
Stripe Press - gregorymichael
https://press.stripe.com/
======
cyberferret
As someone whose SaaS uses Stripe for payment processing, I must admit to
being somewhat uncomfortable that Stripe seems to be spreading themselves out
into areas outside their core business.

I read the "22 Immutable Laws of Marketing" many many years ago, and it
repeatedly spells out the folly of large companies who became huge on the back
of just ONE product then thinking that they needed to have alternatives or
provide more choice and broadened their range to the overall long term
detriment of the main product or business that made them huge in the first
place.

EDIT: Just to clarify - it is not just Stripe Press. I am including
initiatives like acquiring the Indie Hackers site (which I enjoy BTW) a while
back etc. I can totally see that these are all related to Stripe's audience of
tech startups, but it still has the ring of, say, a candy company who starts
diversifying into a clothing line etc.

End of the day - every employee who is distracted by looking after the assets
& numbers for these side projects is an employee who is not focused on their
core payments system.

~~~
pc
Stripe cofounder here. It's a very fair question.

> _I must admit to being somewhat uncomfortable that Stripe seems to be
> spreading themselves out into areas outside their core business_

The vast majority of Stripe employees (and there are now more than 1,000) work
on our core functionality today. But we see our core _business_ as building
tools and infrastructure that help grow the online economy. ("Increase the GDP
of the internet.") When we think about that problem, we see that one of the
main limits on Stripe's growth is the number of successful startups in the
world. If we can cheaply help increase that number, it makes a lot of business
sense for us to do so. (And, hopefully, doing so will create a ton of
spillover value for others as well.)

As we grow, we have to get good at walking and chewing gum -- just as Google
or Amazon have. However, while we go and tackle other problems, our aim is not
only to continue to improve our core payments infrastructure, but do deliver
improvements at an accelerating rate.

~~~
eganist
> we see that one of the main limits on Stripe's growth is the number of
> successful startups in the world. [...] If we can cheaply help increase that
> number, it makes a lot of business sense for us to do so.

This approach lends itself to spending on many cheap things which, e.g. in
this case, might not even have quantifiable benefits.

I'll extend OP's curiosity and wonder how the team behind Stripe press plans
on measuring the success of their initiative, and what milestone hits/misses
are needed to determine the success or failure state of the project.

\---

Separately, my background includes vendor risk assessments. This is the kind
of thing that makes me question long term investment in a platform. It's
admittedly a lower risk than many technical findings, but it's not something
to discount when evaluating the use of a startup for critical infrastructure
(payment). Knowing Stripe's size, the various risks that PCI participants have
to account for (and that's just PCI DSS specifically), and the trouble many
larger organizations _and startups_ have in meeting those obligations also
makes me that much more likely to _strictly_ score Stripe on the next vendor
risk assessment when I see spend of this sort on ancillary/non-critical
measures.

I'm sharing how I think because I'd be surprised if others in my field didn't
think the same way.

~~~
twunde
On a similar note, I've seen one large client's PCI compliance team tell us
that we couldn't use Stripe for their integration, primarily because it's seen
as a payment processor for startups and not for the "enterprise." It didn't
help that Stripe doesn't give out Merchant IDs. Additional risks have been
that Stripe has made breaking changes without an api version update and the
number of data issues/edge cases we've run into with automatic reconciliation
reports.

~~~
closeparen
What perception of market segment have to do with PCI compliance?

~~~
girvo
Not much, but the assessors are human and often take into account subjective
factors like that when making their determination. Or threaten to, which is as
good as making it a part of their checklist. That’s here in Australia, anyway,
about 5 years ago, nothing to do with stripe but they definitely cared about
what our processors reputation looked like

------
jgautsch
Looks like the High Growth Handbook is available online for free:
[http://growth.eladgil.com/book/introduction/how-to-use-
this-...](http://growth.eladgil.com/book/introduction/how-to-use-this-book/)

~~~
desku
The link to the .pdf seems to be broken though.

~~~
ranit
GP's link is to an on-line HTML version of the book. It works fine as far as I
can see.

------
blairbeckwith
The books the Stripe has announced here are all pretty exciting to me – I want
to read them all.

When Netflix started doing original content, "Netflix Original" was
essentially a seal of quality, and I was typically excited enough to at least
check out each one. As they've pumped out so much quantity lately, that
quality bar has dropped significantly.

I hope Stripe Press is successful enough to keep putting out great content,
but not successful enough to succumb to the same fate. Patrick's love (at
least Patrick – I'm sure others) of books that he's discussed at length gives
me some hope.

~~~
Shank
> Patrick's love (at least Patrick – I'm sure others) of books that he's
> discussed at length gives me some hope.

Definitely feels like this is directly channeling Patrick. It looks like
Stripe Press is going to republish The Dream Machine, which he's recommended
on more than one occasion.

They're also all hard cover books, probably in his own preference too.

~~~
pc
I'm definitely a fan of this project but it'd be a mistake to attribute too
much to me... it's led within Stripe by a team of very talented people.

~~~
Shank
I stand firmly corrected!

The entire team did an excellent job, and they definitely deserve credit here.
It's very well made!

------
ds0
Does someone want to explain the rationale behind the color picker at the side
of the page which sets the text and image tint before slowly reverting it back
to its original light gray?

~~~
gk1
It's an homage to chromatic bar codes, commonly found on product packaging and
color prints:
[http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2013/01/08/color_spots_o...](http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2013/01/08/color_spots_on_packages_what_are_those_things.html)

(... I think. I don't work for Stripe.)

~~~
pen2l
It's cool, but it's not as awesome as the average Stripe site used to be.
Maybe it's because Benjamin left :(

~~~
fermienrico
Everytime there is an article about Stripe, someone mentions how great their
design is. Am I the only one who thinks that their design is basically same as
any other Saas company, albeit just slightly more refined? They all look the
same. Material bootstrapy designs.

When I was an intern at a defense company, there was this old british guy that
always wore a white shirt and a black tie - even in 2010. I went to lunch with
him in his old Jaguar. We were discussing car designs and asked him what he
thinks about Audi's new eyelash headlights - which was cool in 2010. He said
"If you turn off the lights, from a distance, I can't tell if it is a Honda
Accord or an Audi A4. All these sedans look the same". It made me think and
appreciate Porsche 911 and other iconic designs that have veered off of the
beaten path and created something original. Original, not for the sake of
being different, but truly original in the full spirit of the meaning.

Stripe, I am sorry, but doesn't live up to its design hype. Stripe's design is
not original nor iconic.

~~~
tomelders
I couldn't disagree more. To wheel out a tired old phrase, design isn't how
something looks, it's how it works.

The visual aesthetics of Stripe's output demonstrates great taste. But it's
the way that taste complements the functionality, and how they are
uncompromising about functionality and usability. I've worked on too many UI's
where a detail in the design has compromised the usability, performance, or
functionality of a UI all for the sake of aesthetics. I swear I might kill the
next UXer that tries to argue that "responsive is out of scope" just because
they can't be arsed to figure it out or change their designs to work
responsively.

A lot of products and services look like Stripe now, or at least try to, but
very few work as well as Stripe's output.

~~~
fermienrico
That was nice to read. Thanks for shedding the light - I tend to agree that
Stripe's design is very functional. I just wish they had a more original
aesthetic.

~~~
pen2l
Wait, it's _not_ original?

It feels pretty original to me. What do you think it's a copy of if it's not
original?

~~~
fermienrico
Twitter Bootstrap. Google’s material design. Pick your favorite framework.

------
bflesch
I don't understand why a payment processing company is putting out books? Too
much funding?

~~~
jboynyc
That's a very good question. They call the series "Ideas for Progress," and
yet all the authors are men based in the U.S., and everyone blurbing these
books also appears to be a man based in the U.S.

Fine, okay, maybe sometimes the diversity argument gets annoying and stale,
but seriously‽

There's a reason publishers exist. If they're good, they have enough
experience to not be so myopic and tone-deaf.

~~~
exotree
“There's a reason publishers exist. If they're good, they have enough
experience to not be so myopic and tone-deaf.”

That’s a stretch. Publishing has been dominated predominantly by white men for
a long time.

~~~
jboynyc
True, but I think any decent publishing house in 2018 would look at its lineup
of authors and, upon finding it all-male, would go back to the drawing board.
Stripe did not do that. They ran with it.

------
crsv
Elad Gil having quite the PR push today on HN. Conveniently first on the
Stripe Press article, earlier post with the Altman interview. Well done on the
marketing game today!

~~~
tyingq
Well at least someone is calling it like it is. Thank you.

------
zkirill
I am actively looking for Stripe alternatives because there are several core
platform features that are still not fixed or implemented, while every news I
hear about Stripe seems to be how they are branching out into auxiliary
services. Even their customer support has gotten worse in the past year or
two.

~~~
RoboTeddy
What's broken or unimplemented?

~~~
zkirill
Off the top of my head:

* Undocumented surprise error when user tries to re-subscribe in a different currency or change currency. Solution is to recreate the whole customer.

* Docs instruct to subscribe new users to free plan which is actually a bad practice for reasons that include first bullet point.

* Lack of docs/guidance for China payment systems and seeing Stripe server and frontend errors in testing environment.

~~~
edwinwee
Hrm, could you share more with me about the errors you saw? We rolled out an
integration dashboard
([https://dashboard.stripe.com/developers](https://dashboard.stripe.com/developers))
in March to help review errors.

Over the past few years, we've invested in how we support users (last week, we
launched free, 24x7 phone and chat support).

I'm love to hear more and see where I can help (and any cases where we may
have dropped the ball)—shoot me an email at edwin@stripe.com

------
criddell
I'm confused - are these reprints of existing books?

Is Waldrop's book on Licklider the same as this one:

[https://www.amazon.com/Dream-Machine-Licklider-Revolution-
Co...](https://www.amazon.com/Dream-Machine-Licklider-Revolution-Computing-
ebook/dp/B01FIPHEXM)

~~~
psetq
Some are, apparently. A useful summary is buried at the bottom under the #why-
are-we-doing-this anchor:

    
    
        Stripe Press highlights ideas that we think can be broadly useful. Some
        books contain entirely new material, some are collections of existing
        work reimagined, and others are republications of previous works that
        have remained relevant over time or have renewed relevance today.

~~~
criddell
I totally missed that. Thanks for pointing it out.

------
Keyframe
I know it's HN and YC and all, and Stripe sounds nice and all, but I have
never seen it 'out in the wild'. Not once! I'm in Europe and I surf a lot
(even buy stuff online often), so what gives? Do I hang around wrong parts of
the internet or Stripe hasn't reached out as far yet?

Also, Stripe co-founder claims here in the comments that vast majority of
their employees ("and there are now more than 1,000) work on their core
functionality. I presume core functionality isn't sales. What the hell, man?
Quick google search reveals Windows 7 development team was 960 people, more or
less. Sure, microsoft has other teams that service OS dev team with their
tools and whatnot, but so do we have those 'out in the open' with OSS. I can't
even imagine what I could accomplish with a dev team of 1,000 competent
developers.

~~~
psaniko
I read the co-founder's comment as the whole company having 1000 employees
(Wikipedia confirms this) and the vast majority serving the core functionality
in one way or the other.

Without Sales, Ops, etc. I imagine the number of core functionality devs to be
100-300.

~~~
Keyframe
That would make more sense.

------
amelius
Beware of companies/VCs that want to fool you into thinking how "easy" it is
to grow a business, if you just follow their advice and use their services.

------
ocdtrekkie
I'd like to recommend if anyone from Stripe is reading around here, that if
you want my business with books these days you need to have a DRM-free option.
Where I pay you (this should be easy for Stripe!) and I download the book as
PDF, EPUB, MOBI, etc. without DRM. It works for No Starch, Pearson, Manning,
and plenty of other publishers. I can even buy books this way through Humble
Bundle, which I pay for with Stripe!

------
sotojuan
Hope to see a book by brandur there someday.

------
julee04
Anyone know how Stripe is printing these books?

~~~
briannaw617
Hiya, I'm Brianna from the Stripe Press team! What can we tell you about how
we're printing?

~~~
niyazpk
Well... how are you printing these books?

~~~
briannaw617
We partner with a printer called Hemlock to make our books:
[https://www.hemlock.com/](https://www.hemlock.com/)

~~~
julee04
Thanks Brianna!

------
kccqzy
Stripe also publishes a tech magazine called Increment, which I've recently
found to be a nice relaxing read. The most recent issue is Programming
Languages, but it's not an encyclopedic treatise on PL, nor something you'd
find in a PL textbook. I definitely enjoyed it and wish the best for the
publications team at Stripe!

------
tnolet
Hard to judge a book by its cover, but this will probably be picked up and
canonized similar to the 37signals books and a handful of others. This is fine
as long as new founders remember that these books are probably 50% (personal
brand) marketing and 50% geniunely helpful. Picking the right 50% is
admittedly not that hard.

------
jumelles
This is fantastic, but some details on the books would be nice. Where are they
printed? Paper weight? Dimensions?

~~~
criddell
And I'd like to know what digital formats (if any) they will support. I love
books, but I don't want to give up any more physical space to them.

~~~
runevault
So when I looked earlier the book is available for Kindle on Amazon but I
could not find it on B&N for Nook. They've got at least 1 ebook format though,
plus the website.

------
xbryanx
Jason Kotke reminds us who's amplified:
[https://twitter.com/kottke/status/1019357328343117824](https://twitter.com/kottke/status/1019357328343117824)

~~~
habitue
I... don't see anywhere they've restricted publishing to white men? Stripe is
a very inclusive company, this tweet seems like trying to stir up shit for no
reason.

------
crossroads091
The carousel/panel of book reviews are not fully visible or accessible at a
zoom-level of 100% on Chrome - an extremely rare case of UI bug on a Stripe
product announcement page. Or, is this a feature? ;)

------
koolhead17
I don't understand why people are commenting negatively of this announcement.

Stripe founders are smart enough to understand what they are doing.

Marketing & educating helps in customer acquisition. They are on it.

------
throwawayqdhd
As with everything else that Stripe does, these books are beautifully designed
as well. For me, their design has to be their differentiating factor.

------
csomar
I don't get it. Why does it take me to Amazon? I thought Stripe is a credit
card processing company? Do they need Amazon for fulfilment?

~~~
philip1209
> Over the past couple of weeks, Stripe began handling a large, though
> undisclosed, portion of Amazon’s transactions

[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-08-01/how-
two-b...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-08-01/how-two-brothers-
turned-seven-lines-of-code-into-a-9-2-billion-startup)

------
dtmmax33
I'm going to write a book "Don't Use Stripe for Your Startup"

They can shut you down without any reason, just that you are magically high
risk. Just when you are freaking out and think you will pick up the phone and
call and find out what is going on you discover they don't have a phone
number.

~~~
edwinwee
I'd like to dig more into this—could you send me an email at edwin@stripe.com?

------
amelius
This can't work for the obvious reason that if everybody applies these
techniques, then everybody's business would grow sky-high.

They might as well sell a book on how to win the lottery.

~~~
throwawaymsft
An economist walks down the street and sees a $20 on the ground. “That can’t
be real, if it were, someone would have picked it up.”

A passerby stoops down and picks it up.

~~~
kickopotomus
I appreciate the metaphor but it still highlights the same crux of the
problem. That first passerby got the $20. The next guy that follows in his
footsteps gets nothing.

~~~
throwawaymsft
But is that a problem for the first passerby? Do you not read the book because
the strategies won't work in perpetuity?

~~~
kickopotomus
> High Growth Handbook is the playbook for turning a startup into a unicorn...

No, I don't read the book because I don't like books that claim to be selling
some secret sauce to success because they are often rife with survivorship
bias.

~~~
throwawaymsft
Sounds like there’s a few objections: the book is so effective its techniques
will be adopted by everyone, and the book is based on flawed survivorship bias
so the techniques are unlikely to work.

------
orliesaurus
If anyone grabs a copy, let me know if it's worth it, here or on twitter (same
username as here) please!

~~~
ironjunkie
book is available for free, another post got the URL. This is probably a PR
stunt to print book with a nice design-ish front cover.

They want to grab the mindshare of devs, and they are doing the right PR stunt
to do it.

~~~
yashevde
where is the book available? The HTML site is up, but the PDFs have been taken
down it seems. Wouldn't be surprised if the site is collapsed to a stub soon
too; it may be the next to go.

------
SandersAK
I would love for the day to come when things like this launch and I hit
command F "she" or "her" and it doesn't come up empty.

~~~
prawn
Brianna from Stripe Press has commented on this HN story and is the main
comment on the Product Hunt announcement:
[https://www.producthunt.com/@brianna_wolfson](https://www.producthunt.com/@brianna_wolfson)

If there are female tech/business authors/books you'd like to see listed, you
could send through the suggestions?

~~~
briannaw617
Please do! I'm brianna@stripe.com if you'd like to get in touch directly.

------
neom
Stripe thinks it's something it isn't, and the arrogance of the founders and
their message is becoming trite. Not to rain on their parade, but I hope they
get taken down a peg or two, they're mediocre philosophers at best. Be a great
payments gateway, not HBR.

~~~
neom
That wasn't very kind. I apologize.

