Michael and Johnny look at Stripe, a relatively unknown outside of the tech industry, but with massive global impact. We discuss its brilliant sibling founders, what led them to start Stripe, Stripe's product history, and how it became so successful. Its future and potential impact are discussed with a final discussion on whether it is a Rich Tech or Poor Tech company.
In Follow-Ups, we cover the hiring of Michael Seibel to Reddit's board of directors and HBO simplifying their HBO apps.
Recorded Date: Sunday, June 14, 2020
Ideas of the Week:
- Ideas for: None. This is a company killing it on all cylinders!
- Ideas Against: Build international partnerships (China, African & Asian countries) to build a moat against Stripe's advancements. It won't be a technical product
Time Stamps
- @00:00:59: HBO Now Rebranding
- @00:02:46: New Board Member of Reddit Selected
- @00:09:49: Main Topic: Stripe
- @00:18:34: Product History
- @00:21:48: What Makes Stripe Successful?
- @00:35:20: What is the future of Stripe?
- @00:47:47: Rich Tech or Poor Tech
- @00:51:45: Ideas of the Week
Highlights
- HBO Go: For when you on the go; HBO Max for non-mobile devices; HBO Plus for the Plus Size Experience; HBO Now was for right now!
- Michael Seibel has become the newest board member of Reddit, a startup veteran who is currently CEO of Y Combinator
- Stripe is the perfect microcosm for what was happening in Silicon Valley in the past decade
- Stripe grew with their 1 product for 5 years right along with other Tech Unicorns that were its customers
- Rise of APIs contributed to Stripe's rise in the past decade
- Stripe's ease of use and focus on developers who would build the products helped them succeed
- Could Stripe & Shopify merge one day?
- Their Atlas product which allows anyone to register a US-based corporation sent them to the stratosphere
- Will geopolitics limit Stripe's growth if people don't want to create US-based companies?
- Could Stripe allow you to incorporate in China?
- Would Stripe become the new gateway to internet commerce?
- Shareholders: Its in the Financial Services Industry -> By definition, Rich Tech
- Employees: White Collar enabling more White Collars; Any employee can become CEO -> Rich Tech
- Customers: Have enabled many startups and large companies by allowing them to easily accept money from their customers -> Rich Tech
- Contribution to Society: People can now easily join the Internet E-Commerce space and start accepting money -> Rich Tech
- Stripe is a white-collar labor company enabling more white-collar labor
- Michael won't join Stripe due to their SQL interface. He will join for nothing less than to run their whole Data & Analytics organization
- What Stripe offers is the ease of access to American Commerce. If this becomes less appealing, Stripe can become less appealing
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