
I’m Joining Stripe to Work on Atlas - rmoriz
http://www.kalzumeus.com/2016/09/09/im-joining-stripe-to-work-on-atlas/
======
stevoski
Patrick writes in the article:

> I never thought I could build a Fog Creek, but I saw a bunch of other geeks
> building Poker Co-pilot and Perfect Table Plan and skeet-shooting scoring
> software, and I was pretty sure I could at least do something like that.

I'm the geek who built (and continues to run) Poker Copilot. Patrick got the
order of events backwards.

What actually happened is that I started Poker Copilot in a large part because
Patrick inspired me by managing to launch a software product (Bingo Card
Creator) after just one week of development.

All the best working for a boss again, Patrick! I'm sure there will be plenty
of interesting twists and turns in the years ahead in this remarkable life of
yours .

~~~
caseysoftware
Don't forget, there was the chimney sweep software guy too. :)

/oldschool

~~~
jng
And there was the vi emulator guy too :)

------
grellas
Back in the bubble days, all but a relatively few would-be founders found
themselves crawling out of a hole and into the dark, as it were, in trying to
figure out how to get from ground zero to a point of success: it was all
super-bewildering and there were virtually no resources to help understand how
it all worked: no helpful web-based forums to explain process or to share
experiences, no solid resources for helping understand how best to launch, no
easy access to funding, etc., etc.

Today, it is all different. We are all hyper-connected and the old barriers
are much diminished. This means a founder in Silicon Valley, where the
infrastructure is solid, can continue to do incredible things but, now, so too
can founders everywhere. Yes, it can help to be geographically at the heart of
it all but it is no longer an indispensable part of startup success.

I think Stripe's Atlas takes a huge additional step in helping to remove the
accident of a founder's location from the list of barriers to entry in the
world's startup club. I have explained my views in more detail here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11166417#11168750](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11166417#11168750)

And what a felicitous teaming between Patrick and Stripe to help further that
goal. Great people all round, working to achieve great goals! I cannot imagine
a better combination. Very exciting and congrats to all.

------
k-mcgrady
First time I've seen Atlas. I'm immediately worried. If someone starts a
company using this I presume it's subject to US laws? What does this mean:

1\. For taxes? If I live in the UK and start my business with Atlas does the
US get the corporation tax revenue or the UK (or a split of the two)?

2\. For data security/privacy? Is the data I store now subject to access by
the US government through National Security letters and the like? I believe
that if I was storing EU citizen data I'm subject to privacy shield but all
data would be more susceptible to US government requests. Is this accurate?

Edit: Quite shocked at the number of downvotes a completely legitimate
question is getting...

~~~
antoinevg
We're based in South Africa and joined the Stripe Atlas beta earlier this
year.

Solving the incorporation problem is only the first of many problems.

\---

Please understand that none of the following is a criticism of Stripe. If we
hadn't been accepted to the beta we'd be dead in the water right now and our
customers would have been screwed. I also expect the solutions to become
easier as more people in more countries face the same problems.

(Btw… one small suggestion for the Stripe Atlas team if anyone there is
reading this… how about a forum where Atlas users in the same countries can
swap information?)

\---

So, the questions you asked are completely legitimate.

Trying to answer them ourselves has cost us an inordinate amount of money on
legal & tax advice so far and we're still no closer to answers.

The problem is this:

The moment you're operating in two countries you are subject to the same
legal, tax & accounting rules that multi-national corporations have to conform
to.

There _are_ existing services that are geared towards tackling the insane
levels of complexity involved but the pricing also assumes that you are a
large multi-national corporation.

So, to give you an idea: Several reputable firms all quoted us the equivalent
of an engineer's salary for a month just to _estimate_ the price of getting
our ducks in a row.

For my company this is a LOT of money. We're bootstrapping and are barely
ramen profitable.

Also, and I'm sure this happens to everyone at least once, at the time I did
not understand that what they were quoting for was to prepare an estimate for
what it would cost to answer our questions. I thought this was the quote to
answer our questions!

When the estimate itself arrived it was for the equivalent to an engineer's
salary for a year, with _no_ guarantee that further complexities (and costs)
would not come up during or after the process.

An expensive lesson.

Currently we're trying to navigate the process ourselves by interacting
directly with the .za & USA revenue services and the .za Reserve Bank.

Needless to say, this is hell on trying to get any actual work done in the
meantime :-)

~~~
anexprogrammer
Possibly stupid question for you.

Why did you chose Atlas (ie US Incorporation), giving those micro-scale
multinational issues, rather than incorporate in SA?

~~~
antoinevg
Our situation is quite complex but the tl;dr is:

We were already incorporated in SA but we also needed to be incorporated in
the USA if we wanted to keep serving our customers.

~~~
PerfectElement
I'm incorporated in Canada and serve many US customers.

It's a SaaS and most customers don't even know or care that we are not in the
US.

I guess it varies depending on the type of business you are in.

~~~
flipchart
For South Africans it's more complex: we literally are not (legally) allowed
to charge in any currency except ZAR (our local currency). When you're a small
bootstrapped startup on the bottom of the world, charging in a relatively
unknown currency doesn't sit well with international customers

------
davidw
Sorry to hear about starfighter, but it looks like you've more than landed on
your feet. Good luck! I think with a big company at your back, you may be able
to leverage that to do some great things.

People in the US have no idea how easy they have it with creating a company,
something I helped to fix a little tiny bit in Italy:
[https://blog.therealitaly.com/2015/04/16/fixing-italy-a-
litt...](https://blog.therealitaly.com/2015/04/16/fixing-italy-a-little-bit-
at-a-time/)

One of the key points:

> All told, the price of creating a company in Italy was several months worth
> of salary for the average Italian worker, whereas even at minimum wage,
> someone in Oregon could open that LLC after a few days worth of work.

~~~
walterstucco
not anymore in Italy you can create a new type of company: S.r.l.s. (società a
repsonsbailita limitata semplice) with only a few hundreds euros I'm italian
and owner of an S.r.l.s.

~~~
Keyframe
Same in Croatia, 100 Euros for a j.d.o.o. (simple limited liability company)
vs cca. 4000 Euros for d.o.o. (limited liability company 3k for capital, 1k
expenses). I still wouldn't recommend, since VAT is 25% and capital gains is
20% (which is ok). Bulgaria and Romania have better terms and are within EU
too.

~~~
vldx
AFAIK, LLC in Bulgaria requires no capital, there's 50 euro tax for the
opening; VAT is 20% and the capital gains are 10%.

~~~
Keyframe
I'm honestly considering opening a company in Bulgaria instead of Croatia. I
guess I'll visit Sofia within next six months and check out what I need.

~~~
davidw
If you have to go abroad, why not UK or Ireland?

~~~
Keyframe
UK - eventual Brexit and I'm doing business within EU, and Bulgaria is closer
than Ireland, if I have to go there. If Brexit is canceled then I'll
reconsider.

------
thr0waway1239
I really like Patrick's work, and I have learnt a lot from it. I wish him the
best for his employment at Stripe.

But I am going to ask all of you to tread carefully when taking advice from
well-intentioned experts. Over a period of 9 or so years, Patrick went from
expressing opinions about a) why desktop software is still viable b) why web
based is a better option than desktop because desktop causes too many pains c)
why doing a SaaS model is better than the one time web based software (web
version of BCC) d) why it may not be worth the stress of (some stressful event
associated with clients in medical industry) for a SaaS which is generating
less than $2000 MRR e) why a business like StarFighter is better because you
feel like waking up and doing it for 5+ years in a row and f) eventually there
will be a good reason for the decision to leave/stop Starfighter. Amongst
these opinions, there would be two kinds of takeaway messages - the ones which
are true independent of the specific time period (don't piss off your
customer) vs the ones which are more subjective and epoch specific - e.g.
Patrick's own admission of benefiting from AdSense (via the Content Network or
some such thing) for BCC, which was probably not true by the time it was
expressed publicly and is almost certainly not true today.

There is almost positively going to be a fair amount of time lag before these
ideas germinate in the experts' head and they slowly turn into action in their
lives, and by the time they are ready to write about it, sometimes they are
close to the winding down phase of said idea. For the people who are keen to
"follow suit", as they say, it is very hard to know if it is a good idea to
invest the next 3-5 years of your lives trying to adopt the same idea.

This is all fine and obvious, you say. My concern has to do with the "other
side" of the picture. When people were lavishing praise on the SaaS model
about 3-4 years ago, I suppose I wasn't the only one who wondered "Wait a
minute. What about the fact that a SaaS business takes up your mind space 24 x
7 x 365? Isn't that a cost most of us don't wish to pay?" And after a while,
Patrick mentions in a MicroConf talk about doing an eBook or WP plugin first
before embarking on a SaaS - all great advice. Just wish more people consider
the balancing forces and always ask themselves whether they are getting the
full picture.

~~~
prawn
That was my first thought too - a very human journey covered with very bold
statements at each point. Unless I misread something, you forgot the step
where consulting (weekly granularity rather than daily or hourly) was absolute
king. I remember reading that and thinking "Wait, what about the SAAS thing?"

I guess the takeaway is that no option is without its disadvantages.

------
robin_reala
Slightly unfashionable to say this here, but this problem isn’t necessarily
something the private sector should be routing around but one that the public
sector should be fixing from within.

At GDS (GOV.UK etc) we’re working on a programme called GaaP: Government as a
Platform. This aims to provide components to radically simplify the difficulty
of building services focused on user needs for the rest of government.

Tom Loosemoore (now ex-GDS but hey) gave this talk at Code For America last
year:
[https://youtube.com/watch?v=VjE_zj-7A7A](https://youtube.com/watch?v=VjE_zj-7A7A)
. It’s obviously quite long (and in my opinion worth watching the lot) but the
topic relevant part comes at ~28 minutes in. Here Tom demonstrates how pulling
together the pieces of GaaP could potentially lead to registering s company in
3.5 minutes.

That a private sector company could do the same thing is great, but sometimes
you need to refactor the root inefficiency rather than patch the symptom.

~~~
buro9
> sometimes you need to refactor the root inefficiency rather than patch the
> symptom.

This is also my view on a lot of fintech.

However... if the incumbents aren't doing something, then eating away at the
edges may eventually either overcome the incumbents or force them into change.

I don't think Stripe could replace what govts do, but I can certainly see that
Stripe being successful will put them at the table to influence or direct the
which the way govts do things.

~~~
philipov
If innovation is motivated by competition, then the government having a
monopoly in governmental services means they never need to innovate, unless
they receive some competition.

Because barriers to emigration are so high, countries don't have to compete
with each other for quality of governance, and so it turns out that _only_ the
private sector can do it.

~~~
robin_reala
_If innovation is motivated by competition_

Your implication is that competition has to be with external agents. It’s
perfectly possible to compete with the status quo.

The private sector has a profit motive at its core: make more money for
shareholders. The public sector also has a profit motive: save more money and
be more effective for tax-payers. They’re both examples of efficiency, two
sides of the same coin.

~~~
philipov
I don't think the public sector has the motive you claim they do. I think that
in practice, the actual motivation of each department of government on every
scale is to draw more funding to their own budget in a massive power struggle
for slices of the societal pie. There aren't shareholders in the private
sense, but the profit motive is still to grow revenues/power and get them
assigned to yourself.

Taxpayers don't want efficient use of funds either. From the point of view of
a taxpayer, the most _effective_ use of funds is to have them all benefit
yourself. Everyone wants to maximize the piece of the pie that is assigned to
them. Politicians use this as an excuse to grow the scope of government,
regardless of what side you vote for. As a result, the voting apparatus does
not serve to optimize government efficiency.

~~~
robin_reala
All I can say is that from within my department, and from a lower-than-senior-
civil-servant level, the ground looks very different. It’s not for nothing
that we have our design principles[1] that have ‘user needs’ and ‘do less’ as
points 1 and 2. We absolutely need to have funding to do that, but
specifically at GDS we’re part of the UK Cabinet Office’s Efficiency and
Reform Group - a primary mission for us is to do more with less on a pan-
government scale.

To argue your second point, tax payers want an easy life. If we can cut
minutes or hours off your interactions with government year on year then
you’ll be happier, regardless of whether your overall burden goes up or down.

[1] [https://www.gov.uk/design-principles](https://www.gov.uk/design-
principles)

------
aresant
Patrick @ Stripe just shared via Twitter that he sent original idea for stripe
to patio11.

To which patio11 perfectly replied that note had gotten stuck in his spam
folder :)

[https://twitter.com/patrickc/status/774309309874221056](https://twitter.com/patrickc/status/774309309874221056)

~~~
GFischer
He would definitely have replied :) .

Patrick replied (very accurately, as it turned out) back in 2011 to my attempt
to do a micropayments startup:

 _" I would strongly advise rethinking starting a payment processor as a
student. It is relationship-, credibility-, and capital-intensive. It also
requires truly massive scale before being worth any money. (Incredibly massive
scale in micropayments. If you make $0.01 off each transaction you have to
facilitate hundreds of thousands a month just to pay for the founding team's
ramen. If you somehow possess the magic that you need to find 100,000 paying
customers you shouldn't end up eating ramen!)"_

As someone who started down the payments path and desisted pretty quickly
("fail fast", they call it :) ) I'm extremely impressed by Stripe, and they've
definitely gotten a great talent and great guy in Patrick.

------
ericjang
@patio11: may we get a post-mortem on Starfighter, and more details on what
you learned about startups?

~~~
simonswords82
Not wanting to do the concept for Starfighter any injustice but I get the
feeling it's as simple as they spent too much time on the tech and not enough
on the business. A _very_ easy mistake when the co-founders are technically
minded.

~~~
tptacek
It turns out --- I'm speaking for at least Erin and I, but I suspect to an
extent Patrick too --- we don't have the stomach for the contingency
recruiting model. Referring someone for an interview and watching them get
turned down was, for me at least, about 80% of the psychic cost of applying
myself and getting turned down.

Fuck that. It's a job that is possible to do and possible to do well and my
life is too short ( _takes bite of ham sandwich_ ) to spend it getting good at
that.

So: I am still in love with the concept and still pursuing it, but I have
fallen totally out of love with that particular business model and am happy to
blowtorch it out of my life.

More writeup to come! Patrick's at Stripe now; Erin & I have more news coming.
Ironically: expect more challenges from us, not less. :P

~~~
tom_b
Thomas, were many starfighters you referred not getting offers? I _love_ the
idea of a (properly scoped) project/challenge in the hiring process and find
myself profoundly worried when no code gets discussed in tech interviews.

I also really enjoyed stockfighter challenges. Between those six and my
university's copy of Harris' Trading and Exchanges, I learned quite a bit. I
bailed out on the AVR challenges though.

From a purely selfish viewpoint, I also want to work at places where the
hiring process isn't really just whiteboard or gotcha questions, but instead
actually has some consideration that, you know, demonstrating the ability to
produce working useful code matters. Maybe I'm just nuts. The last interview I
was in (for what people here would say is data science/engineering) involved a
couple of big-O questions and two ill-specified SQL queries . . . sigh.

~~~
firebones
I wonder whether there was some element of "those who have an inclination and
ability to complete Starfighter may be insanely qualified from one set of
screening criteria, but not from the criteria that resonates with people
hiring employees".

In other words, maybe it turned out to be a better filter for self-starters
who might be nascent entrepreneurs (reflecting the founders who created it),
but sometimes those characteristics aren't what hiring companies are looking
for when they have a specific role to fill.

Sometimes you interview people who would be outstanding in certain roles or
for certain companies--but maybe not the one you happen to be currently
working for.

I'm struggling here, but FizzBuzz is effective as a tool to _weed people out_
, but FizzBuzz taken to the extreme doesn't necessarily equate to a tool to
_rule people in_.

~~~
elptacek
There was no element of that. The frustration was mostly 'the client's hiring
process is a mess.' On our part, the one piece of work we needed to do to sell
Starfighter better was to write some 'accessible prose' on 'the practical
applications of having cleared level six' \-- this should have been more of a
priority, and it wasn't. I can look back and see the opportunity I had to do
it, myself, and am bummed that I didn't get it done. Lesson learned; it will
be part of every challenge we release going forward.

------
knite
Congratulations! Will you be sharing details on how your salary negotiation
went? Reference: [http://www.kalzumeus.com/2012/01/23/salary-
negotiation/](http://www.kalzumeus.com/2012/01/23/salary-negotiation/)

------
chatmasta
What I like most about the long term vision for Atlas is that, if it's truly
"as easy as spinning up an EC2 instance" to form a new corporation, then it
will be possible for a single entrepreneur to create complex global corporate
structures previously limited only to multinational corporations. How nice
would it be, as say, a digital nomad, to be able to have a single "holding
company" based in HK, and dynamically create a new corporation for every new
project?

~~~
aeden
Slightly OT, but countries tend to dislike this brave new world where they
cannot obviously and clearly collect taxes on business owners that reside in
their country. It is going to be a tough day if the other shoe drops on this.
No idea what it will look like if it happens though.

~~~
patio11
There exist some ways to abusively structure international tax affairs. That
isn't what Atlas is about -- we help honest businesspeople get on a sound and
legally compliant footing.

You would not even believe how many weeks of my life I've spent the last ten
years paying every cent I owe in Japan and the United States. Like every other
business owner, I kvetch a bit about the rates, but I pay my taxes on time and
in full because laws are laws.

We want to eliminate the stupid value-destroying busywork of complying with
taxes, not taxes themselves. (Letting folks across the globe participate on
equal and solid footing in the US market tends to increase value created
worldwide, which is awesome, and also increases US tax collection at the
margin.)

~~~
uola
I just have a hard time seeing how "going international" is going to be
easier. Suddenly you have to deal with a completely foreign tax system and
people who are well versed in international tax laws in your own jurisdiction.
A lot of people can't start companies abroad without considering controlled
foreign company rules, double taxation agreements, permanent establishment
etc.

~~~
cstejerean
It's not necessarily going to be easier, but if your business plans to sell
primarily to the US market and wants to accept credit card payments then
incorporating in the US with a US bank account may be easier than trying to do
so from many other countries. If on the other hand you are mostly planning on
addressing your local market then a US based entity may make things more
complicated for no reason. I think Atlas is targeted at the former.

------
chuamo
Why would someone making 30k a week as a consultant take a job[1]?

[1][https://www.kalzumeus.com/2015/05/01/talking-about-
money/](https://www.kalzumeus.com/2015/05/01/talking-about-money/)

~~~
jakobegger
Maybe because

1) 30k contracts don't line up, and you never know when the next opportunity
arrives; steady income may be preferable even if it is lower.

2) Money isn't everything. Working on interesting problems with interrsting
people is a lot more fulfilling than doing boring work that pays well.

~~~
exclusiv
Yes exactly. You can get 30k per week consulting but not on the regular, esp.
if you're doing the consulting and the biz dev. The sales cycle for getting
30k/week is long.

It's very hard to do week in week out. Getting $30k per MONTH for a small
business is generally a 3-6 month sales cycle. One-time projects can be
shorter of course, esp. in network, but you're always on the biz dev grind if
that's your model.

He wasn't 250k/yr salary for 2 consecutive years and a suspect accredited
investor.

I think it's cool what he's done and what he's shared to the community, but I
do think he gets glorified for his posts which are not always realistic for
most people and the projection is that he's killing it when he really isn't.

Also, part of me read this and thought this was sad to see a fellow
entrepreneur jump ship, even though I do like Stripe and Atlas.

------
duked
I'm happy for Patrick.

I have to say, to me the downfall of starfighter was predictable. I LOVED
microcorruption it was something I could get in fairly quickly and enjoy. But
starfighter was requiring too much commitment to get the basics of operation
and if I'm looking for a job I'd rather invest that time into brushing up my
algorithms (since that's the hiring criteria these days...) rather than
reading some background to play a "game" to eventually beat challenges and
maybe get a job interview :/

------
mendelk
Is there any official communication re Starfighter?

All I can find is this:

> Starfighter is not only not hiring, but also closing its doors. We are
> 'pivoting.'

[https://twitter.com/boboTjones/status/774303916464930816](https://twitter.com/boboTjones/status/774303916464930816)

~~~
rst
The only other thing I'm aware of is a brief note on Twitter that they're
shutting down:
[https://twitter.com/tqbf/status/771533037666390017](https://twitter.com/tqbf/status/771533037666390017)

(FWIW, the "more to come" has so far been about the Ptaceks' next project,
which is apparently something focused on security needs of startups, in
collaboration with Jeremy Rauch, with details still apparently in flux;
contact details for those interested are at
[http://latacora.com](http://latacora.com))

------
edpichler
I am enrolling Stripe Atlas and, to me, incorporating in USA will give me
access to modern banking services, and platforms, as Stripe, and it seems USA
has very lower taxes than Brazil, my country. That's why I am interested.

It all seems fascinating, but I am afraid to continue and do the last step of
the enrollment. I don't know how is the process to close the company, what the
representative agent can do for me, how much is to have an account on SVB
(after the 24 free months), if it's easy to legally hire a person to work
remotely anywhere, and if for some reason I will need to eventually travel to
USA.

If someone have a answer for one of questions, I will be thankful.

~~~
edwinwee
Nope, you don't need to travel to the US -- we'll handle incorporation and
opening your bank account remotely. When it's time to sign papers, we'll send
you an e-signature link.

Silicon Valley Bank's fees after the first 24 months vary depending on which
of their services you choose to use, so there's no one-size-fits-all rate card
we can point you to -- if you send me an email at edwin.wee@stripe.com, I'd be
happy to chat more about this in detail.

Although we don't offer immigration or employment services as a part of Atlas,
I'd love to hear more about your business to see how we can help and walk you
through the final steps!

~~~
markdown
Hi,

I'm not the person you replied to, but I have a question(s) I hope you can
help with.

Is there a list of the minimum requirements to join Atlas? I can't seem to
find it in your FAQ. Is it true that entry is granted (or not) based on an
evaluation of the startups business plan? Do I have to convince someone at
Stripe that my idea has legs before I'll be granted access?

Also, is the service exclusively for startups that deal in digital goods? Say
I have a physical product that I need a US company to import and sell (via a
fulfillment service). Would Stripe Atlas accept me as a client?

~~~
edwinwee
Atlas is still in beta, so there is an small form you'll need to fill out for
an invite. But it's quick, so no need for a lengthy business plan -- all
you'll need for this is your name, email address, country, website, and a
brief description of what you're building and how Atlas can be helpful (no
pitch decks!). We're still piloting Atlas with a small group of entrepreneurs,
so this bit of info is helpful for us when we're getting folks started.

Once you're invited, we'll reach out to you for any additional personal or
business information that's needed for incorporation and getting your bank
account set up.

Atlas certainly isn't just for digital goods -- we've had quite a few
businesses apply that sell physical goods.

You can request access at [https://stripe.com/atlas#request-
access](https://stripe.com/atlas#request-access), and please feel free drop me
a line at edwin.wee@stripe.com once you fill that out, or if you have any
other questions!

~~~
markdown
Thank you for the helpful response. I'm not ready yet, but will sign up in the
next few months. Thanks again.

------
pmyjavec
_The overwhelming majority of jobs in the technology industry do not go to
people who cold apply via jobs pages. This is important for you to know and
operationalize._

A little off topic, but why is this? I don't doubt what he is saying but why
is it not good enough to apply for a job via standard channels and not have to
be in "the boys club" ?

~~~
superuser2
There are some very different sets of beliefs, practices, and values floating
around any craft among people who have the same title. I'll call these
"tribes." Tribes are often associated with buzzwords, like "agile."

At the highest level of abstraction, practitioners in different tribes do the
same job, but the way other tribes do things might be unrecognizable and/or
horrifying from your perspective.

You want to hire from your tribe. Buzzwords get picked up by people who don't
really mean them in their original sense (see: enterprises doing waterfall and
calling it agile) so buzzwords on resumes don't identify tribe, and an
interview is only a few hours of a candidate in a contrived high-pressure
situation where they're nervous/presenting the mask they think you want to
see.

So you start with people you personally know to be in your tribe. When those
run out, you realize you can trust the people you personally know to identify
other tribe members, and this works up to the _n_ th degree. If that's not
enough, you learn that certain institutions (employers, universities, etc.)
select, demand, or instill membership in your tribe, so you go looking for
candidates who have been attached to these institutions first.

FWIW this is not unique to software by any means. I worked on the tech side of
theater in college and have friends now working in that industry. Designers,
stage and production managers, etc. in the real world are hired almost
exclusively on reputation and recommendation. They are cold-emailed job offers
(not ads to come compete for a job, but actual work) based on colleagues'
experiences with them at previous gigs. Gigs often last only a few weeks, so
you are playing this game constantly. You essentially cannot break in as a
total outsider. You need to go to a school that is trusted to provide good
interns (because its teachers are from the right tribe and it runs its student
productions the right way), and impress at your internship, or else know
someone who will convince their boss to take a chance on you. Sometimes hiring
does have a formal application process, but you are not getting the job unless
someone reading the application has heard of you or has a lot of respect for
one of the institutions on your resume.

"The boys club" is a (flawed) attempt at instituting meritocracy by a system
of recursive trust. I believe it's much better than the resume and interview
dance, but I'd still love for software to discover its "blind audition" hiring
technique.

~~~
pmyjavec
Yeah this kind of validates my experiences lately.

I recently moved to Europe form Australia, I was a successful tribesman but
voluntarily left my tribe because I liked the idea of relocation/traveling.

I was awarded an decent paying job in Netherlands but left soon after due to
toxic culture which I wanted to protect myself from. I received other offers
but non paid well so I tried to find a remote position. I had no options but
"cold applications", which means I was heading for dire straights.

Essentially I went from a somebody to a nobody. I worked in a very successful
team as a SRE/Production Engineer in Sydney to nothing, from precious metal to
polluted soil.

The "cold apply" method has failed me for months, countless coding challenges
and technical tasks (which I successfully completed) have left me without a
job. Oh, I've done several dances and jumped many hoops without any fruits of
my labour.

I fell into bad depression. I've had to work very hard to get out of the
depression. Coming out of it I can see I need to change my approach and on the
bright side it's been an important period of self discovery and learning.

I've now admitted defeat and will head back to Australia, start everything
again and take little for granted. I'm blessed I have the option of retreat.

Thanks for the response.

~~~
superuser2
Yeah, geographical mobility is the dark side of this scheme. For theater
people, for example, even crossing over from Chicago to New York is extremely
difficult. And it doesn't matter how much goodwill you've built in Omaha, that
won't get you hired in Chicago unless one of your Omaha friends goes first.
It's really important to go to school and start your career in the place you
want to end it, because in a new city, if you can find work, you're probably
going back to entry level for a while. Even worse in seniority-based union
hiring halls.

This is partly why the Bay Area is what it is for software.

I'm sorry you experienced this. It sucks. I wish you luck getting back on your
feet in Australia.

------
idlewords
I don't see any advantage in incorporation if you want to run your own private
business, but I'm willing to accept that I'm being the weirdo here.

~~~
nstj
Incorporated entities enjoy the benefit of "limited liability"[0], ie: if your
company does something "bad" you can't be liable beyond your share capital
contributions. For example, if you make a self driving car and sell it, and it
results in harm, and someone sues the company, you can't lose any of your
personal assets; rather your only loss can be the capital which you put into
the company.

tl;dr: if you do something commercial as a sole trader and not as a company,
it's possible for you to be sued for your personal assets.

[0]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limited_liability](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limited_liability)

~~~
idlewords
I think for businesses like "running a website" this threat is overrated, to
the point of absurdity, but again: willing to accept that I'm the weirdo.

~~~
icebraining
I wonder if you'll say the same when Pinboard gets sued for copyright
infringement by its archival feature. I hope it never happens, but saying
"it's just a website" is a little cavalier.

(Yes, it merely takes an publicly available work that the users could download
themselves, and makes it available to each individually. That's essentially
what Aereo did, and look at them now.)

~~~
idlewords
I'm not saying there's no legal exposure. My point is that no one is going to
slip and fall on your website, and leave you on the hook for tens of millions
of dollars in personal liability.

If I was building an Internet of Things blender I would incorporate in a
heartbeat.

------
matchagaucho
I know from personal experience the sub-title to this article is "How I'm
justifying a bad decision".

Entrepreneurs know when they're making a bad decision, whether consciously or
not.

[Edited for brevity. No disrespect, but hate to see a Developer give up on
their independence]

~~~
ridruejo
It would be if he was joining a corporate job. This is not "just a job" at a
regular company working on a regular product. People talk about making the
world a better place all the time but few do. Working on Atlas at Stripe has
that potential for impact _and_ you get to work with awesome founders.
Congrats both to kalzumeus and Stripe

~~~
matchagaucho
It doesn't sound like Sr leadership role that can influence strategy, so it's
basically a "job".

He'll come back to the dark side soon enough and build a sustainable business
model (with the benefit of experience at Stripe, of course) :-)

~~~
Dobbs
I'd say the exact opposite. From my impression of it he is in charge of the
Japan office.

If this is anything like how the company I'm at is doing internationalization
there will likely be pushing (and some implementing) technical requirements to
make the product culturally accessible. There will be B2B, and in this case
B2Gov discussions. I'm sure he will also be heading up finding office space
and hiring others to do the work.

This is a very likely a senior management position in addition to I'm sure a
senior technical position.

------
zbruhnke
Congrats Patrick ... This is one of those blog posts that I read and
completely think that I could actually go work for a company and be really
happy which never happens.

I love what you guys are doing with Atlas and will be rooting for you and for
Stripe Japan, sounds like a great opportunity to join that team for the right
people!

------
emilburzo
> The overwhelming majority of jobs in the technology industry do not go to
> people who cold apply via jobs pages.

 _sigh_

~~~
rpeden
If it's any consolation, the same is true for the best jobs in just about
every industry.

~~~
emilburzo
I would understand if that would be the case for _the best jobs_ , but it
seems all of them are like that.

~~~
rpeden
I used to feel the same way; my first dev job came through someone I met at a
tech meetup.

I've since found a couple of good ones by cold applying. What helped the most
was reading a couple of books about sales.

Essentially, when you're applying with a cover letter and resume/CV, you're
making a very short sales pitch and need to make the most of it. The good news
is that most cover letters and resumes people send out don't have this focus
at all, so it's relatively easy for you to stand out.

Sometimes, the hardest part is accepting that there's nothing wrong or
dishonest about selling yourself. When I've reviewed resumes in the past to
decide who to interview, I've found that most of them overlook the fact that I
have a problem I'm trying to solve, and I'm looking for someone to help me
solve it. If the first sentence on your resume/cover letter shows me that
you've read the job posting, understand the problems I'm trying to solve, and
tells me why you're the right person to help solve them, you really stand out
from the competition.

YMMV, of course. What I've observed may be atypical, and it's entirely
possible I've just had good luck.

It's just worth remembering that while cold applications tend to have a low
success rate, applications sent in response to job postings are really, really
awful. Being non-awful significantly helps your chances, but not as much as
meeting people and building a strong network.

------
Animats
There are lots of services to help you incorporate. Incorporate.com and
LegalZoom are well known. What's new about Atlas, other than bundling other
services and charging more?

~~~
markdown
Atlas is also restricted to Delaware, whereas with most of the other services,
you can incorporate anywhere (including Wyoming, which is the best for privacy
and taxes).

------
vanrysss
I'm sorry to hear that Starfighter is shuttering, I had a lot of fun with the
stock market portion.

------
cdnsteve
Love this part: "When you have just enough crazy, you found a payments
company, heedless of the fact that founding a payments company is doomed to
failure because it involves mountains of hard and boring work and the
incumbents have billions of dollars."

------
antoniuschan99
Wasn't Paypal taking payments over the internet in 2006?

~~~
patio11
It took me ~2 months to get BCC sold over Paypal, which was my major processor
until Stripe came along. (I don't remember what the holdup was, but I very
keenly remember the shucks-have-to-do-eSellerate decision.)

~~~
antoinevg
thr0waway1239 pointed out the obvious:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12467898](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12467898)

So I thought I'd try to draw your attention to a suggestion I made in:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12465972](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12465972)

;-)

------
insomniacity
patio11: I was just about to start making some progress on Starfighter... are
you going to be able to leave it up, or does it cost too much?

------
secabeen
>There Is No Future For Scarcity

This section worries me a bit, as it's the sort of thing that doesn't consider
the possibility of a major world-wide crisis. There are plenty of conceivable
futures where these things could happen. A simple one is a small-scale non-
nuclear war between China and US, where they disconnect completely from the
larger Internet, but we avoid a global thermonuclear war. The continental
European countries saw a 50% drop in GDP through WW2, and it could very well
happen again.

~~~
smoyer
When Mel Gibson is standing in the road shooting at gas thieves I think we'll
all be doing something other than typing comments on HN. I live in an area
where you could conceivably forage/hunt for all your food but it would be a
pretty harsh life.

------
pbnjay
congrats patio11! - I think many of us agree that stability and less stress is
a nice draw when you got young kids. Startups don't always play nice with
family.

------
benjismith
Awesome! I've been a big fan of Patrick since the days of the old Joel on
Software forums, and I've always admired his plucky optimism.

Atlas is an incredibly cool, potentially game-changing project, and Stripe was
already a game-changing company before launching it. I'm excited to see what
happens next!

Way to go, Patrick!!

------
chmike
Congratulation Patrick. This is a great news for Stripe, Japan and the world !

You just made me discover Atlas (I must have lived under a rock last year) and
I'm really impressed by the idea. It is not great, it is huge !

I quickly looked through the Q&A and the first thing that strikes me is that
the effective cost is not clear. Ok 500$ entry cost, but there are many other
costs like bank, taxes, IRS, 125$ yearly for the agent, etc. Most of these
costs aren't even clearly specified. Thus it's actually like an offer to buy a
cat in a bag.

The strength of stripe is its simplicity and clarity. You know upfront what it
will cost you. There isn't any hidden cost.

So Patrick, if you can have some influence, please help making Atlas as simple
and clear as Stripe.

------
Scarbutt
Are there any plans in Atlas to support Ireland?

~~~
edwinwee
We only support incorporating in Delaware at the moment, but are hoping to add
other locations in the future!

~~~
cperciva
Can I suggest British Columbia, Canada? It's an English-speaking country, not
in the middle of an existential crisis, and BC has very flexible incorporation
requirements (you must have at least one director, who can live anywhere in
the world; you may appoint officers but there is no requirement to do so;
shares can be with or without par value, and if with par value that value can
be specified in any currency; et cetera). Also, Vancouver's a great place to
visit, for the occasions when Stripe would need to have someone on the ground
here. :-)

~~~
markdown
> who can live anywhere in the world

Must the director be a Canadian citizen or permanent legal resident?

~~~
cperciva
Sorry, I should have been clearer there. By "can live anywhere" I meant
there's no legal residency (or citizenship) requirement.

~~~
markdown
Thanks for the clarification.

------
benmanns
I applied to the Stripe Atlas beta but haven't heard any communication after
doing so. Does anyone have insight as to how long the beta queue is?

~~~
edwinwee
We're still in beta, so we don't have an exact timeline for adding new users.
Mind shooting me an email at edwin.wee@stripe.com with the email address you
applied with?

------
lowglow
I just want to point out that everything starts off as targeted
marketing/spam.

[https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cr7mNhuUEAAoHcM.jpg:large](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cr7mNhuUEAAoHcM.jpg:large)

Don't listen when people hate on you for sharing what you're working on. The
only thing that matters in the end is success. :)

------
hypnotortoise
It would be interesting to see the main building blocks of Atlas and if any of
it have relations or takes inspirations from Blockchain Tech (e.g. Ether-based
[http://otonomos.com/](http://otonomos.com/)).

------
strongai
For what it's worth, I was never excited by starfighter because of its
trading/markets premise - simple as that. It just doesn't float my boat. The
entire proposition sounded far too much like real work. Game? Surely not.

~~~
spyrosg
Each level in the game gave you clear directions, an entertaining backstory,
and taught you the concepts necessary to think about the problem.

All three things turn what would be a boring, real-world project into a game,
where only the pleasant part is left for you to do. At least for the kind of
people they were looking for.

------
alexkehayias
Looking forward to working with you! I'm joining next week to work on Atlas
too.

------
Rapzid
Is this at all related to MYOB's Atlas?

[https://www.myob.com/au/small-business/atlas-website-
builder](https://www.myob.com/au/small-business/atlas-website-builder)

~~~
ceejayoz
No.

~~~
Rapzid
I guess not as well. I wonder if they will brand differently in Asia Pacific
to reduce confusion. MYOB's Atlas does not appear to be targeted towards
business outside AU, but Stripe Atlas is targeted at international customers
so there may be some collision there.

------
jtcond13
The penultimate paragraph here must have been difficult to write.

------
nthState
Nice work Patrick!

------
hvd
Good luck Patrick on this new adventure.

------
jokerwashere14
i shall join stripe to help

------
red_blobs
I feel like many startup founders, including Patrick, build the technology and
hope the business will follow...usually with an unsuccessful outcome.

He's great at marketing. He should have spent a year building a network of
employers with lower-tech solutions and then expanded it out with starfighter.

I've been following Patrick since the BoS days and all of his products have
been pretty low profit. Enough to support himself only (some, not even this
much) (I'm not including consulting, only products or services)

Money is the lifeblood of all companies and you will need it to truly change
the world.

------
cloudjacker
> it introduced me to the unthinkable notion that regular old geeks like me
> could run software companies. I thought it was illegal, ... my background
> therefore suggested it was either forbidden, risky, or risked being
> forbidden.

I encounter this so much in the states. Everything self directed is "sketchy",
"is that legal?". It is really sad, because those same people would fall for
scams that actually are sketchy and illegal.

------
newintellectual
Suggestion: target other - freer - countries as well. i.e. the other 96% of
the planet.

------
btcboss
Can you start by making Stripe mobile friendly lol :P my clock reads 2016.

------
_RPM
Is Stripe different than PayPal besides maybe having a better API? Is Stripe a
subset of PayPal?

~~~
k-mcgrady
Website integration is incredibly simple. Standard UI is also much better.
PayPal also has a terrible reputation for holding money and bad customer
support which Stripe doesn't. I integrated Stripe into a website with almost
zero web dev knowledge. Really, really simple.

