
PayPal CTO Resigns - coloneltcb
http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1633917/000163391716000110/a8-kbarrese.htm
======
dangrossman
PayPal's redesigned their UI two or three times in the past decade or so. None
of those redesigns have made it to business accounts yet. I still log in and
see the same site I did in the early 2000s. I really, really understand that
their business is enormously complex, operating in hundreds of different
markets, but... you'd think some of the improvements would trickle down
_eventually_. It's a real challenge for their support staff that has to figure
out which of several completely different interfaces a customer is seeing
before they can provide any help with it.

[http://i.imgur.com/a1pYK8a.png](http://i.imgur.com/a1pYK8a.png)

~~~
MarkMc
Tangentally, does anyone know how to show a running balance in PayPal, similar
to a bank statement. I can get a list of transactions, but there doesn't seem
to be a 'Balance' column, and it's not obvious which transactions affect the
balance.

~~~
dontscale
No. You'd have to roll your own using nvp TransactionSearch api with
BalanceAffecting transaction. Also you'd have to do currency conversions on
your own

------
pizzasynthesis
Adopters of the 'new' PayPal interface can probably attest to the poor
quality, redirects and unexplained errors that have been popping up. After
talking on the phone with two service reps, one of whom refused to let me talk
to a technical expert as to why my email confirmation token wouldn't work and
another who had to enable automated billing on my account manually (because
it's totally broken in the client interface) I can only conclude the problems
are widespread and currently still at large. I'm not surprised they have made
a high-profile canning.

~~~
coderdude
I transitioned back to the old interface almost immediately. The search
interface for past orders is less powerful because you now need to know when
an order was placed in addition to having the transaction ID. The old
interface can pull up an order without having the approximate order date as
long as you can provide either your own txnid or the customer's txnid.
Additionally, I was no longer able to pull up orders using the customer's
txnid. So, that was a bummer.

~~~
speleding
Same here. They probably have an index on the txn ID, search is pretty quick
that way, but on the new interface where they force you to search within a
time span, it takes forever when its more than a few days. So the decision to
force people to pick a time span is probably hurting their DB select as much
as it is hurting the user experience.

------
jusben1369
The role of CTO varies so greatly from company to compan . Some are hands on
making major decisions. Others are almost academic; looking 18+ months out and
responsible for understanding big trends et . Not sure which is the case here.
Does anyone know?

~~~
nowarninglabel
I can at least agree that it varies greatly company to company. I've got some
blog posts lined up relating to being a CTO, but it really is a varied
position, and interchangeable with being a VP of Engineering.

------
meritt
Zenefits just canned their CEO (ironically, over a benefits dispute), while
their COO steps up to take over that role. Maybe James is leaving Paypal to
become COO of Zenefits?

~~~
metasean
Definitely related, from [http://venturebeat.com/2016/02/08/zenefits-ceo-
parker-conrad...](http://venturebeat.com/2016/02/08/zenefits-ceo-parker-
conrad-resigns-coo-david-sacks-takes-over/) /
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11061992](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11061992)

>Also today, Zenefits announced that venture capitalist and PayPal cofounder
Peter Thiel has joined the startup’s board of directors. In addition to
relinquishing his role as chief executive, Conrad has also given up his board
seat.

~~~
pbreit
Definitely not related. David Sacks and Peter Thiel are best friends from
college.

------
minimaxir
PayPal had good earnings last quarter
([http://techcrunch.com/2016/01/27/paypal-shares-up-on-
earning...](http://techcrunch.com/2016/01/27/paypal-shares-up-on-earnings-
revenue-rises-17/)), so bad performance may not be the reason.

~~~
paulftw
He was CTO, why would infrastructure guy ever be held responsible for poor
overall performance? It's not rocket science, nor F1 team

~~~
kevin_thibedeau
Shit flows downhill and they needed a scapegoat to make the board happy. The
general public doesn't know what a CTO does so problem solved nice and neat.

~~~
knowaveragejoe
I would disagree along the lines that the general public didn't even know
there was a problem. I'm still not even sure what the issue was,
myself(besides the usual complaints about paypal).

------
lossolo
Worst ever support i have experienced. I do not contact support unless there
is something i can't operate myself. They just copy paste things from their
support FAQ... didn't receive answer to my question ever... Such incompetence.

------
muyfine
New Money needs a New CTO

~~~
27182818284
When you call their tech support and their own tech support gives up on their
products and just recommends the now PayPal owned Braintree...well that wasn't
the only bad sign I guess.

~~~
happywolf
BT has much less technical debt and thus more modern design. Most new
merchants are encouraged to use v.zero (BT's xo product)

------
lwhalen
Couldn't happen to a nicer sleazeball. I have nothing but disdain for Paypal
(and Square, at this point), their customer service is terrible, their limits
(even for businesses) are laughably low, and their processes for increasing
the limits are slow, opaque, and unable to be appealed. Nothing but the back
of my hand for these chuckleheads, I hope they trip and fall on their
megayachts.

~~~
nightpool
I know of a lot of valid complaints against PayPal (bad support, poor
policies, many unjust closures) but I haven't heard a whole ton about
Square—certainly nothing to drop them into the same bucket as PayPal. Mind
expanding on that a little?

------
lifeisstillgood
It's hard to read between the lines here.

\- 2 months is a odd notice period (one would expect three). So was he pushed?

\- the role is being split in two from his departure. This usually means the
role had more power than was comfortable.

\- but it's still two Months. Any signs of gardening leave?

~~~
dragonwriter
Senior VP Payment Services and CTO seem to be two roles that one person may
have been right to fill in a special case (with a very special person), but
where _usually_ the best person to fill one wouldn't be the best person to
fill the other.

------
free2rhyme214
I switched to Google Wallet. PayPal would take forever to send money and has
done nothing for years to innovate. All they do is buy startups (Braintree). I
think this is entirely true - when the founders leave, companies stop
innovating.

------
novapioneer
[http://recode.net/2015/08/31/top-paypal-executive-hill-
fergu...](http://recode.net/2015/08/31/top-paypal-executive-hill-ferguson-out-
in-management-shakeup/)

> Hill Ferguson, a top executive and officer who was SVP of PayPal’s consumer
> business, has stepped down, he announced in a post on Facebook earlier
> today. Bill Ready, who was Ferguson’s counterpart for the merchant side of
> PayPal’s ecosystem, is gaining more control and will now run product and
> engineering for the entire company, a spokesman said in a statement.

[http://www.zdnet.com/article/paypal-cto-james-barrese-
resign...](http://www.zdnet.com/article/paypal-cto-james-barrese-resigns/)

> William Ready, the company's Global Head of Product & Engineering, will take
> over the "payment services functions" currently handled by Barrese,

Is it really that big a mystery what is happening?

~~~
dhimes
Well, it's a mystery to me. What do you see?

~~~
novapioneer
politics? power grab? the new guys coming in and pushing out the old?

even battlehack, which started in 2013, which is probably one of the best
things PP did for developers in recent years is awfully quiet now

------
bitcuration
Oh, finally. For a couple years, I can't pass authentication of PayPal on my
iPhone no matter how I tried. While almost all the credit card and banks are
now using fingerprint on iPhone, I need a hardware token device to really get
in PayPal on iPhone. According to the rep the logic is I can use my phone
number to receive 2 factor text code, then why advertised it.

The new web has been continued puzzled me often prompt to go back to old UI
for more details. This is in 2015, decades after online banking started and
PayPal is not a government agency. However you put it, it doesn't add up.

~~~
somesay
In my case using SMS for 2FA only works within their new interface. Whenever
an online shop is redirecting to PayPal, it's the old login page (and doesn't
notice when already logged in on PayPal), so I basically never receive 2FA
codes in that step.

Not sure if just broken or they are using a different SMS gateway that has a
problem with my country. It also doesn't really help that 2FA is still only
known as hardware tokens within their documentation. It doesn't raise any
trust for the PayPal website either.

------
shmerl
PayPal is being really obnoxious lately (like banning payments to VPN services
and such). Or were they always that way?

~~~
tonyedgecombe
They have been like that from the start. I don't blame them, there was a lot
of fraud going on and it meant they had to develop a very defensive attitude
to things just to stay in business. It's hard to shake those things off once
they are established.

------
systemz
About that Paypal stability...
[https://i.imgur.com/PCkXnQu.png](https://i.imgur.com/PCkXnQu.png)

------
pbreit
So who's more senior after this? The new CTO or Bill Ready?

------
arthurcolle
Tomorrow's top post: Zenefits CEO, Yelp CFO, PayPal CTO team up to Big Data
the Internet of Things

~~~
meritt
It'll be an insurance company that holds hostage provider payments until you
delete your negative review.

~~~
mangeletti
You win!

I literally laughed out loud for what seems like a while.

------
grubles
"Pop."
[https://twitter.com/djcapelis/status/696869166960095232](https://twitter.com/djcapelis/status/696869166960095232)

~~~
m3rc
Am I very dense or is this a reference to the tech bubble?

~~~
zrail
Congratulations you got the reference. Gold stars for everyone!

~~~
knowaveragejoe
I assumed people would be drawing this conclusion when I saw the top 3 threads
right now. How do we know that is the case and not just statistical anomaly,
though?

~~~
losteric
That was just a joke, for now.

The idea that we're in a bubble on the cusp of collapse has been building over
the past year, spiking when the feds raised interest rates, but there's no
concrete evidence of a bubble popping. Yet.

Get worried when we see (multiple) high-level execs also resigning from
Facebook/Twitter/etc. Especially if it's of their own accord...

~~~
bjacobel
Multiple high-level execs left Twitter about two weeks ago - four at once.

[http://recode.net/2016/01/24/twitter-ceo-jack-dorsey-
confirm...](http://recode.net/2016/01/24/twitter-ceo-jack-dorsey-confirms-key-
executive-departures/)

------
bitmapbrother
He was pro "Old Money"

------
jorgecurio
Is this coincidence or what? Yelp CFO also resigned. Two executives from two
different sinking ships.

Paypal is getting murdered by Stripe. Yelp thought it could raise stock prices
by buying traffic. Something had to give, someone has to take the blame.

~~~
justin_vanw
In the first down market Stripe will no longer exist. They are losing money at
an incredible rate and no where near profitable. They are losing money at a
rate of about $100MM per year, and having to raise the same.

Perhaps they can make it to IPO, but even at a 3.5B valuation, they have to
find profitability very quickly, a 3.5B market cap can turn into a $250M
market cap very quickly, just ask GroupOn.

When you are losing more per year than you can book in revenue, this is not a
good business, and certainly isn't going to take over the market.

This is doubly true if Paypal is firing their CTO, who is in the end
responsible for their situation, poor usability, and very poor APIs. If Paypal
wakes up and starts fixing their issues, they are closing the one and only
thing that is giving companies like Stripe an opening.

~~~
malisper
> They are losing money at an incredible rate and no where near profitable.
> They are losing money at a rate of about $100MM per year, and having to
> raise the same.

Do you have a citation for that? I couldn't find anything when I tried
searching.

~~~
Silhouette
Indeed. A lot of people reading HN surely have some sort of business interest
that uses Stripe, so if they are really in such a fragile position then that
would be a significant risk for many here. And yet this is the first
suggestion I've seen of it at all, never mind the huge burn rate claimed.

