*By Michael Teich*
Pluralsight, a platform for online learning courses, was off to an auspicious start as a publicly traded company Thursday when the stock opened 33 percent above its IPO price on the Nasdaq.
Shares of the Utah-based tech company, which are trading under ticker symbol “PS”, opened for trading at $20 a share compared with the IPO price of $15. Pluralsight's CEO, Aaron Skonnard, told Cheddar that Wall Street was optimistic because investors realize that his company's cloud-based platform is well positioned to close a “massive skills gap” created by rapidly changing technology.
Pluralsight is the first company from Utah to go public in 2018. Skonnard said there are advantages to creating a technology company in Utah instead of Silicon Valley, including a thriving tech community in “Silicon Slopes” that attracts talent away from the San Francisco Bay area. The lower cost of living in Utah is also a “big home run” for employees.
The future of education is going to look a lot different in the years ahead, said Skonnard. Four-year college degrees are a lot less relevant than they were 20 years ago, and emerging technologies will cause the trend to continue. Pluralsight's focus on technology-based skills such as HTML and JavaScript put it in a position to provide courses that cater to the evolving demands by its corporate clients, which include AT&T and Adobe.
For the full interview, [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/utah-s-tech-unicorn-pluralsight-has-strong-nasdaq-debut).
Prices for wholesale orange juice rose to the highest point on Tuesday due to low inventory and harvesting issues in the U.S.
Costs for health care are expected to rise in 2024 due to the impact of inflation on insurance policies.
A jury in Illinois has ordered Chicago-based Conagra Brands to pay $7.1 million to a Pennsylvania woman who was badly injured in 2017 when a can of commercial brand cooking spray ignited in a kitchen at her workplace and set her aflame.
Most Americans are in the middle-income brackets, but they aren't leveraging higher interest rates for savings, according to a new survey.
Job openings rose to 9.6 million in September while the private sector added 113,000 new jobs in October.
The Federal Reserve kept its key short-term interest rate unchanged Wednesday for a second straight time but left the door open to further rate hikes if inflation pressures should accelerate in the months ahead.
As the holiday season nears and with families making plans for Thanksgiving at the end of the month, concerns about high food prices linger. Dr. Michael Swanson, chief agricultural economist with Wells Fargo Agri-Food Institute, joined Cheddar News to provide tips on what to expect when shopping for those large family meals.
Can money really buy happiness? Grant Gallagher, associate vice president and head of financial well-being with Affinity Federal Credit Union, joined Cheddar News to explain which steps to take for financial security and safety.
SAG-AFTRA will meet again with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers to discuss putting an end to the ongoing strike.
Italian car maker Fiat is opening an apartment building in Fort Lee, New Jersey.
