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Plaid CEO has some words for Stripe: https://twitter.com/zachperret/status/1521898404061716480 https://twitter.com/zachperret/status/1521898404061716480

ergocoder 4y ago
Bank provides API in order to have multiple service providers Does Plaid think they are the only one who is allowed to use Bank APIs? Anyone who uses that is considered as copying Plaid? Plaid's CEO sounds like he is so angry he didn't know what to do.
cagr 4y ago
Ryan Breslow vindicated again...
- tomatowurst 4y ago
  I'm genuinely worried for that guy. He's exposing powerful connected people and I can't really see that end well. It's not like people retweeting and liking his tweets have any sort of power like what is alleged.
msoad 4y ago
In case tweet disappears: > Wow! Jay, you took interviews with Plaid & asked probing questions multiple times over the past few years, and your team sent repeated RFP's (under NDA!) to us asking for tons of detailed data. I wish y'all the best with these products, but surprising to see the methods.
- stu2b50 4y ago
  I’m surprised they had this information so easily at hand. How did they even know that? They saw the tweet and the first thing that comes to mind is to query all the people they’ve interviewed?
  - lambda_lord 4y ago
    It wasn’t some IC interviewing for a job, it was a representative of Stripe and Plaid doing a product interview for a possible partnership.
    - stu2b50 4y ago
      Interesting. I'm much less sympathetic, then. I would imagine that kind of situation would be far more formal, with lawyers from both sides present, and, to be frank, this kind of information gathering an expectation. It would be pure naivety for it not to be - these are multibillion dollar companies talking to each other! On the other hand, if I, a random hypothetical engineer, were interviewing someone for a team, in a 1-1 situation, and they asked about what I worked I'm, I'm naturally going to be less guarded nor really prepared to sufficiently redact my answers.
- PragmaticPulp 4y ago
  And a rebuttal from Jay Shah (the accused) claiming that this isn't true: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FR8FjJ9VsAAMY_k?format=jpg&name=medium https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FR8FjJ9VsAAMY_k?format=jpg&name=... > Zach, sorry you feel this way, but this isn’t true and I think you know that. You reached out to me repeatedly—I never reached out to you for information. Stripe did an RFP because we work with partners for this product, and we had hoped to include Plaid.
  - gamblor956 4y ago
    Based on my experience interviewing with Stripe a few years ago, I wouldn't doubt that Stripe is capable of the kind of behavior they are accused of.
    - lsh123 4y ago
      +1 A couple years ago Stripe reached out to me saying they like my background and that they want to discuss potential roles. I was working on a payments product at a FAANG company at that moment and was starting to think it’s time to do something else. So I said I am interested. Stripe scheduled an interview with Q… J… (Eng Director at Stripe). After a few generic questions about my past experiences, Stripe’s Q… J… asked a series of very specific questions about vendors/partners, API integration details, txn costs, etc. at my current company. I politely declined to answer these questions citing my employment agreement and NDA. I never heard back from Stripe again. Edit: fix autocorrect
      - gamblor956 4y ago
        I signed an NDA before my interview so I can't go into details but my experience was a lot like yours.
- xtracto 4y ago
  Darn, if this is true. I'm going to do the low-effort comment and link to a Silicon Valley series video someone posted here not long ago (Brain Rape): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlwwVuSUUfc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlwwVuSUUfc
sergiomattei 4y ago
Reminds me of the HN thread full of anon $XB Fintech CEOs bashing Stripe.
- barleyworth 4y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29388310 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29388310
PragmaticPulp 4y ago
EDIT: The accused person has denied these allegations, claiming that Plaid reached out to Stripe (not the other way around) and that the RFPs were because Stripe invited Plaid to be part of the product: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FR8FjJ9VsAAMY_k?format=jpg&name=medium https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FR8FjJ9VsAAMY_k?format=jpg&name=... > Wow! Jay, you took interviews with Plaid & asked probing questions multiple times over the past few years, and your team sent repeated RFP's (under NDA!) to us asking for tons of detailed data. I wish y'all the best with these products, but surprising to see the methods. I don't know. Talking with a company shouldn't disqualify you from ever working on a competing product. Sending an RFP doesn't mean you can never build your own product. The Plaid CEO is trying to anchor the conversation around malicious intent, but it's not hard to imagine a scenario where this product-minded person legitimately explored working with Plaid, legitimately explored partnership opportunities at Stripe, and walked away believing it would be better for Strip and for himself to build a competing solution at Stripe. Plaid's product isn't entirely novel. In my experience as a consumer it has failed at least 3/4 times I've tried to use it with my financial institutions. I'm frankly more surprised that it took this long for anyone to enter their space to compete against Plaid.
- lambda_lord 4y ago
  They are not describing a job interview. They are describing a product interview between businesses for some sort of partnership.
  - PragmaticPulp 4y ago
    Right, but that doesn't imply malicious intent and it doesn't disqualify them from building their own. Talking to companies about their product and then later deciding you'd rather build your own isn't really surprising. Plaid was definitely aware that Stripe was a potential competitor going into those meetings.
  - ergocoder 4y ago
    Jay confirmed it was a job interview 8y ago before he even joined stripe. https://twitter.com/jay_ssh/status/1521973965098561536 https://twitter.com/jay_ssh/status/1521973965098561536 Plaid CEO maliciously misled people.

ergocoder 4y ago

Bank provides API in order to have multiple service providers Does Plaid think they are the only one who is allowed to use Bank APIs? Anyone who uses that is considered as copying Plaid? Plaid's CEO sounds like he is so angry he didn't know what to do.

cagr 4y ago

Ryan Breslow vindicated again...

tomatowurst 4y ago
I'm genuinely worried for that guy. He's exposing powerful connected people and I can't really see that end well. It's not like people retweeting and liking his tweets have any sort of power like what is alleged.

msoad 4y ago

In case tweet disappears: > Wow! Jay, you took interviews with Plaid & asked probing questions multiple times over the past few years, and your team sent repeated RFP's (under NDA!) to us asking for tons of detailed data. I wish y'all the best with these products, but surprising to see the methods.

stu2b50 4y ago
I’m surprised they had this information so easily at hand. How did they even know that? They saw the tweet and the first thing that comes to mind is to query all the people they’ve interviewed?
- lambda_lord 4y ago
  It wasn’t some IC interviewing for a job, it was a representative of Stripe and Plaid doing a product interview for a possible partnership.
  - stu2b50 4y ago
    Interesting. I'm much less sympathetic, then. I would imagine that kind of situation would be far more formal, with lawyers from both sides present, and, to be frank, this kind of information gathering an expectation. It would be pure naivety for it not to be - these are multibillion dollar companies talking to each other! On the other hand, if I, a random hypothetical engineer, were interviewing someone for a team, in a 1-1 situation, and they asked about what I worked I'm, I'm naturally going to be less guarded nor really prepared to sufficiently redact my answers.
PragmaticPulp 4y ago
And a rebuttal from Jay Shah (the accused) claiming that this isn't true: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FR8FjJ9VsAAMY_k?format=jpg&name=medium https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FR8FjJ9VsAAMY_k?format=jpg&name=... > Zach, sorry you feel this way, but this isn’t true and I think you know that. You reached out to me repeatedly—I never reached out to you for information. Stripe did an RFP because we work with partners for this product, and we had hoped to include Plaid.
- gamblor956 4y ago
  Based on my experience interviewing with Stripe a few years ago, I wouldn't doubt that Stripe is capable of the kind of behavior they are accused of.
  - lsh123 4y ago
    +1 A couple years ago Stripe reached out to me saying they like my background and that they want to discuss potential roles. I was working on a payments product at a FAANG company at that moment and was starting to think it’s time to do something else. So I said I am interested. Stripe scheduled an interview with Q… J… (Eng Director at Stripe). After a few generic questions about my past experiences, Stripe’s Q… J… asked a series of very specific questions about vendors/partners, API integration details, txn costs, etc. at my current company. I politely declined to answer these questions citing my employment agreement and NDA. I never heard back from Stripe again. Edit: fix autocorrect
    - gamblor956 4y ago
      I signed an NDA before my interview so I can't go into details but my experience was a lot like yours.
xtracto 4y ago
Darn, if this is true. I'm going to do the low-effort comment and link to a Silicon Valley series video someone posted here not long ago (Brain Rape): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlwwVuSUUfc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlwwVuSUUfc

sergiomattei 4y ago

Reminds me of the HN thread full of anon $XB Fintech CEOs bashing Stripe.

barleyworth 4y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29388310 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29388310

PragmaticPulp 4y ago

EDIT: The accused person has denied these allegations, claiming that Plaid reached out to Stripe (not the other way around) and that the RFPs were because Stripe invited Plaid to be part of the product: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FR8FjJ9VsAAMY_k?format=jpg&name=medium https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FR8FjJ9VsAAMY_k?format=jpg&name=... > Wow! Jay, you took interviews with Plaid & asked probing questions multiple times over the past few years, and your team sent repeated RFP's (under NDA!) to us asking for tons of detailed data. I wish y'all the best with these products, but surprising to see the methods. I don't know. Talking with a company shouldn't disqualify you from ever working on a competing product. Sending an RFP doesn't mean you can never build your own product. The Plaid CEO is trying to anchor the conversation around malicious intent, but it's not hard to imagine a scenario where this product-minded person legitimately explored working with Plaid, legitimately explored partnership opportunities at Stripe, and walked away believing it would be better for Strip and for himself to build a competing solution at Stripe. Plaid's product isn't entirely novel. In my experience as a consumer it has failed at least 3/4 times I've tried to use it with my financial institutions. I'm frankly more surprised that it took this long for anyone to enter their space to compete against Plaid.

lambda_lord 4y ago
They are not describing a job interview. They are describing a product interview between businesses for some sort of partnership.
- PragmaticPulp 4y ago
  Right, but that doesn't imply malicious intent and it doesn't disqualify them from building their own. Talking to companies about their product and then later deciding you'd rather build your own isn't really surprising. Plaid was definitely aware that Stripe was a potential competitor going into those meetings.
- ergocoder 4y ago
  Jay confirmed it was a job interview 8y ago before he even joined stripe. https://twitter.com/jay_ssh/status/1521973965098561536 https://twitter.com/jay_ssh/status/1521973965098561536 Plaid CEO maliciously misled people.