Big Fatty McFatFat
68 posts
@kevinyien Square had the absolute worst decision makers under Alyssa it’s crazy.
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Fine, Matt, I’ll take the bait.
Quick service restaurants were Square’s bread and butter. You couldn’t walk into a cafe, counter deli, or food truck and not see that iconic point of sale. But we lacked the functionality for full service restaurants.
Turns out the software is only half the equation for those restaurants. Professional services was the other. And that was not our strong suit (at the time). As the original PM, I feel very responsible for not forcing several decisions through that were vetoed (across product strategy, pricing, services, packaging, commission, geo).
Now, Toast is also a juggernaut. I think it’s worth pausing to acknowledge that even if Square did everything perfectly, there was a very high chance that Toast still won the market. They were fully verticalized, obsessed about their margin profile, and had excellent talent across every aspect of product and GTM.
But damn, it’s hard not to think about how things could’ve panned out differently. One day I need to do a proper write up (just for myself).
Matt Janiga@regulatorynerd
One of the reasons I ended up at Stripe was Alyssa Henry. Square had recently purchased Caviar, the food delivery service, and Caviar ran payments on Stripe. A group of us thought this was silly. A fantastic PM (Jess) and an EM (JAW) found me to ask what legal things they needed to build a set of payment APIs and make Caviar the first customer. The good news was that we had all the things they needed in-house. We just needed to sort out some PCI things (easy for us because Square had world class experts here) and do some online terms (easy for me). They took it to Alyssa and the project got vetoed. In her mind this was a simple buy vs. build decision. Stripe worked. We should put the resources elsewhere. She focused on the micro — what does Caviar need — vs. the bigger macro opportunity — online commerce was growing 3x faster than in person retail (Square’s core business) and we didn’t have a product. A recruiter from Stripe called me a few months later. It was a no brainer to do the interview. Alyssa Henry had basically told me (and a group of other people) that the Stripe product was so good there was no reason to move off of it. If another payments company like Square purposely chose Stripe, that felt like the place I — a payments attorney — should be. Square did eventually build that API and made Caviar one of its first customers (I was at Stripe when they asked for our help to migrate all the tokenized card numbers). But it was too late. Adyen ate European omni-channel enterprise retail and Stripe was eating everything else. I bet someone out there has a similar story for why Toast was able to outflank Square on restaurants. Alyssa has a great resume and has seen some fantastic things, but I’m shorting PayPal if this is who they’re bringing in as advisors.
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One of the reasons I ended up at Stripe was Alyssa Henry.
Square had recently purchased Caviar, the food delivery service, and Caviar ran payments on Stripe.
A group of us thought this was silly. A fantastic PM (Jess) and an EM (JAW) found me to ask what legal things they needed to build a set of payment APIs and make Caviar the first customer. The good news was that we had all the things they needed in-house. We just needed to sort out some PCI things (easy for us because Square had world class experts here) and do some online terms (easy for me).
They took it to Alyssa and the project got vetoed. In her mind this was a simple buy vs. build decision. Stripe worked. We should put the resources elsewhere. She focused on the micro — what does Caviar need — vs. the bigger macro opportunity — online commerce was growing 3x faster than in person retail (Square’s core business) and we didn’t have a product.
A recruiter from Stripe called me a few months later. It was a no brainer to do the interview. Alyssa Henry had basically told me (and a group of other people) that the Stripe product was so good there was no reason to move off of it. If another payments company like Square purposely chose Stripe, that felt like the place I — a payments attorney — should be.
Square did eventually build that API and made Caviar one of its first customers (I was at Stripe when they asked for our help to migrate all the tokenized card numbers). But it was too late. Adyen ate European omni-channel enterprise retail and Stripe was eating everything else.
I bet someone out there has a similar story for why Toast was able to outflank Square on restaurants. Alyssa has a great resume and has seen some fantastic things, but I’m shorting PayPal if this is who they’re bringing in as advisors.
Jevgenijs Kazanins@jevgenijs
"Last week, PayPal $PYPL named Alyssa Henry, a former CEO of the merchant services company Square $XYZ, to its board"
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Speaker Julie Menin’s preliminary budget proposal would result in slashing billions of dollars from agency budgets, which would force the City to cut services. Double counting previously identified savings, overestimating revenues, and exaggerating debt service savings does nothing to close a deficit.
This $6 billion proposal asks Albany for just one action – class size mandate relief. It refuses to address the deeper structural imbalance between the City and the State, or to increase taxes on the wealthiest New Yorkers and most profitable corporations. It effectively ensures this structural deficit will continue indefinitely.
Any proposal that claims we can close this gap without significant new revenue is unrealistic.
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@Oracle Hope this company goes bankrupt for those shitty layoffs. Fucking disgrace.
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BREAKING: Look at some of these estimated ATTENDANCE numbers from the No Kings protests around the country yesterday. Trump is ANGRY!
- 200,000 in NYC with 50,000 in Manhattan alone.
- 200,000 in Los Angeles 25,000 at Civic Center alone
- 80,000 in Philadelphia
- 70,000 in Seattle
- 20,000 in Chicago
- 10,000 in Denver
- 60,000 in San Diego
- 20,000 in Houston
In total well over 4 million people across 2000 cities around the world.
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Brad Lander enters the race for NY10 (Lower Manhattan, Brownstone Brooklyn) as the favorite vs. Dan Goldman.
One of the most civically-engaged electorates in the nation, NY10 is the heart of the "No Kings" Democrats.
Lander is endorsed on Day #1 by Zohran Mamdani
Brad Lander@bradlander
I’m running for Congress because we need leaders who will fight, not fold. I recognize this moment, and I’m ready to meet it. #FightDontFold #LanderForNYC #LanderForCongress
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So many White men got SUPER triggered by this Asian striverism post.
And I can't blame them.
They're getting their identity dismantled from below (DEI, Black dominance in pop culture), as well as above (Asian strivers, Jewish ownership), and are completely powerless to stop it in their own countries due to becoming a minority.
They've already become the new niggas 2.0, but they haven't fully accepted it yet and are still on cope.
Is there ANYTHING that can restore White people to former glory? I really don't think so.
Chinese century + tight Jewish grip on Western democracy means they'll continue to get squeezed until none of their former spirit is left.
That's the grim reality.
Amrutha Rao@amrutha_rao_
We’ll build anything for you in the next 36 hours only. Highest bid wins. Forbes 30u30 founder + Informatics Olympiad perfect scorer + $1.3M ARR builder + Columbia and Harvard’s highest-signal builders. DMs open.
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@BlueCollarBklyn You are so fucked I’ve called 311 for numerous complaints
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Hi everyone, I’m looking for a Product Engineer role in the Bay Area. I have until 4/1 before my visa expires.
I know this is a quick turn, but if you’re interested. Please reach out and share! Thank you for your time and help.
- Marvin
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BREAKING: This is escalating fast. These latest updates spell doom.
• Saudi Arabia urging U.S. to ramp up attacks — may join the war
• Iran just turned back 2 Chinese state-owned container ships in the Strait of Hormuz — despite China being on the “approved” list
• Tehran now says ONLY ships carrying household goods, cars, clothing, or pharmaceuticals for Iran can pass
• Only ~33% of Iran’s missiles destroyed after 1 month
• Iran still has a “significant” arsenal + recoverable stock
• Drone capability largely intact
• Iran’s Supreme Leader has refused negotiations
Trump screwed us.
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.@Jason says this but Wired added 200k new paid subscriptions last year and the NYT is healthier than ever.
“Don’t engage with the media” is an inherently silly take. Journalism is an essential public interest.
Founders evading scrutiny is how fraud pops up again and again…
@jason@Jason
1. No one cares about this ultra woke, biased version of @WIRED 2. And even fewer people care about the NYT’s take on WIRED FOUNDERS: DON’T ENGAGE WITH THE MEDIA — GO DIRECT.
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Juvenile criminal justice system has become a slap on the wrist and free gift card system
ChinesePowered.com@ChinesePowered
Bunch of teen thugs beating on a man, only to be saved by an asian bystander. Broad daylight, downtown San Francisco. @garrytan @DanielLurie
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I deleted the tweet because the video was fake. But the sentiment stands.
Eyal Yakoby@EYakoby
Why did Ana Kasparian delete this tweet? Is it because she realized that the video is AI? If so, where is the apology and retraction?
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One person in this photo deserves a 20% WNBA revenue share and it’s not me.
Congratulations to @TheWNBPA on their historic labor agreement.
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AI is quietly deprecating GitHub.
Agents do not need branches, PRs, or CI/CD rituals. They want to ship code straight to the cloud.
The rsync renaissance is here.
High availability. Zero bloat. Faster loops.
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