I find this serious and inexcusable. I sold my position this morning.
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I find this serious and inexcusable. I sold my position this morning.
What do you feel about this situation Saul?
In this post (http://discussion.fool.com/hi-saul-when-i-look-at-a-new-company-…) I asked about whether Saul had considered the integrity of Alteryx management (since he hadn’t mentioned that in his writeup). Nobody responded, which made me think it’s not a high priority for most here.
Am I wrong?
-IGU-
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IGU,
You are not wrong as far as I’m concerned, though I admit I did not look into this very much before I took a position in AYX. My bad. I consider management integrity one of the most important factors when it comes to making an investment. It’s also pretty hard to investigate most of the time.
I find this serious and inexcusable. I sold my position this morning.
As did I.
With all the data breaches that have occurred over the years…crap, what’s one more? Our data is not secure and the more we use the Internet, the more exposed we are.
Short of using cash and living in a cave under an assumed name, I don’t see a way around it. Prayers, changing passwords a lot, no sharing on Facebook or getting on public wi-fi.
I’m not selling my shares over this.
Lucky Dog
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I’m not selling my shares over this.
Same here, Lucky Dog.
I just looked on GlassDoor and couldn’t find any evidence of unethical behavior in senior mgnt at AYX. Is this breach an isolated (albeit damaging) incident, or is there any evidence of a pattern?
…Marc
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My 2 cents…
I’m a lifelong IT profession that has worked with confidential information in the federal government and also in the private sector with HPPA/PHI (health care info).
I am familiar with aggregation data techniques employed to protect individual level information (identity theft usable or other undesirable level of gleaning of personal info - like how much money does the guy next door make).
Unless the break was at the raw data level from Experian data provided sources(or other like source), the breach appears that it was actually free (unpaid/unlicensed) access to the market product. Data aggregation (into “marketing data”)is not a tricky or new technique. It’s well understood and widely used, especially in our ever increasing data saturated world.
While it’s a stupid mistake to permit your expensive product to have been potentially accessed for free, I would less consider this to be a identity level break, but more of a product or marketing data level breach. And since this type of data becomes “stale” fairly quickly, the “possible” damage (I’m guessing not much if any) they did to their product offering is limited.
All this has NOTHING to do with how Mr. Market will treat the stock price. My guess would be suppressed stock share price for a quarter or two at worst.
JMHO… Bob
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Thanks for your post, Bob. Its always good to have the perspective of someone with significantly more knowledge than I do!
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I find management’s response to be inadequate and borderline dishonest
This has become standard operating procedure that companies never acknowledge nor provide any information on the breach.
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With all the data breaches that have occurred over the years…crap, what’s one more? Our data is not secure and the more we use the Internet, the more exposed we are. Short of using cash and living in a cave under an assumed name, I don’t see a way around it. Prayers, changing passwords a lot, no sharing on Facebook or getting on public wi-fi. I’m not selling my shares over this.
While it’s a stupid mistake to permit your expensive product to have been potentially accessed for free, I would less consider this to be a identity level break, but more of a product or marketing data level breach. And since this type of data becomes “stale” fairly quickly, the “possible” damage (I’m guessing not much if any) they did to their product offering is limited.
I agree with Lucky Dog and Bob about this. I wouldn’t dream of selling my position over a data breach. I don’t see in any way that it makes management unethical to have had an employee of theirs temporarily leave data exposed in error, a “data breach” of marketing data (that presumably people can rent or buy anyway). But even if it’s not data for rent, data breaches happen in our society. This is not like finding evidence that bad guys got inside your systems and stole data. That’s a data breach. We don’t even know whether any bad guys noticed the data was left online available during that time that it was available, in other words we don’t even know if whether it was actually “breached”.
Asteryx has tools that are very much in demand. I have built my position into a medium/large position (9.5%). I didn’t buy or sell any today because I already had enough.
Best,
Saul
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couldn’t this be the excuse to sell a highly (over?) valued stock?
This does not look good at all. It certainly expose some issues with using this tool.
tj
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Couldn’t this be the excuse to sell a highly (over?) valued stock? This does not look good at all.
Hi tj, maybe you are right. Let’s see:
EV/S about 7. Clearly an outlier as far as value for a fast growing SaaS company (maybe on the low side?)
Revenue growth only 58% for the trailing four quarters: obviously a slow grower.
Recurring subscription revenue only 95+% of total revenue: we better worry about that last 4.5%!
Dollar-based retention rate only 133%: I must have seen a higher one somewhere?
Number of customers only 268% of what they were two years ago: Hard to acquire customers obviously.
But no big name customers: Well, only: Ford, GE, Microsoft, Shell Oil, HP, BBC, etc
Adj Operating Margin -36% in 2015, -23% in 2016, -9% first three quarters of 2017: nope, no path to profitability.
Adj gross margin only 86%: what a shame.
2015 cohort of customers only grew their spend to 190% of their 2015 spend in 2016: Customers clearly don’t like the product.
Gartner had to create a new award for them in customer satisfaction: Gartner named Alteryx the Gold Winner in its first-ever Gartner Peer Insights Customer Choice Awards for Business Intelligence and Analytics, a rating of vendors by verified end-user professionals
Yep, you’re right, it doesn’t look good at all!
Saul
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So, holding steady with the full position I would presume, Saul?
I still haven’t gotten a chance to dig in as closely as I would like, but this piece of news may allow me to get a better deal than what you got a week or so ago.
When a company’s fundamental story changes I get out. When it’s a one time data breach that doesn’t change the story at all, I don’t think of exiting. Think of the difference. It’s very clear.
Think of it this way. After the 9/11 attack, they closed the markets to prevent panic. When they reopened the next Monday the market sold off about 12.5%. It took just 19 days for the market to come back, because nothing was changed fundamentally. Do you think this “data breach” was more of a black swan for Asteryx than 9/11 was for the US? If so you have a short memory.
Best to you all,
Saul
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With all the data breaches that have occurred over the years…crap, what’s one more?
The data breach is small potatoes. What’s important in management’s response. Does it demonstrate integrity? Are you happy to have these guys responsible for your investment?
I still haven’t seen anybody say anything positive about that. Yeah, they’re doing really well. But are they good people you can trust? Bernie Madoff did really well too, until he was caught.
-IGU-
(I hold no position)
I agree with Lucky Dog and Bob about this. I wouldn’t dream of selling my position over a data breach. I don’t see in any way that it makes management unethical to have had an employee of theirs temporarily leave data exposed in error, a “data breach” of marketing data (that presumably people can rent or buy anyway)
Young companies make dumb mistakes. They are a bunch of smart people cranking away without time to worry about too many policies and procedures. That always changes after something like this. We have heard of a number of startups with sexual harassment issues and come to find out they did not really have an HR department. HR is a cost and might seem unncessary to a startup. Policies and Procedures take time to write, vet and enforce, if all is well, why worry too much.
I did not have a position yet, but after some study and this luck break I will start, but I will also save some powder in case it dips when all the law suits start. No individual could convince a court they were harmed, but anytime a stock goes down those blood sucking lawyers find a way to extract money.
P.
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No individual could convince a court they were harmed
Why you say so?
“…Yep, you’re right, it doesn’t look good at all!”
well if you put it that way. What can I say? The numbers do look great.
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