7 ms·

Stripe: Thinking Like a Civilization

70 points by conanxin 5y ago

qualudeheart 5y ago
Thinking like a civilization is good. When everyone thinks like a civilization there will be no difference between the people. When there is no difference between the people there will be success and prosperity. Stripe is a model for true socialism. A new socialism of the future.
- WJW 5y ago
  A new socialism that will make John and Patrick Collison (and some select VCs) billionaires! Hurray, true equality! (\s of course, but it's a pretty big jump from "everyone thinking like a civilisation is provides equality between people" to "Stripe is a model for true socialism")
  - qualudeheart 5y ago
    A great leap forward if you will.
draw_down 5y ago
> One former employee I spoke to mentioned that building products at Stripe was easy. Building them in terms of knowing what customers want, sure. Shipping is another matter; layers of approval and signoff (don’t use the “bureaucracy” word) have accreted. As you’d expect. Stripe 2021 and beyond is not Stripe 2011, again as you’d expect. Agreed the leadership is strong. The culture is a moving train and as people from the broader tech industry continue to pour in, it more and more resembles your average tech company. It’s a special, unique place... you know, just like everywhere else :)
- danielmarkbruce 5y ago
  Getting the regulatory piece right is also difficult...
0des 5y ago
I'd like to take a moment to mention "Increment" which is one of Stripe's publications. It's really good, and each issue is a work of art, in the literal sense. It takes care to consider viewpoints from more parts of the org than just engineering, which is something we can all appreciate.
- GiorgioG 5y ago
  Thanks - I just subscribed to the print edition.
- skeeter2020 5y ago
  Combined with the unique and high quality stripe press offerings they're all quite good. It is a shame it's so hard and expensive to get them if you're outside of the US.
- lioeters 5y ago
  https://increment.com/ https://increment.com/
- draw_down 5y ago
  FYI, they just announced it’s winding down unfortunately. It was a pretty nice magazine, I agree. https://mobile.twitter.com/IncrementMag/status/1432799936488345604 https://mobile.twitter.com/IncrementMag/status/1432799936488...
Bswift 5y ago
I've always loved Stripe. -Does anyone here have recommendations for a good alternative? After using them for 2.5 years, our startup finally started to really scale last month. Now that we are doing more revenue than we have ever done - Stripe compliance has decided our business requires more verification and is currently holding payments for an undisclosed period of time. We are an image management platform for eye doctors, nothing has changed about our business or payment model since we started using Stripe. (The crux of the issue seems to be that Stripe has decided that we are charging patients for telehealth visits? Even though we have no SKU's or payments to us that would support this claim (we do allow any eye doctor to use our "virtual visit" feature, for free. Patients are never charged through our platform) Support has been tough to get a answer from, every morning I wake up to an intro email from a new support rep asking for the same information we sent them yesterday or directing to me to the same article about verification. We even signed up for a premium support plan - simply to try to get a consistent person to work through this issue with. It's been shockingly frustrating. We are 100% employee owned and self funded. We tripled our revenue last month and are hiring as fast as we can to support new business. Now we are scrambling to send out customer invoices manually this month through QuickBooks and had to take out a short term loan to cover the revenue being held by Stripe. I feel like a complete idiot for not having some sort of backup subscription provider in place.
- rapnie 5y ago
  > Does anyone here have recommendations for a good alternative? https://www.mollie.com/en https://www.mollie.com/en
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- chinathrow 5y ago
  I've had similar experiences with their customer support, both through chat and email. Multiple reps were writing back and forth with me and I told them twice to please close the ticket as no one understood what I really was asking about. Then the ticket somehow got escalated internally and the next response was indeed what I I was after.
finnh 5y ago
wow what a puff piece.
- ianai 5y ago
  Right, Zuck, too, likes to model himself off Roman emperors. Maybe we can retire the notion that they’re desirable monarchs?
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
shrimpx 5y ago
Stripe gets an unfair amount of love for being a hockey stick VC-backed startup. The Collisons are seen as model cofounders, infallible even, and their docs and blogs are great, but invariably the company will be driven to dubious ends by the pressure of exponential growth.
- atatatat 5y ago
  Why, who are their investors? How much worse can it get than not having bulletproof customer support?
agustif 5y ago
TIL today, Stripe also owns IndieHackers

70 points by conanxin 5y ago

Thinking like a civilization is good. When everyone thinks like a civilization there will be no difference between the people. When there is no difference between the people there will be success and prosperity. Stripe is a model for true socialism. A new socialism of the future.

WJW 5y ago
A new socialism that will make John and Patrick Collison (and some select VCs) billionaires! Hurray, true equality! (\s of course, but it's a pretty big jump from "everyone thinking like a civilisation is provides equality between people" to "Stripe is a model for true socialism")
- qualudeheart 5y ago
  A great leap forward if you will.

draw_down 5y ago

> One former employee I spoke to mentioned that building products at Stripe was easy. Building them in terms of knowing what customers want, sure. Shipping is another matter; layers of approval and signoff (don’t use the “bureaucracy” word) have accreted. As you’d expect. Stripe 2021 and beyond is not Stripe 2011, again as you’d expect. Agreed the leadership is strong. The culture is a moving train and as people from the broader tech industry continue to pour in, it more and more resembles your average tech company. It’s a special, unique place... you know, just like everywhere else :)

danielmarkbruce 5y ago
Getting the regulatory piece right is also difficult...

0des 5y ago

I'd like to take a moment to mention "Increment" which is one of Stripe's publications. It's really good, and each issue is a work of art, in the literal sense. It takes care to consider viewpoints from more parts of the org than just engineering, which is something we can all appreciate.

GiorgioG 5y ago
Thanks - I just subscribed to the print edition.
skeeter2020 5y ago
Combined with the unique and high quality stripe press offerings they're all quite good. It is a shame it's so hard and expensive to get them if you're outside of the US.
lioeters 5y ago
https://increment.com/ https://increment.com/
draw_down 5y ago
FYI, they just announced it’s winding down unfortunately. It was a pretty nice magazine, I agree. https://mobile.twitter.com/IncrementMag/status/1432799936488345604 https://mobile.twitter.com/IncrementMag/status/1432799936488...

Bswift 5y ago

I've always loved Stripe. -Does anyone here have recommendations for a good alternative? After using them for 2.5 years, our startup finally started to really scale last month. Now that we are doing more revenue than we have ever done - Stripe compliance has decided our business requires more verification and is currently holding payments for an undisclosed period of time. We are an image management platform for eye doctors, nothing has changed about our business or payment model since we started using Stripe. (The crux of the issue seems to be that Stripe has decided that we are charging patients for telehealth visits? Even though we have no SKU's or payments to us that would support this claim (we do allow any eye doctor to use our "virtual visit" feature, for free. Patients are never charged through our platform) Support has been tough to get a answer from, every morning I wake up to an intro email from a new support rep asking for the same information we sent them yesterday or directing to me to the same article about verification. We even signed up for a premium support plan - simply to try to get a consistent person to work through this issue with. It's been shockingly frustrating. We are 100% employee owned and self funded. We tripled our revenue last month and are hiring as fast as we can to support new business. Now we are scrambling to send out customer invoices manually this month through QuickBooks and had to take out a short term loan to cover the revenue being held by Stripe. I feel like a complete idiot for not having some sort of backup subscription provider in place.

rapnie 5y ago
> Does anyone here have recommendations for a good alternative? https://www.mollie.com/en https://www.mollie.com/en
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
chinathrow 5y ago
I've had similar experiences with their customer support, both through chat and email. Multiple reps were writing back and forth with me and I told them twice to please close the ticket as no one understood what I really was asking about. Then the ticket somehow got escalated internally and the next response was indeed what I I was after.

finnh 5y ago

wow what a puff piece.

ianai 5y ago
Right, Zuck, too, likes to model himself off Roman emperors. Maybe we can retire the notion that they’re desirable monarchs?

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

shrimpx 5y ago

Stripe gets an unfair amount of love for being a hockey stick VC-backed startup. The Collisons are seen as model cofounders, infallible even, and their docs and blogs are great, but invariably the company will be driven to dubious ends by the pressure of exponential growth.

atatatat 5y ago
Why, who are their investors? How much worse can it get than not having bulletproof customer support?

agustif 5y ago

TIL today, Stripe also owns IndieHackers