71–80 of 95 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
why does the "cost of an engineer" continue to keep going massively up whenever these comparisons are made? $430k? are netflix engineers that special? glassdoor shows sr engineers around $200k - i can't tell if they're including stock/bonus in that or not. Range start in $120k range. Yes, taxes, yes benefits, but... $430k?
Salary + health care + payroll taxes + equipment + space + other overhead, etc.
Perhaps a better heading is called for there.
Wow, talk about too little too late. This kind of late to the party strategy is why startups will always be needed to lead innovation. The irony is the highest ranking person at AmEx who really understands this is probably a pretty smart guy who had to fight and lobby for years to rally enough support to make this happen. edit: Its worse than I thought. A quick search shows they brought in high level talent from Goog…
I've heard how Amex can be from a friend who has them as a client. They refuse to let her host their instance of her product on AWS because Amex's security team supposedly hasn't vetted AWS yet. This despite the kinds of customers Amazon already hosts on AWS (the CIA comes to mind). Not to mention that she has several other very large banks as clients that don't have a problem at all being hosted on AWS. Or that exac…
Unfortunately, even though my department are more than happy to budget any money for AWS, IT, Internal Security, Risk etc. are all blocking the path saying they haven't vetted or onboarded Amazon, and that they're working on their own internal cloud so that we can do similar things (I've tried this "internal cloud", it's beyond useless. Slow and locked down more than guantanamo so you can't actually do anything with it).
It's tempting to think this ship has already sailed and they're late to the party, but I'm actually more concerned. Recently, we saw MasterCard announcing APIs; ultimately the card issuers are the real gatekeepers of their own data and their own integrations, and as more of them move to gain the control back that they ceded with their lack of public developer engagement, the role of payment processors becomes less cl…
Developers are still more likely to implement the one API that provides n payment methods than implement n APIs to get n payment methods. That is, a payment processor like Stripe that provides AMEX, MC, Bitcoin or what ever is often more valuable than by being able to reduce complexity in the integration of services.
It's Stripe vs. implementing 10ish card or payment APIs. The choice is easy and will continue to be for most consumer facing scenarios.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've heard how Amex can be from a friend who has them as a client. They refuse to let her host their instance of her product on AWS because Amex's security team supposedly hasn't vetted AWS yet. This despite the kinds of customers Amazon already hosts on AWS (the CIA comes to mind). Not to mention that she has several other very large banks as clients that don't have a problem at all being hosted on AWS. Or that exac…
This is the story of many "enterprise" companies sadly. Some I work for, and while they are slowly changing, I would not say their own data centers (yes, read: data centers) are "little co-located hosting" companies. Usually they are entire departments, with entire budgets and multiple facilities, with many peoples jobs within that. So while for the developer, moving things to AWS is a no-brainer, a time-saver, and a…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I work in finance and this is frustrating for sure. Unfortunately if Netflix loses account data who cares. But if we lose customer account data it's off to the races to see how much money regulators can drum out of us for not being secure enough. Even if that isn't a real threat, it's a real fear. Now I'm not arguing for or against regulation here, but just you wait until Mint.com or one of these new investment apps…
I'm going to call BS. At least in the UK banks screw up all the time and never get more than a slap on the wrist. The mobile apps put out are hilariously insecure and get hacked. Payment processors go down. [0] Often, it seems like the only defence is that skiddies don't have a clue about mainframes that's saving these idiots. [0] e.g. http://search.theregister.co.uk/?q=rbs
I'll play devils advocate. If your Netflix and this direct Amex integration saves you 1/2 percent per transaction that makes a huge difference to your bottom line. Netflix current subscribers 83 million and average revenue per subscriber per month is $10.32. $83M * $10.32 = $857M total revenue per month. Assume 10% of transactions are Amex. $857M * .10 = $86M per month. Finally 1/2 percent of $86M is a savings $430,0…
I'll play devils advocate. If your Netflix and this direct Amex integration saves you 1/2 percent per transaction that makes a huge difference to your bottom line. Netflix current subscribers 83 million and average revenue per subscriber per month is $10.32. $83M * $10.32 = $857M total revenue per month. Assume 10% of transactions are Amex. $857M * .10 = $86M per month. Finally 1/2 percent of $86M is a savings $430,0…
Big assumption. Amex is not commonly used outside the US. I reckon you could safely cut that to 5%, if not less.
I'll play devils advocate. If your Netflix and this direct Amex integration saves you 1/2 percent per transaction that makes a huge difference to your bottom line. Netflix current subscribers 83 million and average revenue per subscriber per month is $10.32. $83M * $10.32 = $857M total revenue per month. Assume 10% of transactions are Amex. $857M * .10 = $86M per month. Finally 1/2 percent of $86M is a savings $430,0…
430k a month is not " huge ", it is a modest sum at best, and for 5m USD a year you can bet your bottom dollar that Visa/Mastercard will match/beat Amex. This is definitely not enough money for a big entity like Netflix to consider a strategic relationship which might subvert existential relationships.