Nikola Corporation (delisted 2025)

Chamath support ×2 ▼ on 📈 Low-diligence capital breeds a fraud wave in the venture-backed cohort E91 · 2022-08-13 ▶ 21:37

The quality of the diligence by necessity has to go to zero.

Friedberg support ×3 ▼ on 📈 Low-diligence capital breeds a fraud wave in the venture-backed cohort E89 · 2022-07-29 ▶ 1:06:47

But we then tell ourselves stories, and those stories get us access to money, which allows us to pursue more science, which is meant to forward the market. And then eventually the market gets forwarded so much, and you spend a billion and a half dollars, and it turns out the whole thing doesn't work. Just like stock markets, it starts out as a voting machine in the beginning, and it's a weighing machine over time.

Friedberg support ×2 ▼ on 📈 Low-diligence capital breeds a fraud wave in the venture-backed cohort E75 · 2022-04-09 ▶ 25:46

In a world where everyone was raising a billion dollar second fund or a three billion dollar fourth fund, and you suddenly had an influx of a hundred billion dollars of venture money in a year, it's a lot like what we saw in crypto markets, which is an extraordinary explosion in highly speculative bubble assets. And a lot of these businesses maybe shouldn't have existed in the first place.

Jason support ×3 ▼ on 📈 Low-diligence capital breeds a fraud wave in the venture-backed cohort E75 · 2022-04-09 ▶ 27:44

They didn't do any diligence on him. Apparently, he had two companies that were kind of major red flags. ... We were seeing deals last year close in a week. ... it's what was it, you know, historically, a four to six week process. And then it went down to a four to six day process. And then people were meeting with you one day and saying they're closed the next.

Sacks support ×1 ▼ on 📈 Low-diligence capital breeds a fraud wave in the venture-backed cohort E75 · 2022-04-09 ▶ 27:41

He's got a very interesting history, actually, as well. I think if they had done any diligence.

Jason support ×2 ▼ on 📈 Low-diligence capital breeds a fraud wave in the venture-backed cohort E73 · 2022-03-26 ▶ 38:13

We've had this ridiculous culture of no governance, uncapped notes, just pushing. I see it on the boards I'm on. You guys probably see it too. Some people just pushing top line growth, never discussing unique economics, never discussing the bottom line. ... And they created these crazy Fugezi markups. They raised bigger funds based on it. And they just were never the adults in the room, the stewards of capital. It's infuriating.

Chamath support ×3 ▼ on 📈 Low-diligence capital breeds a fraud wave in the venture-backed cohort E73 · 2022-03-26 ▶ 39:49

if you have a bunch of capital allocators, Jason, to your point, who are unsophisticated about investing, probably very sophisticated operationally, but fundamentally don't know what they're doing, and they're coming and transforming an organization that should be a disciplined, discerning allocator of capital and turning them into a velocity deal machine.

Chamath support ×2 ▼ on 📈 Low-diligence capital breeds a fraud wave in the venture-backed cohort E62 · 2022-01-08 ▶ 26:09

This stuff is always at the peak of when there's a correction, right? ... But it's like that level of grift happens right before, you know, basically we have to re-rate valuations.

Friedberg support ×2 ▼ on 📈 Low-diligence capital breeds a fraud wave in the venture-backed cohort E62 · 2022-01-08 ▶ 7:21

You guys all see these top 50 companies, and we all know, having met a lot of these companies, as you go down that list, these 20 companies are total scam companies, they're fraud, they're not going to work, they're grifters ... Oh, by the way, I did short it. It worked out really well.

Jason support ×1 ▼ on 📈 Nikola goes to zero E55 · 2021-11-13 ▶ 38:49

Well, I would say for Fisker and Nikola, two related companies, those ones seem very, very shaky.

Jason support ×3 ▼ on 📈 Low-diligence capital breeds a fraud wave in the venture-backed cohort E45 · 2021-09-04 ▶ 24:11

In our diligence now, we have seen a spike in what I'll call massaging or painting the picture in a way that I'm not comfortable with. We have maybe tripled the amount of time we're putting into diligence now because I really care about my reputation. ... In recent history, 20, 30% were winding up backing out during the diligence process because their revenue was not software based.

Sacks support ×2 ▼ on 📈 Low-diligence capital breeds a fraud wave in the venture-backed cohort E45 · 2021-09-04 ▶ 25:40

So we have seen this trend in our industry of the private equity money coming in in greater volumes, in greater, you know, earlier and earlier and faster and faster, right? ... But to Chamath's point, it's just they're applying a financial model where they're not in the diligence business. They're just, and I think they just see like fraud is a cost of doing business, right? Something they can model out with a portfolio. ... So no one's doing the diligence. So that is a risk, I think, because it might actually change things.

Chamath support ×3 ▼ on 📈 Low-diligence capital breeds a fraud wave in the venture-backed cohort E45 · 2021-09-04 ▶ 16:16

This is only going to get meaningfully worse. ... the amount of money that's trying to get into Silicon Valley is going exponentially up. And as that happens, you guys now see it every day where there are firms whose entire business now is just to literally write a check every day. They're closing deals every single day. They're doing zero diligence.

Sacks support ×2 ▼ on 📈 Nikola goes to zero E43 · 2021-08-06 ▶ 44:45

Some of it is fraud. So read the quote from the US attorney of Manhattan who said, Milton, with respect to Nikola, lied about nearly every aspect of the business. People like that need to go to jail, okay?

Jason support ×3 ▼ on 📈 Nikola goes to zero E15 · 2020-12-18 ▶ 38:15

Nikola trading at $34 billion... It's now worth $6 billion. I predict it will be worth $0.60. I kid you not, this company will go to zero, is my prediction... if a company has not released their product, and it's worth over a billion dollars, be careful because it could be a fraud or it could be a disaster.