LEHI — Sen. Mitt Romney heard firsthand Friday from members of Utah’s tech community who, right now, have put concerns about the coronavirus front and center.
Not only was it the first question for Utah’s junior senator during a visit with employees of customer interaction platform innovator Podium, but also part of a later conversation with Silicon Slopes founders at the tech advocacy group’s offices in Lehi.
That meeting included Domo founder and CEO Josh James, who said that the company’s annual user conference, Domopalooza, which draws thousands to the state, has been canceled due to coronavirus concerns.
In lieu of the in-person event that was scheduled to happen at the Salt Palace Convention Center March 17-20, the company will stream proceedings online to allow remote participation. While the original agenda and speaker list, which includes Olympic gold medalist Lindsey Vonn, will be maintained, the company was still working on how to amend scheduled live musical performances by One Republic, Black Eyed Peas and Bazzi.
“We are doing this in the best interest of our customers, partners and employees and are really excited to share Domopalooza this way,” the company said in a statement.
James also told the Deseret News that over a dozen company employees in Japan have been isolated in their homes as that country deals with the virus.
One Podium employee asked for Romney’s advice on how to assess what is, and is not, reliable information regarding updates on the virus amid a lot of commentary, which in some cases is conflicting.
Romney said it is unfortunate, but the same partisan bickering that has infiltrated so much of the public sphere on other issues has made its way into discussions of the coronavirus and he looks to traditional news sources for the latest factual reporting.
“Not surprisingly, with regard to the coronavirus as well as everything else, people are taking advantage of that to point fingers back and forth,” Romney said. “You know, I actually still believe that newspapers, believe it or not, that have editors do make an effort to ... get things done accurately.”






Romney said he’s also getting regular coronavirus updates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as well as the National Institutes of Health.
He noted while previous outbreaks of SARS and Middle East respiratory syndrome, or MERS, were more lethal, this strain of coronavirus is “more dangerous because it’s really contagious.”
Romney, who holds dual degrees from Harvard Law and Harvard Business School, worked for years in the business world as a consultant and private equity investor before he entered politics. He said he believes the recent tumultuous drops in stock values are not a function of overvaluing but directly attributable to impacts of the coronavirus on global markets that are, increasingly, interdependent.
“I don’t think the market was overvalued,” Romney said. “If somehow the coronavirus where to disappear tomorrow, I believe the markets would come back and perhaps even exceed where they were before the virus. I do recognize there is a lot of uncertainty associated with COVID-19 and how broadly it’s going to affect our population (and) what impacts it will have on the global supply chain and therefore on our businesses.
“Until there’s some clarity on those things, the market is going to be pretty choppy.”
Romney said he is comfortable with President Donald Trump’s actions, thus far, in responding to the virus as the number of U.S. cases continue to grow.
“I think (Trump) made the right decision to put one person in charge,” Romney said. “That’s the vice president in this case and that’s the right decision to cut through the various bureaucratic layers to do what needs to be done.”
Romney also noted how difficult the challenge is to prepare for a possible pandemic, or predict outcomes, when the tools to combat the virus are so limited
“Frankly there’s not a lot you can do to prevent the spread of a highly contagious condition,” Romney said. “What he is doing is making sure we can get the preventative equipment ... to medical professionals and we’ll try to develop a vaccine as quick as we can.
“But, it’s going to take a year or longer to get a vaccine that will be viable to the public. In the interim, we’re not sure what’s going to happen.”
Romney had a chance to weigh in on numerous other topics raised by Podium employees Friday, including sharing something most people might not know about the senator (he is a big fan of water skiing on Utah Lake and, when he was an undergrad, would ride a homemade, 4-foot plywood disc behind his boat) and what advice he’d give to young professionals who are just embarking on their careers.
In response, Romney noted that hard work alone will not get it done, as “90% of what happens is out of your control.” Rather, he said, it is most important to live a genuine life.
“What is in your control are the decisions that you make as to whether or not you live with your most fundamental values,” Romney said. “And how you feel about your life will be measured by those decisions.
“So my advice to you is, understand what your most fundamental values are, and live in a way that’s consistent those values.”