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Comment by luckystrike | Hacker News Reader

IMO, the response was right on the money (no pun intended).

My first thought when I read maxklein's comment was that he is perhaps saying it half in jest. But in case he was serious, I don't think one can just deride a person/organization based on stereotypes. (Hey you programmer of some web application, what do you know about banking, where's your suit and your MBA, you'll do a shoddy job for sure ... etc)

Let's see what they come up with and critique/praise them on what they actually do, rather than carrying prejudices.

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Being sarcastic or dismissive of concerns isn't the way to deal with that type of criticism which was my point. Not that maxkleins criticism was valid or well based that said however, saying "yeah look how the existing banks" have done doesn't tell us anything about how you plan to better that and doesn't really say much at all since for the most part and most of the time the traditional banks do really well.

He didn't actually give any information on what their plan entails that would remove doubts. They've said their money comes from two places loans and cuts from credit card fees. While what if they have a bad run with their loans/investments(like big banker banks) or not enough people use there credit cards? That makes them just as vulnerable as the existing banks so saying existing banks don't work doesn't tell us why you will.

I take your point that Alex's tone was sarcastic and may be he could have avoided it. But, hey if someone dismissed me as being less dependable etc, just because I am a programmer (or anything else for that matter), I might also lose my politeness for a minute.

Yeah, I would also be eager to see more information on their plans. I hope they would start talking more about them on their blog. I am sure they could get some good inputs if they can get a good community going. (It could be one place where his programming/OSS experience might come in handy.)

I'm quite certain they aren't doing traditional loans/investments

Do you work for them or have insider knowledge of what they intend to invest in? You've mentioned this a few times but I've yet to see a response. If you do than what is it they plan to invest in/what kind of loans are they going to be offering to make up for the interest they will be paying out?

It's not is lack of suit and MBA people are worried about, it's his lack of experience. I wouldn't trust an MBA with no banking experience either.

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