The SV expectation/mentality that if someone builds something first they "own" that space is unjustifiable. I'm not say you are saying that, but it is an implicit attitude in the Valley.
Competition (or "clones") were around 100 years ago, continue to exist today and will be around for the next 100 years. Today's innovation is tomorrow's commodity thanks to competition. This is good.
Is it disappointing that MasterCard launched a similar service? Sure, I would too be disappointed and I sympathise.
Having said that, stating that "a product copies everything" is not really true. They can not copy execution, culture, customer service, customer loyalty, etc. You have that on your side.
People think that Ford Motor was one of the first (if not the only) car manufacturer in States in the early 1900s, but it was quite the contrary. The car was a revolutionary technology: it had a combustion engine, it was fast, etc. Over 100 car companies were launched in the early 1900s. All of them car startups. When the technology goes in one direction it is difficult to be the salmon that swims upstream, in the opposite direction. To tell those +100 car startups to "go and innovate, I own the combustion engine on top of four wheels" is simple unrealistic. Expect competition, that's my point.
How did Ford survive having less resources than many others? How did Ford survive the great depression? Execution. It improved the assembly line, vertically integrated to bring more production in-house, etc.
Stripe's case should be no different. Today's technology and innovation is commoditised in months. Execution can't be commoditised. Don't expect competitors to rest on their laurels.
> People think that Ford Motor was one of the first (if not the only) car manufacturer in States in the early 1900s, but it was quite the contrary. The car was a revolutionary technology: it had a combustion engine, it was fast, etc. Over 100 car companies were launched in the early 1900s.
There were over 1,800 automobile manufacturers in the United States from 1896 to 1930. Very few survived and only a few new ones were started after that period.
A lot of the reason for the lack of very many new car companies for decades has been due to insider sponsored regulations meant to target upstarts and using political power to crush competitors (which of course has been tried on Tesla in a variety of ways).
Not suggesting you didn't know that, but it's still worthwhile to point out.
Calling it "lazy" was fair given the points he made. He's not talking about copying products, he's talking about copying the product AND all the little UI/UX details. That really is lazy.
> The SV expectation/mentality that if someone builds something first they "own" that space is unjustifiable. I'm not say you are saying that, but it is an implicit attitude in the Valley.
First I wanted to say I think this is a bit of a non-sequitur because it's not like Stripe invented a new space here, they entered a crowded space which had already seen relatively recent innovation from PayPal and Braintree in preceding years.
But then I got thinking some more and I don't know where you get this idea that there is an implicit attitude that anyone owns anything in SV. Sharing of ideas and me-too companies are everywhere in SV. Sure people consider it kind of a douchey move to do a clone of your friends company after he shared his whole execution plan with you, but I don't think that indicates anywhere near as strong of an implicit ownership as you are describing.
The bottom line here is not that MasterCard are in the wrong, or that it's not beneficial to the ecosystem as a whole, but just that they don't deserve any special applause for some pointy hair somewhere deciding "OMG Stripe are going to eat our lunch, put your 100 best engineers on reverse engineering this API posthaste!"
Yep, I agree with almost all of your comment -- especially around the expectation of owning a space and how that's a totally wrong-headed idea.
My disappointment with MasterCard isn't at all that they're entering the space (hey, that should be good for the world). It just feels lame that they gratuitously copied every single minute detail, far beyond what you'd have to copy to build "a MasterCard version of Stripe". They even copied our code sample gists.
But I definitely didn't mean to imply more than that -- some idea that MasterCard shouldn't compete with us, or even that they shouldn't compete with a functionally similar product. On that front, I'm totally cool with it, and may the best product win :-).
Competition (or "clones") were around 100 years ago, continue to exist today and will be around for the next 100 years. Today's innovation is tomorrow's commodity thanks to competition. This is good.
Is it disappointing that MasterCard launched a similar service? Sure, I would too be disappointed and I sympathise.
Having said that, stating that "a product copies everything" is not really true. They can not copy execution, culture, customer service, customer loyalty, etc. You have that on your side.
People think that Ford Motor was one of the first (if not the only) car manufacturer in States in the early 1900s, but it was quite the contrary. The car was a revolutionary technology: it had a combustion engine, it was fast, etc. Over 100 car companies were launched in the early 1900s. All of them car startups. When the technology goes in one direction it is difficult to be the salmon that swims upstream, in the opposite direction. To tell those +100 car startups to "go and innovate, I own the combustion engine on top of four wheels" is simple unrealistic. Expect competition, that's my point.
How did Ford survive having less resources than many others? How did Ford survive the great depression? Execution. It improved the assembly line, vertically integrated to bring more production in-house, etc.
Stripe's case should be no different. Today's technology and innovation is commoditised in months. Execution can't be commoditised. Don't expect competitors to rest on their laurels.