Wall Street Journalissa oli muuten eilen kiinnostava juttu Miltonin aikaisemmista start-upeista, joissa on ollut aikalailla samankaltaisia epäselvyyksiä kuin nyt Nikolankin kanssa:
In 2009, Trevor Milton drove a Dodge pickup from Utah to Phoenix to show off his latest business idea: a truck using natural gas along with diesel to lower fuel costs. … Mr. Milton’s 10-employee startup converted just five trucks, and those didn’t produce the fuel savings Mr. Milton promised, said former employees of his company who were familiar with the road trip and the subsequent deal.
In 2004, he started his first business, an ADT Security Services franchise in St. George, Utah, that he sold about two years later, according to Utah business records and the buyer, Glen Pilz. … Mr. Pilz said Mr. Milton overstated the business. In one instance, a roughly $30,000 contract turned out to be a bid it hadn’t won. Mr. Pilz went to collect from some clients who told him they had already paid Mr. Milton. Many employees weren’t licensed by the state, Mr. Pilz said. … “These things just started to mount,” he said. “Things that were baked in as part of the value of the business we had bought weren’t really there.”
In 2009, Mr. Milton started uPillar.com, a classified-ad website focused on cars. Former employees said it struggled to find dealership clients or attract customers and never turned a profit. Mr. Milton in a Forbes interview published in May said the site had 80 million monthly users, which the former employees dispute.
Sustainable Power Group LLC, or sPower, agreed to acquire dHybrid [= yksi Miltonin firmoista] in May 2012 for about $3 million, according to a copy of a contract in a lawsuit sPower filed against dHybrid. … A month later, sPower terminated the deal and sued dHybrid, alleging the company misrepresented its technology’s readiness, that its engine system didn’t perform as well as advertised and that it didn’t meet Environmental Protection Agency standards. DHybrid denied misleading sPower, and sPower later dropped the case, court documents show; dHybrid was effectively mothballed, some of the former employees said.
Tuollaisella track recordilla on kyllä varmasti Nikolan kannalta parempi, että Milton ei enää toimi firman keulakuvana. Ihme että homma ylipäätänsä pysyi Trevorin johdolla näinkin pitkään kasassa.