4 ms·

Literally got investors because their name sounds like Tesla lol

carlosdp 6y ago
That literally should have been a red flag from the get go. What ultimately successful company names themselves based on a leading competitor?
- liability 6y ago
  If you look at the HN discussion about Nikola four years ago, it's filled with people pointing to the copycat name as a redflag. So even without hindsight, this was obvious. > They could have tried a little harder with the name. It makes me take them less seriously with a copycat name like they're not confident enough in their product and need to glom onto Tesla's success. What an awful decision. The truck looks neat, though. Response to the above: > I don't think that truck is ever seeing the light of day; the name and the rest of it all seems incredibly unlikely to materialize except as some money in someone's pockets."
brian_herman__ 6y ago
It is literally Nikola Tesla's first name. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikola_Tesla https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikola_Tesla Tesla, the electric car company is his last name. Nikola is his first name. edit: Spelling
- dylan604 6y ago
  Also, water is wet and fire is hot. Sadly, Captain Obvious doesn't have any links to back up those claims though.
cultus 6y ago
Just to show how absolutely demented our financialized economy has become, look at the stock of Tiziana Life Sciences this year, with stock symbol TLSA: https://markets.businessinsider.com/stocks/tlsa-stock?utm_source=markets&utm_medium=ingest https://markets.businessinsider.com/stocks/tlsa-stock?utm_so...
- dtwest 6y ago
  You think it's because the ticker is similar to TSLA? They are trying to develop treatments related to COVID-19, I bet that's the real reason it spiked this year. I don't know anything about the company, just took a minute to look at their website.
  - adventured 6y ago
    Several stocks have seen that kind of spike due to Covid, so it's quite plausible it was just Covid. Sorrento (SRNE) went from $1.70 in March to $19 due to peddling Covid this and Covid that (currently at $7 with a $1.78 billion market cap). Moderna (MRNA) went from $18 in February to $95 at the peak of Covid vaccine mania. At the top it had something like a $37 billion market cap, which is not much below Biogen's $44 billion market cap (Biogen has $14 billion in sales and $7 billion in operating income).
Nextgrid 6y ago
Early on in the pandemic a company with the stock ticker "ZOOM" boomed despite being completely unrelated to the communications software (whose ticker is "ZM").

That literally should have been a red flag from the get go. What ultimately successful company names themselves based on a leading competitor?

liability 6y ago
If you look at the HN discussion about Nikola four years ago, it's filled with people pointing to the copycat name as a redflag. So even without hindsight, this was obvious. > They could have tried a little harder with the name. It makes me take them less seriously with a copycat name like they're not confident enough in their product and need to glom onto Tesla's success. What an awful decision. The truck looks neat, though. Response to the above: > I don't think that truck is ever seeing the light of day; the name and the rest of it all seems incredibly unlikely to materialize except as some money in someone's pockets."

brian_herman__ 6y ago

It is literally Nikola Tesla's first name. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikola_Tesla https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikola_Tesla Tesla, the electric car company is his last name. Nikola is his first name. edit: Spelling

dylan604 6y ago
Also, water is wet and fire is hot. Sadly, Captain Obvious doesn't have any links to back up those claims though.

cultus 6y ago

Just to show how absolutely demented our financialized economy has become, look at the stock of Tiziana Life Sciences this year, with stock symbol TLSA: https://markets.businessinsider.com/stocks/tlsa-stock?utm_source=markets&utm_medium=ingest https://markets.businessinsider.com/stocks/tlsa-stock?utm_so...

dtwest 6y ago
You think it's because the ticker is similar to TSLA? They are trying to develop treatments related to COVID-19, I bet that's the real reason it spiked this year. I don't know anything about the company, just took a minute to look at their website.
- adventured 6y ago
  Several stocks have seen that kind of spike due to Covid, so it's quite plausible it was just Covid. Sorrento (SRNE) went from $1.70 in March to $19 due to peddling Covid this and Covid that (currently at $7 with a $1.78 billion market cap). Moderna (MRNA) went from $18 in February to $95 at the peak of Covid vaccine mania. At the top it had something like a $37 billion market cap, which is not much below Biogen's $44 billion market cap (Biogen has $14 billion in sales and $7 billion in operating income).

Nextgrid 6y ago

Early on in the pandemic a company with the stock ticker "ZOOM" boomed despite being completely unrelated to the communications software (whose ticker is "ZM").