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The Collison Brothers Built Stripe into a $95B Unicorn

forbes.com

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Re: The Collison Brothers Built Stripe into a $95B Unicorn

#131

Post by daenz »

CPLX wrote: post #112
daenz wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>in order to get compensated That language is based on the assumption that they're not already being compensated. Their compensation is what they agreed to accept as payment for their labor. So they're already being compensated. If they want to "own" part of the company outside of this agreement, they need to buy a piece of it. If you want that as part of your employment agreement, negotiate it beforehand, either ind…

Quoted post unavailable.

>Or you can grab some torches and sharp objects and hold them to his throat and change the terms of the negotiation.

Do all of your employees at From Day One own a portion of the company? Why shouldn't they "hold sharp objects to your throat", as the founder, to get a better deal than what they agreed to? If not, why not?

Re: The Collison Brothers Built Stripe into a $95B Unicorn

#132

Post by ricardonunez »

aiisjustanif wrote: post #126
VWWHFSfQ wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Checkout.com, Klarna, Revolut, Transferwise, Mollie, Deliveroo, Spotify, Hopin, Trustly. No offense to Europeans, but I've only heard of Spotify.

Not hearing about Klarna and Deliveroo is surprising. Klarna is everywhere I turn in the US.

Transferwise/wise too. I use it to pay employees in Europe. I remember going to Clearwater and seeing their logo on i4 all the time. It is a known company. Revolut also known but still doesn’t work well for US costumers.

Re: The Collison Brothers Built Stripe into a $95B Unicorn

#133

Post by LudwigNagasena »

CPLX wrote: post #112
daenz wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>in order to get compensated That language is based on the assumption that they're not already being compensated. Their compensation is what they agreed to accept as payment for their labor. So they're already being compensated. If they want to "own" part of the company outside of this agreement, they need to buy a piece of it. If you want that as part of your employment agreement, negotiate it beforehand, either ind…

Quoted post unavailable.

> The entire concept of Amazon being a company at all is a legal fiction granted as a privilege that can be revoked as easily as it was given.

Ok, but how does getting rich because of moving boxes at Amazon rather than Walmart make more sense?

Re: The Collison Brothers Built Stripe into a $95B Unicorn

#134

Post by beambot »

CPLX wrote: post #112
daenz wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>in order to get compensated That language is based on the assumption that they're not already being compensated. Their compensation is what they agreed to accept as payment for their labor. So they're already being compensated. If they want to "own" part of the company outside of this agreement, they need to buy a piece of it. If you want that as part of your employment agreement, negotiate it beforehand, either ind…

Quoted post unavailable.

To be fair: all laws are legal fictions enforced by the pointy end of a stick. Could just as easily end up with totalitarianism.

Re: The Collison Brothers Built Stripe into a $95B Unicorn

#135

Post by civilized »

DantesKite wrote: post #124

> At 17, Patrick won a high-profile national competition for young scientists; his project, building atop Lisp, a programming language developed at MIT, placed second in the European Union overall. The winner: his future wife, Silvana Konermann, who represented Switzerland. What? Are you telling me Patrick Collison lost to his future wife at 17 in a science competition? That's so cool.

What if it's like The Social Network except more wholesome and he gets the girl at the end.

"I wanted her, so I decided to make the next big thing"

Re: The Collison Brothers Built Stripe into a $95B Unicorn

#136

Post by EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK »

lmm wrote: post #109
dustingetz wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok. How?

- Stop giving discounted tax rates for capital gains, make people pay the full income tax rate for any kind of income - Abolish step-up basis, which allows dynasties to build tax-free wealth via "invest, borrow, die"-type strategies. Also other tax avoidance strategies used by the rich e.g. 503cs. - Stop giving corporations special treatment under anti-trust law compared to other ways of organising. Give unions, work…

Unlike wages, capital gains can be negative. And generally IRS doesn't compensate for losses, except for minuscule amount. Otherwise imagine Treasury having to refund trillions to Bitcoin bag holders. So lower rate reflects higher risk.

Re: The Collison Brothers Built Stripe into a $95B Unicorn

#137

Post by beaned »

wbsss4412 wrote: post #107
VWWHFSfQ wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is a wealth-sharing problem as well. The reality is that it's just not possible to start these kinds of Unicorn companies anywhere except in the USA. The EU's extreme policies contribute to an overwhelming burden of tax and employment regulations, which results in risk-averseness. So entrepreneurial Europeans go to USA to start their company.

That thesis is hard to square with the fact that it’s not that these unicorns are started in the US, it’s that they are almost all started in one metropolitan area . The distinguishing factors here aren’t simply European regulations and taxes.

There might be a bit of observational bias here (better technical term?). HN is overwhelmingly about the tech industry, but most US companies are started outside of SF/California.

Re: The Collison Brothers Built Stripe into a $95B Unicorn

#138

Post by triceratops »

EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK wrote: post #136
lmm wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- Stop giving discounted tax rates for capital gains, make people pay the full income tax rate for any kind of income - Abolish step-up basis, which allows dynasties to build tax-free wealth via "invest, borrow, die"-type strategies. Also other tax avoidance strategies used by the rich e.g. 503cs. - Stop giving corporations special treatment under anti-trust law compared to other ways of organising. Give unions, work…

Unlike wages, capital gains can be negative. And generally IRS doesn't compensate for losses, except for minuscule amount. Otherwise imagine Treasury having to refund trillions to Bitcoin bag holders. So lower rate reflects higher risk.

A lower rate for the same amount of income in capital gains compared to salary makes sense. But why is the top rate for capital gains only 20% when it's 38% for income? (plus whatever the state adds on top). Why aren't there more brackets that go higher for capital gains as well?

Re: The Collison Brothers Built Stripe into a $95B Unicorn

#139

Post by MathCodeLove »

kareemsabri wrote: post #128
MathCodeLove wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Delivering major value !== Irreplaceable

The OP claimed only 2-3 people in each company are "responsible" for the success of said company. You do not need to be the only person in the world who can do a job to have some, or even major, responsibility for the success of an organization.

I think you may be misinterpreting what OP meant (or perhaps I am, that's a real possibility). I read that as "There are only 2-3 specific people whose skills and contributions were so essential to the orgs success that the org would have failed without them specifically." Where you might have a front end developer who is technically "responsible" for facilitating millions of online transaction, there are likely thousands of other devs who could have done the same work. Among the 2-3 OP was referencing, there are very few who could have done what they did.

Re: The Collison Brothers Built Stripe into a $95B Unicorn

#140

Post by lmm »

EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK wrote: post #136
lmm wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- Stop giving discounted tax rates for capital gains, make people pay the full income tax rate for any kind of income - Abolish step-up basis, which allows dynasties to build tax-free wealth via "invest, borrow, die"-type strategies. Also other tax avoidance strategies used by the rich e.g. 503cs. - Stop giving corporations special treatment under anti-trust law compared to other ways of organising. Give unions, work…

Unlike wages, capital gains can be negative. And generally IRS doesn't compensate for losses, except for minuscule amount. Otherwise imagine Treasury having to refund trillions to Bitcoin bag holders. So lower rate reflects higher risk.

Isn't the risk of losses supposedly why capital holders make a profit at all? So they shouldn't be paid twice for it.
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