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Elon Musk chose to do PayPal (a rather disliked company on HN) which enabled him to work on Tesla, SolarCity, and SpaceX (which HN rather likes). Isn't it poss

by justsee 14y ago

Elon Musk chose to do PayPal (a rather disliked company on HN) which enabled him to work on Tesla, SolarCity, and SpaceX (which HN rather likes). Isn't it possible that some of these people toiling away in the corporate womb are acquiring capabilities and capital so they can be reborn to do important, but potentially unprofitable 'change the world' projects?

whatusername 14y ago
Paypal is awesome. It's 2012 and I'm still not aware of any other company that allows me to sign up (for free) and start taking payments straight away (for arbitrary items no less). See also: http://www.paulgraham.com/schlep.html http://www.paulgraham.com/schlep.html (Note: Stripe have a schlep blindness in International Transactions. I still can't sign up for Stripe. Last Week I was recommending a friend use paypal)
- justsee 14y ago
  Yes, but if Raganwald is laying into Google, I'd imagine he'd place a PayPal in the same category. Raising the Musk example was illustrating the shlepping he did before embarking on great things.
- antidaily 14y ago
  Well even if it does suck now (I think it does), it didnt suck when Musk sold it.
- zt 14y ago
  I work at Stripe and we are working hard on rolling out our products internationally. I am sorry you cannot use it yet and that you can't recommend us to your friends yet. It takes time to do right--it's a schlep--as we want to make sure that the experience is as dead-simple everywhere. "Fixing payments", as PG put it in the Schlep blindness essay, involves working with new banking partners and new back-end infrastructures to make it as easy in every country.
polshaw 14y ago
Precisely. Most here are going to be able to benefit society the most by creating the next pinterest or whatever and then using their money to bring forward change in the world, than trying to do some bio-medical-whatever that they don't have any skills in. Basic laws of specialisation/comparative advantage. Of course, if you can find a relevant area to apply your skills to, then that's great. There is a lot that is less frivolous, too, even in the tech world.
zt 14y ago
How to make payments on the internet is huge. It was a big problem. It still is a big problem. Paypal is disliked but that doesn't mean it wasn't working on a big problem. It doesn't mean Paypal wasn't an important start to the solution. Musk and Theil were dreaming big, bigger than photo apps and social media anyway. Payments on the internet is such a big problem that 1) Andreessen tried to make it part of the original browser [1] 2) Paypal is huge [2], 3) It is likely that Stripe (where I work) and Braintree (Paymill? WePay?) will thrive and 4) we will likely still call it largely unsolved in five years. [1] "It was essentially impossible to do," Andreessen replied. "We tried. We talked to credit card companies, banks, we weren't able to do it. Microsoft wasn't able to do it." (http://mashable.com/2012/05/01/marc-andreessen-browser-payments/ http://mashable.com/2012/05/01/marc-andreessen-browser-payme...) [2] "PayPal revenues represented 39 percent of eBay Inc. revenues in Q4 2012. PayPal revenues for Q4 2012 were $1.54 billion, growing 24 percent year over year." (https://www.paypal-media.com/about https://www.paypal-media.com/about)
petercooper 14y ago
And, further, his work on PayPal has enabled millions of others to have opportunities they couldn't have had otherwise (including me). It is hard to calculate the effects every action we have has on the world.

by justsee 14y ago

whatusername 14y ago

Paypal is awesome. It's 2012 and I'm still not aware of any other company that allows me to sign up (for free) and start taking payments straight away (for arbitrary items no less). See also: http://www.paulgraham.com/schlep.html http://www.paulgraham.com/schlep.html (Note: Stripe have a schlep blindness in International Transactions. I still can't sign up for Stripe. Last Week I was recommending a friend use paypal)

justsee 14y ago
Yes, but if Raganwald is laying into Google, I'd imagine he'd place a PayPal in the same category. Raising the Musk example was illustrating the shlepping he did before embarking on great things.
antidaily 14y ago
Well even if it does suck now (I think it does), it didnt suck when Musk sold it.
zt 14y ago
I work at Stripe and we are working hard on rolling out our products internationally. I am sorry you cannot use it yet and that you can't recommend us to your friends yet. It takes time to do right--it's a schlep--as we want to make sure that the experience is as dead-simple everywhere. "Fixing payments", as PG put it in the Schlep blindness essay, involves working with new banking partners and new back-end infrastructures to make it as easy in every country.

polshaw 14y ago

Precisely. Most here are going to be able to benefit society the most by creating the next pinterest or whatever and then using their money to bring forward change in the world, than trying to do some bio-medical-whatever that they don't have any skills in. Basic laws of specialisation/comparative advantage. Of course, if you can find a relevant area to apply your skills to, then that's great. There is a lot that is less frivolous, too, even in the tech world.

zt 14y ago

How to make payments on the internet is huge. It was a big problem. It still is a big problem. Paypal is disliked but that doesn't mean it wasn't working on a big problem. It doesn't mean Paypal wasn't an important start to the solution. Musk and Theil were dreaming big, bigger than photo apps and social media anyway. Payments on the internet is such a big problem that 1) Andreessen tried to make it part of the original browser [1] 2) Paypal is huge [2], 3) It is likely that Stripe (where I work) and Braintree (Paymill? WePay?) will thrive and 4) we will likely still call it largely unsolved in five years. [1] "It was essentially impossible to do," Andreessen replied. "We tried. We talked to credit card companies, banks, we weren't able to do it. Microsoft wasn't able to do it." (http://mashable.com/2012/05/01/marc-andreessen-browser-payments/ http://mashable.com/2012/05/01/marc-andreessen-browser-payme...) [2] "PayPal revenues represented 39 percent of eBay Inc. revenues in Q4 2012. PayPal revenues for Q4 2012 were $1.54 billion, growing 24 percent year over year." (https://www.paypal-media.com/about https://www.paypal-media.com/about)

petercooper 14y ago

And, further, his work on PayPal has enabled millions of others to have opportunities they couldn't have had otherwise (including me). It is hard to calculate the effects every action we have has on the world.