8 ms·

Google Wallet Co-Founding Engineer Departs Google for Square

56 points by hornokplease 15y ago

philip1209 15y ago
Congrats to Jim
- philip1209 15y ago
  (McKelvey)
ChuckMcM 15y ago
Meanwhile, Osama Bedier is still a VP at Google and now an advisor to Mezz [1] a startup which, if he signed the same employment agreement the regular folks sign, means he probably will be moving on from Google shortly. (My personal experience is that Google pretty much considers any outside work a conflict of interest) [1] http://www.crunchbase.com/company/mezz http://www.crunchbase.com/company/mezz
27182818284 15y ago
I was really excited for Google Wallet, so much so that I bought a Galaxy Nexus. Guess what? Verizon blocks it. If Google doesn't want to fight for their product, why should their co-founding engineer stick around? Happy he is off to Square. (I'm not so much grumpy at losing a specific payment option I'm grumpy at one of the few companies with enough force to lean on Verizon capitulating. New tech gets slowed and I get sad.)
- schraeds 15y ago
  You know who stands up to carriers? Apple. Not a good sign when your project leads leave before the products they were working on start shipping in earnest.
- lonnyk 15y ago
  I did the exact same thing and have the exact same resentment. Now I am stuck with a GIANT phone for 2 years.
  - Cherian_Abraham 15y ago
    You know its pretty easy to install the GoogleWallet.apk file on it, and be up and running with GW in under five minutes?
    - lonnyk 15y ago
      I had no idea. I will check this out. Thank you!
  - wmf 15y ago
    Didn't y'all know that Google Wallet was blocked before you bought the phone?
    - jrockway 15y ago
      Nobody really advertises, "capable of Google Wallet, but we won't let you have it". That's the problem with letting the carrier own the phone. The Galaxy Nexus is a pretty nice phone, Wallet or not, and I'm not sure if anything else would have been as good anyway. Verizon's 4G network is better than Sprint's, anyway. A reasonable tradeoff for what amounts to a novelty. (I will need to carry my physical wallet until every store on Earth has an NFC reader anyway.)
    - lonnyk 15y ago
      I don't recall. I remember knowing the the Galaxy Nexus was supposed to be the first Android phone with NFC (and Google Wallet) for several months and then I recall learning that GW was blocked by Verizon, but I think I learned this after I received the phone. Either way - it was highly disappointing.
  - Steko 15y ago
    If you're unhappy with it you needn't stick with it for 2 full years. Many iphone users like to stay on the latest model and have found that the Early Termination Fee if often not that much more (if any) then the Ebay value of phone. For example here is completed listings for Verizon 4G Galaxy Nexus: http://www.ebay.com/csc/i.html?LH_Auction=1&LH_ItemCondition=4&_nkw=galaxy+nexus&LH_Complete=1&Features=4G%2520Data%2520Capable&rt=nc&_dmpt=Cell_Phones&Carrier=Verizon http://www.ebay.com/csc/i.html?LH_Auction=1&LH_ItemCondi... One sold this morning for $390 incl a couple extras like car charger etc. If you bought in December your cancellation fee later this month will be $350 - (5 * $10) = $300. Now obviously that's not a free phone you're going to be out some money you laid down but you also can wait a bit more.
- _pattern 15y ago
  why would verizon block it?
  - jsz0 15y ago
    All the US carriers besides Sprint are backing the ISIS payment system. They've invested tens of millions of dollars into ISIS. They aren't going to let Google walk in and eat their lunch when they have the power (granted by Google ironically enough) to simply shut them out of the market. You can still side-load Google Wallet but it's DOA without wide support so it doesn't really matter.
    - earl 15y ago
      I think you didn't really get to the motivation, which is simply that the carriers want a piece.
    - redwood 15y ago
      Extractive vs. Inclusive. They say failed states' institutions are characterized by the former.
    - nextparadigms 15y ago
      Shouldn't FCC or DOJ try to stop that? It's kind of anti-competitive...
- redwood 15y ago
  Not to mention capitulating on net neutrality to win over verizon...
joejohnson 15y ago
Why wouldn't Square want to work to make their payment platform accessible through multiple channels (NFC, their dongle, mobile-to-mobile, etc.)? Just as they should develop for many of the big software platforms, they will probably need to have product offerings that allow payments in multiple ways.
- enra 15y ago
  You can already just pay with the app, which I think really is the best way since it doesn't require any special hardware for the customer. Of course only problem is the penetration of Square registers.
  - rdl 15y ago
    I don't have any insider knowledge of Square specific to this, but it's not that hard to make a shim for a PoS to do all sorts of stuff. I contracted for a company in 2003 which did NFC/RFID readers with a little magnetic shim for existing magstripe card readers. You can also integrate at a deeper level directly into the PoS -- there is some customization needed, but a lot of it is generic.
- erikpukinskis 15y ago
  I'm sure they want to, but I'm also pretty sure they won't. At least not soon. The thing that has struck me most consistently about Square is the brilliance of their restraint. Surely their endgame is to displace plastic cards. But they realize that what matters at this stage in the game is buy-in from consumers and merchants. So where Dwolla and FaceCash go straight for the Brass Ring of a modern payment infrastructure, Square instead chose to provide a service that, while antiquated, is MASSIVELY useful in a broad range of retail scenarios. Once they have the marketshare, which they get by leaning on the crutch of credit cards to enable the usability and usefulness of their product, they can just swap in a more modern payment backend, and voila... They win. But the key is restraint, and focus on the current needs of merchants, and NFC is not.
pagekalisedown 15y ago
Just part of the normal turn over when you have more than 32,000 employees.
- potatolicious 15y ago
  Doubtful. I've been in the same spot myself and eventually also left that employer - it's incredibly painful to be enthusiastically dedicated to a project and see it go nowhere. Worse yet, it goes nowhere because upper management is unwilling to throw their weight into it. Eventually you get fed up and leave for a company that has a track record of actually pushing hard in the field you're interested in.
  - jrockway 15y ago
    Is Google Wallet really not going anywhere? Who else lets you make NFC payments in the US today?
- schraeds 15y ago
  It's normal for the leaders of strategic projects to leave before their products ship in earnest? Not at successful companies it isn't.
funkah 15y ago
Slow news day.
nextparadigms 15y ago
Why isn't Google buying Square anyway? They really need a popular payments platform to integrate with Android. I realize they might not want to sell now, but maybe they want to sell it for a good price.

56 points by hornokplease 15y ago

philip1209 15y ago

Congrats to Jim

philip1209 15y ago
(McKelvey)

ChuckMcM 15y ago

Meanwhile, Osama Bedier is still a VP at Google and now an advisor to Mezz [1] a startup which, if he signed the same employment agreement the regular folks sign, means he probably will be moving on from Google shortly. (My personal experience is that Google pretty much considers any outside work a conflict of interest) [1] http://www.crunchbase.com/company/mezz http://www.crunchbase.com/company/mezz

27182818284 15y ago

I was really excited for Google Wallet, so much so that I bought a Galaxy Nexus. Guess what? Verizon blocks it. If Google doesn't want to fight for their product, why should their co-founding engineer stick around? Happy he is off to Square. (I'm not so much grumpy at losing a specific payment option I'm grumpy at one of the few companies with enough force to lean on Verizon capitulating. New tech gets slowed and I get sad.)

schraeds 15y ago
You know who stands up to carriers? Apple. Not a good sign when your project leads leave before the products they were working on start shipping in earnest.
lonnyk 15y ago
I did the exact same thing and have the exact same resentment. Now I am stuck with a GIANT phone for 2 years.
- Cherian_Abraham 15y ago
  You know its pretty easy to install the GoogleWallet.apk file on it, and be up and running with GW in under five minutes?
  - lonnyk 15y ago
    I had no idea. I will check this out. Thank you!
- wmf 15y ago
  Didn't y'all know that Google Wallet was blocked before you bought the phone?
  - jrockway 15y ago
    Nobody really advertises, "capable of Google Wallet, but we won't let you have it". That's the problem with letting the carrier own the phone. The Galaxy Nexus is a pretty nice phone, Wallet or not, and I'm not sure if anything else would have been as good anyway. Verizon's 4G network is better than Sprint's, anyway. A reasonable tradeoff for what amounts to a novelty. (I will need to carry my physical wallet until every store on Earth has an NFC reader anyway.)
  - lonnyk 15y ago
    I don't recall. I remember knowing the the Galaxy Nexus was supposed to be the first Android phone with NFC (and Google Wallet) for several months and then I recall learning that GW was blocked by Verizon, but I think I learned this after I received the phone. Either way - it was highly disappointing.
- Steko 15y ago
  If you're unhappy with it you needn't stick with it for 2 full years. Many iphone users like to stay on the latest model and have found that the Early Termination Fee if often not that much more (if any) then the Ebay value of phone. For example here is completed listings for Verizon 4G Galaxy Nexus: http://www.ebay.com/csc/i.html?LH_Auction=1&LH_ItemCondition=4&_nkw=galaxy+nexus&LH_Complete=1&Features=4G%2520Data%2520Capable&rt=nc&_dmpt=Cell_Phones&Carrier=Verizon http://www.ebay.com/csc/i.html?LH_Auction=1&LH_ItemCondi... One sold this morning for $390 incl a couple extras like car charger etc. If you bought in December your cancellation fee later this month will be $350 - (5 * $10) = $300. Now obviously that's not a free phone you're going to be out some money you laid down but you also can wait a bit more.
_pattern 15y ago
why would verizon block it?
- jsz0 15y ago
  All the US carriers besides Sprint are backing the ISIS payment system. They've invested tens of millions of dollars into ISIS. They aren't going to let Google walk in and eat their lunch when they have the power (granted by Google ironically enough) to simply shut them out of the market. You can still side-load Google Wallet but it's DOA without wide support so it doesn't really matter.
  - earl 15y ago
    I think you didn't really get to the motivation, which is simply that the carriers want a piece.
  - redwood 15y ago
    Extractive vs. Inclusive. They say failed states' institutions are characterized by the former.
  - nextparadigms 15y ago
    Shouldn't FCC or DOJ try to stop that? It's kind of anti-competitive...
redwood 15y ago
Not to mention capitulating on net neutrality to win over verizon...

joejohnson 15y ago

Why wouldn't Square want to work to make their payment platform accessible through multiple channels (NFC, their dongle, mobile-to-mobile, etc.)? Just as they should develop for many of the big software platforms, they will probably need to have product offerings that allow payments in multiple ways.

enra 15y ago
You can already just pay with the app, which I think really is the best way since it doesn't require any special hardware for the customer. Of course only problem is the penetration of Square registers.
- rdl 15y ago
  I don't have any insider knowledge of Square specific to this, but it's not that hard to make a shim for a PoS to do all sorts of stuff. I contracted for a company in 2003 which did NFC/RFID readers with a little magnetic shim for existing magstripe card readers. You can also integrate at a deeper level directly into the PoS -- there is some customization needed, but a lot of it is generic.
erikpukinskis 15y ago
I'm sure they want to, but I'm also pretty sure they won't. At least not soon. The thing that has struck me most consistently about Square is the brilliance of their restraint. Surely their endgame is to displace plastic cards. But they realize that what matters at this stage in the game is buy-in from consumers and merchants. So where Dwolla and FaceCash go straight for the Brass Ring of a modern payment infrastructure, Square instead chose to provide a service that, while antiquated, is MASSIVELY useful in a broad range of retail scenarios. Once they have the marketshare, which they get by leaning on the crutch of credit cards to enable the usability and usefulness of their product, they can just swap in a more modern payment backend, and voila... They win. But the key is restraint, and focus on the current needs of merchants, and NFC is not.

pagekalisedown 15y ago

Just part of the normal turn over when you have more than 32,000 employees.

potatolicious 15y ago
Doubtful. I've been in the same spot myself and eventually also left that employer - it's incredibly painful to be enthusiastically dedicated to a project and see it go nowhere. Worse yet, it goes nowhere because upper management is unwilling to throw their weight into it. Eventually you get fed up and leave for a company that has a track record of actually pushing hard in the field you're interested in.
- jrockway 15y ago
  Is Google Wallet really not going anywhere? Who else lets you make NFC payments in the US today?
schraeds 15y ago
It's normal for the leaders of strategic projects to leave before their products ship in earnest? Not at successful companies it isn't.

funkah 15y ago

Slow news day.

nextparadigms 15y ago

Why isn't Google buying Square anyway? They really need a popular payments platform to integrate with Android. I realize they might not want to sell now, but maybe they want to sell it for a good price.