Live data from Hacker News

I’m Joining Stripe to Work on Atlas

kalzumeus.com

241–250 of 342 posts

Re: I’m Joining Stripe to Work on Atlas

#241

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'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, a…

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.

Re: I’m Joining Stripe to Work on Atlas

#242

Automating startup of a company online is a bad, bad, bad idea folks. Like, Gibson dystopia bad. EDIT: Okay hivemind. Seriously, can none of you think of any ill use that automatic provisioning of a economic entity--able to own property, intervene in politics, and interact with the legal system, enter into contracts, and so forth--could be put to? Like, really ?

I can create an LLC in about two minutes for $50 right now. If I really wanted to I could probably script Selenium to turn the Colorado Secretary of State's website into an API and throw it on Heroku.

Really is that easy: https://www.sos.state.co.us/biz/FileDocNameAvailCriteria.do?...

Re: I’m Joining Stripe to Work on Atlas

#243
post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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.)

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.

Re: I’m Joining Stripe to Work on Atlas

#244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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%.

Re: I’m Joining Stripe to Work on Atlas

#245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.....

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.

Re: I’m Joining Stripe to Work on Atlas

#246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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) :-)

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.

Re: I’m Joining Stripe to Work on Atlas

#247
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

UK it's £20, no capital needed, ten minute job online.

It's come down since you've tried, its £12 now.

Re: I’m Joining Stripe to Work on Atlas

#249

Automating startup of a company online is a bad, bad, bad idea folks. Like, Gibson dystopia bad. EDIT: Okay hivemind. Seriously, can none of you think of any ill use that automatic provisioning of a economic entity--able to own property, intervene in politics, and interact with the legal system, enter into contracts, and so forth--could be put to? Like, really ?

Please don't comment like this. If you want to make a substantive point about the drawbacks of some plan, that's fine, but stirring up drama without actually saying anything is just lame.

Re: I’m Joining Stripe to Work on Atlas

#250
post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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.

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!

Post reply on HN