Back to SF After the U.S. Digital Service

https://insouciant.org/tech/back-to-sf-after-usds/

by _kcn8 • 11 years ago

164 147 11 years ago

_nqbv2• 11 years ago

I didn't catch this part- why did the author leave? Was it just a term end and he chose not to renew it?

gkoberger2• 11 years ago

They do "tours of duty", since I think they found people had a hard time moving to DC permanently. Using this, they've managed to get a lot of people to take sabbaticals from their Google/FB/etc jobs.

"Quit your high paying job and indefinitely work for the government" is a hard sell; "come do something awesome for 6 months then go back" is much easier.

rayiner2• 11 years ago

I.e. the revolving door.

_nqbv2• 11 years ago

So I was aware of their tours of duty, but I thought that was not a carrot for outsiders to come in, but rather a way to circumvent the traditional hiring process. Probably doesn't hurt that the commitment is temporary.

From what I understood, rather than go through the job listing process with position writeups, giving veteran and disability preferences, dealing with HR on the certification process, getting various new office reorganizations approved by congress (they literally have to approve each individual office creation) and so on, they simply got an approval for 200-300 "innovation specialists" (that's what everyone's job title is there) and then they can informally cherry-pick whoever they actually want without going through the red tape. The mechanism is like having a standing approval for hiring 20 French speaking translators at all times, since that's a specialized standing volume-based need.

Anyhow, guess my question was more about the author's motivation for not choosing to extend the tour. It wasn't really spelled out in the post.

acdha3• 11 years ago

If anyone reading this is looking for a more permanent job working for the government, check out https://18f.gsa.gov/ which is trying to build up a modern software group which provides services for the rest of the government. Ben Balter, Github's Government evangelist, summarized the difference between the two here:

http://ben.balter.com/2015/04/22/the-difference-between-18f-...

(Disclaimer: I don't work there but know a number of people who do and, as a taxpayer, am cheering them on)

Kephael3• 11 years ago

Most of those listed as employees of the digital service on the main site seem to be employed for political purposes, if you read their biographies most don't have deep technical skills. The whole department seems to have been created to help Obama deflect from the healthcare.gov debacle and make it seem like he was taking serious action to fix the site.

dnautics3• 11 years ago

"Helping rich people get taxis easier". As a Lyft and Uber driver, I count among my rides: getting a rough looking fellow (who has spent years in prison after accidentally killing someone in a bar fight) get to the only job that would take him - affordably and on-time (he would have been fired otherwise). I've given an enlisted navy family from Oklahoma (husband was deployed) get home from a late night run to a distant Walmart - the military pay for an e-3 is low and I imagine tough to support a family of three and there are few other options without a college degree.

It's crazy to read about this guy who wonders if this all matters... The amount of money that the government spends to get a marginal improvement on society beyond basic functions of the government should be even more dismaying.

And it's incredibly patronizing to despair from on high that tech doesn't do any good for society.

angersock2• 11 years ago

A good part of the reason that they spend that money is because they've been discouraged and hamstrung from developing those expertise in-house.

dnautics3• 11 years ago

Don't forget the mechanism by which government spends money - it issues a bond, which gets converted to dollars. The bond comes with interest, and the interest payments go to rich people (banks).

wpietri8• 11 years ago

The explicit inspiration for Uber's founding was as a "limo timeshare service": http://newsroom.uber.com/2010/12/ubers-founding/

I"m glad that some people are also getting easier taxi service. But having worked in in SF since the last bubble, there is definitely an intense focus here on solving rich-people problems; when they serve others (e.g., struggling felons and young military personnel) it is often, at best, a side effect.

jsn117• 11 years ago

Every solution starts out as a solution for rich people, that's what brings the price down for everyone else

nostrademons4• 11 years ago

That's often how technological progress works: it's developed to solve either a pressing-but-not-so-noble problem and then someone adapts it so the average person can benefit, or it's developed to solve a trivial and useless problem and someone improves it so it's useful to the average person.

We built radar so we could detect German bombers; we got microwave ovens from it. We built GPS so we could guide missiles and spy satellites; we got turn-by-turn navigation and Uber out of it. We built Twitter so we could send 140-character text messages; we got the Arab Spring out of it. We built the ARPANet to coordinate top-secret military projects; we got the Internet out of it. We built PCs to play games; we got Visicalc, Word, and all sorts of productivity boosts from it. We built computers to break German codes and guide artillery shells; you know where that went.

tolmasky• 11 years ago

A lot of problems look this way. If you want to really start thinking about this: ask yourself whether we should be focusing on obesity and heart disease at all. What greater rich person problem than too much food. You could argue that we should be focusing entirely on "real" problems like malaria first, then deal with the side effect of first world culture. We choose to focus the lens in our own frame of reference, so "taxis" seem like rich people problems, as opposed to having the frame of reference be something more objective like the state of the world, when all of a sudden many more issues reveal themselves to be "rich people problems".

Of course, funny enough, many of the same people that complain about this will simultaneously tell you how many unexpected discoveries came from seemingly abstract government funded projects (from pure research that has no clear immediate benefit to huge projects like landing on the moon). Such side effects are not exclusive to government projects however. So too the problems we choose to work on voluntarily. I think its not necessary to get into the great many benefits studying the heart for the sake of heart disease have given the medical community in general. Another example I like to use is how the gaming industry has led to the development of super powerful graphics cards that now have enormous medical uses. Personal computers themselves have enabled so much for our society. But before there could be a 200 notebook there had to be a 10,000$ rich person computer.

In my experience, it is a trap to worry about what is "impactful". You will make a much greater impact on the world working on what you're good at and what you enjoy, because you have more control on making that GOOD than making the alternative impactful. If you look at the history of truly amazing discoveries, they are rarely straight forward, so its a better bet to invest in what you like than what you think is important.

codeonfire• 11 years ago

Ride sharing is helping lots of not-rich people in small and medium sized towns who can't find jobs but have a car. I can go to my hometown and probably would request an Uber or Lyft. I never once took a taxi living in the same area for 20 years.

I for one think technology should help the living. The goal should not be to maximize human population on Earth. If we could reduce the birthrate, fewer children would die from disease. Overpopulation is sometimes the cause of widespread disease.

ibejoeb• 11 years ago

Ride sharing also helps the middle class by providing available, affordable transportation and reducing the need for (multiple) vehicle ownership. It certainly has the potential to reduce emissions and other waste.

There are certainly some trivial things out there, but I wouldn't include ride sharing in that population.

I agree with the "help the living" objective. Helping poor, sick, foreign children is a fine cause. So is helping Joe Public.

If you make video games, and those games offer a few people a little entertainment and enjoyment, I think you've done some good.

simoncion4• 11 years ago

Overpop is sometimes the cause of disease. Compared to the effects of ignorance, poor education, or systemic corruption, overpop is never the cause of widespread disease in contemporary human society.

If one is actually concerned about population control, sterilization is an easy, simple, relatively safe, and well understood solution.

krakensden• 11 years ago

Last time I was on AC transit, I was next to two men in their fifties in white tees, one of whom was trying to convince the other to get his groceries with Uber- "only 7 bucks".

People are too convinced Uber is too expensive, I suspect[1].

[1]: I've never actually used Uber

carlosdp3• 11 years ago

I think the US Digital Service is a great initiative and I'll consider taking a tour myself in the future. That said, I don't really like these kinds of thinkers who believe the only companies that are doing something "that matters" are non-profits working directly on a specific problem in healthcare or poverty.

I have yet to work for a company, from non-profit internet companies to product-oriented SaaS startup powerhouses, that didn't enable some great initiative or program that could not have existed without that company creating and improving their product and making it accessible, via availability or cost, to the non-profit that needed to worry about doing their actual work.

Take the author's old company, Google, for example. They don't do anything "that matters"? I assure you there are many non-profits, charities, and important initiatives around the world that would have a much harder time if they didn't benefit from technologies that Google ushered in to the world. Mass, cheap communication via free email that is highly-available and untied from specific ISPs. Free, globally available document storage to safely store records and share documents across the globe, saving on the cost of having an entire department to handle the same task.

These products may seem frivolous and unnecessary to us, because we can (maybe) live without them. But there are organizations directly doing important, charitable work that can't. Saying product companies that don't directly work on the world's poverty, social, or health (etc.) problems are not working on "things that matter" is just pretentious, in my opinion.

All that said, the author has the right to feel the way he feels and work wherever and on whatever he wants to. Just don't tell everyone else what they do doesn't really matter.

But that's just my two cents =)

wpietri8• 11 years ago

Saying profit-making companies are inherently not working on "things that matter" is just pretentious, in my opinion.

Where do you believe he said that?

The things he called out were "helping rich people find taxis more easily, selling ads more effectively, or building sexting apps". He also said that he believed "the advancing state of computing technology has overall benefitted peoples’ lives".

So I think you're mainly arguing against a straw man here.

carlosdp3• 11 years ago

I had a feeling that sentence was going to be taken apart and thought I should change it, but I didn't have the words at the time. By "profit-making companies", I mean companies that work on products for people that are not directly designed to help an impoverished people or solve a health or social problem. That is being implied here. He calls out the "sexting apps" directly, but most of the article is about him reconnecting with his friends at Google and the conclusion seems driven from that interaction.

kmonsen2• 11 years ago

I am not sure why you say old company. I don't think he said he left Google.

I also don't think he is against working for profit companies (Google being one of them).

I think you are reading more between the lines than what he meant.

jxm262• 11 years ago

Nice read. I don't mean to derail the discussion, but I wonder what sort of developers they were looking for when recruiting for the program. When I applied to the US Digital Service, I received a message back - "we are seeking candidates with skills tightly matched to our current projects. Members of our team reviewed your application, and we don't have the perfect match for your background right now". I'm mostly a web developer, so perhaps they were looking for a different background.

I have many of the same thoughts as the author (feel like my dev skills could be used to help some greater causes), but not sure where else I could make an impact. Particularly in government where I have alot of interest.

ryanSrich3• 11 years ago

There are plenty of startups and companies working on important, world changing problems. You just have to look outside of Silicon Valley.

clebio2• 11 years ago

Not to derail your derailment any further, but hey.

I live in Kansas City, and there's a fascinating startup here working on enabling farming with an open-data platform. They build hardware pucks to go on combine harvesters and stream the data collection to a Django front-end. They're also working on ingesting legalese forms that farmers have to file and putting web-based (Django) interfaces over them (c.f. how TurboTax will show you a tax form that's missing a form entry).

So, as someone else mentioned here, if you're willing to look outside the Valley, there's lots of interesting, high-paying work that helps the common good.

alwaysdoit• 11 years ago

Why not take rich people's money for taxis, and then donate how ever much of your salary to charities that are trying to fight malaria you think is appropriate?

Is making $40K/yr doing something "meaningful" better than making $100K/yr doing something "meaningless" and donating $60k/yr to meaningful causes?

wpietri8• 11 years ago

Have you tried this? I know a lot of people, but nobody who has done this sustainably.

I've definitely seen people start out on that road. But either they eventually quit and find jobs with meaning or they gradually end up not caring about meaning and spend the money on creature comforts.

nostrademons4• 11 years ago

Bill Gates is the most prominent public example.

I also know a number of folks at Google who are very charitably active despite working big-corp jobs. Usually they compartmentalize very drastically, though, so I never heard about their charitable activities at work and only learned about them second-hand, through chance encounters with mutual acquaintances.

nmrm2• 11 years ago

Doesn't that entirely depend upon whether you think you'll be more effective than some other person making 60k/yr?

In other words, if you're a "10x" malaria killer and if 10xers are rare in the malaria killing business, then probably it's better for everyone (except you) that you kill malaria for a living. Rather than paying someone 60k to take your place (esp. if that other person is a 1xer or -10xer.)

dragonwriter6• 11 years ago

Why not take rich people's money for taxis, and then donate how ever much of your salary to charities that are trying to fight malaria you think is appropriate?

That's a great thing to do.

It doesn't directly address the problem of insufficient talent being directed to those projects, though of course the money might allow the people running those projects to offer more to talent, which might deal with the problem.

Of course, choosing to work on the project yourself deals with that issue more directly.

lefler• 11 years ago

It doesn't have to be either/or. Will Chan is donating 20% of his income to charity. He has done that whether he was in DC with us or at Google. https://plus.google.com/app/basic/stream/z13pddzpwn30d5ozb04...

I support the idea of effective altruism, but at this exact moment, I believe that technical people donating time goes further than technical people donating money.

Jemaclus2• 11 years ago

I applied and interviewed with the USDS, but the biggest thing was that they wanted me to move to DC for 6+ months. I'm quite happy here on the west coast, engaged to be married, and attempting to buy a house. Moving cross-country is pretty much a deal-breaker for me.

That said, I really, really want to get involved in something that matters. My dream, for lack of a better phrase, no matter how cheesy it may sound, is to change the world. I want to solve what I call Epic Problems: malaria, clean water, homelessness, HIV, slavery, human trafficking. Or even something as simple as making a trip to the DMV as painless as picking up a prescription at the drug store.

omouse2• 11 years ago

I wouldn't mind that kind of short tour of duty if they would pay for the roundtrip airfare every few weeks and for a room in DC. I assume only politicians would that kind of sweet deal though.

ryanSrich3• 11 years ago

If they truly wanted to embrace technology and working on important problems in the year 2015 they'd support remote work...

nacin4• 11 years ago

We're embedded directly in project teams at agencies. I spent five years working remotely and running a major open source project before joining the U.S. Digital Service in January. I love remote work and enjoy extolling its virtues, but very simply, we could not do this job remotely, at least not for the time being.

Our friends at 18F (https://18f.gsa.gov) have a lot of people working remotely, as well as offices in SF, Chicago, and New York. The nature of their work is simply different (and just as awesome).

markdeloura2• 11 years ago

You should reach out to 18F! While home base for them is DC, quite a few of the members are on the west coast. https://18f.gsa.gov/

karmajunkie• 11 years ago

What about austin?

sliverstorm3• 11 years ago

Maybe I'm wrong here, but I think if you want to solve Epic Problems like malaria and slavery, you are going to have to be ready to put things like buying a house and living where you like in the back seat.

davmre• 11 years ago

That doesn't seem obvious. There are people working on banking, advertising, business software development, etc. in pretty much every major city. Why shouldn't the same be true of Epic Problems?

You can direct your work efforts towards goals that are important/meaningful to you without necessarily sacrificing everything else in your life. Conversely you can give up a good deal of your life to work on unimportant problems, and many people do.

Jemaclus2• 11 years ago

Yes, like someone else said, that's not necessarily true or obvious. There's a DMV in every major city in the country, there are veteran services, immigration offices, department of defense, department of human resources, housing and urban development, and all the other alphabet agencies in almost every major city. There are hospitals, universities, and research labs in every major city. There are police departments, sheriff's departments, SWAT teams, FBI teams, and ATF teams in every major city. And in this day and age, remote work is a thing -- technology in general is a thing.

I don't see any reason I need to give up anything (other than maybe a huge salary) to work on these problems. The true roadblock for me, I believe, is just a lack of knowledge and education on those particular issues.

serve_yay• 11 years ago

"I want to change the world and all, but I just got really comfy in this chair..."

omouse2• 11 years ago

Most social impact projects and organizations are in the east coast, and, at least as far as I could tell (but in all likelihood, it’s probably because I suck at finding them), most of them don’t seem to have significant / meaningful software projects

That's because they're stuck in the stone-ages and don't have the imagination to use and create software (aka they're run by marketers, managers and people who want to feel good about themselves). The charities/non-profits are treated as non-technical users, the donors are treated as non-technical, the board members and C-level execs are all conservative. It's a wonder that there's been any use of software in automating and lowering the costs for non-profits to operate.

It's more meaningful to work on Uber because at least there you have the potential to deliver food using the service to more homeless people than any other food delivery service.

The beginning of this post was good; fighting malaria is a big enough problem that could use better software (or at least more big-picture thinking). That's the kind of stuff we should be working on; being able to distribute malaria nets as fast, as cheap and as efficiently as possible.

I don't know, you can't expect too much from companies and you can't expect much from non-profits either. At least while working at Google you have the chance to use some of your time for things like the disaster reporting/mapping tech or something else that can directly help someone like Gmail (charities do need a way to communicate!)

jchrisa3• 11 years ago

The flip side of "you can't expect much" is that a little help from tech folks would go a long way. Organize a hack event where non-tech people describe the stuff they need help with and tech people try to form solutions. The important thing is the relationships, not the solutions.

tomjen33• 11 years ago

That is probably the only insightful comment on this article, which is sad for hn, however relationships are based on trust and respect and based on the other comments here programmers can't even respect themselves.

pdeuchler3• 11 years ago

Large leaps in technology have always, and will always, benefit the wealthiest 1% at the beginning. This is just the basics of capital in a capitalistic society.

The internet has already redistributed earth shattering quantities of wealth in record time. Besides, to actually solve the "real problems" (no true scotsman, but we won't go down that path) you still need massive amounts of capital. Where else are you going to get that capital except for individuals who have gained their wealth through industry?

Can't help but feel that there's a serious holier-than-thou tone throughout the article just because the author spent 6 months in DC. Thought experiment: who is helping the 1% more, people who generate products for a public company or people who work on pet political projects for the DC elite? (Not implying there's a right answer to that question, and not implying that's all the OP did with their time in DC)

cheeseprocedure• 11 years ago

Large leaps in technology have always, and will always, benefit the wealthiest 1% at the beginning. This is just the basics of capital in a capitalistic society.

What about the Green Revolution?

dragonwriter6• 11 years ago

> Large leaps in technology have always, and will always, benefit the wealthiest 1% at the beginning.
What about the Green Revolution?

The "Green Revolution" is a term applied largely to the wealthiest 1% deciding to fairly directly forgo some part of the short-term returns from certain technical developments to purchase longer-term sociopolitical security and greater long term profits, specifically, to forgo some of the short-term profits of new agricultural technology to head-off dissatisfaction that might lead to Communist revolutions and instead get large parts of the world positively engaged with both specific product lines and the more general neoliberal economic model.

It certainly is not a counterexample to the technological changes benefitting the wealthiest in the short term.

pdeuchler3• 11 years ago

Honest question, do you mean to imply the Green Revolution did not follow this pattern?

From my understanding it followed the pattern exactly by spawning the creation of the huge food production conglomerates we have today while also greatly enriching vestiges of colonial powers as the movement grew to feed the "global hungry".

The last three paragraphs of this section of the wikipedia page more or less confirm it fit the pattern: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Revolution#Criticism

gress3• 11 years ago

The Internet has already redistributed earth shattering quantities of wealth in record time.

Given that inequality has been steeply rising, you must mean that it has redistributed wealth further from the poor to the rich.

dragonwriter6• 11 years ago

Or one might mean that it has redistributed the other way, while other factors in society were redistributing from the poor to the rich, and that the net imbalance would be far worse without the mitigating effect of the internet.

Your presentation presumes that the internet is the only redistributive factor that existed in the time under consideration.

umeshunni• 11 years ago

Global inequality has been sharply dropping over the past few decades as hundreds of millions of people in India and China have been lifted out of poverty. Amusing that you think inequality has been rising.

clebio2• 11 years ago

I disagree with your first paragraph, but plenty of others here are already responding to that 'trickle-down' sentiment.

I also didn't read the article as being 'holier-than-thou' (in fact, entirely secular, but hey). It sounded to me more like someone narrating their own, personal, feelings on a topic and giving some context to why he might not give an unequivocal affirmative response to coworkers' queries about staying at one or the other job. Because life is complicated and there often aren't binaries. It's not a sentiment that gets a lot of traction on HN, but it's also not proselytizing.

pdeuchler3• 11 years ago

I never implied, nor do I endorse the fact, that this results in a trickle down effect. If you would like to dispute the actual economics of my first sentence I have roughly 700 years of history and research to back my claim.

However your quibble with my phrasing of "holier" and the fact that you needed to point out that there aren't binaries in life kind of shows your true intentions in disagreeing, don't you? Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but when you start moralizing and implying that your opinion is preferable on moral grounds, well... I'm gonna call you out.

>> "Working for the U.S. Digital Service showed me that, indeed, there were far better ways for me to spend my time if I really wanted to make a difference in people’s lives."

a-dub• 11 years ago

So... Gates Foundation or Google Ideas?

acabrahams• 11 years ago

I'm sure this is a stupid question, but after a few minutes of googling I am still unclear on the answer so I thought I'd ask it here. I am about to start studying in the US (college), so I was wondering if the USDS accepts non-American citizens? Even without a green card? (I'm British, btw).

nacin4• 11 years ago

18F can hire legal permanent residents.

singularity2001• 11 years ago

The first paragraphs read like cheesy paid promo for jobs in Washington. Trying to fix government is a great endeavor though, independent of the articles authenticity.

wslack2• 11 years ago

It's sometimes genuinely hard not to sound cheesy when discussing my work in DC (moved here a few months ago). :) Here's another piece on this sort of work with a different tone but the same message: https://medium.com/@USDigitalService/mikey-dickerson-to-sxsw...

hueving• 11 years ago

Something about DC seems to give people the impression that anyone doing anything else in the world is "stuff that doesn't matter". R&D at these companies is what actually solves problems at the root cause.

How would all of that healthcare exchange work have gone if the tech industry didn't build the massive infrastructure it relies on (database tech, network tech, version control, the Internet)?

It feels like the person that wrote this article is the guy in the war movie yelling at the people designing new defenses for not being on the front lines firing a gun. There is a place for both roles, and shitting all over one half doesn't make you better than them, it just makes you myopic.

hodgesmr• 11 years ago

Something about DC seems to give people the impression that anyone doing anything else in the world is "stuff that doesn't matter".

I see this from people that live in the Bay too.

NYC too.

schoen• 11 years ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_G%C3%B6ttingen#C...

misuba• 11 years ago

If there were profit in solving real problems, there wouldn't be any real problems.

deepdiver16• 11 years ago

What would be a good way to find companies that try to address more "pressing needs" and need strong technical help? I am currently in Indonesia, on a break after 20y in Silicon Valley, and would have time to help. I've thought about NGOs but I suspect these may be hard to navigate? Thanks in advance for any pointers and ideas

worldadventurer• 11 years ago

If you're interested in working in beautiful Cebu, Philippines, to build products that improve the lives of the poor worldwide, check out www.engageSPARK.com . We're recruiting for 6+ month Fellows as well as Permanent hires. We have a talented international team and are looking for more passionate people who want to leverage their tech skills to do good and help change lives. We're a not-for-profit business/startup building a challenging distributed platform that enables NGOs and governments to improve the lives of millions of people in poverty around the world.

For example, a large international NGO (Mercy Corps) used our platform to do a financial education program using voice calls & sms soap operas with quizzes (to reinforce and test comprehension) for 20,000 people affected by a natural disaster: http://solutionscenter.nethope.org/blog/view/hitting-it-home...

And Cebu is a great place to live. If you're a diver, you can be diving in warm tropical waters in less than an hour from the office!

nbevans• 11 years ago

I love how after 6 months working for someone he is happily blogging about it and he isn't ashamed about it even in the slightest. If I saw he'd worked for someone for 6 months only then I'd want to hear a good reason why he left. Otherwise I will just assume he was fired, or knew he was struggling against his peers and decided to move on by himself. You have to read his About page to realise that is probably not likely to be the case in this instance, but still.

kmonsen2• 11 years ago

You sign up for 6 months ...

beatpanda3• 11 years ago

I would love it if anyone repeating the tired talking point, that solutions for rich people's problems will magically transmogrify into solutions for real problems with actual impact on human potential and quality of life, could name even one example of this that's come out of U.S. technology startups in the last ten years.

I would also love it if anyone could explain why so many people don't feel compelled to do anything about the poverty in Silicon Valley that is becoming much, much worse and drastically curtailing social mobility for poor people in the area, and instead promote this idea of "efficient charity" or whatever to help people far away, instead of fixing the problems caused by the kind of people who focus solely on earning a lot of money. Problems that exist whether those people spend that money on mosquito nets or hookers and blow.

These talking points get thrown around over and over again, largely without evidence, and it's starting to feel like it's just people trying to justify their desire to make a pile of money without feeling bad about it.

tomjen33• 11 years ago

So getting laid isn't a problem with real human impact? I guess I'm not a real human being then. Maybe I should just go slit my wrist and stop taking up space that could be used by people who haven't committed the crime of doing something with their lives.

beatpanda3• 11 years ago

Believe it or not, people get laid every day without having to use the Internet. One thing that really helps that out is living in a city where lots of different kinds of people are able to live.

com2kid• 11 years ago

I would love it if anyone repeating the tired talking point, that solutions for rich people's problems will magically transmogrify into solutions for real problems with actual impact on human potential and quality of life, could name even one example of this that's come out of U.S. technology startups in the last ten years.

Android. It was a technology startup purchased by Google.

Stripe, it has enabled small working class merchants throughout the US to make multiples more money. Every farmers market I go to now days has merchants who can now accept credit cards (my spending has increased dramatically!)

Multiple other mobile payment and banking solutions have helped people around the world gain economic freedom.

beatpanda3• 11 years ago

Stripe wasn't trying to solve rich people's problems. Stripe was started for the explicit purpose you just stated -- to enable small vendors who couldn't otherwise afford credit card processing to take credit cards. It's a great example of what can happen when you actually apply effort to a real problem instead of hoping that some side effect of what you're doing will solve a real problem.

I don't really see where you're going with Android.

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