herenorthere

Of course, it's the loudest voices that always get heard and are oft repeated, but I'd say most of us in the industry realize that cryptocurrency will never be a 1:1 replacement of traditional fiat currency--barring some significant breakdown of society and government. It's more of a complementary thing. Something more like internet and radio (i.e. both are still used today, one did not completely replace the other). Not the best example but you get the picture. And then there is 3rd and 2nd world countries where crypto can be used as a sort of stop gap solution until a viable form of government and banking can be situated.

this a remote-first company. they will have different physical locations but most of the company will be working remotely. regardless, given that SF was the original HQ, that will likely always be the de facto HQ... since the higher ups are already coalesced around there

As someone who works at a large cryptocurrency business, and who's welfare is thus bound to the ongoing success of cryptocurrencies, I would like to state my unequivocal support of the notion presented in this article.

I think the potential of life improvement for many unbanked people in non-first world countries extends a little beyond the life improving characteristics of ham radio, but overall his sentiment on how inaccurate the "BTC is basically 90's internet" people are, is entirely correct.

that is exactly what Twitter has done. they didn't block Trump's tweet, they added a box basically saying "be weary of this statement you should fact check it"

As a person who used to work in produce in the US, just wanted to say the visual image of a produce clerk dumping a box of apples to the display is ungodly.

Where are you shopping? A few discount stores might do that, but there's no way any prominent stores do that. I mean, first of all, virtually all brands of apples don't just come loose in boxes, they are layered with cardboard trays. So you couldn't just dump them all out at once even if you wanted too. Unless you want to have cardboard trays flying everywhere. That's just not a simple or quick way to unload even if you are being careless!

What company is this? Sounds cool what you are doing

Wow. Great response. These comments are why I come here. Thank you!

It's cool to see the math/statistical analysis behind this, as it's something I've always done just intiutively I guess.

I will always have more trust for a 93% review with 1,000's of reviews, versus a product with a 100% review with only ~20 reviews. Much too easy to manipulate and/or pay for reviews to trust a product with such small sample size of feedback.

Fair enough-- I suppose that makes his decision moderately more reasonable

I get the impression that he views his declining of severance package as analogous to Colin Kaepernick kneeling during the national anthem, or some other righteous form of protest. But you're right it doesn't carry the same weight given his quarter-mil. per year salary

also giving up a $50k severance package doesn't sound as exceptional when you've already collected $660,000 from them. Yeah it's still a lot of money, but apparently being able to promote his blog with anecdotes from Pivotal was worth the $50k to him...

Honest question:

what did he say that you would presume he's been "sitting around waiting for life to drop an opportunity in his lap?"

I dont think it's necessarily a bad thing

I think I read an article like this on HN a few months ago, ty for the share

almost 20 years... so yeah I dont think it's going away. Being anxious about backing up traffic or the other things I described isn't that abnormal I don't think?

When Ive been a passenger, Ive seen most other drivers feel this way--whether they say it or not, you can see on their face they are feeling anxious.

I just get some social anxiety when people back up behind me, or anytime I feel like my driving is "imposing" on others. I know it's somewhat irrational. But I doubt a driving lesson would help with my more general problem of social anxiety.

Anyway, I'd rather be this type of driver than an overly dense person who doesn't mind backing up traffic. The type of people that will go sideways blocking four lanes coming out of a gas station to get to the turn lane...

I learned to drive in a "defensive" manner. Yes, sometimes non-action can be more dangerous in a specific situation; but feeling bad about backing up traffic doesn't make me a bad driver. Just an socially anxious one.

I agree though, in the original comment, I probably made it sound worse than it actually is for me. I just wish google maps had this option. I would find driving more pleasant.

Edit: I made some edits, to clear up my response

There's no way to optimize for minimizing left turns, especially onto busy streets.

Woah, I've never heard anyone else mention this problem. It sounds strange having it said "out loud" because I thought it was just a weird personal quirk/irritation of mine.

I have always wished there was a route option of "easy mode driving," or "no pressure route."

Often the "quickest" route google maps shows me is one that has some sort of difficult turn across multiple lanes going the other direction into a "suicide lane" or what have you.

Either that, of some sort of merging is necessary where you're basically at the mercy of other drivers letting you in (especially tough if you're not an aggressive driver like myself).

Honestly, some maneuvers give me a lot of anxiety, like when I'm on a very busy two lane road (no middle lane) and google is telling me to turn left, so I have to sit there with my blinker on feeling terrible for pissing off all the drivers that are now pilling up behind me, while I anxiously wait for an opening.

Unless Im late for something important, I'd gladly go 5 minutes or more out of my way not to experience that kind of driving pressure/social anxiety. I have a moderate anxiety disorder so I know this might not be normal.

But you're absolutely right! I suppose it does in fact boil down to just having a route option with "no left turns" -- I had never thought of it that way. That's such a simple way to solve 95% of the problem.

----

Edit: a left turn lane, with a green left turn light is totally fine.

Edit 2: For the handful of caring but misguided people scrutinizing my aversion for left turns:

Federal data have shown that 53.1 percent of crossing-path crashes involve left turns, but only 5.7 percent involve right turns.

sauce: 2001 - Analysis of Crossing Path Crashes - NHTSA

yeah agreed. I prefer to not have to use an app if I don't have too. Or unless there's some great benefit that the app has that the mobile site doesn't

Ahh interesting, thank you for the response. And yes the more I thought about it, the more I realized that you're basically a non-custodial payment processor (and idk even know if you'd be considered that). What type of business do you categorize as? Are you a payment processor? Or are you simply a UI markup for paypal/stripe? Im not implying one is better than the other, just curious

edit: now that I think about it, I would imply that one is better than the other. Because if you are just a UI/UX improvement on paypal/stripe, then you would be out of the regulatory umbrella of FinCen I believe.

yeah good point. especially since they don't have a sign-up, makes me think they're more non-custodial in concept, which eases their AML requirements

cool idea. I always thought it would be awesome to figure out IRL non-cash tipping

edit: and somehow make it not awkward, cumbersome, or time-consuming

I have no idea, but I'd assume the mobile app would be for use of the people receiving the money. Which would be a nice add if I were a content creator. But that's just a guess.

Edit: As for your notion that an app isn't necessary when there is a well-designed mobile site, I def agree. However, that's just not the case anymore, how else do you expect companies to so easily collect your personal data! /s

Edit2: Id wager some companies intentionally don't focus on having a nicely compatible mobile site. For example, my bank's website sucks when I visit from a mobile web browser, however their app is great. I believe this is their intention, in order for people to download their app. Which has obvious benefits for the company; in particular, the data collection

I'd respectfully disagree that that is the only difference. I've been through the BMC payment flow and would much prefer to use theirs over the competitor mentioned above. I wasn't even referring to the pricing model, although you're right, that is another difference too.

Being in YC, I assume your plan is to be headquartered in the US, or at the very least, do business with US customers/entities.

I notice your team doesn't involve any compliance people. As you probably already know, you are a MSB in the US, do you have plans to expand your required compliance policies? Does your team already file on any potential BSA/AML concerns?

Or is this like a "when we get to that bridge we will cross it" type of thing?

As you grow larger, regulators will inevitably take notice. And I know this is probably a super boring question for mist people here, but as someone who works in BSA/AML compliance for a tech startup MSB -- I am very interested to hear what you have to say regarding this!

Love the site btw, the simplicity of the payment flow is A+. I could see this taking off.

I bet Google's founders are glad they didn't consult you first when they were creating a search engine.

Probably not the norm, but I have worked alongside a tech company that has 30+ million user accounts, and as such, has a pretty much constant stream of scammers wishing to take advantage of our user base.

The customer support dept. has a phone number to call, which is listed on the website. But you'd be amazed how many people are willing to call some random number so long as it shows up in a google result. Normally, it's older folks that fall for this type of scam.

The fraud dept. sends a handful of take-down requests to google per week; but it really doesn't do much to stem the incoming flow of support hotline scams. Once a number is taken down, they just create a new website and new fake number.

To reply to your comment more directly, I have no idea whether or not this scam type accounts for a significant portion of scams overall, but for my particular industry it sure is. In any account, the way people are scammed on our site changes all the time depending on what's available/easiest for the scammers, so the methods they use are constantly changing/adapting.

But directly equating Russian oligarchs to American businessmen makes for a better headline, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

But in all seriousness, I'm glad that someone was here in the comments section to break down the nuances of this rather contentious analogy. So TY

I work with a cryto exchange, and fwiw, can tell you that most businesses would agree with you. They pay the ransom. And they use common exchanges like Coinbase, Binance, and Bittrex to do so.

The only way not-paying the ransom is beneficial (aside from having proper backup systems in place obviously) is if there was a large public sentiment shift promoting NOT paying ransoms. If society at large came together and decided the majority of entities are NOT going to pay, then ransomware viruses would be less profitable and thus not as favorable projects for hackers/scammers.

But that would take a lot of effort, organization, and favorable circumstances to have everyone do that simultaneously going forward. And there would be casualties at the beginning before the public sentiment cemented itself in the collective conscious.

But yeah, the only way ransomware will stop is if it stops becoming profitable: which means companies either need to have proper OpSec and backups (so they have no need of paying), or collectively agree that no one will pay ransomware attacks.

Seems like a pipe dream that we'd ever get to that point though. So I imagine companies will continue to fork over the ransoms.

Edit: this got me thinking, say for example, the US government outlawed paying the ransom to hackers. And they could somehow enforce this law effectively. Wouldn't that pretty much stop ransomware attacks in the US? or where ever a law like that could be effectively enforced?

I can't tell if you both are joking or not but watch the whole video. The source video is of Bill Hader. Bill hader's face changes to Tom Cruise everytime he talks from Tom's perspective. And then once to Seth Rogan for that impersonation.

This isn't a yes or no situation, there's a grey area in between. Just because you had a bad experience doesn't mean that this is "impossible" for everyone. You comment is loaded with so many opinions and assumptions, you do realize that people live like, separate, different, and unique lives right? and that they might have different experiences than you?