Apple to Close Stores in Eastern District of Texas to Fight Patent Trolls - <AUTHOR> https://www.macrumors.com/2019/02/22/apple-closing-stores-in-eastern-district-texas/ <comment><USER2> It seems quite reasonable for apple to avoid the renegade court. The court is known to intentionally violate the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure to the benefit of patent holders.[1] You must seek permission from the renegade judge in order to file Summary Judgement. "A party may move for summary judgment" They may not move for summary judgement, because the judge denies this in this court. "The court should state on the record the reasons for granting or denying the motion." The court does not, because the judge will deny permission to file the motion that would have them explain why they are denying a summary judgement motion. I consider their willful breaking of the civil rules "prejudicial to the effective and expeditious administration of the business of the courts". That is to say, I consider it judicial misconduct. The court is corrupt and broken by patent greed. Apple is right to avoid this den of misconduct.

[http://www.txed.uscourts.gov/cgi- bin/view_document.cgi?docum...](http://www.txed.uscourts.gov/cgi- bin/view_document.cgi?document=22071) [https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/07/why-do-patent- trolls-g...](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/07/why-do-patent-trolls-go- texas-its-not-bbq)

<comment><USER3> Maybe I'm just really dumb, but can't anyone sued in this court just appeal to a higher court that isn't run by renegade turds?

<comment><USER4> If you do not make an argument at first instance, you cannot appeal a judgement on the ground that it was not considered.

So you're fighting in the lower court because you need to fight there. Remember, it's the fight that costs money, so no matter what you're always on the hook for something.

The question ends up being are you on the hook for the cost of the fight or the cost of paying them off.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Here's something I don't quite understand, and where some of this feels a little hypocritical: Apple, the most valuable company in the world, could be working to reform patent law in order to make this a non-issue. Everyone talks about US politics as pay-to-play, it should be possible for Apple, Google, MS, Amazon, etc., to lobby for Software Patents, for example, to be reclassified as "math" and therefor not patentable. If they're actively doing that, then I'm not aware of it. If US policy can be bought and sold as we are led to believe (maybe this is actually a false premise) then you'd think the most valuable companies in the world would be able to change it.

What this implies to me, is that they want the existing patent system to work in their favor, i.e. to protect their monopolies against new competitors, but they don't want to deal with the downside of the patent troll abuse.

Don't get me wrong, I'm aware of the documented corruption of the court in Texas, and I think it's abhorrent, along with all the trolls, but this feels like a situation where Apple wants it's cake and to eat it too. Shouldn't we just do away with software patents all together and instead rely on copyright law?

<comment><USER6> 1\. I think your assumption of pay-to-play is too strong. It's true to some degree but it's not as simple as having the right budget. For one, there are always factions working against you. There are always multiple jurisdictions and branches to consider, with different incentives. Add currents of public opinion and how they impact electoral and business interests on top of it all... it's a complex puzzle. So even the biggest budget is no guarantee.

2\. Your broader point about Apple and patents presumes that all software patents are always bad. That may be popular on HN, but I sincerely doubt it's that black and white. Yes, patent trolling trivial components or processes feels and probably is overtly 'wrong'. But there's a more nuanced debate about creating the right incentives to do difficult intellectual work that benefits everyone. There's probably a 'correct' granularity of patentable idea even in software.

<comment><USER5> 1) agreed, though I would think that the combined companies could have larger sway than others.

2) I mostly disagree. Where software is so specialized and valuable, I anticipate that it would be held privately and not necessarily made public. This seems to me to be better protected by copyright and not patent law. IANAL, but copyright feels more appropriate, and while you might be right that there is some majestic software that is so unique, but yet so easily duplicated (without the source) that it deserves monopoly protection, I don't believe that exists, but if there are some pure examples that can be held up, I'd be happy to change my opinion.

A less aggressive option than getting rid of software patents entirely, might be changing the way that we apply for them. What if the source code itself was required to be submitted with the patent application, and not just the design. Part of the reason patents exist is to encourage the disclosure of the design, so that when the monopoly ends, society benefits from the advancement.

What if the patented software was always required to be open-sourced? Would this be a means for easily fending off trolls? They'd have to show a working program, for one thing (it's not clear to me that they do now), and failure to do that could be an easy way to get a summary judgement against them.

<comment><USER6> Fair points and I like your suggestions. Definitely no lawyer, but I see the theoretical value in IP broadly. Whether patents and software are the right configuration.. I hold very loose opinions there.

To bring it back to Apple, I have a hard time casting strong moral judgment on their stance when they're not patent trolling others, even if they're not leading the righteous revolution. Their Samsung lawsuit feels more along the lines of what you describe in the copyright realm -- it's a defense of their design / expression of the ideas.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I grew up in Plano; the Willow Bend location was the "main" one for my area.

I think this will sting. On a map it looks like the new location is trivially close-by, but the Galleria is in "Dallas proper", as opposed to the other locations which were deep in suburbia. In other words you have to brave Dallas traffic across the urban sprawl to get to it. It's not a mall people in the suburbs go to to just hang out; it's an outing. On top of that, Plano and Frisco are both relatively wealthy areas with lots of people who really really like their Apple devices.

Hopefully this is a wake-up call.

<comment><USER8> True, the Galleria parking and 635 area are usually what turn people off (not that Stonebriar and Willow Bend don't have their own problems these days). There are no other upscale malls in the north Dallas region beyond those three, I don't see Apple ending up in the lesser Grapevine Mills or Music City (nee Vista Ridge) malls to serve the area assuming they are within the boundary.

But in general, people in the metroplex don't rock the boat and aren't very squeaky wheels. It may hurt a bit, but it won't change anything.

<comment><USER9> > There are no other upscale malls in the north Dallas region beyond those > three

Well, there's also NorthPark, but I believe that already has an Apple Store.

And I wouldn't really call Stonebriar "upscale". It's basically the only non- upscale mall here that isn't dead or dying.

<comment><USER8> > Well, there's also NorthPark

Not what I'd consider the north Dallas region. I mean "upscale" in mall- relative terms which is basically just not dead or dying.

<comment><USER9> Eh, anything that's north of Loop 12 and west of 75 (and east of some nebulous line west of Inwood) is "North Dallas". NorthPark _barely_ qualifies, since it's on the northwest corner of Loop 12 and 75.

But it's all moot because I checked, and Apple already has a store at NorthPark.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Good, I hope this draws the attention of voters in the district.

My employer (very large) was sued twice in this court. Both times by trolls. The lawyers basically described this judge as running a 'cottage industry' and were unwilling to even set foot in that courtroom.

The patents the lawsuits were based on were insane. One of them was on any image compression for medical images which was somehow granted in 2005 (that's another problem). There was reams of prior art but of course we settled. I was very low on the totem pole of the company but it still pissed me off to no end.

<comment><USER11> > Good, I hope this draws the attention of voters in the district.

It's not an electoral district, but a judicial one, all of whose officials are Presidential appointees, not locally elected. There's a tradition (weaker in the last few decades, especially when the White House is in opposite hands from the Senate seats in the state) of consultation with the Senators of the state containing the district when appointing judges, but in large states (where judicial districts aren't the whole state, as is the case here since it's the Eastern District of Texas and not the [non-existent] plain unmodified District of Texas) that still doesn't provide a special role for "voters of the district" distinct from those of the whole containing state.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Having recently watched The Patent Scam, I wish more companies would follow suit here and exit EDOT, maybe then people would wake up and demand that these corrupt judges are removed from the bench!

edit: correction made per child comment.

<comment><USER13> Federal judges are appointed by the President and serve for life. There are possibly corruption problems in the Eastern district of Texas, but the root problems are the patent laws themselves, and its the elected members of congress who can fix that.

<comment><USER14> I'm curious about another root problem: why are corporate civil cases heard by a jury in the first place? Never mind that juries are bound to be influenced when billions of dollars are at stake[1], how about the fact that these cases are both technically and legally complex?

I'm not an expert in this stuff but as far as I can tell the USA is unique in allowing juries to hear this sort of trial, even among countries with a right to jury in a criminal trial.

1\. E.g. the Samsung skating rink in front of the Marshall Texas courthouse

<comment><USER15> It's the seventh amendment to the constitution.

Amendment 7 - Rights in Civil Cases In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury shall be otherwise reexamined in any court of the United States than according to the rules of the common law.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Would such a move be enough to not be under the jurisdiction of the Eastern District? Google doesn't have any store there yet that doesn't stop any patent troll.

<comment><USER17> Google's army of lawyers and cash reserves keeps patent trolls away. Pt try to go after little and medium companies who don't have the time or resources to fight back. It's way cheaper to write a check and make the problem go away, rather than fight via expensive lawyers or getting audited before the shakedown.

<comment><USER18> One would assume this to also be the case for apple. I definitely would not call them a "medium" company.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> d--b I don't understand. Most firms that get sued in Texas for patent infringement don't have mortar and brick shops in Eastern Texas.

If it was that easy to avoid infringement lawsuits in Eastern Texas, Eastern Texas would be completely deserted by tech companies, forcing the people there to change their policy.

<comment><USER19> Until May 2017, having a physical presence was not a requirement for being sued there. Now because of the Supreme Court ruling referenced in the article, it is. Expect to see more businesses leaving the Eastern District of Texas, and possibly avoiding incorporation in Texas as well since that would also expose you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> The only thing that Apple is doing is getting out of Collin County, Texas--by closing Plano and Frisco locations. If you look here: [http://www.txed.uscourts.gov/?q=court- locator](http://www.txed.uscourts.gov/?q=court-locator) you'll see that Collin County is in Eastern District of Texas.

So technically speaking, moving out of Plano and Frisco and moving to Dallas County will solve their patent troll issue.

<comment><USER21> Plano and Frisco are affluent suburbs though, probably pretty heavily iPhone fans. The local community won't be happy. Traffic is pretty bad, and DFW is sprawling. If I were Apple, I'd make some effort to communicate the reasons to the locals.

<comment><USER20> Yes, definitely lots of Apple users in Collin County, and the Willow Bend store and Frisco stores were always packed. Galleria location isn't that far from Plano or Frisco, so I'm sure it won't be a problem. Most probably work in the North Dallas area anyway.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I couldn't figure out if the first part of the title had anything to do with the latter part of the title. Is Apple closing down its stores because of the recent ruling or was that completely unrelated to why Apple is closing down those stores?

<comment><USER19> Due to a recent (2017) Supreme Court decision, you can now only file patent suits in a company's home state or in a district where they have a physical presence. So now companies can simply leave the Eastern District of Texas to stop patent trolls from suing them there.

Expect to see more companies leaving the Eastern District of Texas.

<comment> munk-a This is awesome. Let us see how the economy of districts that offer environments favorable to patent trolls fare.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> What's the incentive for Eastern District to be so conducive to patent trolls? Is it otherwise too small to support the judges and staff?

<comment><USER24> Well, IMO, it's very easy to look good in the local community. For example, [http://www.personalweb.com/](http://www.personalweb.com/) opened up shop when I was attending school there. They hired (as part-time interns) a bunch of local college students and built the bare minimum. They had small parties and showed up at a lot of community events.

They came to my uni to give a presentation to scout for interns. I asked them why they chose their location next to the court house, and they replied because of the patents they had they thought they would be at the courthouse often :).

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Nice now the judges and their sons who got bug fat checks have to face the truth finally: that they might have all the money but they still live in Eastern District of Texas that won't have an Apple store for them to spend their cash on.

</comment><comment><USER26> Apple are quite infamous as patent aggressors themselves, attacking others even on completely trivial issues that have prior art, so they don't look like a good fit for anti-patent troll hero.

</comment><comment><USER27> I thought you could file in that district if you just proved there was a customer there who bought something, even online.

</comment><comment><USER28> The Plano store was the first one in Texas and 3rd one overall.

</comment><comment><USER29> A powerful move would be for Apple to continue renting the space, but close the store and place posters in the windows explaining exactly why they've left, and why things needs to change. Might light a fire under local politicians.

<comment><USER30> Starting a war against the judiciary doesn't seem like something the corporate lawyers are going to greenlight.

<comment><USER31> Congress is theoretically supposed to act as a check on the judiciary, at least to the extent they appoint the judges in the first place. It's reasonable to encourage the constituents to provide feedback to their legislators.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Well, the eastern district of texas gets their just desserts for making it so easy for patent trolls to file there... GG.

<comment><USER33> It's just as easy to file in other districts as the Eastern District. Trolls like the Eastern District because of the judges currently sitting on the Eastern District, as well as the caliber of juries in the Tyler area. They're not super educated, easy to manipulate, and have a "well, they wouldn't have filed if they didn't do something wrong" attitude.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> This idiotic court must hate money, because I now have absolutely no reason to visit Frisco or spend money there lol.

</comment><comment><USER35> I suspect this has more to do with the foot traffic at these two locations.

</comment><comment><USER36> I suspect this won't actually prevent lawsuits in the Eastern district.

With internet shopping and the new store just across the district line, lawyers should be able to argue that Apple is indeed doing business in the region. It will just waste a bit of lawyer time.

It almost feels like Apple is punishing the region for it's patent troll supporting ways.

<comment><USER37> Should they not punish the region? The Eastern district is corrupt.

<comment><USER38> I can't see how it makes sense to punish the customers for the behavior of a Federal district judge who isn't elected by them. (The President appoints Federal judges and the Senate confirms them.)

<comment><USER39> At least it draws attention to the matter which helps in the long run. You need awareness of the issue, for it to make it into the public debate. Right now, most voting people don't understand the evils of patent trolling.

<comment><USER40> And they are opening a new store very close to the existing stores, just out of the district. So people will only have 1 store to go to, but it will be pretty close. I too think this may draw some attention from people who live there who may demand a change. I'd bet that most people would care more about a convenient Apple store over some corrupt lawyers and judges making a money grab.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> This looks like some heavy spin. The only reason why those stores were there was to put a positive spin on Apple in the minds of potential jurors. Same as the Samsung ice rink. The stores don't have a purpose now that reforms have been put in place to inhibit shopping for favorable courts.

<comment><USER8> > The only reason why those stores were there was to put a positive spin on > Apple in the minds of potential jurors

The article may not make it clear, but the malls where the stores are closing are hours (~2h45m or ~170 mi) away from the town (Marshall) where potential jurors reside.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> looks like Apple is shopping around.

I guess we are going to see more cases landing on the desk of Judge Lucy Koh in the Northern District. Koh is obviously known for her landmark decisions in Apple vs Samsung and other cases that overtly favored Apple. Samsung, for instance, despite having won a ITC case and a SCOTUS decision on limiting damage on design infringement, saw their ITC victory reversed/pardoned by Obama and Apple's hometown jury rewarding almost everything Apple had asked for.

Legal observers see it's no coincidence that the FTC filed their on-going antitrust case against Qualcomm in Koh's court, in Apple's front yard.

<comment><USER43> The litigants decide where to file suit. Apple can't shop for courts when they're the defendant, except in this case by specifically avoiding the jurisdiction of one court that's a dramatic outlier.

<comment><USER42> Actually, while it's not common, a change in legal venue is perfectly legal and Apple knows how to play the game (see Google vs Rockstar, which, once upon a time, was Apple's patent trolling operation in the Eastern District of Texas).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> The rich irony of a company that patented round corners taking the high moral ground against patent "trolls" or whatever their called

<comment><USER45> Most patents filed big by corps are protective in nature.

It would be hard for Apple to sue people for 'round corners' \- but it gives them a moat to protect themselves from trolls who patent 'round corners'.

But it does cause problems, because it causes hesitancy in other companies, i.e. 'swipe to unlock' patents etc..

<comment><USER42> We are not talking about "most" sane, reasonable companies like Google, Samsung, etc. Apple is historically known for being litigatious, in addition to being the most litigated today:

[https://www.pcworld.com/article/262202/apple_vs_a_pl_tech_co...](https://www.pcworld.com/article/262202/apple_vs_a_pl_tech_company_sues_online_polish_grocer_over_logo.html)

<comment><USER46> What is a 'reasonable' company? The chairman and heir of Samsung went to prison for corruption. [https://www.google.co.nz/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/201...](https://www.google.co.nz/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2017/aug/25/samsung- heir-lee-jae-yong-found-guilty-of-corruption)

<comment><USER42> two things:

First, that's the cost of doing business in less politically developed countries like South Korea. Google withdrew from China for not wanting to stoop to the oppressive, corrupt gov't; Apple on the other hand outsourced all data collection to a domestic Chinese company to continue business there. Samsung unfortunately doesn't have the luxury to leave South Korea. You don't hear Samsung exec's getting convicted of bribery in the US, do you?

Second, lookie here, a red herring! We are discussing what to expect from most sane big "reasonable" companies with respect to their IP, not the recent political corruption scandal, or the messy ouster of President Park, in South Korea.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


It's better to be single - <AUTHOR> http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/love-sex/why-single-is-better-according-to-science-a8204476.html <comment><USER2> There is something missing in this discussion. Most single people want to have a mate I think. Women who find themselves at the close of a relationship usually pick up a new one faster than men do. Women wouldn't do that if they were happy being single. I don't see how personal happiness is something that can be measured or predicted by a scientific methodology.</comment>


A 24-year-old made $345K in 2 months by beating Kickstarters to market - <AUTHOR> http://www.cnbc.com/2017/01/30/a-24-year-old-made-345000-by-beating-kickstarters-to-market.html <comment><USER2> Do I understand correctly from reading the comments here that he just found the 'knock-offs' on alibaba and ordered them?

The article made it seem as if he actually created the knock-offs himself and then found a factory to make them for him. Which is it?

Also, if I had an idea for a small little toy/gadget, how would I have to go about finding someone in the world who can make it for me in a factory?

<comment><USER3> Yes, somebody other than him made the products. He didn't actually make blueprints and make a Chinese factory make them. The real genius is some forgotten guy in China. He made at least 50'000 USD which I suppose buys you a lot more status in China.

I really don't like being negative but this article feels has the same feeling as the Taboola ads at the bottom of the page. This guy made a smart deal sure, but really he didn't create anything new so I'm a bit disappointed with the article since it's not about someone who managed to complete an engineering project in record time or something really cool... but just a $ sign to spark interest.

If you want to manufacture something I guess that you go about basically the same way as you would if you wanted to find a company that creates a software product.

<comment><USER2> Thank you, and the rest of the commenters for the answer, the title and article where somewhat misleading and I didn't watch the video.

You are right about the article being poor, it is basically just click bait and it is annoying to have to waste brain energy on trying to decipher this incoherent story.

On the plus side though, I have just learned that alibaba factories try to outpace kickstarters and the like, that is pretty interesting and quite clever, despite the sneakiness.

<comment><USER4> A good way to handle stories like this is to flag them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Here's a viable business model (I want 10% of profits):

* Create Kickstarter with innovative new idea, take money and fund it.

* Wait for someone in China to copy it.

* Order the things at a massive discount (ie their normal price).

* Send them to your backers.

Keep the rest of the money for making a single slick video.

<comment><USER6> How about this _improved_ business model:

* Create Kickstarter with innovative new idea, take money and fund it.

* Wait for someone in China to copy it.

* Order the things at a massive discount (ie their normal price).

* Set up a new store to sell the knock offs.

* Stiff your backers.

You end up with all the kickstarter money and the knock off money but only have to pay for half the merchandise.

<comment><USER7> Of course, once it becomes a pattern there will be the Chinese corollary, that appears to maka a knockoff, then waits for a big order.

<comment><USER6> Was going to add a part about stiffing the chinese suppliers as well but you'd probably end up like this guy (separate article currently on HN front page):

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13532856](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13532856)

[https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/31/world/asia/xiao- jianhua-c...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/31/world/asia/xiao-jianhua- china-hong-kong-billionaire.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'd say lots of these entrepreneurs are designers or engineers who were passionate about an idea they had and began crowdsourcing their idea, without much business experience. They are gonna learn the hard way that time to market is a bfd.

A product is absolutely useless until its in the hands of the consumer.

</comment><comment><USER9> The value of execution. Being able to get something done is a powerful thing and this is one way it can be monetized. Reminds me of the German startup knockoff company that made its mark doing successful US startups in Europe.

<comment><USER10> that company is called Rocket Internet, for anyone who wants to look into this story.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> So basically this kid made money by selling cheap knockoffs before the original designers could launch a patent lawsuit? Seems like the moral of the story is that you can make some money before the slow gears of our patent system kick in.

Also, links to those stupid inflatable bags on alibaba were everywhere once the kickstarter went viral. The article makes it sound like the kid magically found it.

<comment><USER12> Would something like a Stress Cube even be eligible for a patent? I don't see the technological novelty to be honest. Maybe I'm misunderstanding how patents work.

<comment><USER13> Considering that the magic 8-ball has a patient, why not? (Granted it is actually an interesting patent since it solved the problem of air bubbles obscuring the answers on the answer die) [https://www.google.com/patents/US3119621](https://www.google.com/patents/US3119621)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Just looked up the Fidget Cube. It is $22?! Yet the Stress Cube "knockoff" is under $5. It is a little plastic and vinyl cube with some switches.

Not to mention the Fidget Cube is still on pre-order whereas it looks like the Stress Cube has been available since around the end of last year.

Is it a kinda crappy thing to do? Yeah I think so. However how on earth are Antsy Labs not selling these things yet?

<comment><USER15> Also worth mentioning that the quality of the stress cube is not great. A coworker ordered one and two of the pieces didn't work out of the box. It's very grainy looking plastic (almost seems 3-d printed) that was poorly glued together.

But 5 vs 22 is a fairly big price differential.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> There's an excellent documentary on the hardware/hacking ecosystem in Shenzhen on YouTube: [https://youtu.be/SGJ5cZnoodY](https://youtu.be/SGJ5cZnoodY) . A lot of people there seem to embrace the ethos of moving fast and ignoring IP laws (both original creator and spoofer) because by the time you get a lawsuit or patent filed, the tech will have moved far beyond what you were trying to protect, and it will no longer be worth your time.

Basically, move fast and try to keep up. It's crazy how fast the tech cycles are there.

<comment><USER17> I wonder how a person in the West can connect with people in Shenzen to import products, or even to collaborate. There are niches I think are ripe for targeting here, if they only knew _there_. Can anyone recommend a meeting place online?

<comment> angry-hacker Alibaba?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Time is definitely huge. I've got one of the knock-off fidget cubes on my desk right now, a Christmas gift, but my kickstarter-backed one doesn't arrive until later today. I expect the real one to be higher quality, but it seriously got scooped.

<comment><USER19> Yeah, I supported the so-called NiftyDrive(a micro-sd adapter that fits within your SD card port in a macbook) because it was such a cool idea at a time - but they had several delays, and in that time, I could just get an identical adapter off ebay, delivered next day, for 1/3 of the price.

<comment><USER20> Also, supported the nifty drive... great idea, by the time I got it, I didn't need it anymore.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> What wasn't said in the article/video is that Chinese mfgs are scooping kickstarter.

One of many stress cube listings on Alibaba [https://www.alibaba.com/product- detail/Hottest-stress-cube-i...](https://www.alibaba.com/product- detail/Hottest-stress-cube-in- stock_60580604549.html?spm=a2700.7724838.0.0.yOaWG7)

<comment><USER22> ? Did you read the article? They literally say that and show a screenshot.

"As with Cozy Bag, Chinese manufacturers on Alibaba had been offering comparable products since shortly after the Kickstarter appeared."

<comment><USER21> Re-read what I wrote. The 24 yr old is good at marketing..not doing anything special.

The interesting aspect is that Chinese mfgs are all over Kickstarter. As others have written, makes it a more difficult proposition going forward.

<comment><USER23> Step 1. Launch a Kickstarter - without any plan for manufacturing. Step 2. Wait for Chinese manufacturing to copy it. Step 3. Buy as many of the product from those manufacturers. Step 4. Deliver to Kickstarter backers ahead of schedule.

Zero risk, minimal effort, and happy Kickstarter backers. All Kickstarters should adopt this model.

<comment><USER24> Oh god that might actually work..

<comment><USER25> It's at least a little risky because you're depending on the Chinese knock off coming in at the right price. Though I guess you could just sit on the Kickstarter money while you wait so you don't have to raise money if one doesn't materialize.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I dunno, I see this more as an Instagram marketing play than a 'knock-off' play. The fidget cube is little significance, it could have been anything. He found a trend, got supply, and marketed it on the right channels.

</comment><comment><USER6> Link is dead for me. Get's a 404 on CNBC's site.

Here's the Google cache of it: [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:LGuJ4sN...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:LGuJ4sNwuEIJ:www.cnbc.com/2017/01/30/a-24-year- old-made-345000-by-beating-kickstarters-to-market.html)

</comment><comment><USER27> So RocketInternet but with products instead of websites?

<comment><USER28> Haha. Actually, RocketInternet is for startups/websites like the age old knockoff's for products. This is nothing new, but he must be good at marketing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I was looking at making an IoT doodad recently that already had a pretty crowded market because everyone who is currently making the same basic idea, including US and Chinese manufacturers, sucks at software.

The one US-based iteration of this product, understands what consumers want, but it's software very much looks like it was produced by hardware people. It works, but only barely. I bought it second hand yesterday and there are already two software-only features I would add that would have increased the usefulness of the product significantly.

The Chinese versions are so damn cheap, I wanted to buy one, but their software (even from xiaomi) doesn't even meet my basic requirements.

Part of this is probably the fact that consumers (like me) are stingy and software developers are expensive, and you have to keep paying them even after you've gotten all the money you're going to get from consumers since people hate paying for subscriptions.

Maybe these knock off makers will get better with software, I don't know, but at the moment I feel like there's a big gap in what knock off makers can do.

</comment><comment><USER30> What seems weird about this is that he did very little of actual 'beating Kickstarters to the market'. If you read the article, he is just selling things that are already listed on alibaba(so it's the chinese manufacturers who are beating Kickstarters to the market).

So the question is: where does the margin of the guy in the article come from? If you read the article, he bought the toys for 2.5$ or so on alibaba and sold them for 20$. That's quite a markup for...some marketing. You could at any time probably have gone to aliexpress and gotten the same thing for 4$ including shipping.

I think the answer is that not enough people in China are savy in how to market their products to US+EU. And not enough people from US+EU are aware of the gadget candy-store that is Aliexpress. The overall profit is too small for a large company to swoop in, so what is left are some shady indiegogo campains (that try to sell a product that is already offered on alibaba) and the kind of company portrayed in this article.

<comment><USER31> Ordering things on Aliexpress as a "normal" customer is not a great shopping experience because:

\- there are thousands of sellers selling the same thing and finding the one that isn't a scam is difficult -- not difficult as in, flying to Mars, but harder than ordering from Amazon FBA (although AMZ is getting worse by the minute in this regard)

\- shipping times are VERY long (3 to 5 weeks) unless you're willing to double the purchase price for express shipping (which will still take around a week)

Therefore, there is opportunity for arbitrage where you order lots of gadgets and then sell them in your local market with very good shipping times (and less choice between competing, identical offers).

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Wow! I can't decide if this is innovation, disruption, or something a little less than ethical. I also wonder what the IP issues about this might be.

<comment><USER8> > innovation, disruption, or something a little less than ethical

¿Por qué no los tres?

<comment><USER33> Definitivamente los tres.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Article is not quite clear but it appears it was $345K in sales not net.

The guy's edge is marketing which has been always been the great differentiator.

Of course, it could be just luck as there must be thousands of people attempting the same type of "business".

Reminds of that Ipod clone kid in Australia which HN had an article about a few years ago. Made some 100K from selling iPod clones in late 200Xs.

<comment><USER35> It is confusing, but it appears he paid $70,000 for the product, throw in $5-10 for site, ads, marketing etc. Still doing quite well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Usually if you ask a company for a customized product it won't happen or you have to be willing to put a lot of money in it. But if you go through the work of mocking up your imagined product on Kickstarter, China may get it to the market for you at no cost.

<comment><USER37> Now _that 's_ true innovation!

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Good for him!!!

I had a similar idea years ago where I was searching through RentACoder projects for potential product ideas. I figured that there had to be a few gems in there, but never found anything worthwhile. Glad to see someone else made the same concept work!

</comment><comment><USER38> Saw the article mention FollowLiker [http://www.followliker.com](http://www.followliker.com) not really sure what it does. Is it for creating a bunch of fake accounts?

</comment><comment><USER39> Page not found

</comment><comment><USER40> Man makes business out of identifying market, finding supplier, ordering product, reselling at higher price.

Amazing.

<comment><USER41> And all of the "I have an idea I just need a technical cofounder" (ie. management and sales and wannabees of every company) cried out in horror, tears, and injustice !</comment></comment>


Driving From Italy To China ... With No Driver  - <AUTHOR> http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128639246&ft=1&f=1004 <comment><USER2> I work on these systems in mining. With a human driver a mine car is limited to 12-20kmh with one vehicle in each 100m block for safety, on an automated level with no people present there are no limits. We can do 60km/h with vehicles only a couple of metres apart - shifting 10x as much material more cheaply and safely.

In australia there are mines with all the 300ton haul trucks completely automated - driving from the face to the crusher and back with no humans. Never speeding, never taking a corner too quickly, never over accelerating or over braking. The savings in tire wear alone are enormous.

<comment><USER3> That's amazing. Where can I read more about this?

<comment><USER2> [http://www2.sandvik.com/sandvik/0120/Internet/Global/S003713...](http://www2.sandvik.com/sandvik/0120/Internet/Global/S003713.nsf/Alldocs/22E4D21836AF0147C22572B2002C3F2F)

<http://www.mining-technology.com/features/feature41780/>

<comment><USER4> _AutoMine systems are currently operating at Codelco's El Teniente Mine in Chile (since June 2004), Inmet Mining's Pyhäsalmi Mine in Finland (since January 2005), De Beers' Finsch Mine in South Africa (since August 2005) and Williams Mine in Canada (June 2007). A system is also installed in Sandvik's Test Mine in Tampere, Finland, which is used as a platform for developing and testing future system developments and for demonstration purposes._

Interesting. Do you guys rely on GPS with corrections alone or do you use active sensing? I imagine ladar is not that great in dusty conditions?

<comment><USER2> GPS tends not to work terribly well 1000m underground.

They use a combination of laser scanners following the contours of the wall and triangulating from fixed reflective prisms. Sometimes around crushers/trains you use buried electric cables or magnets for precise sensing.

Surface mining uses GPS and lasers, in the bottom of an open pit GPS requires a bunch of expensive repeater stations because of the poor sky view.

<comment><USER4> I didn't realize this was underground mining. So, you're really working on driverless trains, not cars or trucks, correct?

<comment><USER5> > I didn't realize this was underground mining. So, you're really working on > driverless trains, not cars or trucks, correct?

Why would one think that "underground" implies trains?

Trains require tracks. Roads are less precise and have cheaper intersections.

<comment><USER2> They are diesel powered trucks which navigate by following the wall profile - slightly confusingly they are often called 'trams' because moving muck underground is called 'tramming' from the original medieval mine railways!

<comment><USER4> So that brings me to my original question -- what kind of sensing do you use on these trams, both to follow the walls and to detect obstacles?

<comment><USER2> Time of flight laser scanners (LIDAR). Scanners on each side of the truck measure the shape of the wall. you drive the truck down the tunnel once (in one system) it stores a map of the wall shape and then follows the same shape to keep the same distance form the walls.

Another laser scanner checks the tunnel ahead (and behind) for obstacles, other trucks, people, rockfalls etc.

On some systems a spinning laser on the top hits fixed prism reflectors with known position on the roof and walls, it constantly resects it's position from this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER2> One other small concern - are any of the programmers behind this from Rome?

Because if the AI on this system is designed by Roman drivers it might be safer for everyone to move out of Asia for the duration of the trip.

<comment><USER2> It's not racist - even people from Milan are scared of Roman drivers !

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Good luck when they get to the streets of china. If they can auto drive through that then it's ready for anything...

</comment><comment><USER7> Heh... reminds me of éX-Driver (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ex- Driver#Overview>). I think the idea has potential, but I don't think it will be _safely_ feasible.

> " _A test drive off campus on Thursday illustrates the many hazards. A > tractor trailer blocked visibility entering a busy traffic circle, forcing > the lead vehicle to inch tentatively into oncoming cars. When it did find a > break, there wasn't enough time for the second vehicle to follow before > another car inserted itself between them, cutting off communication_ "

</comment><comment><USER8> A stressed out driver stuck in a traffic jam on the highway would probably in many cases be many times safer with automatic car control than driving manually.

It can be extremely stressful when you're stuck in a traffic jam and have to pick a kid in kindergarten.</comment>


Ask HN: What are the activities of a CTO in a startup? - <AUTHOR> I've recently been offered a post as CTO in a startup company, and as i talked to the founders i realized they were asking for a CTO but actually looking for a programmer. That raised a lot of doubt. After all, what is a CTO supposed to be doing in a startup? Programming? Assembling a Team? Managing a team? How would this change as the startup grows, would it be a leadership position or just a fancy senior programmer title?<p>I really appreciate any help :) <comment><USER2> Titles are pretty meaningless in most startup scenarios. It sounds more like they are looking for a technical co-founder and are using the C-level title as a carrot.

If there is not a team already in place, you will most likely be handling the early programming efforts until a team takes shape.

That's assuming a team ever does take shape. Depending on the vision of the other founders (and funding / budget), you may end up being the entire team. The title will look good on your resume but I wouldn't take it all that literally in regard to your day-to-day responsibilities.

Regarding how it may change over time, it very well could be a vanity title until another person is installed in the position over you. That's not always the case, but I've seen it happen. If you are given the opportunity to grow a team and play an active role in the technical vision of the company (assuming you're allowed to) you will probably grow with the position.

Source: Former "CTO" at two startups.

</comment><comment><USER3> The joke goes, "CTO" is the title a founder gets when the engineering team they hired finally takes away their commit privileges.

It has approximately the same relationship to tech startups as the term "architect" has to enterprises. Avoid.

<comment><USER4> This has not been my experience. I've only worked at 2 startups, but in both cases one of the founders had the CTO title and in both cases the CTO was one of the best programmers at the company.

<comment><USER3> I'm sure there are some amazingly talented software architects out there, too. If it were me, I'd take VP/Eng before I took CTO (but I wouldn't take VP/anything until there were 20+ employees).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I was recently in your shoes and took the CTO position, leaving behind a very cushy, well-paying job at an established software company. It's more work than I was doing at my previous company, and I'm working a lot more hours than before (much to my wife's chagrin). I spend most of my time writing code (75%), but I do participate a lot in product discussions, strategy, and general managing (1-1s, code reviews, architecture discussions, etc). It's more of a VP Eng position than a CTO since I'm so hands-on, but, for me, the title itself is not relevant.

The startup raised a big seed round, and will go through a Series A fund- raising round within the next 6-12 months. My reasons for leaving the established company were to challenge myself and learn. I'm hoping to start my own company one day, so for me I'm trading financial well-being and stability at the established company for a crash-course start-up MBA experience. And in the event that we take have a favorable exit, than that's all the better (as much as I believe in the company, I do realize that statistics say otherwise).

</comment><comment><USER6> Depends on two things. What you think of it, and what you make of it. If you go in there demanding 5% equity talking about what you can bring the team then think of yourself as a CTO. If you get there write some code employ another developer then think of yourself as a senior developer.

</comment><comment><USER7> I have held the CTO title at several start-ups, including VC funded, though not at a HN style web start-up (YMMV). My job, greatly simplified, mostly consisted of two things: 1) setting the technical vision for the company, and 2) communicating that vision internally and externally.

As to 1, it's never consisted of a lot of programming (that's what you hire programmers for), but looking at the hundreds of more or less showstopper technical decisions that have to be made in a company every week, making a decisive decision, and being able to justify & live with it. A CTO has to be experienced, practical and savvy enough to make very hard technical decisions well enough not to screw the company down the road (you decided to go with a vendor that folded: Fail, your back-end architecture won't scale: Fail, etc.). A CTO who jumps on "new and shiny" needs to have a much better explanation than "new and shiny rocks!".

As to 2, being able to sell the merits of those decisions is vital. Early in the companies growth, that's making your internal technical folks good with it, even if they think they would have made a different decision (as they often would): why add this feature (or not), why this database instead of that one, why this deployment strategy, why hire that person over another, why allocate resources here and not there, etc. As the company grows (hopefully), I spend more and more time making non-technical and external folks believe in the technical correctness of what we were doing: the sales & marketing team, client prospects, press/media, potential investors, etc. By this point, I really should have turned over most any remaining day-to-day stuff over to operational folks, or I'll become a bottleneck for growth.

That said, a lot of start-ups slap a C-title on all sorts of stuff that they shouldn't. C-level is a strategic role, not tactical. Your accountant isn't a CFO, your best programmer isn't (probably) a CTO. The kid who updates the web site and is reading a book on SEO isn't a CMO. This doesn't matter so much early on, but if you ever decide to go the VC route, they tend not to like a C-heavy corporate structure. If nothing else, the VC will want to add strategic heavy hitters, and people tend to get butthurt when their title goes from CTO to Senior Programmer or some such.</comment>


MH370: Reunion debris is from missing plane - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-33794012 <comment><USER2> Not really a huge surprise given that the debris was confirmed as a 777 flaperon a few days ago. However, It does mean that the Inmarsat positional analysis about the final location of the plane is likely correct. This should give a bit of confidence to the sailors who are running the naval search operation in the indian ocean. They were never quite sure that they were looking in the right place. I suspect their lack-of-results must be quite demoralising for them.

It also discounts some of the nuttier theories such as the plane landing in Russia or Afghanistan.

<comment><USER3> The satellite position analysis only says where the plane likely was near the end of its flight. How it ended up in the water matters greatly. For example if there was someone conscious in the cockpit then it could have glided way outside of the search area. Even an uncontrolled spiralling into the ocean describes a potentially large area.

One thing that keeps resurfacing is that the whole affair is unlike anything before. Suicidal pilots have crashed quickly in all other cases, various things have involved extraordinary good luck or extraordinary knowledge (eg avoiding various radar coverage), explanations for satellite systems going offline/online require precise fiddling with various electrical busses, there aren't any credible explanations for deliberate act or accident, the Malaysian government has either covered things up or is very incompetent (or both), and it goes on.

Air France 440 was also shrouded in mystery (but nowhere near this degree), and turned out to be very poor airmanship by one pilot.

For anyone curious about more of the technical aspects behind the scenes then Jeff Wise writes about it frequently. [http://jeffwise.net/](http://jeffwise.net/)

<comment><USER4> > Air France 440 was also shrouded in mystery (but nowhere near this degree), > and turned out to be very poor airmanship by one pilot.

It was poor airmanship by two pilots (and other factors, including the feedback mechanisms and the lack of training for this particular high altitude scenario).

<comment><USER5> My understanding is that the pilot in the left chair didn't realize that the pilot in the right chair kept pulling his stick back. In boeing planes, the sticks move together, so that wouldn't be possible. And the pilot in the right chair clearly didn't understand that in the alternate law the fly by wire system was running in, his stick movements put the plane at risk.

<comment><USER6> Yes, it was a completely incorrect reaction by a single pilot, combined with a catastrophically bad design for the controls, which caused that crash. It is completely insane to me that anyone would think that averaging inputs from two pilots and providing no feedback would be even remotely a good idea.

<comment><USER7> The aircraft does provide feedback, it says, "DUAL INPUT, DUAL INPUT". IIRC this can be heard on the cockpit voice recorder of Air France 447.

<comment><USER6> I mean physical feedback. In any rationally designed aircraft, the controls are physically linked, such that moving one moves the other (or at the very least this arrangement is faked with servos). When two pilots attempt to give contradictory inputs, they immediately know it because they can _feel_ the other one fighting.

<comment><USER8> Yes, in the Air France tragedy, the aural warning clearly wasn't enough. Through fear and panic, the pilots failed to understand what the plane was telling them. But the feeling of having a control yoke fight against you doesn't require much mental effort to process.

<comment><USER6> Aural warnings are so easy to ignore. There are a ton of stories that go like, "What is that annoying buzzing sound? Well, no time to worry about it now, I'm landing. <CRUNCH> Oh, it was the gear warning." Happened to a friend of mine, even.

I think it ultimately comes down to engaging with the primary sense you're already using. If you're doing something visual, then a visual warning ( _on whatever you 're looking at_) can be effective, while an aural warning won't. If you're listening to something then interrupting it with an audio warning will work great. Hand flying is a tactile experience, so that's the sense you want to work with.

<comment><USER9> _Aural warnings are so easy to ignore._

Yes. You give an example of someone ignoring a single aural warning. The case of AF447 was much worse.

There was a cacophony of different sounds and noises in the cockpit of AF447. All the various alarms are deliberately made to sound different. But when someone knows he's a minute from death, there's no way his reptilian brain can make sense of a plethora of simultaneous alarms. It will, instead, strive to tune them all out.

I remember a documentary where Duke Cunningham discussed his experiences as a fighter ace in Vietnam. In high stress situations he would switch his intercom to allow him to speak to his RIO, but not be able to hear his RIO. He didn't want the distraction. (Note: sadly, Cunningham disgraced himself in later life).

<comment><USER6> I built a gear warning system for my glider. The usual ones just have either as steady tone or a pulsing tone. I made mine do a pulsing tone with different speeds, then it actually spells out "WARNING GEAR UP" in morse code. I don't know morse code, but I figured the irregular pattern would make it more identifiable and harder to ignore.

I've seen it advised to turn off the aircraft radio when it's not useful and you're in the middle of something tricky, like climbing out from a low altitude, or landing in a field.

<comment><USER8> > I've seen it advised to turn off the aircraft radio when it's not useful and > you're in the middle of something tricky, like climbing out from a low > altitude, or landing in a field.

Makes sense. "Aviate, navigate, communicate".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Officially, it's a "very strong presumption" and has not been officially confirmed. Apparently there are some things that don't add up for the U.S. NTSB.

"A person involved in the investigation said, however, that experts from Boeing and the National Transportation Safety Board who have seen the object — a piece of what is known as a flaperon — were not yet fully satisfied, and called for further analysis.

Their doubts were based on a modification to the flaperon part that did not appear to exactly match what they would expect from airline maintenance records, according to the person, who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and requested anonymity."

[http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/06/world/asia/mh370-wing- reun...](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/06/world/asia/mh370-wing-reunion.html)

Still, hopefully it turns out to be officially and conclusively confirmed so that the process of closure can begin for the families.

<comment><USER11> There aren't any other missing 777's, so all they really need is to conclusively determine the part came from a 777 and process of elimination takes care of the rest.

Still, I understand them wanting to be extremely cautious.

<comment><USER8> To be definitive, though, you need to find evidence that proves that the piece you found was present on the aircraft for the flight where it went missing. You have to have some way to say, "Ah, yes, this flaperon is a Boeing part number, with serial number #XXXXXX. Maintenance records show that this exact serial number was installed on the aircraft in question, and its configuration as found matches the configuration of record for this part on the aircraft in question." Then you know for sure to a degree that will stand up in any inquiry.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> How would one go about verifying that the debris comes from the missing plane, assuming plane-specific serial number is not found? Any expert care to shed some light on this?

<comment><USER13> Any part more complicated than a screw or rivet likely has a serial number / part number on it, and if it does, could be traced back to the exact aircraft it was installed on.

<comment><USER14> And even if there are no serial numbers, there are detailed maintenance records for the aircraft; you can see if a bolt has been replaced, trimmer adjusted or a hole fixed, and you'll find matching records in the books.

<comment><USER8> This used to be kept in paper log books. Now these records are computerized.

<comment><USER14> Yes of course, "in the books" was just an idiom here (perhaps not the exactly correct one). What has been done to the plane is a matter of record and can be checked.

<comment><USER8> Of course. I wasn't disagreeing with you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> One thing is bugging me in all this: Is this a part that should float?

<comment><USER16> Yes. It is a completely sealed part and is designed to float. Why it is designed that way, I don't know.

<comment><USER17> Probably it is just designed to not get water inside it (wouldn't want your wings filling with water while flying), so it happens to float.

<comment><USER15> Ah, yes. Rain should _not_ cause the wings to fill up with water...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> So currents pushed debris toward Reunion, but is it possible that things drifted non linearly and scattered everywhere or will they be able to find the remains in a short time now ?

<comment><USER19> Even if a) currents and winds where 100% known and b) we could perfectly compute how they interact with objects, the parts still could end up in widely different places.

Different parts will have had different starting positions (even a few meters can make a huge difference. The part found made it to Reunion, but if it had floated a few meters further, it might have missed the Island and, over time, float hundreds of more miles, or it might have landed on an island that it now completely missed)

Also, the shape, weight, etc. of pieces affects where they float; a mostly submerged part will not see much impact from wind, a sailboat-like part will see lots of impact from it. Even identical pieces may float in different directions if they end up in the water at different orientations.

[http://oceanmotion.org/html/research/ebbesmeyer.htm](http://oceanmotion.org/html/research/ebbesmeyer.htm):

 _" Knowing the paths of the currents, though, is not enough. Other factors such as shape, size, and buoyancy may also determine an object's course. Curt has observed with fascination that different beaches specialize in different types of debris. One beach may collect light bulbs while another collects tennis balls. Even right and left sneakers end up in different places"_

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I at first believed it came from MH370 but now that I hear the Malaysian PM confirm it it makes me wonder if it's from some other source.

(This is a sarcastic comment on the quality of thee Malaysian leadership and how they handled the situation.)

<comment><USER2> I'm sure the PM is overjoyed that this story kicked up again right now. Anything that distracts the press from his embezzlement scandal is likely very welcome.

<comment><USER14> The funny thing is that the PM also put out an arrest warrant for a British journalist (Gordon Brown's sister-in-law) for covering the corruption case. If he hadn't done that, I wouldn't have heard of his whole scandal before this.</comment></comment></comment>


What it feels like when a competitor utterly rips off your entire company - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@dhassell/what-it-feels-like-when-a-competitor-utterly-rips-off-your-entire-company-i-m-looking-at-you-def1e0528fa3#.9reicknqv <comment><USER2> Discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10664998](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10664998)

More comments: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10675149](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10675149)

Another submission: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10666275](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10666275)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks Colin.

<comment><USER2> I'm getting to the point where I don't know what to do about this. There are many re-submissions, and the official policy is that this is OK in some circumstances. In a way this is a good thing, because it gives good items a second chance when they sank the first time with no votes.

But when there has been an earlier, desultory discussion, there is some value in knowing that, but there's also value in giving things a second chance. I still think there should be an open, transparent way to link previous discussions, and then things would both get a second chance, _and_ build on previous discussions.

No conclusions, no suggestions, just a degree of frustration. Thanks for replying positively.</comment></comment></comment>


Stripe Is Now a $20B Company - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-09-26/payment-startup-stripe-is-now-a-20-billion-company?srnd=technology-vp <comment><USER2> Stripe's awesome. I'm in YC's startup school and used Stripe Atlas to incorporate. I got an email from Stripe, sharing an opportunity to post your landing page and get feedback from Stripe's design team. That Friday I got an awesome teardown from Stripe's design team. The page ([https://nanagram.co](https://nanagram.co)) still has quite a ways to go, but I incorporated most of their feedback and I'm super happy with it. Another cool thing — Through the grapevine I found out Patrick mentioned NanaGram at an all-hands meeting. I sent him a quick email to say thanks for the mention, not expecting a reply whatsoever, and within a few hours he responded. Stripe's kind of mind-blowing in their ability to not only build a great product but also to serve the community and be human.

<comment><USER3> I love Stripe as well, but one thing keeps me wondering - why do their bank payouts take so long?

My company is based in Norway, and I see funds arriving a week after they are marked "on the way to your bank". Money get sent like that every day, but arrive only after a week from a local bank. I know that local bank transfers are reconciled multiple times a day, and I can't see why there is a delay.

The money sending frequency setting seems just misleading to me.

<comment><USER4> US banks (maybe most banks?) are just slow as hell from my experience. I pay several bills here in the USA from US banks to US banks / credit card companies and it takes a week for it to fully sync up on both my person bank account and on the statement balance. But if I were to pay with a debit card I would see the transaction instantly, though in such case it would say pending for days and days.

<comment><USER5> In some countries domestic bank to bank payments are instant and either free or very cheap. South Korea where I am is one. Bank transfers take perhaps one second. International bank-to-bank payments are more of a hassle. There is no Stripe in Korea yet, though they seem to have success in Japan, the land of cash-only.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The thing I love most about Stripe is that they have invested quite a lot of resources in their Atlas program to help people from around the world get a level playing field.

Before Stripe Atlas there was not a single resource that would allow a non American to setup a bank account for their company totally virtually without ever visiting US (i know because I spoke to at least a dozen of different people and everyone agreed that while they could open a company for me, opening a bank account was impossible after the patriot law (?) yet somehow Stripe managed to do it).

So not only they have made great accomplishments in the dev part with their amazing API they have also made a huge difference in many other aspects too that only a few know about.

<comment><USER7> How did Stripe bypass the law here?

<comment><USER8> They didn't. It was all stuff that was technically legal, but required founders to hire a US lawyer to handle the paperwork for them and to make lots of micro-decisions about a legal system with which they were unfamiliar.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Stripe is the second most valuable YC company. Total valuation of all companies that YC funded (more than 1,900) now exceeds 100 billon dollars.

Airbnb has a private valuation of 31 billion. Stripe has a private valuation of 20 billion. Dropbox has a public valuation (DBX) of 11 billion.

So the two most valuable companies account for about half the total value of all the YC companies. This is what a power law looks like!

<comment><USER10> And this is why Y Combinator may not be right for your startup. The 100 billion dollars of valuation listed on YC's website may not be up to date, but it's clear that the top 10% of companies make up the overwhelming majority of their portfolio. So they go for moonshots. And they also invest in multiple competitors in the same space in the hopes that one will pan out.

So if you're building the kind of company that might be worth $100 _million_ someday but won't ever be worth $100 _billion_ , VCs and startup incubators might not be right for you, but just remember that a rejection from them doesn't necessarily mean you aren't on to something great.

<comment><USER11> Even though the top 99.9th percentile companies account for half of YC's return, it's possible that the 90th percentile companies nevertheless all produce a great return, more than sufficient to subsidize the 1-89th percentile, and YC just aims for that.

<comment><USER12> Ya just because I make most of my money selling hamburgers doesn't mean I'm ignoring my regulars who come in for milkshakes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> > Several large new customers have also been listed on Stripe's website this > week, including Alphabet Inc.'s Google and Uber Technologies Inc.

If Uber is now running payments exclusively through Stripe instead of Braintree, that is a significant blow. I heard that Uber's payments through Braintree was a significant portion of Braintree's total revenue, don't recall the exact number I heard, but it was something on the order of 25% to 40%.

<comment><USER14> I wouldn't assume it's exclusive. At the scale of Uber, it may be worth keeping both systems running and split usage between the two to negotiate the best rates.

<comment><USER15> That also has the benefit of system redundancy, in case one goes down.

<comment><USER16> "Goes down" could include things like "we're going to increase your pricing by 10 cents per charge". It's a much stronger negotiating position that Uber is in if they can say "we can switch 100% of our volume to Stripe in a minute by going to admin.uber.com and flipping a single feature flag".

<comment><USER17> Or even better: "we automatically route traffic to the cheaper option and this requires no human intervention, so don't even bother"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Some valuation context, although I'm fully aware that Stripe is a private company and that many of its investors could have investing or striking privileges.

Stripe: 20 billion. Adyen (stock symbol: ADYEN) 19 billion. Shopify (stock symbol: SHOP) 17 billion. Square (stock symbol: SQ) 39 billion. Paypal (stock symbol: PYPL) 107 billion.

Paypal cofounders Elon Musk and Thiel are early Stripe investors.

Former Paypal EVP Keith Rabois is a Stripe investor and was COO of Square.

<comment><USER18> Adyen is actually 23b as the 19b you mentioned is in Euros. It's also noteworthy that Stripe has about 1/2 the revenue and the same growth as Adyen, so it will be interesting to see how this plays out in the public markets given that they have nearly identical business models.

<comment><USER9> You are right.

Right now, 1 euro is worth about 1.17 dollars.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I want to love Stripe, and I do wish them well, but I've gotten such weird feelings about some of their offerings.

On HN and other parts of the internet, representatives go out of their way to make themselves seem available if you have an issue, or have a problem. But when you finally do reach out, I haven't found them to be as receptive as they otherwise portray themselves to be.

Maybe it's miscommunication internally, or maybe it's employees not being well-equipped. But when you send a thoughtful, well-written message and don't hear anything back, it makes you wonder if it's just lip service.

Whatever it is, good on them for hitting such a great milestone. I know I'll never hit $20B in anything except in Zimbabwean dollars.

<comment><USER20> (I work at Stripe.) I'm really sorry to hear that...we do want to be available here any way we can, but something must've went wrong. I'd love to find out. Could you email me at firstname.lastname@example.com?

<comment><USER19> We've spoken Edwin. After our first exchange I didn't hear back from you. The first exchange was great, and unexpected, and maybe it set the bar a little too high. If you didn't have an answer, or had a bad answer, saying anything is better than saying nothing at all.

You unintentionally proved my point. It's not like I'm hiding behind this username.

I just emailed you and the other relevant parties. Going on the record: Not expecting to hear back. Just wanted to leave my thoughts in the open.

<comment><USER21> I'm looking forward to seeing how this one plays out!

<comment><USER22> I don't know if there is any RemindMe! bot in HN, but it would definitely be useful in this scenario.

<comment><USER19> Crickets so far from patio11, pc, and edwinwee. I wrote a kind and thoughtful email expressing my grievances and giving them the benefit of the doubt. But I've heard nothing back. I've even left voicemail.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> In 2017 e-commerce accounted for 9% of all retail sales. If I recall correctly, Amazon is the biggest e-commerce vendor and they are using Stripe.

There are no sure bets in business, but If I had to bet on a private software company's survival 20-25 years down the road I'd be hard pressed to bet against Stripe. I also think their leadership is very impressive w/ the Collision bros at the helm.

<comment><USER24> I hadn't heard about Amazon using Stripe before.

Here's an article from 2017 talking about it: [https://www.geekwire.com/2017/amazon-quietly-starts-using- st...](https://www.geekwire.com/2017/amazon-quietly-starts-using-stripe- process-e-commerce-transactions/)

<comment><USER25> Amazing. I wonder why? Amazon must have insane deals with the credit cards. This must be to access some tech that amazon doesn't want to replicate for some small slice of its business - maybe on the fraud side.

<comment><USER26> I bet Amazon is only using Stripe for a small slice of their payments to cover gaps in their own payments stack. I'm sure it's worth it for them to be able to take payments at a higher rate than not be able to take payments at all. That's just a back-end optimization they can handle later.

I don't know what slice that is, but there's plenty of reasons you might go with a more expensive provider. Maybe they support some piece of technology you don't (like Apple or Google pay in browsers), or can process for a card type you can't (like one of the country-specific debit card schemes like EFTPOS in AU or Interac in CA), or just are set up to process payments in some country that Amazon doesn't have infrastructure set up yet. A quick google shows Amazon launched in India and Japan in 2017, so maybe one of those markets had some quirk they didn't want to bother supporting on their own until payment volumes got up.

It looks like Amazon and Stripe both launched in India in 2017, [https://stripe.com/blog/india-private-beta](https://stripe.com/blog/india- private-beta)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> As a client, I love working with them. I never thought I'd say that about a payment processor.

I get pitched lower rates by their competitors all the time, but their software sucks. Giving a refund on Authorize.net feels like I'm being forced to travel back to the 1990s web.

Stripe's site is intuitive, their rates are good, they integrate easily with every software I use and their customer service speaks to me like humans. (Plus they have patio11)

<comment><USER28> I'm not even a Stripe customer but I still like to visit their site from time to time for design cues. Of mainstream B2B tech companies, I think Stripe has some of the best front end design I've ever seen. Everything is gorgeous AND useful. And despite so many products and pages, you never feel disoriented on their site

<comment><USER29> Agreed! The sheer amount of landing pages borrowing from Stripe's wide shadow button style is a testament to this

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I must admit I don't really understand Stripe's competitive advantage. When Uber wants to charge a customer's credit card, their main concern is the payment processor's commission, isn't it? It seems like the ultimate commodity business. Why aren't there 10 payment processors all competing to charge Uber's customer's credit card for a razor-thin fee?

<comment><USER31> At Uber's scale, sure, but for smaller companies you have to understand that before Stripe you needed to get your own merchant account and that meant dealing with a bank. That's one. You also had to deal with a payment gateway, which was pretty horrible before Braintree, and Stripe was another step function, that's two. The processors are the middleman, and here there is all kinds of details and clever ways fees are sliced. Ubers of the world have the scale to invest in optimizing this but companies smaller than <500 generally don't and an integrated solution like Stripe just solves a lot of headaches even if it more expensive in the end. Having the expertise to even understand how to optimize payment commissions is non-trivial.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> So maybe I don't understand because I'm a dumb-dumb lay person, but what does Stripe do differently from all the other payment processors that has given its rise and hype.

Is Stripe popular because its developer friendly? What makes it better than Apple Pay, PayPal, and Square? Normally, when I shop online, I'm usually given an option to type my credit card info or use my PayPal account. Where does Stripe fit into all of this?

<comment><USER33> For my side project website (see my profile), I started to implement PayPal and got seriously confused with the documentation and process (I'm not a professional developer). Mid-process I actually didn't even know if I was even dealing with PayPal or Braintree anymore. Then magically I received a package in the mail from Moneris. They shipped me a stack of those carbon-copy paper credit card slips and machine (that cha-chunk sound)... for my website. This was like 3 years ago.

I asked my professional dev friend what the heck was going on and he told me to use Stripe. Never heard of Stripe before that. Friend also told me his revenue was frozen for weeks/months by PayPal for his projects. A weekend later, I was done implementing Stripe.

My partner insisted I use PayPal because that's what everyone recognized/used, but I flat out refused after implementing Stripe.

<comment><USER34> > I started to implement PayPal and got seriously confused with the > documentation and process (I'm not a professional developer)

The feeling is the same for most "professional" developers too. The old XML API is horrible by modern standards.

They do have a new one though that's less of a pain.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I have heard for years people criticizing the payments industry as a low margin commodity biz. What has changed? Or they just got it wrong?

<comment><USER36> The first principles changed. From Elad Gil in First Round Review:

"In the tech world, particularly after PayPal was sold to eBay, the dogma for many years was 'Don't ever do payments, it's too hard and fraud will blow up and destroy you.' And during the first internet wave, that was true. It was a challenge to get the type of data and information you needed to really deal with fraud at scale," he says. "But fast forward to today and take a look at companies such as Stripe and Affirm. It seems that the fraud problems weren't as bad as we thought and we've since developed systems, processes and data science tools that just didn't exist back then. So if you'd applied first principles thinking five or 10 years ago, asking if those assumptions were still true and digging into whether it was still too hard, then maybe you would have come to a very different conclusion about starting a payments company and gotten ahead of the curve."

[http://firstround.com/review/future-founders-heres-how-to- sp...](http://firstround.com/review/future-founders-heres-how-to-spot-and- build-in-nonobvious-markets/)

<comment><USER37> Also, the fraudsters found the online payments business fairly early on, before there were a lot of real customers. In the late 90s, many merchants had as many fraud attempts as actual transactions, and a few fraudsters working through a box of stolen credit cards could take a small merchant to the cleaners. Now that online payments are so large, and there is a finite number of sophisticated fraudsters, fraud as a percentage is lower.

<comment><USER38> It makes me wonder if the same dynamic is at work with cryptocurrencies now. Fraudsters found and adopted them early, because if your goal is to commit fraud, having a currency not under the control of the banking system is a pretty critical attribute. But now that the mainstream world is aware of them and people are actively researching what they might be good for, that may not hold true forever.

<comment><USER39> The difference is that crypto is only good for fraud. So it'll never move past this early stage.

<comment><USER40> Stunning analysis

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> [https://stripe.com/global](https://stripe.com/global) shows a continent with no lights on.

Please come to Africa. The lights are on here.

<comment><USER42> Hey. Fellow African here :)

What part of Africa are you in? Asking because I work at Flutterwave, flutterwave.com (a payment processing company) and we can definitely help you to process payments.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> It's easy to see how, taking a cut off the top of a huge percentage of online purchases is an insanely nice place to be.

I've personally found myself preferring Stripe-based payments when there are multiple options (such as PayPal and Amazon pay) as well. Maybe I'm wrong on this, but I feel like dropping my credit card details into a Stripe window is more private than connecting to PayPal or Amazon accounts. It feels more like just swiping a credit card at a store.

</comment><comment><USER44> Pretty annoying that it's illegal for me to invest in any of these newish tech companies.

<comment><USER45> It's not illegal for you to invest in Stripe. It's simply illegal for Stripe to try and _sell_ you their stock. If you happen to have personal connections to Stripe leadership, and they haven't hit the regulatory shareholder limit (after which they must start filing disclosures with the SEC), you could legally buy all the Stripe stock you could afford.

<comment><USER46> Have you seen an example of a regular middle-class person actually doing this? Because in all the stories I've heard, company leadership just say "no, you need to be an accredited investor to do that", and that's it.

<comment><USER45> Parents and college buddies, mostly. I've never seen anyone who wasn't personally connected to the founders or VCs be allowed to invest if they weren't an accredited investor because it's simply not worth the hassle to the company.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> A bit off topic but I'll ask it here anyway - I see Stripe Atlas advertised as an easy way to start an "Internet Business". What exactly is the definition of an Internet Business? If I sold a physical product, would I still be able to set up the company through Stripe Atlas?

<comment><USER48> I work on Stripe Atlas. Your question is answered in a bit more detail here: [https://stripe.com/docs/atlas#should](https://stripe.com/docs/atlas#should) (and the answer below that one).

We have a number of product decisions to make about how we do things, so the design center of Stripe Atlas is Internet companies. If one incorporates e.g. a Delaware LLC through Stripe Atlas, that's an LLC. LLCs can e.g. own apartment buildings. We generally assume you probably won't use us to form an LLC to own and operate an apartment building. There is, at present, no plan to have an Atlas meetup to swap tips on finding great exterminators. But if e.g. you sell SaaS, we have a lot to say about selling SaaS, and your peers in Atlas will run businesses similar in character to yours.

Many Stripe Atlas companies sell physical products; most of them are technically-enabled or sold over the Internet. If we were hypothetically not able to support a product business, it would not be because it is physical, it would be for one of the reasons on the link above.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> So happy to hear. They deserve it! Couldn't remember the name for a second, but so glad I never have to deal with authorize.net again ... ever!

<comment><USER50> I once wrote an OLE control from Authorize.net that used XML in Powerbuilder to communicate with a Lisp server to do my payments. Stripe is better :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> Please come to South Africa! We need a decent alternative to PayPal for international payments/subscriptions

</comment><comment><USER52> Stupid question: how does a $245 million dollars bring a company's valuation from $9 billion to $20 billion?

Last I checked, $245 million =/= $11 billion

<comment><USER53> It means a VC paid $245 million to purchase 1.225% (which is $245M divided by $20B) of Stripe's stock.

<comment><USER17> In transactions, is it typical to just create new stock such that the newly created stock is 1.225% of the final total? Would the previous investors agree to diluting their stock like that? Or is it common to sell from a common pool of stock that's owned by the company (who is that? the CEO? what is the company if not for the stock distribution?)?

<comment><USER54> You should read a book on this, it's not something that someone can/will explain in a one off paragraph comment.

<comment><USER17> Any recommendations? Thanks!

<comment><USER54> I was assigned several in lae school, they wouldn't be relevant to you. Any introduction book on corporate structure and corporate governance would do as a foundation (for your jurisdiction) I would imagine, any specific questions you would have after that would be answered in the followup material in the references of such a book.

Business school and law school students have to buy many books on these topics, and their resale value is low. Any second hand book shop has lots of them, so does abebooks. It doesn't have to be expensive, it's the time you have to invest that 'costs' (in the generalized economic sense) the most.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> $20B and still need funding rounds.

</comment><comment><USER56> Now only if it didn't take 7 days to get your payment processed

<comment><USER57> Which country are you in? We're working on speeding up payout times around the world -- it's something people are (rightly) very sensitive to. If you email me at email@example.com I can look into it for you.

<comment><USER51> Hi John, using this opportunity to ask when you guys coming to South Africa? We REALLY need some international processing here

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> It would be great if they never go public.

<comment><USER50> They are a great example of how an API is all that really matters. Anyone could have done their biz, but they made a good API.

<comment><USER58> I agree that their API is great, but there's so much more to building a business - most of all perseverance. Many people can make a good or great API but very few can execute on the rest.

<comment><USER50> Well in this case their API is backed by a connection to credit card systems... the hard part. The card companies could have done it, but they needed Stripe to show how obvious it is.

<comment><USER59> The reason Stripe exists is because the card companies couldn't do it. They were incompetent, unimaginative, lazy, slow, arrogant, etc.

Exactly what you typically see out of entrenched goliaths.

It's the same reason several of them that have tried can't catch up with Stripe, despite trying for years, despite vast resources, and despite Stripe showing them how to do it.

It's only in a non-reality-touching theory that the card companies could have done it (ie if you entirely disregard everything about them and only focus on resources and then give them attributes they don't possess). In actuality, they couldn't do it.

Microsoft and Nokia couldn't have produced the iPhone. IBM couldn't have produced AWS. AOL couldn't have produced Google. Disney couldn't have produced Netflix. Facebook couldn't have produced Instagram. Xerox couldn't have produced the Apple II. Sony and Microsoft couldn't have produced Steam. GM and Ford couldn't have produced the Model S. Boeing and Lockheed couldn't have produced the Falcon 9. Wyndham and Hilton couldn't have produced Airbnb. The taxi cartels couldn't have produced Uber or Lyft.

Culture acting as an innovation blockade is the unifying impediment between them all, not lack of resources or that something was technically too challenging.

<comment><USER50> I agree. What I meant by "could" is it was right in their backyard, as are all your examples. Their failure is representative of bigco culture.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> How much money would it take to duplicate the offerings and marketing of Stripe.

And shouldn't _that_ be the actual valuation?

<comment><USER61> And when we have a formula that can express developing a user base and market trust, particularly in the face of a company that already has it, may be we will.

Until then, it's not terribly accurate to say "A team of 5 can write it in 6 months, so call it $2 mill valuation after hardware and support" because spending some money to have the exact product DOESN'T mean you have nor can get their customers.

<comment><USER60> $2 mil on devs and $1B on marketing should do it.</comment></comment></comment>


Why almost no one is making a living on YouTube - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2018/03/02/why-almost-no-one-is-making-a-living-on-youtube/ <comment><USER2> Unless you're aiming for that top 3% spot as an entertainer, you're meant to treat YouTube as a funnel. It's a market place for you to place some free content that you use to (help) build your brand, offer value back to the community for free, all the while building commercially viable options behind the scenes which you funnel those viewers into.

People who rely purely on YouTube's AdSense for income are the Internet's buskers and YouTube is their tip jar.</comment>


I coded a font composed of animated pie charts. Like it? - <AUTHOR> https://mocean.ca <comment><USER2> IMNAT [I'm not a typographer.] I think that the vertical lines are too thin.

Is it possible to create a gif with the text? Can you add some adjustments for the speed, and the time between letter?

<comment><AUTHOR> The gif is a great idea. Comments like these are great because it lets me know where to invest my time. Yes, it's little fast. Thanks!</comment></comment>