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Stripe Hires AWS' Mike Clayville as Chief Revenue Officer

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Re: Stripe Hires AWS' Mike Clayville as Chief Revenue Officer

#31

Post by stu2b50 »

xoxoy wrote: post #26
elcritch wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a fair bit, but for any credit or debit card transaction they’re actually taking on the risk of essentially fronting the cost of the transaction. Well really their partnering bank does, but if something happens they’re left covering that cost. They also have to split the profit with their collaborating bank and possibly the credit card companies. Nowadays I suspect the risk isn’t all all that high, or at least…

costco offers payment processing for 1.99% + 25c (vs 2.9 + 30c), so quite a bit cheaper. my point is that it’s entirely possible to offer the same thing for cheaper if your main concern is cost, especially for higher volume merchants, and not optimizing for developer experience https://www.costco.com/merchant-account.html

Your point is a complete non-sequitar though? How'd it go from "Patrick is very active on HN/with developer communication!" to "yeah but Stripe is expensive"?

AFAIK they see themselves as a "premium" processor, not as a cheap one.

Re: Stripe Hires AWS' Mike Clayville as Chief Revenue Officer

#32

Post by twakefield »

pc wrote: post #15
xyzzy_plugh wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is sort of neat because the same problem seems to be mirrored for Stripe customers; for example, if my business caters to the impatient developer and I use Stripe for payments, I find myself having to explore outside the bounds of conveniently orchestrated payments, to more esoteric per-customer high-touch interactions for large enterprise customers. I wonder if there isn't room for Stripe to grow to help busine…

Hah. This is in fact a problem area that our Billing ( https://stripe.com/billing ) team is actively thinking about. You should reach out to ark@stripe.com if you want to discuss -- he can connect you with the right folks.

There is a pretty simple feature that would alleviate a lot of pain with Stripe’s billing service when invoicing enterprises - allow for attaching a pdf of the invoice in the automated email.

Many enterprise A/P departments require it. The lack of this feature has prevented us from moving off our existing invoicing system to Stripe. I’m guessing we are not unique.

Re: Stripe Hires AWS' Mike Clayville as Chief Revenue Officer

#33

Post by xoxoy »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #30
xoxoy wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it depends on what you value. most high volume businesses aren’t optimizing for developer happiness..they don’t want a business expense like payment processing taking 3% of every sale.

If you’re at high volume, you don’t pay Stripe retail rate.

sure - but smaller vol merchants with thin margins can also be sensitive to payment processing costs too

Re: Stripe Hires AWS' Mike Clayville as Chief Revenue Officer

#34

Post by ErikVandeWater »

fblp wrote: post #16

Hey pc I love your engagement in the comment threads. Few leaders at billion dollar companies hop on the comment threads with such care. Thank you!

His comment is just recruiting PR. It doesn't deserve a thank you, but does show Stripe is in-tune with where the talent hangs out.

Re: Stripe Hires AWS' Mike Clayville as Chief Revenue Officer

#35

Post by harleyyoung »

simonebrunozzi wrote: post #4
pc wrote: post #2

We're excited to hire Mike in part because AWS has been one of the very best examples ever of simultaneously selling to the largest companies in the world while not giving up on a strong self-serve product. So many B2B companies end up with homepages for which the only CTAs are annoying variants of "read case study", "download whitepaper", and "request a call". All stock photography; no product imagery. Stripe's grow…

Congrats, Patrick. The VMware + AWS experience is certainly a big plus for a company like Stripe. I would dare to disagree on, or at least to challenge, the "simultaneously" that you mention, though - in my experience (ex AWS, ex VMware) these two are completely different sales motions, made possible simply by the product itself and how it's discovered and consumed... Despite (yes, despite) what enterprise sales want…

AZ recently wrote a well-reasoned piece about the need for many companies to understand, and to be great at both growth and sales to open new market segments: https://a16z.com/2020/07/29/growthsales-the-new-era-of-enter...

As you acknowledge, there are few companies that have made the transition from growth to growth+sales in the way AWS has. If Mike can help Stripe chart that course and avoid the shoals along the way, that's hugely positive for customers, employees and owners of Stripe.

Re: Stripe Hires AWS' Mike Clayville as Chief Revenue Officer

#36

Post by xoxoy »

stu2b50 wrote: post #31
xoxoy wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

costco offers payment processing for 1.99% + 25c (vs 2.9 + 30c), so quite a bit cheaper. my point is that it’s entirely possible to offer the same thing for cheaper if your main concern is cost, especially for higher volume merchants, and not optimizing for developer experience https://www.costco.com/merchant-account.html

Your point is a complete non-sequitar though? How'd it go from "Patrick is very active on HN/with developer communication!" to "yeah but Stripe is expensive"? AFAIK they see themselves as a "premium" processor, not as a cheap one.

just a reference to the company’s valuation - and how lack of regulation around interchange fees and payment processing fees has meant very high costs that would be a lot lower if the US were more like EU

Re: Stripe Hires AWS' Mike Clayville as Chief Revenue Officer

#37

Post by athrun »

twakefield wrote: post #32
pc wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hah. This is in fact a problem area that our Billing ( https://stripe.com/billing ) team is actively thinking about. You should reach out to ark@stripe.com if you want to discuss -- he can connect you with the right folks.

There is a pretty simple feature that would alleviate a lot of pain with Stripe’s billing service when invoicing enterprises - allow for attaching a pdf of the invoice in the automated email. Many enterprise A/P departments require it. The lack of this feature has prevented us from moving off our existing invoicing system to Stripe. I’m guessing we are not unique.

It's not quite the same, but you can get the PDF from the Invoice object and send your own emails.

Re: Stripe Hires AWS' Mike Clayville as Chief Revenue Officer

#38

Post by stu2b50 »

xoxoy wrote: post #36
stu2b50 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your point is a complete non-sequitar though? How'd it go from "Patrick is very active on HN/with developer communication!" to "yeah but Stripe is expensive"? AFAIK they see themselves as a "premium" processor, not as a cheap one.

just a reference to the company’s valuation - and how lack of regulation around interchange fees and payment processing fees has meant very high costs that would be a lot lower if the US were more like EU

I don't see how that's a problem? There's no lack of payment processors, as you have noted, many with lower fees.

If you choose Stripe, you're doing so for the dev experience, their ML whatever, better testing suite, integrations, etc.

And you're doing that consciously.

Re: Stripe Hires AWS' Mike Clayville as Chief Revenue Officer

#39

Post by throwawaysea »

What are some good alternatives to Stripe that don't engage in censorship of speech (https://reclaimthenet.org/andrew-torba-free-speech/)? I find the notion that a payment utility service can block a customer based on their speech/thoughts/political views to be absolutely abhorrent. It is no different from when Visa and Mastercard blocked payments to Wikileaks (https://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2010/12/07/visa-m...).

Re: Stripe Hires AWS' Mike Clayville as Chief Revenue Officer

#40

Post by andrewxdiamond »

throwawaysea wrote: post #39

What are some good alternatives to Stripe that don't engage in censorship of speech ( https://reclaimthenet.org/andrew-torba-free-speech/ )? I find the notion that a payment utility service can block a customer based on their speech/thoughts/political views to be absolutely abhorrent. It is no different from when Visa and Mastercard blocked payments to Wikileaks ( https://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2010/12/07…

Is this just spam? The linked article is only tangentially related to stripe, and makes no clear argument against anything in specific. It’s a handy wavy “they took our rights!” but never presents an example. The whole thing almost reads like a scam ad you see on Craigslist or in your spam folder
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