under a rug.

> I’ve learned to cast a more cynical eye towards companies claiming to be accomplishing grand, ethical aims.

People have stopped talking about Google's famed "Don't be Evil" thing.. But hey, it served a purpose for Google when it mattered.

Re: Grand jury indicts Trevor Milton, Nikola founder, on three counts of fraud

#268

Post by speedgoose »

gpt5 wrote: post #257
lotsofpulp wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My guess is fossil fuel cars will remain competitive with electric cars (cost per mile wise), since the more demand for fossil fuels drop, the cheaper it gets to operate fossil fuel cars. It really depends when the governments actually start banning fossil fuel cars. Or implements higher fossil fuel taxes, but I do not see a chance of that. And I do not see bans for new fossil fuel cars actually going into effect for…

Most gas stations will not change to charging station. Instead, every parking place will eventually have its own charging outlet.

Most gas station in the Oslo area in Norway have fast chargers.

Re: Grand jury indicts Trevor Milton, Nikola founder, on three counts of fraud

#269

Post by rvz »

gonehome wrote: post #245
zeusk wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Silicon Valley is choke full of fraud and absurd valuations.

When you look at the actual fraud (like Theranos) silicon valley funds are nowhere near it. The people that get duped are usually outsiders that are more easily manipulated. It can be hard to tell the difference between big ideas and bullshit, they can often sound similar. Con-artists will mimic the people that actually know their shit. In order to tell the difference you need to actually look at the underlying tech…

> Con-artists will mimic the people that actually know their shit.

Ah yes. A certain billionaire promises robo-taxis and full Level 5 autonomy by 2020, and then in 2021, admits self-driving is hard as FSD is still Level 2, after duping their own customers on buying ahead of their 'promises'.

This billionaire in 2019, surely knew what he was talking about. /s

> In order to tell the difference you need to actually look at the underlying tech for yourself.

Like the deceptive advertisement of FSD (Full Self Driving) auto-pilot software in Tesla cars that has tricked many Tesla drivers into paying for a product that not only doesn't work as advertised, but puts the safety of drivers and others at risk.

The worst part is that they continue to market it regardless of the missed deadlines, the safety risks and the fact that the software is still 'safe' for usage, which that is complete bullshit.

The FSD feature in Tesla cars (along side the robotaxis) was deceptively advertised as 'safe' and promised as 'Level 5' with lots of customers buying into it; and some have lost their lives over the software getting confused. If FSD is not regarded as 'actual fraud' or 'deceptively advertised', then I don't know what is.

Re: Grand jury indicts Trevor Milton, Nikola founder, on three counts of fraud

#270

Post by nickik »

Literally when I first heard about the company, being interested in EV I started looking in to them.

10 minutes into a interview with the founder I was instantly convinced that they were a fake, fraud company.

They had a very clear strategy, and as a scammer, one must give him some credit. He managed to push a company to higher evaluation then GM based on literally nothing but marketing and false claims.

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