15 ms·

I'm also a founder of an $xB fintech (Coinbase!) and I have to say, this does not ring true to me at all. I've known Patrick since 2013 or so, and I have found

I'm also a founder of an $xB fintech (Coinbase!) and I have to say, this does not ring true to me at all. I've known Patrick since 2013 or so, and I have found him to be nothing but the highest integrity. Same for John. We are semi-competitors (not a ton of overlap) so you might find it strange for me to stick up for him like this, but I just think this description is wildly inaccurate. As one small example, Patrick has proactively told me when wanting to build competitive products, even when he didn't have to (very positive sum thinking). He has direct control over reporters and YC? I'm sorry but this sounds like conspiracy theory. People are living all over due to covid - so what. Remote is the future of work. There are plenty of more reasonable Occam's razor explanations for some of what is being reported in this thread (and from the OP). You always have to assume ignorance over malice first. For example: - companies often look at startups they may want to acquire, and decide to pass for various reasons (saying no more than yes is a good process), they then launch their own products (this is why they were looking at acquisitions in the first place), pretty normal - any time you have thousand of interviews going on, you are bound to get some bad candidate experiences, I know for instance these happen in Coinbase periodically, and we try to minimize it for sure, but you will not get it to zero (especially when growing quickly) - most rational explanation for OPs issue is that references were checked and came back luke warm/negative, so more were done which delayed it etc (they may not tell you this was the reason to protect sources btw), this is one of many potential reasons, i'm guessing, but benign explanations are more likely - also, "discussing details of an offer" is not the same as receiving an offer Anyway - if people had negative experiences, then feedback is great. I just hate to see HN jumping into tear downs and wild conjecture like this. Patrick and John are great founders we can all learn from, and yes human like all of us (not perfect). Let's all help each other improve here, and assume positive intent.

sam0x17 5y ago
Strange that the downvote button was hidden on this post. I had to manually submit the GET request.
metagame 5y ago
Have you considered that he might just avoid sharking out on people he considers friends, or people with too large a platform? Genuine question.
kortilla 5y ago
This is the first time I’ve seen a post with anything negative about Patrick and having a Coinbase founder come out of the woodwork to make a post like this defending all of this with nothing more than conjecture sends a completely different message than you think.
- hasmolo 5y ago
  this is such a key thing people in immense power forget, once you’re on the inside things start looking really different and you can’t see it
  - howdydoo 5y ago
    I bet Patrick will never have to deal with his Coinbase support tickets going unanswered for months. It was nice of Brian to take time out of his day to come here and defend his buddy, but I wish he'd invest some of that $xB into building a support team for his paying customers.
    - danlugo92 5y ago
      #BitcoinFixesThis Bitcoin will never lock your funds, suspend your account, and since it works perfectly, you don't need support at all.
      - schleck8 5y ago
        How will financial crime be prevented? Seriously. I am a fan of some crypto coins because in contrast to bitcoin there is actually future-proof concepts, but this "you will never face any consequences" advertising is delusional and would only work in a perfect alternative reality where everone acts in the interest of society. Also https://xrpl.org/carbon-calculator.html https://xrpl.org/carbon-calculator.html
eganist 5y ago
Props for attaching your name to your comment, something I wish the throwaway OP also did, though in the spirit of believing the victim, I can understand why they didn't. That said, with threads like this, there's also value in letting people come forward with their experiences (positive or otherwise) to see if there's any sort of pattern; any such patterns can then inform future interactions with the people or companies involved. My own personal experience over the last year as a manager of managers that may be relevant to both pc and barmstrong: seeing a surprising number of security resumes on the market from current Stripe talent suggests there may be a bit of impending brain drain (for reasons I can't put a finger on as I'm not inside). I've seen less of this with Coinbase talent.
- luckydata 5y ago
  there ABSOLUTELY is a pattern of Stripe doing this stuff.
- leephillips 5y ago
  "in the spirit of believing the victim" The only kind of sense this could make is as a tautology. If the commenter is a "victim" then you've already decided to believe him or her. But what evidence do you have to support this belief?
  - eganist 5y ago
    worth noting that the parent comment was flagged to death 4 minutes after posting and vouched what, a half hour later? Anyway, I sent this to the comment author via email, but the best I can do in public is link to https://www.blackburncenter.org/post/on-believing-victims https://www.blackburncenter.org/post/on-believing-victims Context: I run r/Relationship Advice.
    - rightbyte 5y ago
      Oh. I thought "hey, why are you not greyed out then?" but that would explain it.
  - 5y ago
jongorer 5y ago
I’ve personally conducted business with Patrick, and integrity isn’t a term I’d associate with him. Most polite term I can think of would be “shrewd”.
- rvnx 5y ago
  I don't think integrity fits into any of the metrics that you have to report to YC.
  - guiriduro 5y ago
    Then its a pity, and an opportunity to improve or move aside for an organisation that does (and stronger ethics reputation for graduates thereof.)
  - lostlogin 5y ago
    Ouch.
  - ignoramous 5y ago
    At least they ask founders to be not mean [0] and specifically be nice [1] but do ask them to be relentless [2] and formidable [3], which may come off as shrewd? [0] http://paulgraham.com/mean.html http://paulgraham.com/mean.html [1] http://paulgraham.com/safe.html http://paulgraham.com/safe.html [2] http://paulgraham.com/relres.html http://paulgraham.com/relres.html [3] http://paulgraham.com/earnest.html http://paulgraham.com/earnest.html
  - dang 5y ago
    YC has pretty strong ethical guidelines for founders and people have been removed from YC for violating them, so I'm not sure where you're coming from with that, unless it's just a cheap shot.
    - rvnx 5y ago
      It's not YC specific but systemic sadly.
- 5y ago
mempko 5y ago
Japan has a long tradition in coopetition. SV has adopted many Japanese traditions. Unfortunately some people seem to take competition too seriously, ruining the culture. It seems some are suggesting Patrick and John take competition too seriously. Whether the allegations are true or not, it can unfortunately be damaging. Adam Smith, on his work on competition, took many ideas from the Muslim Caliphate. Where markets can only work on trust. That nobody will do business with someone they don't trust. Trust is what underlies communities like this, even if people are competitors.
ng12 5y ago
Sure, but you run Coinbase. It wouldn't surprise me if people with less soft power than you had negative interactions.
- spottybanana 5y ago
  Yeah, it is no wonder that a founder-CEO of a 70 billion dollar company is having very little negative interactions with about anyone. Personally I have became from poor ass bootstrapping startup founder to rich and successful retired entrpreneur (now investor) and it is ridiculous how people will treat you wildly differently as you get wealthier. And at times the exactly same people.
  - xwolfi 5y ago
    Hello Sir, I adore your comment, could you swing a bit of dough my way?
  - nowherebeen 5y ago
    > And at times the exactly same people. I have seen this type of behavior before even though I am not rich or successful. These people act like they never behaved the way they did or simply pretend it never happened, while they continue to do it to others. Its disgusting how people can be so fake.
    - rightbyte 5y ago
      Well some people are just not so nice until you know each other. Not like "you start to appreciate them" but "they get friendly".
    - Radim 5y ago
      I'd guess this is Prisoner's Dilemma in practice: If you don't expect repeat interactions with an agent, or expect the agent won't remember / weigh these past interactions strongly, you do what's best for you in the moment. Which happens to be taking the counterparty's current situation into account – including their wealth/power, AKA how much they can do for you. Entirely pragmatic, if selfish ("disgusting" in your words). The way to combat this fake behaviour is to increase its cost, forcing the "fake" person to interact differently. But I wouldn't hold my breath: 1) To "increase the cost" you need something of value in the first place. If you're poor and powerless, you are… powerless. Your only strength is in numbers: social pressure, `∑ little_power * lots_of_people`. 2) This "fake" personality is likely something learned in early childhood. A person would probably need to experience lots of negative feedback to readjust later in life. 3) Have you considered that their strategy ("fakeness", taking into account extrinsic factors like wealth or fame) may be superior to yours ("integrity", interacting based solely on a someone's intrinsic traits)? You know, it is not a physical law that being nice and consistent to people pays off. It's a pretty wild social dynamic, evolved only recently.
jsc1986 5y ago
Did Patrick message you to ask you to post this? The point is not that they have direct control over YC or HN, it's that they have massive indirect control over the organization and have done a wizard's job of making themselves untouchable in the media. Some context: I'm a former (early) YC founder, and during my batch the YC team recommended that we spend time with the HN team. The HN team gave us edits on our posts, recommended the best times of day to submit, emailed us when stories about our companies hit the front page, and explained how the ranking algorithms worked (and thus we learned how to game them). And we are not the most valuable YC company ever -- so it's possible more was done for Stripe. It's not direct influence, but rather indirect impact. So again I ask -- Did Patrick request that you write this post?
- omarish 5y ago
  > And we are not the most valuable YC company ever -- so it's possible more was done for Stripe. Ah yes, surely the reason you didn't create the most valuable YC company ever is because more was done for Stripe.
- barmstrong 5y ago
  No he did not. We didn’t even discuss it.
  - choppaface 5y ago
    I don’t think the question was whether you two actually talked but rather if there is any conflict of interest or other incentives that fueled the defense. You’ve had a particularly divisive approach towards people (e.g. https://www.forbes.com/sites/rachelsandler/2020/10/08/60-employees-leave-coinbase-over-ceos-pledge-to-be-apolitical/?sh=612aed55a065 https://www.forbes.com/sites/rachelsandler/2020/10/08/60-emp... ) and so it’s reasonable to assume any of your public statements might not be completely accurate or forthcoming or easy to take at face value. That of course might not be intentional though!
    - 1123581321 5y ago
      It looks like the question actually was whether they talked. It was asked two ways in the same comment: - “Did Patrick request that you write this post?” - “Did Patrick message you to ask you to post this?”
deltaonefour 5y ago
I'm too am also a founder of an $xB fintech, and I have to say I disagree with your assessment. The initial poster was right on all counts.
- DonHopkins 5y ago
  I'm working on my SECOND $billion! ...I gave up on my first.
  - mrtranscendence 5y ago
    I figure at this point my easiest path to becoming a billionaire would be to develop a time machine, go back to when you could buy a bitcoin for a dollar, and plop down $20K or so. That feels more realistic than me actually building a valuable company.
hemloc_io 5y ago
Not to fuel the fire here, but from the startups perspective I'm not sure there's much functional difference between a company attempting to acquire a startup and then deciding to go it alone, and using the acquisition process for research on their future products other than intent. No matter what if you do the DD process on an acquisition you'll certainly apply those learnings to your future efforts. There's even a PG blogpost about it. http://www.paulgraham.com/corpdev.html http://www.paulgraham.com/corpdev.html Side Note: I'm always amazed to find people that run large companies posting on hackernews. Doubly amazed that two companies I'm interviewing for are mentioned in the same post (about interviews no less.) :D Small world.
xmly 5y ago
You TWO could be the same person? Just a wild guess...
ignoramous 5y ago
> any time you have thousand of interviews going on, you are bound to get some bad candidate experiences... and we try to minimize it for sure, but you will not get it to zero (especially when growing quickly) Spot on. Nor should anyone expend disproportionate energy in bringing down common causes of quality issues to zero. https://apenwarr.ca/log/20161226 https://apenwarr.ca/log/20161226 > I just hate to see HN jumping into tear downs and wild conjecture like this. You must be new here.
danrocks 5y ago
> most rational explanation for OPs issue is that references were checked and came back luke warm/negative, so more were done which delayed it etc (they may not tell you this was the reason to protect sources btw), this is one of many potential reasons, i'm guessing, but benign explanations are more likely > also, "discussing details of an offer" is not the same as receiving an offer All reasonable things to happen, for sure. Would other HMs in the same building show interest after bad references? Debatable. I accept all outcomes - all except ghosting.
xwolfi 5y ago
You know the best you could have done is say nothing. People like this, best way to prove them wrong is to show there's nothing. Even a "oh it's true but we ll try to change" helps more than doing exactly what the OP did with his catch-22: if you defend here, he's proven right.
csomar 5y ago
I don't think Coinbase and Stripe are in the same business but... > As one small example, Patrick has proactively told me when wanting to build competitive products, even when he didn't have to (very positive sum thinking). I'm not sure why this is positive or signals a high-integrity person. If he doesn't have to tell you, he probably shouldn't. He runs a private company and that's what he should care about. Or maybe he did that, so that in the future you can kick back and write this comment?
- noisy_boy 5y ago
  Sometime one does favors in the hopes of being treated likewise in future. It is an investment, even though not guaranteed to pay-off; but when done to powerful people, that off-hand chance can pay-off handsomely and be worth it.
  - ludamad 5y ago
    "I'm an $xB ceo and everyone you mentioned have been lovely to me" is a data point, but being successful means even your true friends are networking with you (because it's logical, not implying sneaky intentions)
bob332 5y ago
Why would we ever listen to someone who runs a ponzi coin company?
vertis 5y ago
> Patrick has proactively told me when wanting to build competitive products, even when he didn't have to (very positive sum thinking). I used to get very frustrated at a previous job (realestate.com.au) that they would treat their main competitor in such a venomous way. If the features looked similar then they 'copied' if they launched a feature first then denigrate it until you can launch the same feature. There are only so many ways you can do a real estate (car, job) ad portal. Especially if you're following best practice UI/UX guidelines. I get being competitive, but you can be competitive and still be civil. Making the other company to be an arch-villain is such small-minded zero-sum thinking. Sadly there were also many things where they could have worked on collaboratively to make everyone's lives better (e.g. Rental standards and processes), but this is impossible when you frame the competitor in such a negative way.
- ZephyrBlu 5y ago
  If the market isn't growing, it is a zero-sum game so this behaviour isn't surprising.
  - ksec 5y ago
    This. It is important to remember not everyone works in Tech. Many commodity markets are zero-sum game. Which is often why Tech circle don't understand a thing about other market. You cant apply the same thinking to everything.
edpichler 5y ago
I agree with you but after being an employee of a dozen of companies and founded some, I started the Stripe's application processe and after a waterfall or red flags I decided myself to do not continue. I couldn't ignore my gut feeling clearly saying me that there is the place to have a good salary in a very miserable, unhealthy and unstable job. PS: I don't know how they are managing to have such a good product.
fabiandesimone 5y ago
Funny that you think your endorsement works in their favor. Coinbase is not entirely kosher in the crypto industry so there's that.
momento 5y ago
I know so many people who have been screwed over by Coinbase, it's complete lack of customer support, and dark business practices (it's borderline criminal at this point). The fact that you're associated directly with Coinbase does not benefit your reputation nor does it add any weight to what you're saying - it in fact does the opposite.
latexr 5y ago
> There are plenty of more reasonable Occam's razor explanations (…). You always have to assume ignorance over malice first. That’s Hanlon’s razor: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon's_razor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon's_razor
fidesomnes 5y ago
Patrick and John asked brian armstrong to run damage control for them lol.
jonpurdy 5y ago
I have never interviewed at Stripe, but I did interview at Coinbase in mid-2020 and it was among the best interviewing experiences I've had. The hiring manager for a TPM role (NM) was awesome, as was the entire loop. I didn't end up with an offer (I suspect that I flubbed one of the interviews) but left with a mostly positive experience (aside from what seemed like an implied offer from the recruiter, which I consider to just be miscommunication). As opposed to K (another SF-based exchange), which took a month to set up the loop in the first place, had one-way video during interviews (candidates on, interviewers off), and took 3 weeks after the interview loop to send an offer which I declined for another company (65% of CB's pre-offer, not that it mattered based on the other stuff). These experiences make a difference and really help sell the organization to a potential hire.
gladinovax 5y ago
Newswire: Coinbase founder says Stripe founder is a good guy. People not convinced.
jbluepolarbear 5y ago
This is biased because they are your acquaintance. Because they act a certain way in your circle doesn’t mean they aren’t being a bad actor in others. Your post makes it clear you’re very out of touch with the reality of interviewing. I’ve had this same stuff pulled on me at Google, Amazon, and multiple other companies. Being offered a position and then getting surprise interview and then ghosted. It’s draining and demoralizing, and a major waste of my time.
thendrill 5y ago
Well now we know who is your master.
sam0x17 5y ago
> You always have to assume ignorance over malice first At a certain valuation (namely, well before yours or Patrick's), ignorance becomes malice. With the resources Stripe has, it is outrageous that there have been a non-zero number of cases where for example references haven't been checked before an offer letter was sent. That Patrick is ignorant about this, as you claim, is even more damning, as it suggests no one knows what is going on at Stripe. So I guess thank you for your scathing review of Stripe's hiring process, and for giving us the notion that Coinbase is probably an equally toxic workspace?

sam0x17 5y ago

Strange that the downvote button was hidden on this post. I had to manually submit the GET request.

metagame 5y ago

Have you considered that he might just avoid sharking out on people he considers friends, or people with too large a platform? Genuine question.

kortilla 5y ago

This is the first time I’ve seen a post with anything negative about Patrick and having a Coinbase founder come out of the woodwork to make a post like this defending all of this with nothing more than conjecture sends a completely different message than you think.

hasmolo 5y ago
this is such a key thing people in immense power forget, once you’re on the inside things start looking really different and you can’t see it
- howdydoo 5y ago
  I bet Patrick will never have to deal with his Coinbase support tickets going unanswered for months. It was nice of Brian to take time out of his day to come here and defend his buddy, but I wish he'd invest some of that $xB into building a support team for his paying customers.
  - danlugo92 5y ago
    #BitcoinFixesThis Bitcoin will never lock your funds, suspend your account, and since it works perfectly, you don't need support at all.
    - schleck8 5y ago
      How will financial crime be prevented? Seriously. I am a fan of some crypto coins because in contrast to bitcoin there is actually future-proof concepts, but this "you will never face any consequences" advertising is delusional and would only work in a perfect alternative reality where everone acts in the interest of society. Also https://xrpl.org/carbon-calculator.html https://xrpl.org/carbon-calculator.html

eganist 5y ago

Props for attaching your name to your comment, something I wish the throwaway OP also did, though in the spirit of believing the victim, I can understand why they didn't. That said, with threads like this, there's also value in letting people come forward with their experiences (positive or otherwise) to see if there's any sort of pattern; any such patterns can then inform future interactions with the people or companies involved. My own personal experience over the last year as a manager of managers that may be relevant to both pc and barmstrong: seeing a surprising number of security resumes on the market from current Stripe talent suggests there may be a bit of impending brain drain (for reasons I can't put a finger on as I'm not inside). I've seen less of this with Coinbase talent.

luckydata 5y ago
there ABSOLUTELY is a pattern of Stripe doing this stuff.
leephillips 5y ago
"in the spirit of believing the victim" The only kind of sense this could make is as a tautology. If the commenter is a "victim" then you've already decided to believe him or her. But what evidence do you have to support this belief?
- eganist 5y ago
  worth noting that the parent comment was flagged to death 4 minutes after posting and vouched what, a half hour later? Anyway, I sent this to the comment author via email, but the best I can do in public is link to https://www.blackburncenter.org/post/on-believing-victims https://www.blackburncenter.org/post/on-believing-victims Context: I run r/Relationship Advice.
  - rightbyte 5y ago
    Oh. I thought "hey, why are you not greyed out then?" but that would explain it.
- 5y ago

jongorer 5y ago

I’ve personally conducted business with Patrick, and integrity isn’t a term I’d associate with him. Most polite term I can think of would be “shrewd”.

rvnx 5y ago
I don't think integrity fits into any of the metrics that you have to report to YC.
- guiriduro 5y ago
  Then its a pity, and an opportunity to improve or move aside for an organisation that does (and stronger ethics reputation for graduates thereof.)
- lostlogin 5y ago
  Ouch.
- ignoramous 5y ago
  At least they ask founders to be not mean [0] and specifically be nice [1] but do ask them to be relentless [2] and formidable [3], which may come off as shrewd? [0] http://paulgraham.com/mean.html http://paulgraham.com/mean.html [1] http://paulgraham.com/safe.html http://paulgraham.com/safe.html [2] http://paulgraham.com/relres.html http://paulgraham.com/relres.html [3] http://paulgraham.com/earnest.html http://paulgraham.com/earnest.html
- dang 5y ago
  YC has pretty strong ethical guidelines for founders and people have been removed from YC for violating them, so I'm not sure where you're coming from with that, unless it's just a cheap shot.
  - rvnx 5y ago
    It's not YC specific but systemic sadly.
5y ago

mempko 5y ago

Japan has a long tradition in coopetition. SV has adopted many Japanese traditions. Unfortunately some people seem to take competition too seriously, ruining the culture. It seems some are suggesting Patrick and John take competition too seriously. Whether the allegations are true or not, it can unfortunately be damaging. Adam Smith, on his work on competition, took many ideas from the Muslim Caliphate. Where markets can only work on trust. That nobody will do business with someone they don't trust. Trust is what underlies communities like this, even if people are competitors.

ng12 5y ago

Sure, but you run Coinbase. It wouldn't surprise me if people with less soft power than you had negative interactions.

spottybanana 5y ago
Yeah, it is no wonder that a founder-CEO of a 70 billion dollar company is having very little negative interactions with about anyone. Personally I have became from poor ass bootstrapping startup founder to rich and successful retired entrpreneur (now investor) and it is ridiculous how people will treat you wildly differently as you get wealthier. And at times the exactly same people.
- xwolfi 5y ago
  Hello Sir, I adore your comment, could you swing a bit of dough my way?
- nowherebeen 5y ago
  > And at times the exactly same people. I have seen this type of behavior before even though I am not rich or successful. These people act like they never behaved the way they did or simply pretend it never happened, while they continue to do it to others. Its disgusting how people can be so fake.
  - rightbyte 5y ago
    Well some people are just not so nice until you know each other. Not like "you start to appreciate them" but "they get friendly".
  - Radim 5y ago
    I'd guess this is Prisoner's Dilemma in practice: If you don't expect repeat interactions with an agent, or expect the agent won't remember / weigh these past interactions strongly, you do what's best for you in the moment. Which happens to be taking the counterparty's current situation into account – including their wealth/power, AKA how much they can do for you. Entirely pragmatic, if selfish ("disgusting" in your words). The way to combat this fake behaviour is to increase its cost, forcing the "fake" person to interact differently. But I wouldn't hold my breath: 1) To "increase the cost" you need something of value in the first place. If you're poor and powerless, you are… powerless. Your only strength is in numbers: social pressure, `∑ little_power * lots_of_people`. 2) This "fake" personality is likely something learned in early childhood. A person would probably need to experience lots of negative feedback to readjust later in life. 3) Have you considered that their strategy ("fakeness", taking into account extrinsic factors like wealth or fame) may be superior to yours ("integrity", interacting based solely on a someone's intrinsic traits)? You know, it is not a physical law that being nice and consistent to people pays off. It's a pretty wild social dynamic, evolved only recently.

jsc1986 5y ago

Did Patrick message you to ask you to post this? The point is not that they have direct control over YC or HN, it's that they have massive indirect control over the organization and have done a wizard's job of making themselves untouchable in the media. Some context: I'm a former (early) YC founder, and during my batch the YC team recommended that we spend time with the HN team. The HN team gave us edits on our posts, recommended the best times of day to submit, emailed us when stories about our companies hit the front page, and explained how the ranking algorithms worked (and thus we learned how to game them). And we are not the most valuable YC company ever -- so it's possible more was done for Stripe. It's not direct influence, but rather indirect impact. So again I ask -- Did Patrick request that you write this post?

omarish 5y ago
> And we are not the most valuable YC company ever -- so it's possible more was done for Stripe. Ah yes, surely the reason you didn't create the most valuable YC company ever is because more was done for Stripe.
barmstrong 5y ago
No he did not. We didn’t even discuss it.
- choppaface 5y ago
  I don’t think the question was whether you two actually talked but rather if there is any conflict of interest or other incentives that fueled the defense. You’ve had a particularly divisive approach towards people (e.g. https://www.forbes.com/sites/rachelsandler/2020/10/08/60-employees-leave-coinbase-over-ceos-pledge-to-be-apolitical/?sh=612aed55a065 https://www.forbes.com/sites/rachelsandler/2020/10/08/60-emp... ) and so it’s reasonable to assume any of your public statements might not be completely accurate or forthcoming or easy to take at face value. That of course might not be intentional though!
  - 1123581321 5y ago
    It looks like the question actually was whether they talked. It was asked two ways in the same comment: - “Did Patrick request that you write this post?” - “Did Patrick message you to ask you to post this?”

deltaonefour 5y ago

I'm too am also a founder of an $xB fintech, and I have to say I disagree with your assessment. The initial poster was right on all counts.

DonHopkins 5y ago
I'm working on my SECOND $billion! ...I gave up on my first.
- mrtranscendence 5y ago
  I figure at this point my easiest path to becoming a billionaire would be to develop a time machine, go back to when you could buy a bitcoin for a dollar, and plop down $20K or so. That feels more realistic than me actually building a valuable company.

hemloc_io 5y ago

Not to fuel the fire here, but from the startups perspective I'm not sure there's much functional difference between a company attempting to acquire a startup and then deciding to go it alone, and using the acquisition process for research on their future products other than intent. No matter what if you do the DD process on an acquisition you'll certainly apply those learnings to your future efforts. There's even a PG blogpost about it. http://www.paulgraham.com/corpdev.html http://www.paulgraham.com/corpdev.html Side Note: I'm always amazed to find people that run large companies posting on hackernews. Doubly amazed that two companies I'm interviewing for are mentioned in the same post (about interviews no less.) :D Small world.

xmly 5y ago

You TWO could be the same person? Just a wild guess...

ignoramous 5y ago

> any time you have thousand of interviews going on, you are bound to get some bad candidate experiences... and we try to minimize it for sure, but you will not get it to zero (especially when growing quickly) Spot on. Nor should anyone expend disproportionate energy in bringing down common causes of quality issues to zero. https://apenwarr.ca/log/20161226 https://apenwarr.ca/log/20161226 > I just hate to see HN jumping into tear downs and wild conjecture like this. You must be new here.

danrocks 5y ago

> most rational explanation for OPs issue is that references were checked and came back luke warm/negative, so more were done which delayed it etc (they may not tell you this was the reason to protect sources btw), this is one of many potential reasons, i'm guessing, but benign explanations are more likely > also, "discussing details of an offer" is not the same as receiving an offer All reasonable things to happen, for sure. Would other HMs in the same building show interest after bad references? Debatable. I accept all outcomes - all except ghosting.

xwolfi 5y ago

You know the best you could have done is say nothing. People like this, best way to prove them wrong is to show there's nothing. Even a "oh it's true but we ll try to change" helps more than doing exactly what the OP did with his catch-22: if you defend here, he's proven right.

csomar 5y ago

I don't think Coinbase and Stripe are in the same business but... > As one small example, Patrick has proactively told me when wanting to build competitive products, even when he didn't have to (very positive sum thinking). I'm not sure why this is positive or signals a high-integrity person. If he doesn't have to tell you, he probably shouldn't. He runs a private company and that's what he should care about. Or maybe he did that, so that in the future you can kick back and write this comment?

noisy_boy 5y ago
Sometime one does favors in the hopes of being treated likewise in future. It is an investment, even though not guaranteed to pay-off; but when done to powerful people, that off-hand chance can pay-off handsomely and be worth it.
- ludamad 5y ago
  "I'm an $xB ceo and everyone you mentioned have been lovely to me" is a data point, but being successful means even your true friends are networking with you (because it's logical, not implying sneaky intentions)

bob332 5y ago

Why would we ever listen to someone who runs a ponzi coin company?

vertis 5y ago

> Patrick has proactively told me when wanting to build competitive products, even when he didn't have to (very positive sum thinking). I used to get very frustrated at a previous job (realestate.com.au) that they would treat their main competitor in such a venomous way. If the features looked similar then they 'copied' if they launched a feature first then denigrate it until you can launch the same feature. There are only so many ways you can do a real estate (car, job) ad portal. Especially if you're following best practice UI/UX guidelines. I get being competitive, but you can be competitive and still be civil. Making the other company to be an arch-villain is such small-minded zero-sum thinking. Sadly there were also many things where they could have worked on collaboratively to make everyone's lives better (e.g. Rental standards and processes), but this is impossible when you frame the competitor in such a negative way.

ZephyrBlu 5y ago
If the market isn't growing, it is a zero-sum game so this behaviour isn't surprising.
- ksec 5y ago
  This. It is important to remember not everyone works in Tech. Many commodity markets are zero-sum game. Which is often why Tech circle don't understand a thing about other market. You cant apply the same thinking to everything.

edpichler 5y ago

I agree with you but after being an employee of a dozen of companies and founded some, I started the Stripe's application processe and after a waterfall or red flags I decided myself to do not continue. I couldn't ignore my gut feeling clearly saying me that there is the place to have a good salary in a very miserable, unhealthy and unstable job. PS: I don't know how they are managing to have such a good product.

fabiandesimone 5y ago

Funny that you think your endorsement works in their favor. Coinbase is not entirely kosher in the crypto industry so there's that.

momento 5y ago

I know so many people who have been screwed over by Coinbase, it's complete lack of customer support, and dark business practices (it's borderline criminal at this point). The fact that you're associated directly with Coinbase does not benefit your reputation nor does it add any weight to what you're saying - it in fact does the opposite.

latexr 5y ago

> There are plenty of more reasonable Occam's razor explanations (…). You always have to assume ignorance over malice first. That’s Hanlon’s razor: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon's_razor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon's_razor

fidesomnes 5y ago

Patrick and John asked brian armstrong to run damage control for them lol.

jonpurdy 5y ago

I have never interviewed at Stripe, but I did interview at Coinbase in mid-2020 and it was among the best interviewing experiences I've had. The hiring manager for a TPM role (NM) was awesome, as was the entire loop. I didn't end up with an offer (I suspect that I flubbed one of the interviews) but left with a mostly positive experience (aside from what seemed like an implied offer from the recruiter, which I consider to just be miscommunication). As opposed to K (another SF-based exchange), which took a month to set up the loop in the first place, had one-way video during interviews (candidates on, interviewers off), and took 3 weeks after the interview loop to send an offer which I declined for another company (65% of CB's pre-offer, not that it mattered based on the other stuff). These experiences make a difference and really help sell the organization to a potential hire.

gladinovax 5y ago

Newswire: Coinbase founder says Stripe founder is a good guy. People not convinced.

jbluepolarbear 5y ago

This is biased because they are your acquaintance. Because they act a certain way in your circle doesn’t mean they aren’t being a bad actor in others. Your post makes it clear you’re very out of touch with the reality of interviewing. I’ve had this same stuff pulled on me at Google, Amazon, and multiple other companies. Being offered a position and then getting surprise interview and then ghosted. It’s draining and demoralizing, and a major waste of my time.

thendrill 5y ago

Well now we know who is your master.

sam0x17 5y ago

> You always have to assume ignorance over malice first At a certain valuation (namely, well before yours or Patrick's), ignorance becomes malice. With the resources Stripe has, it is outrageous that there have been a non-zero number of cases where for example references haven't been checked before an offer letter was sent. That Patrick is ignorant about this, as you claim, is even more damning, as it suggests no one knows what is going on at Stripe. So I guess thank you for your scathing review of Stripe's hiring process, and for giving us the notion that Coinbase is probably an equally toxic workspace?