LA Times (June 5)
In a prime example of “hype and plunder,” Domo’s filing for an IPO “may be setting a new low for self-indulgent IPOs.” Once valued at $2-billion, this unicorn is “deeply in the red and burning through cash so fast that if it can’t stage its IPO by August or borrow millions, it will have to shrink drastically—conceivably, reading between the lines, to nothing.” But the “most disturbing aspect of the IPO filing” is the voting rights associated with the new shares. Before the IPO, the founder “has 91.7% of the votes. The IPO won’t change that materially.” This “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.”
Tags: Control, Disturbing, Domo, Flaw, Founders, Hype, Investors, IPO, Plunder, Self indulgent, Silicon Valley, Unicorn, Voting rights
Financial Times (April 25)
In the UK, President Obama and others appear to be taking the wind out of the sails of the Brexit supporters. But the leave campaign is also struggling with the logic behind their own position. The “central flaw that bedevils the Leave campaign: it refuses to define what the world outside the EU looks like. Instead, it is asking the British people to take a leap in the dark.”
