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I’m Joining Stripe to Work on Atlas

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Re: I’m Joining Stripe to Work on Atlas

#51

Post by dave_sullivan »

chatmasta wrote: post #8

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 c…

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.

Re: I’m Joining Stripe to Work on Atlas

#52

Post by preinheimer »

harryh wrote: post #14
chatmasta wrote: post #8

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 c…

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...

Re: I’m Joining Stripe to Work on Atlas

#53

Post by cdnsteve »

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."

Re: I’m Joining Stripe to Work on Atlas

#55

Post by davedx »

emilburzo wrote: post #12

> The overwhelming majority of jobs in the technology industry do not go to people who cold apply via jobs pages. sigh

But it's completely subjective. How can you possibly qualify such a statement?

All of my tech jobs I've found through an external hiring process or via recruiters.

Re: I’m Joining Stripe to Work on Atlas

#56

Post by kchoudhu »

afarrell wrote: post #17
chatmasta wrote: post #8

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 c…

How do you avoid accidentally committing tax evasion with this?

They'll probably sell you tax advice to avoid common pitfalls as a service (no liability assumed, of course) in short order.

Re: I’m Joining Stripe to Work on Atlas

#57

Post by xapata »

patio11 wrote: post #22
aeden wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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.

Re: I’m Joining Stripe to Work on Atlas

#59

Post by xapata »

davedx wrote: post #55
emilburzo wrote: post #12

> The overwhelming majority of jobs in the technology industry do not go to people who cold apply via jobs pages. sigh

But it's completely subjective. How can you possibly qualify such a statement? All of my tech jobs I've found through an external hiring process or via recruiters.

None of mine. Amusingly, I turned down the one job offer I received via filling out a form on the jobs page.
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