
Ask patio11 anything - ryanb
https://capiche.com/ama/patrick-mckenzie-stripe
======
awwstn
I love Patrick's insight here:

> Stepping back a bit, problems feel a bit less important to me as time goes
> on. The world is awash in problems. Problems you care about are just so much
> more rewarding to work on, and they pull better work out of you. Problems
> experienced by people you care about quintuply so, because if you start a
> SaaS business you'll spend much more time talking to customers and getting
> in their head than you will be on e.g. modeling their workflow in Ruby or
> optimizing your AWS spend.

> So I'd suggest most people asking this question instead ask "How do I find a
> user population that buys software that I would enjoy having in my life five
> days a week for 5~10 years?" My answer for that, after a lot of
> soulsearching, is "I enjoy helping software people a lot more than I enjoy
> helping undifferentiated professionals. Maybe I should just do that. Maybe
> no maybe." Your answer may vary.

------
AnonC
If the developers of this website are reading this thread:

1\. I’d rather visit this site after a few days or weeks and read the answers
since the UX of this site isn’t conducive to reading right now. I hate those
pop ups on newer answers and questions that hide a big portion of the screen
on mobile. Why would I switch to viewing another answer or question while I’m
busy reading one already (considering many answers are a bit long)?

2\. The other part of this page I didn’t like is that answers are all expanded
by default, which makes getting to the next question and answer cumbersome
when the one that’s in view isn’t of interest.

I’ll bookmark this and come back much later after (almost) everyone has asked
enough questions and Patrick has had a chance to answer the ones he can or
wants to.

~~~
maguay
Matt from the team here. Great feedback, thank you!

Great point on the notifications; they're fairly small on desktop but likely
too large on mobile. We thought of them as a way to show there's new content
if you're waiting for something new, but that does make sense.

We'll keep tweaking it. Let me know if anything else sticks out when you come
back to read through the AMA later!

~~~
ranit
Hmm, I never get any notifications on news.ycombinator.com on desktop or
safari on iOS. Am I reading HN wrong way? :-)

~~~
pests
I think they mean notifications on the submitted articles site, not hacker
news itself.

------
maguay
Interesting, he still sees fixing engineering hiring as the biggest
opportunity in SaaS: [https://capiche.com/q/whats-the-biggest-opportunity-for-
a-sa...](https://capiche.com/q/whats-the-biggest-opportunity-for-a-saas-
business-that-you-currently-see)

~~~
pmiller2
I’m not surprised. Just look at how many “eng hiring is broken” threads on
here.

If software could help you hire candidates that are 10% more productive and
stay 25% longer (numbers pulled out of my ass) than the candidates you hire
now, how much do you think your company would pay for that?

~~~
kristopolous
Honestly it's the wrong problem. Having passionate, eager, focused, organized,
willing workers is essentially the only job of management.

If that's not happening, switch out the managers.

~~~
pmiller2
You want me to be passionate about making rich people richer? How laughable. I
show up for work and do my job to the best of my ability because if I didn’t,
I’d starve on the streets with no health insurance.

~~~
kristopolous
A company I worked at ran out of money. All my people stayed.

1 month, 2, 3 went by. I found guaranteed positions for them based solely on
my recommendation for more pay then if we had money, the people still stayed.

They came in for work the same. Everything kept going. We eventually had a
successful product, made money, and were able to backpay.

If I was a disorganized manager giving meaningless drudgery and absurd
requirements divorced from product and purpose they would have all left.

There has to be a deeper mission, purpose, and vision that keeps people around
and focused. That's the managements job.

People aren't generally in tech for the money, there's better money in real
estate, sales and finance with less work. Drive the passion and you'll drive
the work.

Programming is like movies, art, and music: great things rarely happen when
people are just chasing dollars.

~~~
pmiller2
> ...real estate...

Sales.

> ...finance...

You make the real money here as an IB analyst (100+ hours a week in the office
— definitely NOT less work than the average SWE job), or as a financial
advisor, _i.e._ sales.

So, yeah, if you go into sales, sales, or sales, you can make more money that
way than in tech as a SWE. But, honestly, do you think the average engineer
would do well in sales?

~~~
kristopolous
Nah, that's not the point. I forget who it was, maybe Oxfam did a study on the
"American dream" income requirements, I think it was:

Family of four, one breadwinner, property owner, annual vacation, eating out
once a week, two cars, college education for children...

You know, baseline idyllic suburban living. For the bay it was I believe north
of $200K.

That's what I'm talking about. Someone making 250K in Mountainview isn't in it
"for the money", they are just trying to live a life that frankly, most other
countries can tender for about $75,000 but because of decisions we've made in
how we structure society, it takes a quarter million a year.

This is the real equivalent to the 1950s idea of "middle class", it's just
gotten so out of reach for most people, we construe people looking for it as
greedy.

They aren't. Once you understand that, you can align incentives ... A $5,000
reward doesn't mean much for these people since 250k doesn't mean they're
chasing dollars, instead a challenging rewarding job where they can work from
home whenever they want, that's what keeps them around.

------
throwaway191817
No undue criticism intended, I have never understood patio11's lore and
reverence. He built a site that addressed the needs of bingo players- kudos.
He built other moderate internet businesses that scratched a B2C itch.

Do those credentials warrant the adulation he is granted?

~~~
lxmorj
Nope. It’s because he writes clearly and insightfully, over a long period of
time, about a relatively consistent set of topics.

~~~
triangleman
I was pleased with his essay on discount brokerages.

------
emmanueloga_
Is this guy Ramit Sethi really someone to recommend? With a book title like "I
will teach you to be rich" my bullshit meter automatically goes off :-)

------
saagarjha
Is this live?

~~~
maguay
It was live; wrapped up around 6PM Pacific:
[https://twitter.com/patio11/status/1237544476966445056](https://twitter.com/patio11/status/1237544476966445056)

------
leanstartupnoob
Patrick is obviously smart, but I'm struck by how he's also a pompous know it
all. Just look at his answer to someone asking about buying a house with a
credit card:

[https://capiche.com/q/whats-your-vision-of-e-commerce-
in-203...](https://capiche.com/q/whats-your-vision-of-e-commerce-in-2030-will-
people-buy-houses-and-cars-online-with-their-credit-card)

The main reason people don't use credit cards to buy houses now is due to the
credit limit. Someone rich enough to have a $300,000 credit limit probably
doesn't want to buy just a $300K house. However... it's easy to imagine the
building or construction industry creating a credit card type product for home
builders or renovators backed by a credit line sufficient to buy distressed
properties.

> Will we see people buy houses online? I mean, clearly yes, we will see that.
> Will it become dominant to do it without meeting one's counterparty and/or
> broker? That feels unlikely.

Has Patrick ever even bought a house? Some people might think it's nice to
meet the buyer/seller, but the only reason you really get together in the same
room is to sign a bunch of paperwork at the same time. As patio might say,
"there already exists a non-zero amount of lawyers executing real estate deals
without the physical presence of the actual buyer and or seller". I see no
reason for the trend to dissipate.

~~~
RayVR
You are missing the point of credit cards vs long term loans.

> The main reason people don't use credit cards to buy houses now is due to
> the credit limit.

suppose you want to buy a $500k home. You go to a bank and they offer you 30
years at, say 3.5%.

You go to your credit card provider and somehow get a $500k limit. Your
payments looks something like 1 (one) month at 0% or as long as it takes
(based on minimum payment) at 16.99%.

Which do you choose?

If you think you can change the economics of the credit card to be closer to
the bank, you will end up with many of the same overheads that the bank has,
and you will no longer be a credit card. I.e., you will not provide near
instantaneous access to a line of credit.

~~~
leanstartupnoob
The point is that credit cards are just lines of credit. Which typically have
the high costs that you pointed out. But there's nothing special about the
16.99% interest rate and many people have cards with special intro rates at 0%
lasting for 6-12 months.

I don't see a lot of reasons why we can't eventually have pre-approved 30-yr
mortgage credit cards accepted by companies like OpenDoor focused on selling
houses.

