I’m Joining Stripe to Work on Atlas(kalzumeus.com)
kalzumeus.com
I’m Joining Stripe to Work on Atlas
http://www.kalzumeus.com/2016/09/09/im-joining-stripe-to-work-on-atlas/
341 comments
Don't forget, there was the chimney sweep software guy too. :)
/oldschool
/oldschool
And there was the vi emulator guy too :)
Classic mutual recursion ^__^
Back in the bubble days, all but a relatively few would-be founders found themselves crawling out of a hole and into the dark, as it were, in trying to figure out how to get from ground zero to a point of success: it was all super-bewildering and there were virtually no resources to help understand how it all worked: no helpful web-based forums to explain process or to share experiences, no solid resources for helping understand how best to launch, no easy access to funding, etc., etc.
Today, it is all different. We are all hyper-connected and the old barriers are much diminished. This means a founder in Silicon Valley, where the infrastructure is solid, can continue to do incredible things but, now, so too can founders everywhere. Yes, it can help to be geographically at the heart of it all but it is no longer an indispensable part of startup success.
I think Stripe's Atlas takes a huge additional step in helping to remove the accident of a founder's location from the list of barriers to entry in the world's startup club. I have explained my views in more detail here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11166417#11168750
And what a felicitous teaming between Patrick and Stripe to help further that goal. Great people all round, working to achieve great goals! I cannot imagine a better combination. Very exciting and congrats to all.
Today, it is all different. We are all hyper-connected and the old barriers are much diminished. This means a founder in Silicon Valley, where the infrastructure is solid, can continue to do incredible things but, now, so too can founders everywhere. Yes, it can help to be geographically at the heart of it all but it is no longer an indispensable part of startup success.
I think Stripe's Atlas takes a huge additional step in helping to remove the accident of a founder's location from the list of barriers to entry in the world's startup club. I have explained my views in more detail here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11166417#11168750
And what a felicitous teaming between Patrick and Stripe to help further that goal. Great people all round, working to achieve great goals! I cannot imagine a better combination. Very exciting and congrats to all.
First time I've seen Atlas. I'm immediately worried. If someone starts a company using this I presume it's subject to US laws? What does this mean:
1. For taxes? If I live in the UK and start my business with Atlas does the US get the corporation tax revenue or the UK (or a split of the two)?
2. For data security/privacy? Is the data I store now subject to access by the US government through National Security letters and the like? I believe that if I was storing EU citizen data I'm subject to privacy shield but all data would be more susceptible to US government requests. Is this accurate?
Edit: Quite shocked at the number of downvotes a completely legitimate question is getting...
1. For taxes? If I live in the UK and start my business with Atlas does the US get the corporation tax revenue or the UK (or a split of the two)?
2. For data security/privacy? Is the data I store now subject to access by the US government through National Security letters and the like? I believe that if I was storing EU citizen data I'm subject to privacy shield but all data would be more susceptible to US government requests. Is this accurate?
Edit: Quite shocked at the number of downvotes a completely legitimate question is getting...
We're based in South Africa and joined the Stripe Atlas beta earlier this year.
Solving the incorporation problem is only the first of many problems.
---
Please understand that none of the following is a criticism of Stripe. If we hadn't been accepted to the beta we'd be dead in the water right now and our customers would have been screwed. I also expect the solutions to become easier as more people in more countries face the same problems.
(Btw… one small suggestion for the Stripe Atlas team if anyone there is reading this… how about a forum where Atlas users in the same countries can swap information?)
---
So, the questions you asked are completely legitimate.
Trying to answer them ourselves has cost us an inordinate amount of money on legal & tax advice so far and we're still no closer to answers.
The problem is this:
The moment you're operating in two countries you are subject to the same legal, tax & accounting rules that multi-national corporations have to conform to.
There _are_ existing services that are geared towards tackling the insane levels of complexity involved but the pricing also assumes that you are a large multi-national corporation.
So, to give you an idea: Several reputable firms all quoted us the equivalent of an engineer's salary for a month just to _estimate_ the price of getting our ducks in a row.
For my company this is a LOT of money. We're bootstrapping and are barely ramen profitable.
Also, and I'm sure this happens to everyone at least once, at the time I did not understand that what they were quoting for was to prepare an estimate for what it would cost to answer our questions. I thought this was the quote to answer our questions!
When the estimate itself arrived it was for the equivalent to an engineer's salary for a year, with _no_ guarantee that further complexities (and costs) would not come up during or after the process.
An expensive lesson.
Currently we're trying to navigate the process ourselves by interacting directly with the .za & USA revenue services and the .za Reserve Bank.
Needless to say, this is hell on trying to get any actual work done in the meantime :-)
Solving the incorporation problem is only the first of many problems.
---
Please understand that none of the following is a criticism of Stripe. If we hadn't been accepted to the beta we'd be dead in the water right now and our customers would have been screwed. I also expect the solutions to become easier as more people in more countries face the same problems.
(Btw… one small suggestion for the Stripe Atlas team if anyone there is reading this… how about a forum where Atlas users in the same countries can swap information?)
---
So, the questions you asked are completely legitimate.
Trying to answer them ourselves has cost us an inordinate amount of money on legal & tax advice so far and we're still no closer to answers.
The problem is this:
The moment you're operating in two countries you are subject to the same legal, tax & accounting rules that multi-national corporations have to conform to.
There _are_ existing services that are geared towards tackling the insane levels of complexity involved but the pricing also assumes that you are a large multi-national corporation.
So, to give you an idea: Several reputable firms all quoted us the equivalent of an engineer's salary for a month just to _estimate_ the price of getting our ducks in a row.
For my company this is a LOT of money. We're bootstrapping and are barely ramen profitable.
Also, and I'm sure this happens to everyone at least once, at the time I did not understand that what they were quoting for was to prepare an estimate for what it would cost to answer our questions. I thought this was the quote to answer our questions!
When the estimate itself arrived it was for the equivalent to an engineer's salary for a year, with _no_ guarantee that further complexities (and costs) would not come up during or after the process.
An expensive lesson.
Currently we're trying to navigate the process ourselves by interacting directly with the .za & USA revenue services and the .za Reserve Bank.
Needless to say, this is hell on trying to get any actual work done in the meantime :-)
Possibly stupid question for you.
Why did you chose Atlas (ie US Incorporation), giving those micro-scale multinational issues, rather than incorporate in SA?
Why did you chose Atlas (ie US Incorporation), giving those micro-scale multinational issues, rather than incorporate in SA?
Our situation is quite complex but the tl;dr is:
We were already incorporated in SA but we also needed to be incorporated in the USA if we wanted to keep serving our customers.
We were already incorporated in SA but we also needed to be incorporated in the USA if we wanted to keep serving our customers.
I'm incorporated in Canada and serve many US customers.
It's a SaaS and most customers don't even know or care that we are not in the US.
I guess it varies depending on the type of business you are in.
It's a SaaS and most customers don't even know or care that we are not in the US.
I guess it varies depending on the type of business you are in.
For South Africans it's more complex: we literally are not (legally) allowed to charge in any currency except ZAR (our local currency). When you're a small bootstrapped startup on the bottom of the world, charging in a relatively unknown currency doesn't sit well with international customers
> one small suggestion for the Stripe Atlas team if anyone there is reading this
Well, there happens to be this guy Patrick, who sometimes hangs out here under the nickname patio11 :-) And he even left a comment on this story:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12465108
Well, there happens to be this guy Patrick, who sometimes hangs out here under the nickname patio11 :-) And he even left a comment on this story:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12465108
> The moment you're operating in two countries you are subject to the same legal, tax & accounting rules that multi-national corporations have to conform to.
Was it necessary to set up a company in RSA? Why not just be employees or contractors of the US company you happen you own? That's what I was going to do when I looked into doing this (myself, not via Atlas).
Was it necessary to set up a company in RSA? Why not just be employees or contractors of the US company you happen you own? That's what I was going to do when I looked into doing this (myself, not via Atlas).
That was also our original idea but it turns out to not be that simple:
1) Whether you are an individual or a company, you still need permission from the South African Reserve bank to "just happen to own" a US company.
2) Whether the offshore company is owned by an individual or another .za company, you are still liable for tax to both the .za government and the offshore country. If you don't want to be double-taxed you need to set up a structure that allows for transfer-pricing and that conforms with the international tax treaties in effect between the two countries.
tl;dr whether you or your company owns the offshore entity makes no difference to your legal & tax obligations. :-P
edit: word salad
1) Whether you are an individual or a company, you still need permission from the South African Reserve bank to "just happen to own" a US company.
2) Whether the offshore company is owned by an individual or another .za company, you are still liable for tax to both the .za government and the offshore country. If you don't want to be double-taxed you need to set up a structure that allows for transfer-pricing and that conforms with the international tax treaties in effect between the two countries.
tl;dr whether you or your company owns the offshore entity makes no difference to your legal & tax obligations. :-P
edit: word salad
To rephrase the question slightly differently: "Is Atlas a suitable tool for a UK startup, selling to the UK/EU markets?"
To which the answer may well be "No. Right now, Atlas is US-centric, but could potentially broaden its scope in the future to include other jurisdictions".
Personally, I'm not worried about Atlas, in the same way as I'm not worried about other US company startup facilities.
When I started my latest UK company, I used a UK accountancy service, who handled the initial set-up for me.
To which the answer may well be "No. Right now, Atlas is US-centric, but could potentially broaden its scope in the future to include other jurisdictions".
Personally, I'm not worried about Atlas, in the same way as I'm not worried about other US company startup facilities.
When I started my latest UK company, I used a UK accountancy service, who handled the initial set-up for me.
You probably need to research these or see a suitable advisor before deciding if Atlas is the right answer. From a UK point of view wouldn't be surprised if Revenue look that little more carefully given the amount of government fuss about entirely legal tax avoidance recently.
I'm surprised at the downvotes too - I'd have thought anyone outside the US and not knowing the laws (probably of both countries) would have similar questions to avoid landing themselves with an expensive mess.
I'm surprised at the downvotes too - I'd have thought anyone outside the US and not knowing the laws (probably of both countries) would have similar questions to avoid landing themselves with an expensive mess.
It can be complicated to start a corporation in a country you're a resident of.
Starting a corporation in a country you're not a resident of is usually even more complicated because now you have to worry about two tax regimes and the interactions between them. There's also the distinction between corporate taxes and personal taxes and the interactions between those (e.g. your Delaware corporation issues a dividend to the UK founders).
I think the idea is that as Atlas rolls out to each country, it will be run by the respective Stripe team in that country (ergo patio11 joining Stripe Japan) and be responsible for building Atlas's business-as-a-service model respective of that country's laws and customs.
It's similar to their rollout of payment processing across the globe - they've done it slowly as they've had to incorporate each jurisdiction's regulations.
It's similar to their rollout of payment processing across the globe - they've done it slowly as they've had to incorporate each jurisdiction's regulations.
I think if you had left off "I'm immediately worried" you might not have got the downvotes. It comes off as kneejerk criticism, event though you didn't mean it that way.
Possibly. As you've said it wasn't intended as a criticism. It was a feeling, hence why I posted to seek clarification.
HMRC could easily deem the company as being controlled in the UK[0]. This could potentially cause you problems, but then again the corporate tax rate in the US is considerably higher so would there be any tax owed considering the double-taxation agreement[1]?
[0] http://www.menzies.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/INTERNAT...
[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/usa-tax-treaties
[0] http://www.menzies.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/INTERNAT...
[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/usa-tax-treaties
There is also transfer transfer pricing to contend with. You lose the some of the ability to have funds wherever you need them in your group without also having a plausible reason why your US entity is making no profit and all its funds are disappearing offshore.
1. Yes the US would get the corporate tax revenue. The company is based in the US even if its employees aren't. You'd pay your taxes to the UK government when you repatriated any of the income from it.
2. Yes because you'd be a US company.
2. Yes because you'd be a US company.
Do you know that this is the case based on UK tax law?
Because a lot of countries have provisions for taxing income of foreign corporations locally if they deem that the corporation is controlled and operated from their country.
My UK accountant did specifically warn me about tax risks around this years ago - I don't remember the specific conditions where it might arise, but you should not take this lightly.
Because a lot of countries have provisions for taxing income of foreign corporations locally if they deem that the corporation is controlled and operated from their country.
My UK accountant did specifically warn me about tax risks around this years ago - I don't remember the specific conditions where it might arise, but you should not take this lightly.
Like which ones and how would they go about taxing a foreign entity?
They would tax the individuals when they repatriated income.
They would tax the individuals when they repatriated income.
The UK, for one. The HMRC has wide powers to assess tax if unilaterally if they suspect that the company is operating in the UK, and you are unwilling or unable to prove that it isn't.
In terms of taxing it, they would try to recover taxes from the entity itself first, but if the entity itself is non-responsive, they would go after its assets and directors and cash flows in or moving through the UK (and for now also the EU).
Since the issue here is specifically companies that are foreign entities operating out of the UK, there will be generally be something they can go after - if there isn't, then the company couldn't realistically be considered to be operating out of the UK for tax purposes anyway.
It's absolutely possible for UK owners to operate a foreign entity in ways that HMRC will agree does not imply taxes are due in the UK (been there, done that), but the point is that you need to be careful, because a few wrong moves and you may worst case have two jurisdictions both expecting you to pay taxes of the same money.
In terms of taxing it, they would try to recover taxes from the entity itself first, but if the entity itself is non-responsive, they would go after its assets and directors and cash flows in or moving through the UK (and for now also the EU).
Since the issue here is specifically companies that are foreign entities operating out of the UK, there will be generally be something they can go after - if there isn't, then the company couldn't realistically be considered to be operating out of the UK for tax purposes anyway.
It's absolutely possible for UK owners to operate a foreign entity in ways that HMRC will agree does not imply taxes are due in the UK (been there, done that), but the point is that you need to be careful, because a few wrong moves and you may worst case have two jurisdictions both expecting you to pay taxes of the same money.
Unfair comment completely unrelated to Atlas.
You better have these questions answered before heading to Atlas.
You better have these questions answered before heading to Atlas.
It is related and there is nothing unfair about it. I'm also not accusing them of anything. They're honest questions which should have relatively straightforward answers.
I believe it isn't.
I don't think you are accusing them of anything.
Yes, they are honest questions, but unrelated to Atlas. If you have doubts about taxes or privacy in the US, Atlas is not going to help you in anyway.
From the FAQ[1]
While incorporating in the U.S. can make many things much easier, it also comes with long-term legal and tax implications. You should think carefully about whether it’s best for your business and consult advisors as necessary.
Pretty clear.
[1] https://stripe.com/atlas/faq#Who-should-use-Atlas
I don't think you are accusing them of anything.
Yes, they are honest questions, but unrelated to Atlas. If you have doubts about taxes or privacy in the US, Atlas is not going to help you in anyway.
From the FAQ[1]
While incorporating in the U.S. can make many things much easier, it also comes with long-term legal and tax implications. You should think carefully about whether it’s best for your business and consult advisors as necessary.
Pretty clear.
[1] https://stripe.com/atlas/faq#Who-should-use-Atlas
Thing is, the answers are nowhere near straightforward.
Your first question, about taxes, is particularly complicated. Here are the relevant tax treaties:
https://www.irs.gov/businesses/international-businesses/unit...
While they seek to prevent double taxation (and tax evasion), they are packed with dense legalese full of clauses and subclauses designed to make certain types of income taxable in different places. To navigate that question, you'd need a highly experienced tax accountant/attorney with specific experience in UK/US tax treaties. Moreover, that person would need a strong understanding of what you do, how/where you sell, and how/if/when you plan to pay yourself.
Your second question is even more complicated. First, if you incorporate in a country like the US, your corporation is considered a person in that country and is thus bound by that country's laws. I trust that you did enough research to know that.
Second, recent history has demonstrated that the UK (as a Five Eyes nation) shares intelligence data with the United States. Moreover, recent history has demonstrated that the UK will work at the behest of the US intelligence community. This is governed by years of treaties and high level agreements. Consequently, the first thing you need to wonder is whether your government would just hand everything over, regardless of whether you have a US corporation or not.
Third, if you do incorporate in the US, you would be subject to US law, but US law can generally be fought in a court. The question becomes whether or not you could afford to fight an NSL. Could your business afford a long, highly distracting process where it is you versus a government??
But then, you need to look at yourself. Do you have any secrets that could be used as leverage against you?? If you plan to fight a well funded intelligence agency, you'd need to be prepared for them to fight hard.
I tend to argue that if a well funded intelligence agency truly wants information, they'll get it.
So, while your questions were honest, they were anything but straightforward. And, they aren't actually relevant to Atlas.
Rather, you and a group of experts need to sit down and figure out the costs, potential costs and the benefits of incorporating in the US. If it still makes sense, Atlas is a tool. But Atlas can't help you navigate the complicated relationship between your company, international law, agreements like NATO/other intelligence sharing agreements, EU law and two (possibly three) tax authorities.
And, with all due respect, neither can Hacker News. Every situation is so different that anyone who is qualified to answer those questions wouldn't as they understand how deeply complicated they are.
Your first question, about taxes, is particularly complicated. Here are the relevant tax treaties:
https://www.irs.gov/businesses/international-businesses/unit...
While they seek to prevent double taxation (and tax evasion), they are packed with dense legalese full of clauses and subclauses designed to make certain types of income taxable in different places. To navigate that question, you'd need a highly experienced tax accountant/attorney with specific experience in UK/US tax treaties. Moreover, that person would need a strong understanding of what you do, how/where you sell, and how/if/when you plan to pay yourself.
Your second question is even more complicated. First, if you incorporate in a country like the US, your corporation is considered a person in that country and is thus bound by that country's laws. I trust that you did enough research to know that.
Second, recent history has demonstrated that the UK (as a Five Eyes nation) shares intelligence data with the United States. Moreover, recent history has demonstrated that the UK will work at the behest of the US intelligence community. This is governed by years of treaties and high level agreements. Consequently, the first thing you need to wonder is whether your government would just hand everything over, regardless of whether you have a US corporation or not.
Third, if you do incorporate in the US, you would be subject to US law, but US law can generally be fought in a court. The question becomes whether or not you could afford to fight an NSL. Could your business afford a long, highly distracting process where it is you versus a government??
But then, you need to look at yourself. Do you have any secrets that could be used as leverage against you?? If you plan to fight a well funded intelligence agency, you'd need to be prepared for them to fight hard.
I tend to argue that if a well funded intelligence agency truly wants information, they'll get it.
So, while your questions were honest, they were anything but straightforward. And, they aren't actually relevant to Atlas.
Rather, you and a group of experts need to sit down and figure out the costs, potential costs and the benefits of incorporating in the US. If it still makes sense, Atlas is a tool. But Atlas can't help you navigate the complicated relationship between your company, international law, agreements like NATO/other intelligence sharing agreements, EU law and two (possibly three) tax authorities.
And, with all due respect, neither can Hacker News. Every situation is so different that anyone who is qualified to answer those questions wouldn't as they understand how deeply complicated they are.
[deleted]
Sorry to hear about starfighter, but it looks like you've more than landed on your feet. Good luck! I think with a big company at your back, you may be able to leverage that to do some great things.
People in the US have no idea how easy they have it with creating a company, something I helped to fix a little tiny bit in Italy: https://blog.therealitaly.com/2015/04/16/fixing-italy-a-litt...
One of the key points:
> All told, the price of creating a company in Italy was several months worth of salary for the average Italian worker, whereas even at minimum wage, someone in Oregon could open that LLC after a few days worth of work.
People in the US have no idea how easy they have it with creating a company, something I helped to fix a little tiny bit in Italy: https://blog.therealitaly.com/2015/04/16/fixing-italy-a-litt...
One of the key points:
> All told, the price of creating a company in Italy was several months worth of salary for the average Italian worker, whereas even at minimum wage, someone in Oregon could open that LLC after a few days worth of work.
In Denmark you log in using your national identity card (a card with some one-off passcodes) on the following webpage; limited liability companies carries a fee of approx 100 USD, other forms of companies are free.
The process takes a few minutes in the simplest case:
https://indberet.virk.dk/myndigheder/stat/ERST/Start_virksom...
The process takes a few minutes in the simplest case:
https://indberet.virk.dk/myndigheder/stat/ERST/Start_virksom...
It's not for nothing that .dk is #3 on this list:
http://www.doingbusiness.org/rankings
But their reported procedures/costs differ from what you wrote:
http://www.doingbusiness.org/data/exploreeconomies/denmark/#...
Something that's nice in the US as compared to most continental European countries is that no 'initial capital' is required.
http://www.doingbusiness.org/rankings
But their reported procedures/costs differ from what you wrote:
http://www.doingbusiness.org/data/exploreeconomies/denmark/#...
Something that's nice in the US as compared to most continental European countries is that no 'initial capital' is required.
It is the same here.
Over the past few decades we got our rules "synced" to the rest of the EU (or the rest of the world). We now have several forms of limited liability companies. The capital requirement ranges from approx. 0.20 USD (IVS) to 100.000 USD (A/S) (or more ... if you want to make a bank).
It used to be that to do a Danish LLC you had to put up at least 20.000 USD in capital but because of the EU you could just go to the UK and start a LLC with no/very little capital there and then operate in DK with the same creditor protection.
Anyways; the point was that in many places creating a company is of very little trouble.
Over the past few decades we got our rules "synced" to the rest of the EU (or the rest of the world). We now have several forms of limited liability companies. The capital requirement ranges from approx. 0.20 USD (IVS) to 100.000 USD (A/S) (or more ... if you want to make a bank).
It used to be that to do a Danish LLC you had to put up at least 20.000 USD in capital but because of the EU you could just go to the UK and start a LLC with no/very little capital there and then operate in DK with the same creditor protection.
Anyways; the point was that in many places creating a company is of very little trouble.
UK it's £20, no capital needed, ten minute job online.
It's come down since you've tried, its £12 now.
Getting a business bank account is also trivial and you can do it over the phone. Pretty awesome.
As in a useable account? IIRC in the UK we had to show birth certs, drivers licence, have an interview, present a business plan, sign several lots of dead tree, provide details of other finances ... just to get a deposit account.
Yes, I did it this year, over the phone, ready to use same day.
Really? 2.5 years ago still involved going to a bank, signing in blood, and several hours. Most complicated past of the process, would be good to hear it had changed
I started a Ltd a couple of months ago and applied online for a Santander business account, I had my card and account set up within 7 days or so (I was away from home so it could've been quicker). I got a company credit card 2(!) days after applying online to Barclays. No phone calls, no visits to a branch for either.
Interesting. I switched to Barclays for my personal accounts, and they seem unusually tech savvy.
I'm with them for personal and the app is great (website also pretty good but it has an unusually strict timeout on entering indentity codes that makes me sit there with the app poised, so I can enter it within 3 seconds!)
Santander's mobile app is awful though. It kind of works but it's a chunky pre-iOS 7 hybrid monstrosity. Web access is pretty smooth however.
Co-op who I was previously are a crap beast on all counts.
Santander's mobile app is awful though. It kind of works but it's a chunky pre-iOS 7 hybrid monstrosity. Web access is pretty smooth however.
Co-op who I was previously are a crap beast on all counts.
It depends on the bank I think, some are still doing it that way but others you can set up over the phone no problem.
In Austria, you don't need any capital at all, to start a EPU (One-Person-Company) which is really convenient.
> In Austria, you don't need any capital at all, to start a EPU (One-Person-Company) which is really convenient.
You can do that in any country. Austria sucks donkeyballs for staring an actual company however. You need 35.000 in capital and you need to involve a notary. The additional cost for actually getting the company in place is a few thousand euro, you need to listen to the notary read down the contract you made yourself and then you are subject to all sorts of utterly bizarre rules and regulations such as publishing your yearly report in a specific newspaper which charges you an arm and a leg for this privilege.
Can we please fix this?
You can do that in any country. Austria sucks donkeyballs for staring an actual company however. You need 35.000 in capital and you need to involve a notary. The additional cost for actually getting the company in place is a few thousand euro, you need to listen to the notary read down the contract you made yourself and then you are subject to all sorts of utterly bizarre rules and regulations such as publishing your yearly report in a specific newspaper which charges you an arm and a leg for this privilege.
Can we please fix this?
Heh - your comment reminds me of one of my impressions of Austria, where we spent a couple years: "a lot of the same bureaucratic BS as Italy, just administered a lot more efficiently".
> Heh - your comment reminds me of one of my impressions of Austria, where we spent a couple years: "a lot of the same bureaucratic BS as Italy, just administered a lot more efficiently".
German administration feels exactly the same. I have heard that situation being called "Prussian administration": slow and cumbersome to operate like a Prussian tank, efficient in its task like a Prussian tank.
BTW, here is a Prussian tank: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A7V#/media/File:A7v-wotan-dior...
German administration feels exactly the same. I have heard that situation being called "Prussian administration": slow and cumbersome to operate like a Prussian tank, efficient in its task like a Prussian tank.
BTW, here is a Prussian tank: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A7V#/media/File:A7v-wotan-dior...
I'm cautiously optimistic that things are going to change. The bureaucracy is efficient, no doubt there. However some of it just has no reason to exist and we all would be better off by getting rid of it.
It seems incredible that you need such a lot of money. What is the justification given by politicians or those who support such a system?
In most states you can freely run a business under your own name, and if you'd like a business name to be simply an alias for yourself (not a separate legal person) a Doing Business As arrangement is trivial, fast, and cheap.
But the whole point of a company is limited liability, an entity which can own property, sue and be sued, etc. separately from its collection of owners.
But the whole point of a company is limited liability, an entity which can own property, sue and be sued, etc. separately from its collection of owners.
Yep, pretty much this, it's the limited liability you incorporate for.
Same in Denmark; you only need capital for certain kinds of limited liability companies.
Limited Liability Companies are "real" companies that you need to do real things like take investments or take on other people as partners, without putting your other assets (houses, etc...) at risk.
Unless you're doing something super simple, you don't want to mess around with a "single proprietorship" or the like.
Unless you're doing something super simple, you don't want to mess around with a "single proprietorship" or the like.
Golly, looking at that table I really wonder how Canada is #105 for "Getting electricity". Energy is one of our largest export sectors, how on earth are we so incapable of electricity?
One thing I like about the US is that there are so many different jurisdictions all in the business of having competitive incorporation services. So although LLC formation might cost $800 in California, it can be like $50 in a nearby state.
Both a feature and a bug, is that there is no federal incorporation statute for private persons in the United States.
Both a feature and a bug, is that there is no federal incorporation statute for private persons in the United States.
> although LLC formation might cost $800 in California
That sounded really high, so I looked it up here:
http://www.sos.ca.gov/business-programs/business-entities/fo...
It looks like CA is $70, unless I'm missing something. I've never started an LLC in CA though. (EDIT: keep reading down the thread for more clarification.)
(But: there's another thread here that says IL is $500, which does appear to be correct.)
That sounded really high, so I looked it up here:
http://www.sos.ca.gov/business-programs/business-entities/fo...
It looks like CA is $70, unless I'm missing something. I've never started an LLC in CA though. (EDIT: keep reading down the thread for more clarification.)
(But: there's another thread here that says IL is $500, which does appear to be correct.)
The $800 usually mentioned is actually the yearly minimum tax for an LLC in CA.
From the LLC-1 form:
"Filing Form LLC-1 will obligate most LLCs to pay an annual minimum $800 tax to the California Franchise Tax Board. For more information about taxes, go to https://www.ftb.ca.gov."
From the LLC-1 form:
"Filing Form LLC-1 will obligate most LLCs to pay an annual minimum $800 tax to the California Franchise Tax Board. For more information about taxes, go to https://www.ftb.ca.gov."
Awesome, thanks for the clarification!
CA is not a small business friendly state. $800 is the hefty minimum amount of tax a corp has to paid annually even it makes no money.
not anymore
in Italy you can create a new type of company: S.r.l.s. (società a repsonsbailita limitata semplice) with only a few hundreds euros
I'm italian and owner of an S.r.l.s.
Errrr, yes, that's what I helped create:
https://web.archive.org/web/20120831053519/http://www.govern...
It makes me very happy that it's working out for you!
https://web.archive.org/web/20120831053519/http://www.govern...
It makes me very happy that it's working out for you!
Same in Croatia, 100 Euros for a j.d.o.o. (simple limited liability company) vs cca. 4000 Euros for d.o.o. (limited liability company 3k for capital, 1k expenses). I still wouldn't recommend, since VAT is 25% and capital gains is 20% (which is ok). Bulgaria and Romania have better terms and are within EU too.
AFAIK, LLC in Bulgaria requires no capital, there's 50 euro tax for the opening; VAT is 20% and the capital gains are 10%.
I'm honestly considering opening a company in Bulgaria instead of Croatia. I guess I'll visit Sofia within next six months and check out what I need.
I really like Patrick's work, and I have learnt a lot from it. I wish him the best for his employment at Stripe.
But I am going to ask all of you to tread carefully when taking advice from well-intentioned experts. Over a period of 9 or so years, Patrick went from expressing opinions about a) why desktop software is still viable b) why web based is a better option than desktop because desktop causes too many pains c) why doing a SaaS model is better than the one time web based software (web version of BCC) d) why it may not be worth the stress of (some stressful event associated with clients in medical industry) for a SaaS which is generating less than $2000 MRR e) why a business like StarFighter is better because you feel like waking up and doing it for 5+ years in a row and f) eventually there will be a good reason for the decision to leave/stop Starfighter. Amongst these opinions, there would be two kinds of takeaway messages - the ones which are true independent of the specific time period (don't piss off your customer) vs the ones which are more subjective and epoch specific - e.g. Patrick's own admission of benefiting from AdSense (via the Content Network or some such thing) for BCC, which was probably not true by the time it was expressed publicly and is almost certainly not true today.
There is almost positively going to be a fair amount of time lag before these ideas germinate in the experts' head and they slowly turn into action in their lives, and by the time they are ready to write about it, sometimes they are close to the winding down phase of said idea. For the people who are keen to "follow suit", as they say, it is very hard to know if it is a good idea to invest the next 3-5 years of your lives trying to adopt the same idea.
This is all fine and obvious, you say. My concern has to do with the "other side" of the picture. When people were lavishing praise on the SaaS model about 3-4 years ago, I suppose I wasn't the only one who wondered "Wait a minute. What about the fact that a SaaS business takes up your mind space 24 x 7 x 365? Isn't that a cost most of us don't wish to pay?" And after a while, Patrick mentions in a MicroConf talk about doing an eBook or WP plugin first before embarking on a SaaS - all great advice. Just wish more people consider the balancing forces and always ask themselves whether they are getting the full picture.
But I am going to ask all of you to tread carefully when taking advice from well-intentioned experts. Over a period of 9 or so years, Patrick went from expressing opinions about a) why desktop software is still viable b) why web based is a better option than desktop because desktop causes too many pains c) why doing a SaaS model is better than the one time web based software (web version of BCC) d) why it may not be worth the stress of (some stressful event associated with clients in medical industry) for a SaaS which is generating less than $2000 MRR e) why a business like StarFighter is better because you feel like waking up and doing it for 5+ years in a row and f) eventually there will be a good reason for the decision to leave/stop Starfighter. Amongst these opinions, there would be two kinds of takeaway messages - the ones which are true independent of the specific time period (don't piss off your customer) vs the ones which are more subjective and epoch specific - e.g. Patrick's own admission of benefiting from AdSense (via the Content Network or some such thing) for BCC, which was probably not true by the time it was expressed publicly and is almost certainly not true today.
There is almost positively going to be a fair amount of time lag before these ideas germinate in the experts' head and they slowly turn into action in their lives, and by the time they are ready to write about it, sometimes they are close to the winding down phase of said idea. For the people who are keen to "follow suit", as they say, it is very hard to know if it is a good idea to invest the next 3-5 years of your lives trying to adopt the same idea.
This is all fine and obvious, you say. My concern has to do with the "other side" of the picture. When people were lavishing praise on the SaaS model about 3-4 years ago, I suppose I wasn't the only one who wondered "Wait a minute. What about the fact that a SaaS business takes up your mind space 24 x 7 x 365? Isn't that a cost most of us don't wish to pay?" And after a while, Patrick mentions in a MicroConf talk about doing an eBook or WP plugin first before embarking on a SaaS - all great advice. Just wish more people consider the balancing forces and always ask themselves whether they are getting the full picture.
That was my first thought too - a very human journey covered with very bold statements at each point. Unless I misread something, you forgot the step where consulting (weekly granularity rather than daily or hourly) was absolute king. I remember reading that and thinking "Wait, what about the SAAS thing?"
I guess the takeaway is that no option is without its disadvantages.
I guess the takeaway is that no option is without its disadvantages.
Slightly unfashionable to say this here, but this problem isn’t necessarily something the private sector should be routing around but one that the public sector should be fixing from within.
At GDS (GOV.UK etc) we’re working on a programme called GaaP: Government as a Platform. This aims to provide components to radically simplify the difficulty of building services focused on user needs for the rest of government.
Tom Loosemoore (now ex-GDS but hey) gave this talk at Code For America last year: https://youtube.com/watch?v=VjE_zj-7A7A . It’s obviously quite long (and in my opinion worth watching the lot) but the topic relevant part comes at ~28 minutes in. Here Tom demonstrates how pulling together the pieces of GaaP could potentially lead to registering s company in 3.5 minutes.
That a private sector company could do the same thing is great, but sometimes you need to refactor the root inefficiency rather than patch the symptom.
At GDS (GOV.UK etc) we’re working on a programme called GaaP: Government as a Platform. This aims to provide components to radically simplify the difficulty of building services focused on user needs for the rest of government.
Tom Loosemoore (now ex-GDS but hey) gave this talk at Code For America last year: https://youtube.com/watch?v=VjE_zj-7A7A . It’s obviously quite long (and in my opinion worth watching the lot) but the topic relevant part comes at ~28 minutes in. Here Tom demonstrates how pulling together the pieces of GaaP could potentially lead to registering s company in 3.5 minutes.
That a private sector company could do the same thing is great, but sometimes you need to refactor the root inefficiency rather than patch the symptom.
> sometimes you need to refactor the root inefficiency rather than patch the symptom.
This is also my view on a lot of fintech.
However... if the incumbents aren't doing something, then eating away at the edges may eventually either overcome the incumbents or force them into change.
I don't think Stripe could replace what govts do, but I can certainly see that Stripe being successful will put them at the table to influence or direct the which the way govts do things.
This is also my view on a lot of fintech.
However... if the incumbents aren't doing something, then eating away at the edges may eventually either overcome the incumbents or force them into change.
I don't think Stripe could replace what govts do, but I can certainly see that Stripe being successful will put them at the table to influence or direct the which the way govts do things.
If innovation is motivated by competition, then the government having a monopoly in governmental services means they never need to innovate, unless they receive some competition.
Because barriers to emigration are so high, countries don't have to compete with each other for quality of governance, and so it turns out that only the private sector can do it.
Because barriers to emigration are so high, countries don't have to compete with each other for quality of governance, and so it turns out that only the private sector can do it.
If innovation is motivated by competition
Your implication is that competition has to be with external agents. It’s perfectly possible to compete with the status quo.
The private sector has a profit motive at its core: make more money for shareholders. The public sector also has a profit motive: save more money and be more effective for tax-payers. They’re both examples of efficiency, two sides of the same coin.
Your implication is that competition has to be with external agents. It’s perfectly possible to compete with the status quo.
The private sector has a profit motive at its core: make more money for shareholders. The public sector also has a profit motive: save more money and be more effective for tax-payers. They’re both examples of efficiency, two sides of the same coin.
I don't think the public sector has the motive you claim they do. I think that in practice, the actual motivation of each department of government on every scale is to draw more funding to their own budget in a massive power struggle for slices of the societal pie. There aren't shareholders in the private sense, but the profit motive is still to grow revenues/power and get them assigned to yourself.
Taxpayers don't want efficient use of funds either. From the point of view of a taxpayer, the most effective use of funds is to have them all benefit yourself. Everyone wants to maximize the piece of the pie that is assigned to them. Politicians use this as an excuse to grow the scope of government, regardless of what side you vote for. As a result, the voting apparatus does not serve to optimize government efficiency.
Taxpayers don't want efficient use of funds either. From the point of view of a taxpayer, the most effective use of funds is to have them all benefit yourself. Everyone wants to maximize the piece of the pie that is assigned to them. Politicians use this as an excuse to grow the scope of government, regardless of what side you vote for. As a result, the voting apparatus does not serve to optimize government efficiency.
All I can say is that from within my department, and from a lower-than-senior-civil-servant level, the ground looks very different. It’s not for nothing that we have our design principles[1] that have ‘user needs’ and ‘do less’ as points 1 and 2. We absolutely need to have funding to do that, but specifically at GDS we’re part of the UK Cabinet Office’s Efficiency and Reform Group - a primary mission for us is to do more with less on a pan-government scale.
To argue your second point, tax payers want an easy life. If we can cut minutes or hours off your interactions with government year on year then you’ll be happier, regardless of whether your overall burden goes up or down.
[1] https://www.gov.uk/design-principles
To argue your second point, tax payers want an easy life. If we can cut minutes or hours off your interactions with government year on year then you’ll be happier, regardless of whether your overall burden goes up or down.
[1] https://www.gov.uk/design-principles
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From my experience public sector has little motivation for any kind of competition.
I'd tend to agree. But the private sector has show an unreasonable effectiveness at improving lots of industries.
Believe me, I don't sleep well at night, knowing you've got to motivate people to generate huge profit, so they can create great companies like Stripe. But it appears to be an ongoing trend.
Even the recents efforts made by GDS or USDS will be overshadowed by new, hip, fintech (and govtech?) startups.
Believe me, I don't sleep well at night, knowing you've got to motivate people to generate huge profit, so they can create great companies like Stripe. But it appears to be an ongoing trend.
Even the recents efforts made by GDS or USDS will be overshadowed by new, hip, fintech (and govtech?) startups.
I wish there was an industry called "Don't do with people's data what they never gave you explicit permission to do". Here, both public and private sectors fail badly because they wish to perpetuate their existence, but the public sector's existence could at least somewhat nominally be justified as something people usually want. You may want the existence of a private sector as a whole to perpetuate, but probably not at the cost of a specific entity doing unexpected things with your data.
Edit: added last sentence.
Edit: added last sentence.
Patrick @ Stripe just shared via Twitter that he sent original idea for stripe to patio11.
To which patio11 perfectly replied that note had gotten stuck in his spam folder :)
https://twitter.com/patrickc/status/774309309874221056
To which patio11 perfectly replied that note had gotten stuck in his spam folder :)
https://twitter.com/patrickc/status/774309309874221056
He would definitely have replied :) .
Patrick replied (very accurately, as it turned out) back in 2011 to my attempt to do a micropayments startup:
"I would strongly advise rethinking starting a payment processor as a student. It is relationship-, credibility-, and capital-intensive. It also requires truly massive scale before being worth any money. (Incredibly massive scale in micropayments. If you make $0.01 off each transaction you have to facilitate hundreds of thousands a month just to pay for the founding team's ramen. If you somehow possess the magic that you need to find 100,000 paying customers you shouldn't end up eating ramen!)"
As someone who started down the payments path and desisted pretty quickly ("fail fast", they call it :) ) I'm extremely impressed by Stripe, and they've definitely gotten a great talent and great guy in Patrick.
Patrick replied (very accurately, as it turned out) back in 2011 to my attempt to do a micropayments startup:
"I would strongly advise rethinking starting a payment processor as a student. It is relationship-, credibility-, and capital-intensive. It also requires truly massive scale before being worth any money. (Incredibly massive scale in micropayments. If you make $0.01 off each transaction you have to facilitate hundreds of thousands a month just to pay for the founding team's ramen. If you somehow possess the magic that you need to find 100,000 paying customers you shouldn't end up eating ramen!)"
As someone who started down the payments path and desisted pretty quickly ("fail fast", they call it :) ) I'm extremely impressed by Stripe, and they've definitely gotten a great talent and great guy in Patrick.
@patio11: may we get a post-mortem on Starfighter, and more details on what you learned about startups?
Not wanting to do the concept for Starfighter any injustice but I get the feeling it's as simple as they spent too much time on the tech and not enough on the business. A very easy mistake when the co-founders are technically minded.
It turns out --- I'm speaking for at least Erin and I, but I suspect to an extent Patrick too --- we don't have the stomach for the contingency recruiting model. Referring someone for an interview and watching them get turned down was, for me at least, about 80% of the psychic cost of applying myself and getting turned down.
Fuck that. It's a job that is possible to do and possible to do well and my life is too short (takes bite of ham sandwich) to spend it getting good at that.
So: I am still in love with the concept and still pursuing it, but I have fallen totally out of love with that particular business model and am happy to blowtorch it out of my life.
More writeup to come! Patrick's at Stripe now; Erin & I have more news coming. Ironically: expect more challenges from us, not less. :P
Fuck that. It's a job that is possible to do and possible to do well and my life is too short (takes bite of ham sandwich) to spend it getting good at that.
So: I am still in love with the concept and still pursuing it, but I have fallen totally out of love with that particular business model and am happy to blowtorch it out of my life.
More writeup to come! Patrick's at Stripe now; Erin & I have more news coming. Ironically: expect more challenges from us, not less. :P
I met with Patrick for a couple hours this spring to talk about Starfighter and recruiting and such (I've been in recruiting for almost 20 years), and I shared some of the challenges the industry has faced. Patrick shared some anecdotes about his brief experience (at the time) on the recruiting side of the business, and it does take some time to get to the point where you don't take rejection personally. Recruiting is hard for a lot of reasons, and you do need to have a certain stomach for the industry. I'm not a huge fan of it either.
The advantage Starfighter had was that the most painful rejections for recruiters aren't necessarily the "no offer" at the end of an interview, but the "no response" to outreach - even when highly targeted.
Starfighter was designed to have a pipeline of qualified candidates who would conceivably be much more approachable than those who are cold-called/emailed by agency recruiters, not to mention the benefit of the names. Getting approached by Patrick or Thomas & Erin is much different for a candidate than getting approached by a recruiter with no name recognition. Even recruiters with a bit of name recognition don't get high response rates all the time.
I was personally rooting for Starfighter for several reasons, most of which to try and take recruiting in a bit of a different direction. I still hope the idea can be salvaged in some way, and wish Patrick and Thomas & Erin the best in the new endeavors.
The advantage Starfighter had was that the most painful rejections for recruiters aren't necessarily the "no offer" at the end of an interview, but the "no response" to outreach - even when highly targeted.
Starfighter was designed to have a pipeline of qualified candidates who would conceivably be much more approachable than those who are cold-called/emailed by agency recruiters, not to mention the benefit of the names. Getting approached by Patrick or Thomas & Erin is much different for a candidate than getting approached by a recruiter with no name recognition. Even recruiters with a bit of name recognition don't get high response rates all the time.
I was personally rooting for Starfighter for several reasons, most of which to try and take recruiting in a bit of a different direction. I still hope the idea can be salvaged in some way, and wish Patrick and Thomas & Erin the best in the new endeavors.
That's really interesting! Our experience was: we didn't need to do any outbound sales work at all (our entire client base was cold inbounds), and we could close a contract with 1-2 phone calls. Our referrals I think with 1 exception? all got interviews.
But we're sourcing non-traditional candidates, and the --- you know what, I'm getting ahead of myself on a blog post I'm still tuning up.
In any case, that might explain what was so painful about the business for us: we had high frequency exposure to the worst part of it.
But we're sourcing non-traditional candidates, and the --- you know what, I'm getting ahead of myself on a blog post I'm still tuning up.
In any case, that might explain what was so painful about the business for us: we had high frequency exposure to the worst part of it.
The outbound sourcing work is the worst part without doubt, but the game took care of that for you. That, and the fact that it was backed by people with good industry names, was the beauty of Starfighter. I told Patrick that you already had the two hardest parts covered - engaging with qualified candidates and establishing credibility.
You also had cred with the hiring folks, so that was taken care of as well - hiring clients were going to be easy to identify without much effort.
The hard part would be scaling it to some degree - Patrick and you/Erin wouldn't be able to talk to every candidate if you were going to make serious $, and then you'd have to hire actual recruiters (who are wildly unpopular), and then you're starting to approach the problem of being like everyone else (other than the game) if the recruiters behave like...recruiters.
If you ever want to discuss recruiting stuff, I'm easy to find.
You also had cred with the hiring folks, so that was taken care of as well - hiring clients were going to be easy to identify without much effort.
The hard part would be scaling it to some degree - Patrick and you/Erin wouldn't be able to talk to every candidate if you were going to make serious $, and then you'd have to hire actual recruiters (who are wildly unpopular), and then you're starting to approach the problem of being like everyone else (other than the game) if the recruiters behave like...recruiters.
If you ever want to discuss recruiting stuff, I'm easy to find.
Talking to every candidate (the ones that were loosely designated as 'mine') turned out to be my most favorite part of this whole deal. In some ways, even better than having an opportunity to write an AVR emulator. These guys are smart and they have interesting stories, and the enthusiasm they expressed for what they wanted out of their careers plucked my mom strings pretty hard.
I always knew that if we continued to grow, that this part would go away, but I would have struggled to keep this going as long as I could. Even if it meant less serious $. It doesn't seem unreasonable to expect that had we grown to the point where hiring "actual recruiters," it would have been impossible to find ones with the same mindset.
I always knew that if we continued to grow, that this part would go away, but I would have struggled to keep this going as long as I could. Even if it meant less serious $. It doesn't seem unreasonable to expect that had we grown to the point where hiring "actual recruiters," it would have been impossible to find ones with the same mindset.
Not impossible, but you'd be looking for the same caliber of recruiter as you were looking for engineers. Perhaps even more rare.
> If you ever want to discuss recruiting stuff, I'm easy to find.
Yeah you are. Do you use this same username everywhere?
Yeah you are. Do you use this same username everywhere?
It's my last name, the name of one of my companies, and it's always available.
Thomas, were many starfighters you referred not getting offers? I love the idea of a (properly scoped) project/challenge in the hiring process and find myself profoundly worried when no code gets discussed in tech interviews.
I also really enjoyed stockfighter challenges. Between those six and my university's copy of Harris' Trading and Exchanges, I learned quite a bit. I bailed out on the AVR challenges though.
From a purely selfish viewpoint, I also want to work at places where the hiring process isn't really just whiteboard or gotcha questions, but instead actually has some consideration that, you know, demonstrating the ability to produce working useful code matters. Maybe I'm just nuts. The last interview I was in (for what people here would say is data science/engineering) involved a couple of big-O questions and two ill-specified SQL queries . . . sigh.
I also really enjoyed stockfighter challenges. Between those six and my university's copy of Harris' Trading and Exchanges, I learned quite a bit. I bailed out on the AVR challenges though.
From a purely selfish viewpoint, I also want to work at places where the hiring process isn't really just whiteboard or gotcha questions, but instead actually has some consideration that, you know, demonstrating the ability to produce working useful code matters. Maybe I'm just nuts. The last interview I was in (for what people here would say is data science/engineering) involved a couple of big-O questions and two ill-specified SQL queries . . . sigh.
> Between those six and my university's copy of Harris' Trading and Exchanges, I learned quite a bit. I bailed out on the AVR challenges though.
I really enjoyed the Stockfighter levels too, and reading The Big Short / Flash Boys / Moneyball in preparation. The levels had the right level of difficulty & I kept feeling I levelled up (especially when optimizing levels, I'm still proud of my Level 5 score). I didn't enjoy the AVR levels the same way & bailed quickly on those.
I got spooked after someone posted on HN that their Starfighter referral had only bypassed the CV screen of the job interview, not programming or whiteboard challenges. That made me question the time I'd spent on Starfighter - I kept a time log in Harvest along the way, and it's about the same amount of time I'd spend on developing a new product to sell online.
I still enjoyed playing Stockfighter though, and it helped me sharpen my Golang skills.
I really enjoyed the Stockfighter levels too, and reading The Big Short / Flash Boys / Moneyball in preparation. The levels had the right level of difficulty & I kept feeling I levelled up (especially when optimizing levels, I'm still proud of my Level 5 score). I didn't enjoy the AVR levels the same way & bailed quickly on those.
I got spooked after someone posted on HN that their Starfighter referral had only bypassed the CV screen of the job interview, not programming or whiteboard challenges. That made me question the time I'd spent on Starfighter - I kept a time log in Harvest along the way, and it's about the same amount of time I'd spend on developing a new product to sell online.
I still enjoyed playing Stockfighter though, and it helped me sharpen my Golang skills.
I wonder whether there was some element of "those who have an inclination and ability to complete Starfighter may be insanely qualified from one set of screening criteria, but not from the criteria that resonates with people hiring employees".
In other words, maybe it turned out to be a better filter for self-starters who might be nascent entrepreneurs (reflecting the founders who created it), but sometimes those characteristics aren't what hiring companies are looking for when they have a specific role to fill.
Sometimes you interview people who would be outstanding in certain roles or for certain companies--but maybe not the one you happen to be currently working for.
I'm struggling here, but FizzBuzz is effective as a tool to weed people out, but FizzBuzz taken to the extreme doesn't necessarily equate to a tool to rule people in.
In other words, maybe it turned out to be a better filter for self-starters who might be nascent entrepreneurs (reflecting the founders who created it), but sometimes those characteristics aren't what hiring companies are looking for when they have a specific role to fill.
Sometimes you interview people who would be outstanding in certain roles or for certain companies--but maybe not the one you happen to be currently working for.
I'm struggling here, but FizzBuzz is effective as a tool to weed people out, but FizzBuzz taken to the extreme doesn't necessarily equate to a tool to rule people in.
There was no element of that. The frustration was mostly 'the client's hiring process is a mess.' On our part, the one piece of work we needed to do to sell Starfighter better was to write some 'accessible prose' on 'the practical applications of having cleared level six' -- this should have been more of a priority, and it wasn't. I can look back and see the opportunity I had to do it, myself, and am bummed that I didn't get it done. Lesson learned; it will be part of every challenge we release going forward.
I realize this is a completely selfish request, but is there a chance that the challenges and games you made will continue to be available, or self-hostable? :-D I now regret not having participated in the CTFs that you three built.
The answer about the existing challenges is "I don't know".
But the answer about will there be challenges we maintain is "very yes".
But the answer about will there be challenges we maintain is "very yes".
Given that you and Patrick have spent the last several years advocating billing by value instead of by time/skills, why did you decide to start a business trying to convince people that the best way to get paid more was by improving their tech skills? Granted learning stuff is often a good thing and there is clearly some connection between skills and value so I don't think there was anything wrong with the concept itself, but the fact that it was both of you running it seemed at the least off-brand.
I remain confused by all the weird things people think we were trying to do with that business. "Trying to convince people that the best way to get paid more was by improving their tech skills" is one of those things. Whatever it is that got published that created this impression, I disavow.
I feel like, doing recruiting through work sample challenges is basically 80-90% of my whole brand.
I feel like, doing recruiting through work sample challenges is basically 80-90% of my whole brand.
The game wasn't at all about learning new skills or improving existing skills. It was a means to demonstrate existing skills, to Starfighter first and then to employers.
That's a fundamental difference.
That's a fundamental difference.
Actually: I'd like it to be more about learning new stuff, or at least learning that you're already good at new stuff.
What I want to find are people who are spooky good at specialized, high-status tech skills. HFT is like that. So is reversing. So are like 10 other specialties I can think of.
My thesis is that the training requirements for these things are way overblown.
What I want to find are people who are spooky good at specialized, high-status tech skills. HFT is like that. So is reversing. So are like 10 other specialties I can think of.
My thesis is that the training requirements for these things are way overblown.
> HFT is like that. So is reversing. So are like 10 other specialties I can think of.
What sort of specialties do you have in mind?
What sort of specialties do you have in mind?
> Referring someone for an interview and watching them get turned down was, for me at least, about 80% of the psychic cost of applying myself and getting turned down.
Wow it actually makes a lot of sense. Especially since you seemed to handpick candidates and vouch for them from a technical point of view.
I wonder if classic recruiters have this problem as they (most of the time) just bet on the number and are not invested personally.
Wow it actually makes a lot of sense. Especially since you seemed to handpick candidates and vouch for them from a technical point of view.
I wonder if classic recruiters have this problem as they (most of the time) just bet on the number and are not invested personally.
The vast majority of tech recruiters have no actual idea of how skilled their employee-side client is and are just keyword correlation machines that happen to be made of meat.
As such I doubt it impacts them much, if at all, beyond the obvious disappointment of not getting the salary cut, which they surely mitigate by just throwing candidates until one sticks.
As such I doubt it impacts them much, if at all, beyond the obvious disappointment of not getting the salary cut, which they surely mitigate by just throwing candidates until one sticks.
Well keep the HN conversations and ESR snark coming. I for one am rooting for you, Erin, and Patrick!
tptacek, patio11 and Erin -- I'm disappointed re: Starfighter, I was rooting for you.
I ran 0x41414141.com [1] for about 4 years. It was a set of CTF-style challenges of increasing difficulty with submissions via "secret" email addresses, a sendmail autoresponder and me - operating under the pseudo cavalier@0x41414141. It's singular goal was recruiting.
At the time, I was working with a totally badass team in a firm with a decidedly not-sexy brand for us security-types. We were hiring as fast as we could and _always_ had positions open. When we got someone good into the pipeline, we generally had no problem hiring them - the team and the work made that easy - but our candidate funnel was just too damn small. We had exhausted our referral pool, we were bringing on as many fresh grads as we could train, but it wasn't enough to keep up. We needed to broaden the funnel. Enter 0x41414141.com.
It was completely and totally unsupported, unrecognized and unreported through the official corporate recruiting channels. It was me, on my own time and my own dime with the quiet support of a few other guys in the shop. It had a singular purpose: to meet like-minded hackers and see if there was any chance they'd be interested in joining our merry little band of hackers.
Within the first year, I established the equivalent of a "repeatable sales process." There's the natural stages of the challenges themselves, but then the more delicate stages of transition:
(1) from the impersonal interaction with the service to the personal email exchange with cav,
(2) ...to a serious discussion about a new job
(3) ...to an IRL phone conversation
(4) ...to an open and honest talk about who we were, what we're doing and next steps
(5) ...to getting introduced to an actual corporate recruiter
Of course, like any "repeatable sales process" each stage is not only the continued progression but also qualification. The funnel was disappointingly ruthless, and that was just to get an intro to the recruiter. In any given year, I had:
(1) thousands of folks start challenges,
(2) several hundred make notable progress,
(3) traded personal email with dozens,
(4) got serious with 10s,
(5) interviewed a few,
(6) hired a couple
In the end, the results just didn't justify the effort.
To be clear - I loved running 0x41414141.com. I met a lot of great hackers and even hired a few. Many are HN'ers. (hi guys!) Many of the "security community rockstars" stumbled across the site and ran through the challenges as a fun exercise on a Sunday afternoon. I also watched - and coached - many clear newbs through the process, and was impressed with their grit, creativity and determination. I even hired a couple complete newbs, including a female, recent PoliSci grad working as a nanny who turned out to be an OUTSTANDING reverse engineer, when given the right support and environment to grow. She single-handedly kept my enthusiasm for running 0x41414141.com up for at least two years, even when the resulting hiring numbers made it clear it wasn't worth it.
I was really, really, really hoping Starfighter could "level up" the initial volume into that funnel, maintain (or improve!) the rough filtering percentages and have the resulting "hired" volume be higher and turn CTF recruiting into a sustainable business model. I'm disappointed it didn't work.
P.S. - this is the first time I've associated my real self with 0x41414141.com and the cavalier alter-ego. Congrats HN, you just got the scoop for this tiny little corner of history. While we're here...
I ran 0x41414141.com [1] for about 4 years. It was a set of CTF-style challenges of increasing difficulty with submissions via "secret" email addresses, a sendmail autoresponder and me - operating under the pseudo cavalier@0x41414141. It's singular goal was recruiting.
At the time, I was working with a totally badass team in a firm with a decidedly not-sexy brand for us security-types. We were hiring as fast as we could and _always_ had positions open. When we got someone good into the pipeline, we generally had no problem hiring them - the team and the work made that easy - but our candidate funnel was just too damn small. We had exhausted our referral pool, we were bringing on as many fresh grads as we could train, but it wasn't enough to keep up. We needed to broaden the funnel. Enter 0x41414141.com.
It was completely and totally unsupported, unrecognized and unreported through the official corporate recruiting channels. It was me, on my own time and my own dime with the quiet support of a few other guys in the shop. It had a singular purpose: to meet like-minded hackers and see if there was any chance they'd be interested in joining our merry little band of hackers.
Within the first year, I established the equivalent of a "repeatable sales process." There's the natural stages of the challenges themselves, but then the more delicate stages of transition:
(1) from the impersonal interaction with the service to the personal email exchange with cav,
(2) ...to a serious discussion about a new job
(3) ...to an IRL phone conversation
(4) ...to an open and honest talk about who we were, what we're doing and next steps
(5) ...to getting introduced to an actual corporate recruiter
Of course, like any "repeatable sales process" each stage is not only the continued progression but also qualification. The funnel was disappointingly ruthless, and that was just to get an intro to the recruiter. In any given year, I had:
(1) thousands of folks start challenges,
(2) several hundred make notable progress,
(3) traded personal email with dozens,
(4) got serious with 10s,
(5) interviewed a few,
(6) hired a couple
In the end, the results just didn't justify the effort.
To be clear - I loved running 0x41414141.com. I met a lot of great hackers and even hired a few. Many are HN'ers. (hi guys!) Many of the "security community rockstars" stumbled across the site and ran through the challenges as a fun exercise on a Sunday afternoon. I also watched - and coached - many clear newbs through the process, and was impressed with their grit, creativity and determination. I even hired a couple complete newbs, including a female, recent PoliSci grad working as a nanny who turned out to be an OUTSTANDING reverse engineer, when given the right support and environment to grow. She single-handedly kept my enthusiasm for running 0x41414141.com up for at least two years, even when the resulting hiring numbers made it clear it wasn't worth it.
I was really, really, really hoping Starfighter could "level up" the initial volume into that funnel, maintain (or improve!) the rough filtering percentages and have the resulting "hired" volume be higher and turn CTF recruiting into a sustainable business model. I'm disappointed it didn't work.
P.S. - this is the first time I've associated my real self with 0x41414141.com and the cavalier alter-ego. Congrats HN, you just got the scoop for this tiny little corner of history. While we're here...
Hello Internet, this is cavalier. If we connected
via that moniker, please reach out and connect
with my _real_ one. deets in my profile.
This is so cool. I'd love to swap notes sometime; as you know, I did pretty much the same thing for Matasano, which is why we started this company.
I am still totally sold on challenges and hiring! That's still what I'm doing! We're just changing the business model.
I am still totally sold on challenges and hiring! That's still what I'm doing! We're just changing the business model.
It's clear tech recruiting needs disrupting. We're still too dominated by traditional procedures that provide poor results. Folks with our background know in our guts this CTF-style thing has potential, we've just got to work out how to make it sustainable.
Would love to swap notes sometime. My wife is angling for an excuse to visit Chicago, but seeing as how winter's coming maybe y'all should visit Austin!
Would love to swap notes sometime. My wife is angling for an excuse to visit Chicago, but seeing as how winter's coming maybe y'all should visit Austin!
If you take us to Black's and pick up the tab, I'm there next week.
You went public?! This is madness. Does this mean I can use my 'volatile' moniker again? :)
As one of the guys hired through this (who later helped, though 99% of it was cav), if you guys do catch up and trade notes, I would /love/ to be there. We're actually thinking of building something similar at my current company, but focused on a bit of a different type of hire.
[edit] look what I found: https://www.dropbox.com/s/4work5wxys4i29z/Photo%20Sep%2009%2...
As one of the guys hired through this (who later helped, though 99% of it was cav), if you guys do catch up and trade notes, I would /love/ to be there. We're actually thinking of building something similar at my current company, but focused on a bit of a different type of hire.
[edit] look what I found: https://www.dropbox.com/s/4work5wxys4i29z/Photo%20Sep%2009%2...
Was there a pattern in them getting turned down, like that applicants were too expensive or had the wrong skillset or something?
I stopped referring people to a former employer because I saw how much they jerked around people during the pipeline.
Good luck on the new news, and thanks for getting Starfighter as far as you did. :)
I stopped referring people to a former employer because I saw how much they jerked around people during the pipeline.
Good luck on the new news, and thanks for getting Starfighter as far as you did. :)
Totally Speculating but I bet it was that software companies have enormously high false negative rates. Each company has it's own set of weird totally random interview biases. So Thomas kept on finding awesome recruits who were getting turned down for totally dumb reasons.
I imagine it's like the HomeBrew situation every day except 10 times worse because you recommended the candidate and the interviewer is your client. And unfortunately it's hard to make a business of telling your client they're doing it wrong.
This is all compounded by the fact that the devs who benefited most from their service were not Christopher Hemsworth looking Phd, ex-googlers who could get an interview with a phone call. Then come in with so much positive bias that as long as they didn't poo themselves during the interview they'd get hired. It was for people who were extremely skilled, but lacked the right pedigree or interviewing skills to be able to get the jobs they were very qualified for.
Curious to see what the real answer is.
I imagine it's like the HomeBrew situation every day except 10 times worse because you recommended the candidate and the interviewer is your client. And unfortunately it's hard to make a business of telling your client they're doing it wrong.
This is all compounded by the fact that the devs who benefited most from their service were not Christopher Hemsworth looking Phd, ex-googlers who could get an interview with a phone call. Then come in with so much positive bias that as long as they didn't poo themselves during the interview they'd get hired. It was for people who were extremely skilled, but lacked the right pedigree or interviewing skills to be able to get the jobs they were very qualified for.
Curious to see what the real answer is.
》 otally Speculating but I bet it was that software companies have enormously high false negative rates. Each company has it's own set of weird totally random interview biases. So Thomas kept on finding awesome recruits who were getting turned down for totally dumb reasons.
THIS
THIS
We're not done yet!
Are you still working on StartFighter but with different focus and without Patrick?
That too, but personally I think that it was targeting way to limited subset, required practically non-existant time if you already have a job, so it was mainly targeting capable people between jobs or college students. Even though I loved the subject of algotrading, there was no time for me due to work etc.
> required practically non-existant time if you already have a job
This. I had Starfighter bookmarked to dive into this Christmas during my holiday break. No time before then.
This. I had Starfighter bookmarked to dive into this Christmas during my holiday break. No time before then.
I was briefly sad to see that Starfighter was done, but then I realized that despite reading the rules and bookmarking it, I had never actually played the thing.
Very cool idea, but realistically I can only spend so much time on dev stuff and it wasn't going to beat out my other priorities.
Very cool idea, but realistically I can only spend so much time on dev stuff and it wasn't going to beat out my other priorities.
This was precisely it for me. I have been excited for this project forever, but just haven't had a chance to filter it up to the top of my priority queue. Sadly, sometimes things remove themselves from your todo list.
Totally - the business model just didn't hold up unfortunately.
There's one coming.
hendzen(1)
Congratulations! Will you be sharing details on how your salary negotiation went? Reference: http://www.kalzumeus.com/2012/01/23/salary-negotiation/
What I like most about the long term vision for Atlas is that, if it's truly "as easy as spinning up an EC2 instance" to form a new corporation, then it will be possible for a single entrepreneur to create complex global corporate structures previously limited only to multinational corporations. How nice would it be, as say, a digital nomad, to be able to have a single "holding company" based in HK, and dynamically create a new corporation for every new project?
From Accelerando (great book if you're into this stuff)
"My name is Alan Glashwiecz, of Smoot, Sedgwick Associates. Am I correct in thinking that you are the Manfred Macx who is a director of a company called, uh, agalmic dot holdings dot root dot one-eight-four dot ninety-seven dot A-for-able dot B-for-baker dot five, incorporated?"
"Uh." Manfred blinks and rubs his eyes. "Hold on a moment." When the retinal patterns fade, he pulls on his glasses and powers them up. "Just a second now." Browsers and menus ricochet through his sleep-laden eyes. "Can you repeat the company name?"
"Sure." Glashwiecz repeats himself patiently. He sounds as tired as Manfred feels.
"Um." Manfred finds it, floating three tiers down an elaborate object hierarchy. It's flashing for attention. There's a priority interrupt, an incoming lawsuit that hasn't propagated up the inheritance tree yet. He prods at the object with a property browser. "I'm afraid I'm not a director of that company, Mr. Glashwiecz. I appear to be retained by it as a technical contractor with non-executive power, reporting to the president, but frankly, this is the first time I've ever heard of the company. However, I can tell you who's in charge if you want."
"Yes?" The attorney sounds almost interested.
"The president of agalmic.holdings.root.184.97.AB5 is agalmic.holdings.root.184.97.201. The secretary is agalmic.holdings.root.184.D5, and the chair is agalmic.holdings.root.184.E8.FF. All the shares are owned by those companies in equal measure, and I can tell you that their regulations are written in Python. Have a nice day, now!" He thumps the bedside phone control and sits up, yawning, then pushes the do-not-disturb button before it can interrupt again. After a moment he stands up and stretches, then heads to the bathroom to brush his teeth, comb his hair, and figure out where the lawsuit originated and how a human being managed to get far enough through his web of robot companies to bug him.
"My name is Alan Glashwiecz, of Smoot, Sedgwick Associates. Am I correct in thinking that you are the Manfred Macx who is a director of a company called, uh, agalmic dot holdings dot root dot one-eight-four dot ninety-seven dot A-for-able dot B-for-baker dot five, incorporated?"
"Uh." Manfred blinks and rubs his eyes. "Hold on a moment." When the retinal patterns fade, he pulls on his glasses and powers them up. "Just a second now." Browsers and menus ricochet through his sleep-laden eyes. "Can you repeat the company name?"
"Sure." Glashwiecz repeats himself patiently. He sounds as tired as Manfred feels.
"Um." Manfred finds it, floating three tiers down an elaborate object hierarchy. It's flashing for attention. There's a priority interrupt, an incoming lawsuit that hasn't propagated up the inheritance tree yet. He prods at the object with a property browser. "I'm afraid I'm not a director of that company, Mr. Glashwiecz. I appear to be retained by it as a technical contractor with non-executive power, reporting to the president, but frankly, this is the first time I've ever heard of the company. However, I can tell you who's in charge if you want."
"Yes?" The attorney sounds almost interested.
"The president of agalmic.holdings.root.184.97.AB5 is agalmic.holdings.root.184.97.201. The secretary is agalmic.holdings.root.184.D5, and the chair is agalmic.holdings.root.184.E8.FF. All the shares are owned by those companies in equal measure, and I can tell you that their regulations are written in Python. Have a nice day, now!" He thumps the bedside phone control and sits up, yawning, then pushes the do-not-disturb button before it can interrupt again. After a moment he stands up and stretches, then heads to the bathroom to brush his teeth, comb his hair, and figure out where the lawsuit originated and how a human being managed to get far enough through his web of robot companies to bug him.
I just reread Accelerando and had forgotten how good it was.
And, the book is -- legitimately -- available for free, in a variety of formats -- details on the author's blog:
http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/fiction/accelera...
This free ebook edition is made available by kind consent of my publishers, Ace and Orbit, under a Creative Commons license with certain restrictions attached. In particular, you may not create derivative works or use the work for commercial gain.
http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/fiction/accelera...
This free ebook edition is made available by kind consent of my publishers, Ace and Orbit, under a Creative Commons license with certain restrictions attached. In particular, you may not create derivative works or use the work for commercial gain.
Its the third book in a series of three, are the other two as good? Should I start with them or just skip to the third one?
I believe he wrote 3 books about the singularity (as opposed to one continuous story/series). I never read the other 2. You're safe starting with accelerando.
> Its the third book in a series of three
I don't think so. The book has 3 parts, but it's not part of a series
I don't think so. The book has 3 parts, but it's not part of a series
Slightly OT, but countries tend to dislike this brave new world where they cannot obviously and clearly collect taxes on business owners that reside in their country. It is going to be a tough day if the other shoe drops on this. No idea what it will look like if it happens though.
There exist some ways to abusively structure international tax affairs. That isn't what Atlas is about -- we help honest businesspeople get on a sound and legally compliant footing.
You would not even believe how many weeks of my life I've spent the last ten years paying every cent I owe in Japan and the United States. Like every other business owner, I kvetch a bit about the rates, but I pay my taxes on time and in full because laws are laws.
We want to eliminate the stupid value-destroying busywork of complying with taxes, not taxes themselves. (Letting folks across the globe participate on equal and solid footing in the US market tends to increase value created worldwide, which is awesome, and also increases US tax collection at the margin.)
You would not even believe how many weeks of my life I've spent the last ten years paying every cent I owe in Japan and the United States. Like every other business owner, I kvetch a bit about the rates, but I pay my taxes on time and in full because laws are laws.
We want to eliminate the stupid value-destroying busywork of complying with taxes, not taxes themselves. (Letting folks across the globe participate on equal and solid footing in the US market tends to increase value created worldwide, which is awesome, and also increases US tax collection at the margin.)
I don't mind the money-cost. It's the time-cost: I need to take a week of vacation just to file taxes. Yes, I could pay someone to do it for me. No, I can't find anyone I trust to do it right.
I just have a hard time seeing how "going international" is going to be easier. Suddenly you have to deal with a completely foreign tax system and people who are well versed in international tax laws in your own jurisdiction. A lot of people can't start companies abroad without considering controlled foreign company rules, double taxation agreements, permanent establishment etc.
It's not necessarily going to be easier, but if your business plans to sell primarily to the US market and wants to accept credit card payments then incorporating in the US with a US bank account may be easier than trying to do so from many other countries. If on the other hand you are mostly planning on addressing your local market then a US based entity may make things more complicated for no reason. I think Atlas is targeted at the former.
> We want to eliminate the stupid value-destroying busywork of complying with taxes, not taxes themselves.
Oh yes! Italy was like that: it's not so much the taxes themselves, it's all the extraneous BS that surrounds them that takes so much time to deal with.
Oh yes! Italy was like that: it's not so much the taxes themselves, it's all the extraneous BS that surrounds them that takes so much time to deal with.
Having a U.S. based business serve as a sort of global corporate registry broker will also make it extremely easy for U.S. law enforcement to subpoena information that would otherwise be located in less cooperative jurisdictions (or in jurisdictions that are cooperative but just require a lot of paperwork and MLATs and so forth), so I can't imagine you'll have too much trouble with them.
We should have gone VAT-only (or VAT-mostly with some land and excise taxes thrown in) a long time ago. Perhaps we finally will.
How does making it easier to incorporate a business make it easier to evade taxes than, say, it is for an individual to do under-the-table services/consulting and not pay income tax?
I think we are a long way from this, over time our company has incorporated in a bunch of countries in order to get access to rates and services that otherwise would have been hard for a foreign company.
I think often the hidden costs in lawyers fees for complex advice on how various tax laws interact and accountants fees to meet various account requirement in these juristictions may eat up a lot of the benefit until you are a much larger company.
I think often the hidden costs in lawyers fees for complex advice on how various tax laws interact and accountants fees to meet various account requirement in these juristictions may eat up a lot of the benefit until you are a much larger company.
It's still fairly expensive though, with Atlas costing $500/corporation. I think that's out of reach for most simple side projects.
Anecdotally, in Illinois it costs more than that just to file your LLC and reserve your company name.
Wow, why is it so expensive? In the UK you fill out a form online and within 24hours it's setup. It costs £12 so approx $15.
Not just that, but it's "invite-only" at the moment. So it's all hype and advertising. I'm excited at the prospect of such a service on the horizon, though.
How do you avoid accidentally committing tax evasion with this?
Unless I misunderstand, that's part of what you're paying for. From the Faq[0]:
What is Stripe Atlas?
Stripe Atlas is a new product designed to give
entrepreneurs access to the basic building blocks
for starting a global internet business. We help you:
* Incorporate a company in the U.S.
* Open a U.S. bank account and get a tax ID number.
* Start a Stripe account to accept payments from around the world.
* Get guidance about U.S. law and taxes from Orrick and PwC.
* Access tools and resources from Amazon Web Services
(as well as $15,000 in AWS promotional credits for beta users).
They say later on in that document that you're not paying for tax advice and won't get any:
"That said, we’re not providing tax and legal advice. Stripe Atlas users have access to a legal guide prepared by Orrick, a tax guide prepared by PwC, and a free consultation call with an expert from PwC. PwC and Orrick will not provide tailored tax advice unless you engage them to represent you directly as a client.
If you have your own legal counsel or tax advisors, we also recommend speaking to them as you decide whether and how to set up your business with Atlas." https://stripe.com/atlas/faq#taxamplegal
If you have your own legal counsel or tax advisors, we also recommend speaking to them as you decide whether and how to set up your business with Atlas." https://stripe.com/atlas/faq#taxamplegal
They'll probably sell you tax advice to avoid common pitfalls as a service (no liability assumed, of course) in short order.
You can easily spin up new corps, but laws are not going to make the structures in between them easy without paying a lot of taxes or equivalent lawyers.
Why would someone want to do that?
Let's say you've got five projects on the go right now. Maybe one of them hit it big enough to justify starting a company to wrap it in, so you run the other 4 under that umbrella.
Now project #3 hits it big, someone wants to buy, and you want to sell... Get ready for months of trying to detangle your various business assets, server accounts, etc. in attempt to legally and properly give them the bits they've bought.
There's similar advice under "What Does the Timeline Look Like?" here https://training.kalzumeus.com/newsletters/archive/selling_s...
Now project #3 hits it big, someone wants to buy, and you want to sell... Get ready for months of trying to detangle your various business assets, server accounts, etc. in attempt to legally and properly give them the bits they've bought.
There's similar advice under "What Does the Timeline Look Like?" here https://training.kalzumeus.com/newsletters/archive/selling_s...
The more interesting thing is what happens when programs themselves start these companies, but I doubt people here are that far-thinking.
Why would someone making 30k a week as a consultant take a job[1]?
[1]https://www.kalzumeus.com/2015/05/01/talking-about-money/
[1]https://www.kalzumeus.com/2015/05/01/talking-about-money/
Maybe because
1) 30k contracts don't line up, and you never know when the next opportunity arrives; steady income may be preferable even if it is lower.
2) Money isn't everything. Working on interesting problems with interrsting people is a lot more fulfilling than doing boring work that pays well.
1) 30k contracts don't line up, and you never know when the next opportunity arrives; steady income may be preferable even if it is lower.
2) Money isn't everything. Working on interesting problems with interrsting people is a lot more fulfilling than doing boring work that pays well.
Yes exactly. You can get 30k per week consulting but not on the regular, esp. if you're doing the consulting and the biz dev. The sales cycle for getting 30k/week is long.
It's very hard to do week in week out. Getting $30k per MONTH for a small business is generally a 3-6 month sales cycle. One-time projects can be shorter of course, esp. in network, but you're always on the biz dev grind if that's your model.
He wasn't 250k/yr salary for 2 consecutive years and a suspect accredited investor.
I think it's cool what he's done and what he's shared to the community, but I do think he gets glorified for his posts which are not always realistic for most people and the projection is that he's killing it when he really isn't.
Also, part of me read this and thought this was sad to see a fellow entrepreneur jump ship, even though I do like Stripe and Atlas.
It's very hard to do week in week out. Getting $30k per MONTH for a small business is generally a 3-6 month sales cycle. One-time projects can be shorter of course, esp. in network, but you're always on the biz dev grind if that's your model.
He wasn't 250k/yr salary for 2 consecutive years and a suspect accredited investor.
I think it's cool what he's done and what he's shared to the community, but I do think he gets glorified for his posts which are not always realistic for most people and the projection is that he's killing it when he really isn't.
Also, part of me read this and thought this was sad to see a fellow entrepreneur jump ship, even though I do like Stripe and Atlas.
It's a fair question. For me (consulting for 10+ years; currently negotiating the sale of my business which will likely shift me closer to an 'employee' situation):
Ultimately, the consulting business model for individuals or small teams sucks. You're only ever as good as next month, and juggling the sales v delivery cycles is hard, especially if sales/people doesn't excite you. (When you're charging $30K for the week, you can't bugger off for an hour to have a sales meeting.)
Consulting businesses can be scaled, but the dependence on finding the right, skilled people is harder than developing scalable product or software businesses - especially if, like Patrick, you have those skills.
Ultimately, the consulting business model for individuals or small teams sucks. You're only ever as good as next month, and juggling the sales v delivery cycles is hard, especially if sales/people doesn't excite you. (When you're charging $30K for the week, you can't bugger off for an hour to have a sales meeting.)
Consulting businesses can be scaled, but the dependence on finding the right, skilled people is harder than developing scalable product or software businesses - especially if, like Patrick, you have those skills.
Sometimes, consultants get tired of consulting and want to build products instead.
Patrick had already spun down his consulting business before this happened -- I think before Starfighter started, even.
It was lucrative, but not pleasant, and he made more enjoyable money working for himself.
It was lucrative, but not pleasant, and he made more enjoyable money working for himself.
I'm happy for Patrick.
I have to say, to me the downfall of starfighter was predictable. I LOVED microcorruption it was something I could get in fairly quickly and enjoy. But starfighter was requiring too much commitment to get the basics of operation and if I'm looking for a job I'd rather invest that time into brushing up my algorithms (since that's the hiring criteria these days...) rather than reading some background to play a "game" to eventually beat challenges and maybe get a job interview :/
I have to say, to me the downfall of starfighter was predictable. I LOVED microcorruption it was something I could get in fairly quickly and enjoy. But starfighter was requiring too much commitment to get the basics of operation and if I'm looking for a job I'd rather invest that time into brushing up my algorithms (since that's the hiring criteria these days...) rather than reading some background to play a "game" to eventually beat challenges and maybe get a job interview :/
Is there any official communication re Starfighter?
All I can find is this:
> Starfighter is not only not hiring, but also closing its doors. We are 'pivoting.'
https://twitter.com/boboTjones/status/774303916464930816
All I can find is this:
> Starfighter is not only not hiring, but also closing its doors. We are 'pivoting.'
https://twitter.com/boboTjones/status/774303916464930816
The only other thing I'm aware of is a brief note on Twitter that they're shutting down: https://twitter.com/tqbf/status/771533037666390017
(FWIW, the "more to come" has so far been about the Ptaceks' next project, which is apparently something focused on security needs of startups, in collaboration with Jeremy Rauch, with details still apparently in flux; contact details for those interested are at http://latacora.com)
(FWIW, the "more to come" has so far been about the Ptaceks' next project, which is apparently something focused on security needs of startups, in collaboration with Jeremy Rauch, with details still apparently in flux; contact details for those interested are at http://latacora.com)
There's also this from Sep 1:
> We’re winding down Starfighter. I’ll have more to say tomorrow. Long story short: still doing challenges. Just not as Starfighter.
https://twitter.com/tqbf/status/771533037666390017
> We’re winding down Starfighter. I’ll have more to say tomorrow. Long story short: still doing challenges. Just not as Starfighter.
https://twitter.com/tqbf/status/771533037666390017
I am enrolling Stripe Atlas and, to me, incorporating in USA will give me access to modern banking services, and platforms, as Stripe, and it seems USA has very lower taxes than Brazil, my country. That's why I am interested.
It all seems fascinating, but I am afraid to continue and do the last step of the enrollment. I don't know how is the process to close the company, what the representative agent can do for me, how much is to have an account on SVB (after the 24 free months), if it's easy to legally hire a person to work remotely anywhere, and if for some reason I will need to eventually travel to USA.
If someone have a answer for one of questions, I will be thankful.
It all seems fascinating, but I am afraid to continue and do the last step of the enrollment. I don't know how is the process to close the company, what the representative agent can do for me, how much is to have an account on SVB (after the 24 free months), if it's easy to legally hire a person to work remotely anywhere, and if for some reason I will need to eventually travel to USA.
If someone have a answer for one of questions, I will be thankful.
Nope, you don't need to travel to the US -- we'll handle incorporation and opening your bank account remotely. When it's time to sign papers, we'll send you an e-signature link.
Silicon Valley Bank's fees after the first 24 months vary depending on which of their services you choose to use, so there's no one-size-fits-all rate card we can point you to -- if you send me an email at [email protected], I'd be happy to chat more about this in detail.
Although we don't offer immigration or employment services as a part of Atlas, I'd love to hear more about your business to see how we can help and walk you through the final steps!
Silicon Valley Bank's fees after the first 24 months vary depending on which of their services you choose to use, so there's no one-size-fits-all rate card we can point you to -- if you send me an email at [email protected], I'd be happy to chat more about this in detail.
Although we don't offer immigration or employment services as a part of Atlas, I'd love to hear more about your business to see how we can help and walk you through the final steps!
I see someone else in this thread talk about their problem with not knowing if and which taxes they must pay, if they are going to pay double taxes or something like that. Does anyone know this?
I am more interested in the Brazilian case.
I am more interested in the Brazilian case.
Hi,
I'm not the person you replied to, but I have a question(s) I hope you can help with.
Is there a list of the minimum requirements to join Atlas? I can't seem to find it in your FAQ. Is it true that entry is granted (or not) based on an evaluation of the startups business plan? Do I have to convince someone at Stripe that my idea has legs before I'll be granted access?
Also, is the service exclusively for startups that deal in digital goods? Say I have a physical product that I need a US company to import and sell (via a fulfillment service). Would Stripe Atlas accept me as a client?
I'm not the person you replied to, but I have a question(s) I hope you can help with.
Is there a list of the minimum requirements to join Atlas? I can't seem to find it in your FAQ. Is it true that entry is granted (or not) based on an evaluation of the startups business plan? Do I have to convince someone at Stripe that my idea has legs before I'll be granted access?
Also, is the service exclusively for startups that deal in digital goods? Say I have a physical product that I need a US company to import and sell (via a fulfillment service). Would Stripe Atlas accept me as a client?
Atlas is still in beta, so there is an small form you'll need to fill out for an invite. But it's quick, so no need for a lengthy business plan -- all you'll need for this is your name, email address, country, website, and a brief description of what you're building and how Atlas can be helpful (no pitch decks!). We're still piloting Atlas with a small group of entrepreneurs, so this bit of info is helpful for us when we're getting folks started.
Once you're invited, we'll reach out to you for any additional personal or business information that's needed for incorporation and getting your bank account set up.
Atlas certainly isn't just for digital goods -- we've had quite a few businesses apply that sell physical goods.
You can request access at https://stripe.com/atlas#request-access, and please feel free drop me a line at [email protected] once you fill that out, or if you have any other questions!
Once you're invited, we'll reach out to you for any additional personal or business information that's needed for incorporation and getting your bank account set up.
Atlas certainly isn't just for digital goods -- we've had quite a few businesses apply that sell physical goods.
You can request access at https://stripe.com/atlas#request-access, and please feel free drop me a line at [email protected] once you fill that out, or if you have any other questions!
Thank you for the helpful response. I'm not ready yet, but will sign up in the next few months. Thanks again.
I agree that Brazil has in general high taxes (especially for what you get in return from the government) but don't just assume this is true in every situation.
I'm a gringo "permanently" living in Brazil and from a tax standpoint it was actually better for me to open a Brazilian company. You don't have to pay taxes on dividends you get from Brazilian companies but you do have to pay taxes on dividends from foreign companies. + Depending on your margins opting for the "simples" tax regime may give you lower corporate taxes than a US/EU company
I'm a gringo "permanently" living in Brazil and from a tax standpoint it was actually better for me to open a Brazilian company. You don't have to pay taxes on dividends you get from Brazilian companies but you do have to pay taxes on dividends from foreign companies. + Depending on your margins opting for the "simples" tax regime may give you lower corporate taxes than a US/EU company
Hello, I was comparing, and opening in USA would be almost the same that having the "Simples".
In Brazil you don't pay tax on dividends because you pay higher taxes before. Otherwise you would paying double times. There are hidden taxes till you have the "dividends". And are you aware of the "Imposto de Renda" for companies and people?
I am very curious what formula you used to compare and reach the conclusion that in Brazil it's lower. This is also against some studies http://www.doingbusiness.org/rankings
In Brazil you don't pay tax on dividends because you pay higher taxes before. Otherwise you would paying double times. There are hidden taxes till you have the "dividends". And are you aware of the "Imposto de Renda" for companies and people?
I am very curious what formula you used to compare and reach the conclusion that in Brazil it's lower. This is also against some studies http://www.doingbusiness.org/rankings
The overwhelming majority of jobs in the technology industry do not go to people who cold apply via jobs pages. This is important for you to know and operationalize.
A little off topic, but why is this? I don't doubt what he is saying but why is it not good enough to apply for a job via standard channels and not have to be in "the boys club" ?
A little off topic, but why is this? I don't doubt what he is saying but why is it not good enough to apply for a job via standard channels and not have to be in "the boys club" ?
There are some very different sets of beliefs, practices, and values floating around any craft among people who have the same title. I'll call these "tribes." Tribes are often associated with buzzwords, like "agile."
At the highest level of abstraction, practitioners in different tribes do the same job, but the way other tribes do things might be unrecognizable and/or horrifying from your perspective.
You want to hire from your tribe. Buzzwords get picked up by people who don't really mean them in their original sense (see: enterprises doing waterfall and calling it agile) so buzzwords on resumes don't identify tribe, and an interview is only a few hours of a candidate in a contrived high-pressure situation where they're nervous/presenting the mask they think you want to see.
So you start with people you personally know to be in your tribe. When those run out, you realize you can trust the people you personally know to identify other tribe members, and this works up to the nth degree. If that's not enough, you learn that certain institutions (employers, universities, etc.) select, demand, or instill membership in your tribe, so you go looking for candidates who have been attached to these institutions first.
FWIW this is not unique to software by any means. I worked on the tech side of theater in college and have friends now working in that industry. Designers, stage and production managers, etc. in the real world are hired almost exclusively on reputation and recommendation. They are cold-emailed job offers (not ads to come compete for a job, but actual work) based on colleagues' experiences with them at previous gigs. Gigs often last only a few weeks, so you are playing this game constantly. You essentially cannot break in as a total outsider. You need to go to a school that is trusted to provide good interns (because its teachers are from the right tribe and it runs its student productions the right way), and impress at your internship, or else know someone who will convince their boss to take a chance on you. Sometimes hiring does have a formal application process, but you are not getting the job unless someone reading the application has heard of you or has a lot of respect for one of the institutions on your resume.
"The boys club" is a (flawed) attempt at instituting meritocracy by a system of recursive trust. I believe it's much better than the resume and interview dance, but I'd still love for software to discover its "blind audition" hiring technique.
At the highest level of abstraction, practitioners in different tribes do the same job, but the way other tribes do things might be unrecognizable and/or horrifying from your perspective.
You want to hire from your tribe. Buzzwords get picked up by people who don't really mean them in their original sense (see: enterprises doing waterfall and calling it agile) so buzzwords on resumes don't identify tribe, and an interview is only a few hours of a candidate in a contrived high-pressure situation where they're nervous/presenting the mask they think you want to see.
So you start with people you personally know to be in your tribe. When those run out, you realize you can trust the people you personally know to identify other tribe members, and this works up to the nth degree. If that's not enough, you learn that certain institutions (employers, universities, etc.) select, demand, or instill membership in your tribe, so you go looking for candidates who have been attached to these institutions first.
FWIW this is not unique to software by any means. I worked on the tech side of theater in college and have friends now working in that industry. Designers, stage and production managers, etc. in the real world are hired almost exclusively on reputation and recommendation. They are cold-emailed job offers (not ads to come compete for a job, but actual work) based on colleagues' experiences with them at previous gigs. Gigs often last only a few weeks, so you are playing this game constantly. You essentially cannot break in as a total outsider. You need to go to a school that is trusted to provide good interns (because its teachers are from the right tribe and it runs its student productions the right way), and impress at your internship, or else know someone who will convince their boss to take a chance on you. Sometimes hiring does have a formal application process, but you are not getting the job unless someone reading the application has heard of you or has a lot of respect for one of the institutions on your resume.
"The boys club" is a (flawed) attempt at instituting meritocracy by a system of recursive trust. I believe it's much better than the resume and interview dance, but I'd still love for software to discover its "blind audition" hiring technique.
Yeah this kind of validates my experiences lately.
I recently moved to Europe form Australia, I was a successful tribesman but voluntarily left my tribe because I liked the idea of relocation/traveling.
I was awarded an decent paying job in Netherlands but left soon after due to toxic culture which I wanted to protect myself from. I received other offers but non paid well so I tried to find a remote position. I had no options but "cold applications", which means I was heading for dire straights.
Essentially I went from a somebody to a nobody. I worked in a very successful team as a SRE/Production Engineer in Sydney to nothing, from precious metal to polluted soil.
The "cold apply" method has failed me for months, countless coding challenges and technical tasks (which I successfully completed) have left me without a job. Oh, I've done several dances and jumped many hoops without any fruits of my labour.
I fell into bad depression. I've had to work very hard to get out of the depression. Coming out of it I can see I need to change my approach and on the bright side it's been an important period of self discovery and learning.
I've now admitted defeat and will head back to Australia, start everything again and take little for granted. I'm blessed I have the option of retreat.
Thanks for the response.
I recently moved to Europe form Australia, I was a successful tribesman but voluntarily left my tribe because I liked the idea of relocation/traveling.
I was awarded an decent paying job in Netherlands but left soon after due to toxic culture which I wanted to protect myself from. I received other offers but non paid well so I tried to find a remote position. I had no options but "cold applications", which means I was heading for dire straights.
Essentially I went from a somebody to a nobody. I worked in a very successful team as a SRE/Production Engineer in Sydney to nothing, from precious metal to polluted soil.
The "cold apply" method has failed me for months, countless coding challenges and technical tasks (which I successfully completed) have left me without a job. Oh, I've done several dances and jumped many hoops without any fruits of my labour.
I fell into bad depression. I've had to work very hard to get out of the depression. Coming out of it I can see I need to change my approach and on the bright side it's been an important period of self discovery and learning.
I've now admitted defeat and will head back to Australia, start everything again and take little for granted. I'm blessed I have the option of retreat.
Thanks for the response.
Yeah, geographical mobility is the dark side of this scheme. For theater people, for example, even crossing over from Chicago to New York is extremely difficult. And it doesn't matter how much goodwill you've built in Omaha, that won't get you hired in Chicago unless one of your Omaha friends goes first. It's really important to go to school and start your career in the place you want to end it, because in a new city, if you can find work, you're probably going back to entry level for a while. Even worse in seniority-based union hiring halls.
This is partly why the Bay Area is what it is for software.
I'm sorry you experienced this. It sucks. I wish you luck getting back on your feet in Australia.
This is partly why the Bay Area is what it is for software.
I'm sorry you experienced this. It sucks. I wish you luck getting back on your feet in Australia.
As an Australian, if you want to get "pedigree", you can work in the USA much more easily than other foreign nationals can -- because of the E3.
The E3 visa is one of the best-kept secrets in the world. It's only granted to Australian citizens. It's why my employers (Pivotal) have around 10 Australians in our NYC office at any given time, because we've actively recruited from Australia ever since the E3 was introduced.
I'm an Australian and I am grateful every day that I am. I grew up in a wonderful country and now I can work for a great company in a vibrant industry in a vibrant city.
Email me (see profile) if you'd like me to pass you into our recruiters. If you want to stay in Sydney, we have an office in Sydney.
The E3 visa is one of the best-kept secrets in the world. It's only granted to Australian citizens. It's why my employers (Pivotal) have around 10 Australians in our NYC office at any given time, because we've actively recruited from Australia ever since the E3 was introduced.
I'm an Australian and I am grateful every day that I am. I grew up in a wonderful country and now I can work for a great company in a vibrant industry in a vibrant city.
Email me (see profile) if you'd like me to pass you into our recruiters. If you want to stay in Sydney, we have an office in Sydney.
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Because the process of deciding to look for someone involves thinking about it and discussing it first, during which a lot of the time someone will go "oh, I know someone who might be great". A lot of jobs never go onto the jobs pages in the first place. Other jobs don't even exist, but get created because someone asks their contacts and one of them goes "hm, we do really need someone with their experience" and creates a position that otherwise wouldn't exist until a lot later.
What goes on the jobs pages is what's left.
What goes on the jobs pages is what's left.
Public job postings are a market for lemons (most people who apply aren't good enough for any job, or they'd already have one). Why even bother making one if you have an internal candidate or a good referral?
I don't see any advantage in incorporation if you want to run your own private business, but I'm willing to accept that I'm being the weirdo here.
I incorporated Tarsnap Backup Inc. five years ago (to the day!) largely for tax paperwork purposes. By being a separate legal entity it became possible to do things like having Tarsnap register to collect sales taxes without having Colin register to collect sales taxes. But the company was running quite successfully as a sole proprietorship until that point.
Probably more important, although I didn't realize it at the time, is that being a corporation gave Tarsnap more credibility, especially when dealing with other corporations. I saw a sharp increase in the number of large users of Tarsnap after it I incorporated it.
Probably more important, although I didn't realize it at the time, is that being a corporation gave Tarsnap more credibility, especially when dealing with other corporations. I saw a sharp increase in the number of large users of Tarsnap after it I incorporated it.
Incorporated entities enjoy the benefit of "limited liability"[0], ie: if your company does something "bad" you can't be liable beyond your share capital contributions. For example, if you make a self driving car and sell it, and it results in harm, and someone sues the company, you can't lose any of your personal assets; rather your only loss can be the capital which you put into the company.
tl;dr: if you do something commercial as a sole trader and not as a company, it's possible for you to be sued for your personal assets.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limited_liability
tl;dr: if you do something commercial as a sole trader and not as a company, it's possible for you to be sued for your personal assets.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limited_liability
I think for businesses like "running a website" this threat is overrated, to the point of absurdity, but again: willing to accept that I'm the weirdo.
I wonder if you'll say the same when Pinboard gets sued for copyright infringement by its archival feature. I hope it never happens, but saying "it's just a website" is a little cavalier.
(Yes, it merely takes an publicly available work that the users could download themselves, and makes it available to each individually. That's essentially what Aereo did, and look at them now.)
(Yes, it merely takes an publicly available work that the users could download themselves, and makes it available to each individually. That's essentially what Aereo did, and look at them now.)
I'm not saying there's no legal exposure. My point is that no one is going to slip and fall on your website, and leave you on the hook for tens of millions of dollars in personal liability.
If I was building an Internet of Things blender I would incorporate in a heartbeat.
If I was building an Internet of Things blender I would incorporate in a heartbeat.
It's overrated until a customer decides to sue you. Also there are very few downsides to incorporating and limited liability is a massive upside.
Wait, does that mean that Pinboard is being run under your own name personally, as opposed to being part of an LLC or other corporate structure?
If so, I have to say, that would make me a lot more concerned as a customer.....
If so, I have to say, that would make me a lot more concerned as a customer.....
That's silly, since the only difference his sole proprietorship makes to you as a user is that if he loses your bookmarks you can sue him personally and force him to flee judgement and live amongst the penguins.
It also means that someone else can sue him personally and force him to flee judgement and live amongst the penguins.
Well, there's also the case in which he declares bankruptcy personally and Pinboard's assets are comingled with his, and Pinboard has to shut down.
> ie: if your company does something "bad"
In most jurisdictions, if you have control of a company (e.g. as the majority shareholder and director), and the company does something "bad" to the extent that it's illegal, the liability protection can be waived. Selling a self-driving car, in the knowledge that its behaviour is inadequate and would cause harm, may well result in loss of liability protection.
In short, insolvency is generally protected, but "bad things" often have less protection.
In most jurisdictions, if you have control of a company (e.g. as the majority shareholder and director), and the company does something "bad" to the extent that it's illegal, the liability protection can be waived. Selling a self-driving car, in the knowledge that its behaviour is inadequate and would cause harm, may well result in loss of liability protection.
In short, insolvency is generally protected, but "bad things" often have less protection.
Yeah, but in practice, it almost never happens.
Be careful with that. In the US a single-owner corporation can (and regularly does) have courts "pierce the veil" of limited liability. Simply incorporating and calling yourself a company is not sufficient to limit your liability.
* Contracts you've made with hosting providers and other services expire when your company does, not when your personal assets are liquidated.
* Same goes for anyone who sues you.
* Business partners and clients won't deduct taxes from your invoices, but often will if you're a sole proprietor.
* If you ever have employees and later liquidate the company, you can have arranged in advance for them to get a portion of the proceeds, which may or may not be motivating earlier on in the company.
Maybe few of these apply to you, since if you get sued you'll surely just flee to Antarctica to snark from amongst the penguins, who are likely to be the only employees you'll ever have either way.
* Same goes for anyone who sues you.
* Business partners and clients won't deduct taxes from your invoices, but often will if you're a sole proprietor.
* If you ever have employees and later liquidate the company, you can have arranged in advance for them to get a portion of the proceeds, which may or may not be motivating earlier on in the company.
Maybe few of these apply to you, since if you get sued you'll surely just flee to Antarctica to snark from amongst the penguins, who are likely to be the only employees you'll ever have either way.
I'm also weird!
In my opinion incorporating only makes sense if you have multiple cofounders and want shared ownership, or if you get investment etc.
If you are running your business alone, I don't see the point of incorporation.
Limited liability doesn't magically protect you from lawsuits. But it does cost a lot of money (obviously this depends on location, but even if it's cheap to register a business somewhere, all the accounting and minimum taxes and reporting etc sum up).
I run my company as a sole proprietorship, and I'm not planning to incorporate any time soon.
I've seen people waste thousands of euros on incorporating and setting up a company, only to close up again a year later... what a waste of time and money...
In my opinion incorporating only makes sense if you have multiple cofounders and want shared ownership, or if you get investment etc.
If you are running your business alone, I don't see the point of incorporation.
Limited liability doesn't magically protect you from lawsuits. But it does cost a lot of money (obviously this depends on location, but even if it's cheap to register a business somewhere, all the accounting and minimum taxes and reporting etc sum up).
I run my company as a sole proprietorship, and I'm not planning to incorporate any time soon.
I've seen people waste thousands of euros on incorporating and setting up a company, only to close up again a year later... what a waste of time and money...
Maybe in Europe it's different, but in Colorado I keep my LLC maintained and compliant for a couple hundred bucks a year. It's almost no work.
Oh wow, that surprises me. Does that mean pinboard isn't a Delaware C-Corp like everything seems to be? I suppose it makes sense since everything about it screams "the anti-startup", but I'd be curious to know what the real ramifications of going about it that way are.
Nope, nothing but a logo, a tiny server farm, and a long series of tweets.
I spooked myself into starting the process with LegalZoom at some point, but then couldn't figure out how to transfer assets, and then I got real sleepy.
I spooked myself into starting the process with LegalZoom at some point, but then couldn't figure out how to transfer assets, and then I got real sleepy.
You get a tax ID, online, and use that to open a business bank account wherever your normal bank account is.
Just saying. :)
Just saying. :)
Have I ever told you you're my hero? You're everything I long to be.
Don't forget the expensive bus insurance.
[deleted]
Vs LLC?
Vs sole proprietorship.
Liability protection, if nothing else. If someone sues a company, they can't (in theory) take the CEO's house. Also, in the US, you can save a bunch of money on payroll taxes if you elect to be taxed as an S-corp. The short version is that you only pay those taxes (Social Security, FICA, Medicare, etc etc) on money you get in paychecks -- so, if you make $100k in a year and "pay" yourself $70k, you end up with the other $30k but didn't have to pay a bunch of tax on it.
It's probably not a good idea to try to "save money" on your taxes by claiming a low income and distributing yourself whatever's on the balance sheet later on; it's apparently a notorious audit flag.
Respectfully: it's also unethical, if you think about it carefully. Pay full freight on your payroll taxes: if you make so much much money that this dodge is material to you, you're the last person who should have a loophole to take advantage of.
Respectfully: it's also unethical, if you think about it carefully. Pay full freight on your payroll taxes: if you make so much much money that this dodge is material to you, you're the last person who should have a loophole to take advantage of.
Apparently it's pretty safe from an audit standpoint if you pay yourself at least $118,500, the maximum amount that is taxable for Social Security. Of course, that means you just save the 2.9% tax for Medicare on any remaining income.
Still, I totally agree that it's unethical.
Still, I totally agree that it's unethical.
My accountant put it this way: nobody gets audited for paying themselves more than zero salary. Reasonable salary comes into play if you get audited for something else.
So that's the opposite of what mine said, but: definitely I think you should listen to your accountant more carefully than HN comments.
> So that's the opposite of what mine said, but: definitely I think you should listen to your accountant more carefully than HN comments.
Ha! "But foobar22 on the internets said it'd be okay if I claimed X as a deduction? Why am I being auditing?!"
There should be a global disclaimer when you sign up for an HN account that tells you to listen to your lawyer, your doctor, your accountant ...
Ha! "But foobar22 on the internets said it'd be okay if I claimed X as a deduction? Why am I being auditing?!"
There should be a global disclaimer when you sign up for an HN account that tells you to listen to your lawyer, your doctor, your accountant ...
See here for details, as well as a good person to follow if you find taxes interesting: http://www.forbes.com/sites/anthonynitti/2016/08/12/clintons...
Respectively, the tax code knows no ethics. I pay exactly how much tax I legally owe when I legally owe it. I have no responsibility to pay a penny more than legally obligated. Congress created the S Corp and the IRS created the loophole that allows this particular tax avoidance scheme. If they wanted to close it they would.
I'm way late on this, but I've been thinking a lot about it, and I'm particularly interested in this debate with someone whose opinion I respect a lot.
Regarding your first paragraph, I'd agree that "claiming a low income" is a bad idea, and not just because it's illegal. Regarding the audit business, my accountant seems pretty confident that a straightforward tax return without too much any weirdness (real estate, huge equipment costs, etc.) is fairly safe from auditing, if I'm paid a salary that a software developer in my position might expect to make.
Regarding your second, more important paragraph: I'm pretty sure I disagree about it being unethical. I think the tax code is depressingly regressive, and I'd legitimately feel like I'd shirked a duty if I just ducked out on money I should have paid. I believe in the power of government, and having the money to back it up is important.
That said, the government decides what's taxable, and which actions should be incentivized. There are plenty of breaks that I probably "shouldn't have": Why do I get to pay less tax because I own a home, or because I got married? Why, as a "small business owner," can I deduct the cost of my insurance premiums, but employees can't? It seems silly, but I'm certainly not going to file at the single rate instead of the married one.
There are years and years of precedent about S-corporations paying shareholder-employees;[0] the "reasonable" salary bit comes up every time. The mental model I've been using has been: How much of this money am I making because I'm a developer, and how much is here because I run my own business? If my annual salary would be, say, $110,000 as a W-2 employee at some big company, but as a contractor I can bill $180,000 a year, I'd say the business grossed $70,000 farming out the work of a $110,000 programmer. To a certain kind of shop, working as a contractor is a valuable service: Companies don't have to go through the hassle of dealing with an employee, only a purchase order. Still, SOMEBODY has to deal with that hassle: Now, though, it's me.
[0] https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employe...
Regarding your first paragraph, I'd agree that "claiming a low income" is a bad idea, and not just because it's illegal. Regarding the audit business, my accountant seems pretty confident that a straightforward tax return without too much any weirdness (real estate, huge equipment costs, etc.) is fairly safe from auditing, if I'm paid a salary that a software developer in my position might expect to make.
Regarding your second, more important paragraph: I'm pretty sure I disagree about it being unethical. I think the tax code is depressingly regressive, and I'd legitimately feel like I'd shirked a duty if I just ducked out on money I should have paid. I believe in the power of government, and having the money to back it up is important.
That said, the government decides what's taxable, and which actions should be incentivized. There are plenty of breaks that I probably "shouldn't have": Why do I get to pay less tax because I own a home, or because I got married? Why, as a "small business owner," can I deduct the cost of my insurance premiums, but employees can't? It seems silly, but I'm certainly not going to file at the single rate instead of the married one.
There are years and years of precedent about S-corporations paying shareholder-employees;[0] the "reasonable" salary bit comes up every time. The mental model I've been using has been: How much of this money am I making because I'm a developer, and how much is here because I run my own business? If my annual salary would be, say, $110,000 as a W-2 employee at some big company, but as a contractor I can bill $180,000 a year, I'd say the business grossed $70,000 farming out the work of a $110,000 programmer. To a certain kind of shop, working as a contractor is a valuable service: Companies don't have to go through the hassle of dealing with an employee, only a purchase order. Still, SOMEBODY has to deal with that hassle: Now, though, it's me.
[0] https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employe...
In many states your house is protected even as a sole proprietor.
What becomes of that other $30k? I assume there's a reason why you wouldn't just pay yourself $30k and keep the tax-free $70k.
It has to sit within the company. You can use it to buy an ice sculpture for the office lobby, but not for your own palazzo.
As you can imagine, there is a ton of bookkeeping and bureaucratic pain associated with having an S-corp (like pretending to have annual meetings, and having to write minutes for them).
As you can imagine, there is a ton of bookkeeping and bureaucratic pain associated with having an S-corp (like pretending to have annual meetings, and having to write minutes for them).
The other half of the "claim a low salary" S-corp dodge is that distributions (the standard way LLC's pay their principals, and the standard way S-corps pay "profit sharing") aren't payroll-taxed (technically: aren't self-employment taxed).
So I think the trick here is, you pay yourself $70k in salary, but issue yourself a $30k profit sharing distribution.
So I think the trick here is, you pay yourself $70k in salary, but issue yourself a $30k profit sharing distribution.
>It has to sit within the company.
I don't think this is true. If you buy an ice sculpture for the office lobby, it's totally tax deductible (it's a business expense), but you can use money for whatever you want if you take it out of the bank as a "distribution" instead of a "paycheck." In that situation, you still pay income tax on the money, but not the other taxes.
I don't think this is true. If you buy an ice sculpture for the office lobby, it's totally tax deductible (it's a business expense), but you can use money for whatever you want if you take it out of the bank as a "distribution" instead of a "paycheck." In that situation, you still pay income tax on the money, but not the other taxes.
IANAL, but this might still cause trouble if the firm has cashflow issues. If there's a $10k distribution one quarter, and the next quarter a $10k bill can't be paid, suddenly you're pierced.
I can attest that having a S-corp is a lot of work (or, rather, is expensive 'cause you usually just pay a lawyer to deal with all the bookkeeping and other requirements).
You can have an LLC that's just taxed as an S-corp. For IRS purposes you're an LLC but for bureaucratic state level bullshit purposes you're an LLC.
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The IRS, according to FS-2008-25, requires the salary to be "reasonable", and they list factors that would be considered by the courts if a dispute arose. The IRS also has the authority to reassign dividends or distributions as compensation.
Can you set up 401k and all the other "corporate only" type things with a sole proprietorship or does it just become a legal shield with everything else as passthrough?
You can set up a solo 401K with a sole proprietorship. All you have to show is that you have self employment income showing up on a Schedule C (for a sole proprietorship) or a K1 (for a partnership/LLC/S-Corp).
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I know from personal experience the sub-title to this article is "How I'm justifying a bad decision".
Entrepreneurs know when they're making a bad decision, whether consciously or not.
[Edited for brevity. No disrespect, but hate to see a Developer give up on their independence]
Entrepreneurs know when they're making a bad decision, whether consciously or not.
[Edited for brevity. No disrespect, but hate to see a Developer give up on their independence]
Calling someone's personal decision bad or good without knowing most of the circumstances of their life... might be something to avoid.
Perhaps "I hope this new gig works out for you right now, but really hope to see you running something of your own again at some point in the future"?
Perhaps "I hope this new gig works out for you right now, but really hope to see you running something of your own again at some point in the future"?
It would be if he was joining a corporate job. This is not "just a job" at a regular company working on a regular product. People talk about making the world a better place all the time but few do. Working on Atlas at Stripe has that potential for impact and you get to work with awesome founders. Congrats both to kalzumeus and Stripe
> Working on Atlas at Stripe has that potential for impact and you get to work with awesome founders
Same with countless other jobs, such as working at Facebook, Google, Amazon, Snapchat, etc
Same with countless other jobs, such as working at Facebook, Google, Amazon, Snapchat, etc
It doesn't sound like Sr leadership role that can influence strategy, so it's basically a "job".
He'll come back to the dark side soon enough and build a sustainable business model (with the benefit of experience at Stripe, of course) :-)
He'll come back to the dark side soon enough and build a sustainable business model (with the benefit of experience at Stripe, of course) :-)
I'd say the exact opposite. From my impression of it he is in charge of the Japan office.
If this is anything like how the company I'm at is doing internationalization there will likely be pushing (and some implementing) technical requirements to make the product culturally accessible. There will be B2B, and in this case B2Gov discussions. I'm sure he will also be heading up finding office space and hiring others to do the work.
This is a very likely a senior management position in addition to I'm sure a senior technical position.
If this is anything like how the company I'm at is doing internationalization there will likely be pushing (and some implementing) technical requirements to make the product culturally accessible. There will be B2B, and in this case B2Gov discussions. I'm sure he will also be heading up finding office space and hiring others to do the work.
This is a very likely a senior management position in addition to I'm sure a senior technical position.
Hey, it's not as if he'll be slaving away in an Agile sweatshop with an evil Scrum Master looking over his shoulder and cracking the whip. :)
Joining a larger organization can provide the opportunity to accomplish things that would be difficult or impossible on your own. And if it doesn't work out, or eventually becomes disappointing, it's still possible to hop back on the entrepreneurial horse and ride off into the sunset.
Joining a larger organization can provide the opportunity to accomplish things that would be difficult or impossible on your own. And if it doesn't work out, or eventually becomes disappointing, it's still possible to hop back on the entrepreneurial horse and ride off into the sunset.
I think he's been around the block enough and has sufficient resources not to make a bad decision. Either way, who is anyone to judge?
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This comment is quite disrespectful, as well as arrogant.
It might be, but I try to read comments like this one a little more charitably.
People tend to see things through the lens of their own thoughts and experiences. The author of the post in question is probably just trying to provide advice based on how they'd feel in a similar situation. The wording probably made it seem more abrasive than it was intended to be.
People tend to see things through the lens of their own thoughts and experiences. The author of the post in question is probably just trying to provide advice based on how they'd feel in a similar situation. The wording probably made it seem more abrasive than it was intended to be.
Your way is better than mine.
Congrats Patrick ... This is one of those blog posts that I read and completely think that I could actually go work for a company and be really happy which never happens.
I love what you guys are doing with Atlas and will be rooting for you and for Stripe Japan, sounds like a great opportunity to join that team for the right people!
I love what you guys are doing with Atlas and will be rooting for you and for Stripe Japan, sounds like a great opportunity to join that team for the right people!
> The overwhelming majority of jobs in the technology industry do not go to people who cold apply via jobs pages.
sigh
sigh
If it's any consolation, the same is true for the best jobs in just about every industry.
I would understand if that would be the case for the best jobs, but it seems all of them are like that.
I used to feel the same way; my first dev job came through someone I met at a tech meetup.
I've since found a couple of good ones by cold applying. What helped the most was reading a couple of books about sales.
Essentially, when you're applying with a cover letter and resume/CV, you're making a very short sales pitch and need to make the most of it. The good news is that most cover letters and resumes people send out don't have this focus at all, so it's relatively easy for you to stand out.
Sometimes, the hardest part is accepting that there's nothing wrong or dishonest about selling yourself. When I've reviewed resumes in the past to decide who to interview, I've found that most of them overlook the fact that I have a problem I'm trying to solve, and I'm looking for someone to help me solve it. If the first sentence on your resume/cover letter shows me that you've read the job posting, understand the problems I'm trying to solve, and tells me why you're the right person to help solve them, you really stand out from the competition.
YMMV, of course. What I've observed may be atypical, and it's entirely possible I've just had good luck.
It's just worth remembering that while cold applications tend to have a low success rate, applications sent in response to job postings are really, really awful. Being non-awful significantly helps your chances, but not as much as meeting people and building a strong network.
I've since found a couple of good ones by cold applying. What helped the most was reading a couple of books about sales.
Essentially, when you're applying with a cover letter and resume/CV, you're making a very short sales pitch and need to make the most of it. The good news is that most cover letters and resumes people send out don't have this focus at all, so it's relatively easy for you to stand out.
Sometimes, the hardest part is accepting that there's nothing wrong or dishonest about selling yourself. When I've reviewed resumes in the past to decide who to interview, I've found that most of them overlook the fact that I have a problem I'm trying to solve, and I'm looking for someone to help me solve it. If the first sentence on your resume/cover letter shows me that you've read the job posting, understand the problems I'm trying to solve, and tells me why you're the right person to help solve them, you really stand out from the competition.
YMMV, of course. What I've observed may be atypical, and it's entirely possible I've just had good luck.
It's just worth remembering that while cold applications tend to have a low success rate, applications sent in response to job postings are really, really awful. Being non-awful significantly helps your chances, but not as much as meeting people and building a strong network.
Yep, it's not what you know...
It's not just what you know. I see a good network as a force multiplier. If you have useful skills and can use them to get things done, knowing the right people can provide a lot of leverage.
If you know nothing, well...a force multiplier doesn't help much when you're multiplying it by zero.
If you know nothing, well...a force multiplier doesn't help much when you're multiplying it by zero.
Come on, he wrote that right before explaining that you can email him directly about a job. Right before!
So the trick is to find a way to expand your network.
There are lots of services to help you incorporate. Incorporate.com and LegalZoom are well known. What's new about Atlas, other than bundling other services and charging more?
Atlas is also restricted to Delaware, whereas with most of the other services, you can incorporate anywhere (including Wyoming, which is the best for privacy and taxes).
Compared to incorporate.com they are actually cheaper if you're not a US citizen / reside outside the US. (If I remember correctly, incorporate.com charges about $700 for that.)
Other than that, I totally agree with your question.
Other than that, I totally agree with your question.
I'm sorry to hear that Starfighter is shuttering, I had a lot of fun with the stock market portion.
Love this part:
"When you have just enough crazy, you found a payments company, heedless of the fact that founding a payments company is doomed to failure because it involves
mountains of hard and boring work and the incumbents have billions of dollars."
Wasn't Paypal taking payments over the internet in 2006?
It took me ~2 months to get BCC sold over Paypal, which was my major processor until Stripe came along. (I don't remember what the holdup was, but I very keenly remember the shucks-have-to-do-eSellerate decision.)
thr0waway1239 pointed out the obvious: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12467898
So I thought I'd try to draw your attention to a suggestion I made in:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12465972
;-)
So I thought I'd try to draw your attention to a suggestion I made in:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12465972
;-)
patio11: I was just about to start making some progress on Starfighter... are you going to be able to leave it up, or does it cost too much?
>There Is No Future For Scarcity
This section worries me a bit, as it's the sort of thing that doesn't consider the possibility of a major world-wide crisis. There are plenty of conceivable futures where these things could happen. A simple one is a small-scale non-nuclear war between China and US, where they disconnect completely from the larger Internet, but we avoid a global thermonuclear war. The continental European countries saw a 50% drop in GDP through WW2, and it could very well happen again.
This section worries me a bit, as it's the sort of thing that doesn't consider the possibility of a major world-wide crisis. There are plenty of conceivable futures where these things could happen. A simple one is a small-scale non-nuclear war between China and US, where they disconnect completely from the larger Internet, but we avoid a global thermonuclear war. The continental European countries saw a 50% drop in GDP through WW2, and it could very well happen again.
When Mel Gibson is standing in the road shooting at gas thieves I think we'll all be doing something other than typing comments on HN. I live in an area where you could conceivably forage/hunt for all your food but it would be a pretty harsh life.
You could say that anything is theoretically possible, but the entire extended history of the world contradicts that idea. Economic progress is about as universal as anything in the man-made world has ever been. There have been setbacks, sure, but they have invariably been limited and short-lived. I'm sure there was a large drop in GDP during WWII, and I'm also sure that shortly after, it recovered and proceeded to climb well beyond where it was before the war started, as is the case with every other war ever fought, and any other type of catastrophe you can think of.
congrats patio11! - I think many of us agree that stability and less stress is a nice draw when you got young kids. Startups don't always play nice with family.
Awesome! I've been a big fan of Patrick since the days of the old Joel on Software forums, and I've always admired his plucky optimism.
Atlas is an incredibly cool, potentially game-changing project, and Stripe was already a game-changing company before launching it. I'm excited to see what happens next!
Way to go, Patrick!!
Atlas is an incredibly cool, potentially game-changing project, and Stripe was already a game-changing company before launching it. I'm excited to see what happens next!
Way to go, Patrick!!
Congratulation Patrick. This is a great news for Stripe, Japan and the world !
You just made me discover Atlas (I must have lived under a rock last year) and I'm really impressed by the idea. It is not great, it is huge !
I quickly looked through the Q&A and the first thing that strikes me is that the effective cost is not clear. Ok 500$ entry cost, but there are many other costs like bank, taxes, IRS, 125$ yearly for the agent, etc. Most of these costs aren't even clearly specified. Thus it's actually like an offer to buy a cat in a bag.
The strength of stripe is its simplicity and clarity. You know upfront what it will cost you. There isn't any hidden cost.
So Patrick, if you can have some influence, please help making Atlas as simple and clear as Stripe.
You just made me discover Atlas (I must have lived under a rock last year) and I'm really impressed by the idea. It is not great, it is huge !
I quickly looked through the Q&A and the first thing that strikes me is that the effective cost is not clear. Ok 500$ entry cost, but there are many other costs like bank, taxes, IRS, 125$ yearly for the agent, etc. Most of these costs aren't even clearly specified. Thus it's actually like an offer to buy a cat in a bag.
The strength of stripe is its simplicity and clarity. You know upfront what it will cost you. There isn't any hidden cost.
So Patrick, if you can have some influence, please help making Atlas as simple and clear as Stripe.
Are there any plans in Atlas to support Ireland?
We only support incorporating in Delaware at the moment, but are hoping to add other locations in the future!
Can I suggest British Columbia, Canada? It's an English-speaking country, not in the middle of an existential crisis, and BC has very flexible incorporation requirements (you must have at least one director, who can live anywhere in the world; you may appoint officers but there is no requirement to do so; shares can be with or without par value, and if with par value that value can be specified in any currency; et cetera). Also, Vancouver's a great place to visit, for the occasions when Stripe would need to have someone on the ground here. :-)
It would be great if you supported the Netherlands. They have an excellent network of double-tax treaties in place.
That'd be awesome.
[deleted]
I applied to the Stripe Atlas beta but haven't heard any communication after doing so. Does anyone have insight as to how long the beta queue is?
We're still in beta, so we don't have an exact timeline for adding new users. Mind shooting me an email at [email protected] with the email address you applied with?
I applied when it was first announced and got an invitation a few months later. I still haven't used it yet but I do intent do (hopefully they don't expire, eek).
I just want to point out that everything starts off as targeted marketing/spam.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cr7mNhuUEAAoHcM.jpg:large
Don't listen when people hate on you for sharing what you're working on. The only thing that matters in the end is success. :)
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cr7mNhuUEAAoHcM.jpg:large
Don't listen when people hate on you for sharing what you're working on. The only thing that matters in the end is success. :)
It would be interesting to see the main building blocks of Atlas and if any of it have relations or takes inspirations from Blockchain Tech (e.g. Ether-based http://otonomos.com/).
For what it's worth, I was never excited by starfighter because of its trading/markets premise - simple as that. It just doesn't float my boat. The entire proposition sounded far too much like real work. Game? Surely not.
Each level in the game gave you clear directions, an entertaining backstory, and taught you the concepts necessary to think about the problem.
All three things turn what would be a boring, real-world project into a game, where only the pleasant part is left for you to do. At least for the kind of people they were looking for.
All three things turn what would be a boring, real-world project into a game, where only the pleasant part is left for you to do. At least for the kind of people they were looking for.
Pretty sure that was the idea. Wasn't supposed to be super Mario
Looking forward to working with you! I'm joining next week to work on Atlas too.
Is this at all related to MYOB's Atlas?
https://www.myob.com/au/small-business/atlas-website-builder
https://www.myob.com/au/small-business/atlas-website-builder
The penultimate paragraph here must have been difficult to write.
[deleted]
Nice work Patrick!
[deleted]
Good luck Patrick on this new adventure.
i shall join stripe to help
I feel like many startup founders, including Patrick, build the technology and hope the business will follow...usually with an unsuccessful outcome.
He's great at marketing. He should have spent a year building a network of employers with lower-tech solutions and then expanded it out with starfighter.
I've been following Patrick since the BoS days and all of his products have been pretty low profit. Enough to support himself only (some, not even this much) (I'm not including consulting, only products or services)
Money is the lifeblood of all companies and you will need it to truly change the world.
He's great at marketing. He should have spent a year building a network of employers with lower-tech solutions and then expanded it out with starfighter.
I've been following Patrick since the BoS days and all of his products have been pretty low profit. Enough to support himself only (some, not even this much) (I'm not including consulting, only products or services)
Money is the lifeblood of all companies and you will need it to truly change the world.
> it introduced me to the unthinkable notion that regular old geeks like me could run software companies. I thought it was illegal, ... my background therefore suggested it was either forbidden, risky, or risked being forbidden.
I encounter this so much in the states. Everything self directed is "sketchy", "is that legal?". It is really sad, because those same people would fall for scams that actually are sketchy and illegal.
I encounter this so much in the states. Everything self directed is "sketchy", "is that legal?". It is really sad, because those same people would fall for scams that actually are sketchy and illegal.
Suggestion: target other - freer - countries as well. i.e. the other 96% of the planet.
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Can you start by making Stripe mobile friendly lol :P my clock reads 2016.
Is Stripe different than PayPal besides maybe having a better API? Is Stripe a subset of PayPal?
Website integration is incredibly simple. Standard UI is also much better. PayPal also has a terrible reputation for holding money and bad customer support which Stripe doesn't. I integrated Stripe into a website with almost zero web dev knowledge. Really, really simple.
> I never thought I could build a Fog Creek, but I saw a bunch of other geeks building Poker Co-pilot and Perfect Table Plan and skeet-shooting scoring software, and I was pretty sure I could at least do something like that.
I'm the geek who built (and continues to run) Poker Copilot. Patrick got the order of events backwards.
What actually happened is that I started Poker Copilot in a large part because Patrick inspired me by managing to launch a software product (Bingo Card Creator) after just one week of development.
All the best working for a boss again, Patrick! I'm sure there will be plenty of interesting twists and turns in the years ahead in this remarkable life of yours .