8 ms·

Atlas and Cuba

141 points by lx 11y ago

davidu 11y ago
This is really incredible. Many of small actions by a small number of focused people in Washington, in the Whitehouse, and entrepreneurs and bankers, may have a profound impact on millions of Cuban lives in a very short period of time. Another good reminder (to abuse a quote), "chance favors the prepared" -- Stripe had already laid a lot of groundwork before Atlas to handle the systems required for this, and then they launched Atlas to handle many of the regulatory requirements, and so when this opportunity came along for Cuba, they were quickly able to take advantage of it.
- cortesoft 11y ago
  Yeah, I always thought the embargo was counter productive. I think the best way to influence Cuba was to enable trade with us.
  - reis4g 11y ago
    "Influence Cuba" WTF? That's not a healthy/productive way of thinking... What's that you want to "influence" exactly? really? don't you know there are lots of fields where US and most countries in the world would benefit from Cuban influence instead? And in any case, it shouldn't be about influencing as surely is right now for the powerful Goliat, but about doing the right thing at the very least.
    - cortesoft 11y ago
      Well clearly the US was trying to influence Cuba with the embargo... That is the purpose of an embargo, to influence another state. I am not saying that is a good thing, just that clearly that is what they were trying to do. And since they were trying to do that, I think they could have done it in a better way.
      - reis4g 11y ago
        Yes, that's true. Messed up as it is.
- k-mcgrady 11y ago
  >> "Many of small actions by a small number of focused people in Washington, in the Whitehouse, and entrepreneurs and bankers, may have a profound impact on millions of Cuban lives in a very short period of time." While this is true don't forget that this also applies to the last several decades in Cuba too. They're fixing something that they created in the first place.
  - maxerickson 11y ago
    Isn't one of the obvious factors that different people are making these decisions? There's an awful lot of people in Washington that are unhappy with the softer approach to Cuba.
  - davidw 11y ago
    The Cuba Embargo was started in 1960. Barack Obama was born in 1961. So there are some different sets of 'they' around.
    - k-mcgrady 11y ago
      I didn't think it was necessary to be more specific in my post but I was wrong. By 'they' I meant the US government.
      - BHSPitMonkey 11y ago
        After how much time can an organization's past actions cease to be attributable to its current members? Why not also just blame the current human race for everything bad done by humans >100 years ago?
  - marcoperaza 11y ago
    Every other country in the world was free to trade with Cuba. Cuba is a disaster because of Communism, not the US embargo. Communism failed everywhere else, why would Cuba have been any different but for the embargo?
    - 11y ago
- marcoperaza 11y ago
  I disagree. Cuba has still not paid for assets illegally seized without compensation during the Revolution, nor made any other substantive concessions. They are free to do that as a sovereign country, but we shouldn't be trading for our own stolen property. Personally, I want nothing to do with Cuba so long as the Communist Party, that did so much harm to my and my friends' families, is still in power. Their profits from this opening will be used to strengthen the totalitarian apparatus and to prevent the Cuban people from reclaiming their freedoms. They did the exact same thing in the 90s. Their former sponsor (the USSR) went out of business, so Castro liberalized enough to secure his own ruling coalition, then promptly reversed course after achieving that.
  - apalmer 11y ago
    You are probably right as far as 'morality' goes... as far as the betterment of the Cuban people that are still living on the island then probably opening up trade is going to be more beneficial to them...
- 13thLetter 11y ago
  > may have a profound impact on millions of Cuban lives in a very short period of time. I can think of some things Raul Castro could do which would improve millions of Cuban lives in a very short period of time.
  - toomuchtodo 11y ago
    Would you care to list them? I've been interested in packing a backpack and heading to Cuba for a bit.
    - amazon_not 11y ago
      A few freedoms here and there wouldn't hurt. Currently there aren't a lot of things that you can do without involving the state. Merely by removing some restrictions people could sort out a lot of things themselves.
      - the_af 11y ago
        I fully agree freedoms will help. At least some of the restrictions are going away, and some weren't really enforced in later years (e.g. officially no-one can trade on their own and the so-called "black market" is illegal, but in practice this wasn't enforced because otherwise people wouldn't be able to live their lives at all). Some degree of "off the record" trade is allowed... one example that comes to mind right now are the unofficial restaurants called "paladares", hosted in private apartments; everyone knows they exist and where they are located, and they don't get closed down by the police.
    - 13thLetter 11y ago
      Allowing political dissent would be a good start. (Are you really not aware that Cuba is a dictatorship?)
      - toomuchtodo 11y ago
        > Are you really not aware that Cuba is a dictatorship? I am, but I live in the US: we have illegal drone strikes against US citizens, NSA wiretapping against US citizens, and so on (the glasses are rose colored for some). Every country has its human rights issues. Cuba may not move towards democracy as much as we'd like, but quality of life can still be improved for its citizens in parallel with political reform.
plg 11y ago
"SVB will share more details about your account’s complete fee schedule and functionality once your bank account is open." ??? - I'd like to open an account. What are the fees? -> well umm I don't want to tell you until you open the account - good luck with your chickens
- edwinwee 11y ago
  We definitely agree that startups should have a clear understanding of fees before they get started. To make things simple as a company gets started, Silicon Valley Bank is waiving account maintenance fees for Atlas users for the first 24 months. Other fees vary depending on which services customers choose to use, so we can’t post a one-size-fits-all rate card. We’d be happy to walk you through the details — feel free to get in touch with me at edwin.wee@stripe.com.
adolfojp 11y ago
A few months ago I inquired about using Stripe from Puerto Rico, a US territory for over 100 years, and was told that it wasn't available in the unincorporated territories yet. https://support.stripe.com/questions/can-i-use-stripe-if-my-business-is-based-in-an-outlying-territory-of-a-supported- https://support.stripe.com/questions/can-i-use-stripe-if-my-... And now I see Stripe getting friendly with Cuba. I don't have a clear point to make, as I'm writing this while still upset, but I just felt like I had to get my word out there perhaps to get some perspective or perhaps to start a discussion.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- edwinwee 11y ago
  Hi, I work at Stripe. We are actually now able to support Puerto Rican businesses. (We need to update that support page!) Shoot me an email at edwin.wee@stripe.com and we can get you set up.
  - hiphipjorge 11y ago
    Was there actually a good reason for this? The limitation seems completely arbitrary or stems for a misunderstanding about the difference between a state and a territory. For better or for worse, Puerto Rico is virtually a state (with residents who can't vote for the president with some minor other caveats), but legally there shouldn't be any difference.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- kesselvon 11y ago
  That's because Cuba is all media hype, very few deals have actually been done and the Cuban government hasn't shown any signs of allowing greater economic freedom. Most Cubans don't even have internet as of now Clever media play by stripe though
  - 11y ago
allr 11y ago
Cuba will have to step up its game with their Internet access, which is almost non-existent.
- amazon_not 11y ago
  That assumes that the Cuban's in charge want to get it fixed. The Internet is not non-existent in Cuba because of some technical problem.
  - reis4g 11y ago
    Almost right. It's both a political and a technical issue. Like you don't get a whole country with access to the internet from one day to the other without signing a contract with the devil (whatever that is). So, it takes time, but it is happening, Cuba is getting online, and there's no step back.
    - amazon_not 11y ago
      What contract with which devil? Cuba already has a fiber optic cable to Venezuela, so they can get all the Internet they want and need into the country. Cuba already has a national backbone, so they can get the bits distributed to every city. Cuba already provides Internet access to government and educational institutions and some businesses, so they already have the capability to provide intenter access, even if so far it's been in limited quantities. There are plans to provide ADSL service and Internet access can also be provided via existing wireless networks. There are also informal wireless networks that could be used to,get Internet out there to the people. The Chinese will sell them as much network equipment as they want. They already provide the most of it anyway. There are very few technical issues. All the Cuban powers that be need to do is unrestrict access and allow the use of existing infrastructure. EDIT: all of Cuba could have some level of Internet access right now if they just allowed satellite usage.
      - reis4g 11y ago
        Nice. And you didn't take my parenthesis as a warning! Give me 10..
arbolaez 11y ago
awesome!!!
zaroth 11y ago
The sad thing about Atlas is... why should it be so complicated anyway? If you can prove your identity, and can pay the franchise fees, it should be completely trivial to setup a legal entity and start paying taxes in any country. You just file the paperwork. Is it the bank account that's the hard thing to get? If you have a Deleware C corp with a statement of good standing and an annual report identifying the corporate officers, and you're the President setting up a bank/merchant account, is this not just a routine affair?

141 points by lx 11y ago

This is really incredible. Many of small actions by a small number of focused people in Washington, in the Whitehouse, and entrepreneurs and bankers, may have a profound impact on millions of Cuban lives in a very short period of time. Another good reminder (to abuse a quote), "chance favors the prepared" -- Stripe had already laid a lot of groundwork before Atlas to handle the systems required for this, and then they launched Atlas to handle many of the regulatory requirements, and so when this opportunity came along for Cuba, they were quickly able to take advantage of it.

cortesoft 11y ago
Yeah, I always thought the embargo was counter productive. I think the best way to influence Cuba was to enable trade with us.
- reis4g 11y ago
  "Influence Cuba" WTF? That's not a healthy/productive way of thinking... What's that you want to "influence" exactly? really? don't you know there are lots of fields where US and most countries in the world would benefit from Cuban influence instead? And in any case, it shouldn't be about influencing as surely is right now for the powerful Goliat, but about doing the right thing at the very least.
  - cortesoft 11y ago
    Well clearly the US was trying to influence Cuba with the embargo... That is the purpose of an embargo, to influence another state. I am not saying that is a good thing, just that clearly that is what they were trying to do. And since they were trying to do that, I think they could have done it in a better way.
    - reis4g 11y ago
      Yes, that's true. Messed up as it is.
k-mcgrady 11y ago
>> "Many of small actions by a small number of focused people in Washington, in the Whitehouse, and entrepreneurs and bankers, may have a profound impact on millions of Cuban lives in a very short period of time." While this is true don't forget that this also applies to the last several decades in Cuba too. They're fixing something that they created in the first place.
- maxerickson 11y ago
  Isn't one of the obvious factors that different people are making these decisions? There's an awful lot of people in Washington that are unhappy with the softer approach to Cuba.
- davidw 11y ago
  The Cuba Embargo was started in 1960. Barack Obama was born in 1961. So there are some different sets of 'they' around.
  - k-mcgrady 11y ago
    I didn't think it was necessary to be more specific in my post but I was wrong. By 'they' I meant the US government.
    - BHSPitMonkey 11y ago
      After how much time can an organization's past actions cease to be attributable to its current members? Why not also just blame the current human race for everything bad done by humans >100 years ago?
- marcoperaza 11y ago
  Every other country in the world was free to trade with Cuba. Cuba is a disaster because of Communism, not the US embargo. Communism failed everywhere else, why would Cuba have been any different but for the embargo?
  - 11y ago
marcoperaza 11y ago
I disagree. Cuba has still not paid for assets illegally seized without compensation during the Revolution, nor made any other substantive concessions. They are free to do that as a sovereign country, but we shouldn't be trading for our own stolen property. Personally, I want nothing to do with Cuba so long as the Communist Party, that did so much harm to my and my friends' families, is still in power. Their profits from this opening will be used to strengthen the totalitarian apparatus and to prevent the Cuban people from reclaiming their freedoms. They did the exact same thing in the 90s. Their former sponsor (the USSR) went out of business, so Castro liberalized enough to secure his own ruling coalition, then promptly reversed course after achieving that.
- apalmer 11y ago
  You are probably right as far as 'morality' goes... as far as the betterment of the Cuban people that are still living on the island then probably opening up trade is going to be more beneficial to them...
13thLetter 11y ago
> may have a profound impact on millions of Cuban lives in a very short period of time. I can think of some things Raul Castro could do which would improve millions of Cuban lives in a very short period of time.
- toomuchtodo 11y ago
  Would you care to list them? I've been interested in packing a backpack and heading to Cuba for a bit.
  - amazon_not 11y ago
    A few freedoms here and there wouldn't hurt. Currently there aren't a lot of things that you can do without involving the state. Merely by removing some restrictions people could sort out a lot of things themselves.
    - the_af 11y ago
      I fully agree freedoms will help. At least some of the restrictions are going away, and some weren't really enforced in later years (e.g. officially no-one can trade on their own and the so-called "black market" is illegal, but in practice this wasn't enforced because otherwise people wouldn't be able to live their lives at all). Some degree of "off the record" trade is allowed... one example that comes to mind right now are the unofficial restaurants called "paladares", hosted in private apartments; everyone knows they exist and where they are located, and they don't get closed down by the police.
  - 13thLetter 11y ago
    Allowing political dissent would be a good start. (Are you really not aware that Cuba is a dictatorship?)
    - toomuchtodo 11y ago
      > Are you really not aware that Cuba is a dictatorship? I am, but I live in the US: we have illegal drone strikes against US citizens, NSA wiretapping against US citizens, and so on (the glasses are rose colored for some). Every country has its human rights issues. Cuba may not move towards democracy as much as we'd like, but quality of life can still be improved for its citizens in parallel with political reform.

plg 11y ago

"SVB will share more details about your account’s complete fee schedule and functionality once your bank account is open." ??? - I'd like to open an account. What are the fees? -> well umm I don't want to tell you until you open the account - good luck with your chickens

edwinwee 11y ago
We definitely agree that startups should have a clear understanding of fees before they get started. To make things simple as a company gets started, Silicon Valley Bank is waiving account maintenance fees for Atlas users for the first 24 months. Other fees vary depending on which services customers choose to use, so we can’t post a one-size-fits-all rate card. We’d be happy to walk you through the details — feel free to get in touch with me at edwin.wee@stripe.com.

adolfojp 11y ago

A few months ago I inquired about using Stripe from Puerto Rico, a US territory for over 100 years, and was told that it wasn't available in the unincorporated territories yet. https://support.stripe.com/questions/can-i-use-stripe-if-my-business-is-based-in-an-outlying-territory-of-a-supported- https://support.stripe.com/questions/can-i-use-stripe-if-my-... And now I see Stripe getting friendly with Cuba. I don't have a clear point to make, as I'm writing this while still upset, but I just felt like I had to get my word out there perhaps to get some perspective or perhaps to start a discussion.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
edwinwee 11y ago
Hi, I work at Stripe. We are actually now able to support Puerto Rican businesses. (We need to update that support page!) Shoot me an email at edwin.wee@stripe.com and we can get you set up.
- hiphipjorge 11y ago
  Was there actually a good reason for this? The limitation seems completely arbitrary or stems for a misunderstanding about the difference between a state and a territory. For better or for worse, Puerto Rico is virtually a state (with residents who can't vote for the president with some minor other caveats), but legally there shouldn't be any difference.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
kesselvon 11y ago
That's because Cuba is all media hype, very few deals have actually been done and the Cuban government hasn't shown any signs of allowing greater economic freedom. Most Cubans don't even have internet as of now Clever media play by stripe though
- 11y ago

allr 11y ago

Cuba will have to step up its game with their Internet access, which is almost non-existent.

amazon_not 11y ago
That assumes that the Cuban's in charge want to get it fixed. The Internet is not non-existent in Cuba because of some technical problem.
- reis4g 11y ago
  Almost right. It's both a political and a technical issue. Like you don't get a whole country with access to the internet from one day to the other without signing a contract with the devil (whatever that is). So, it takes time, but it is happening, Cuba is getting online, and there's no step back.
  - amazon_not 11y ago
    What contract with which devil? Cuba already has a fiber optic cable to Venezuela, so they can get all the Internet they want and need into the country. Cuba already has a national backbone, so they can get the bits distributed to every city. Cuba already provides Internet access to government and educational institutions and some businesses, so they already have the capability to provide intenter access, even if so far it's been in limited quantities. There are plans to provide ADSL service and Internet access can also be provided via existing wireless networks. There are also informal wireless networks that could be used to,get Internet out there to the people. The Chinese will sell them as much network equipment as they want. They already provide the most of it anyway. There are very few technical issues. All the Cuban powers that be need to do is unrestrict access and allow the use of existing infrastructure. EDIT: all of Cuba could have some level of Internet access right now if they just allowed satellite usage.
    - reis4g 11y ago
      Nice. And you didn't take my parenthesis as a warning! Give me 10..

arbolaez 11y ago

awesome!!!

zaroth 11y ago

The sad thing about Atlas is... why should it be so complicated anyway? If you can prove your identity, and can pay the franchise fees, it should be completely trivial to setup a legal entity and start paying taxes in any country. You just file the paperwork. Is it the bank account that's the hard thing to get? If you have a Deleware C corp with a statement of good standing and an annual report identifying the corporate officers, and you're the President setting up a bank/merchant account, is this not just a routine affair?