Square Could Pass Twitter in Value
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
- Russian troll accounts/factories (he even retweeted one) - Inability to clean up harassment/abuse/threats - Stagnant product feature set - Awful (truly awful) ad product
Edit: I'm not referring to what a CEO is accountable for, just what they actually have control over. A CEO is not god, despite what some may believe!
And yes, a CEO does not change the culture on their own. That's impossible by definition -- the culture is the sum result of all the actors within the company. But a CEO is expected to lead the culture of the entire company, typically by stating values and setting goals and incentives that actually match those values. If they cannot do this, then they are unable to do their primary internal-facing job. This is one of the reasons that Steve Jobs was so well regarded. For whatever flaws he had, there was no mistaking the culture he was leading, and the results matched.
A great example, from a development perspective, is unit tests. Everyone loves to talk about how much we need unit tests. How great unit tests are. How they will make our software better. This is stating values, but you also have to back that up, and that's where things fall apart. The moment any kind of crunch happens, unit tests are the first things thrown out the window. Despite the fact that when you're working quickly, you probably need those tests even more. And all this is because, even though everyone states the value of tests, it's not actually part of the culture. The goals and incentives aren't there; there's no penalty to not following the line.
I'm not exactly sure what you mean by this, but it seems a bit simplistic. CEO's are also in the position to be thought leaders, public advocates, build hype, and internally, guide the company to specific results. Workplace culture is extremely important, but not everything.
Also, I'm not sure that enforcing unit tests is exactly a "cultural" issue. How many unit tests you write is a decision that weighs current development speed against future development speed and reliability. That is of course influenced by culture, but not exactly culture itself.
At least the first three of those are different ways of setting culture. The last one is so loosely defined that it could mean anything.
The sum of all actions of all actors within a company is its culture. If people act in an obsessive way about UX, then you have a culture of obsessive UX.
The CEO has the power to shift these cultures. There are many tools, as you point out, but the biggest one is setting appropriate goals, with the proper aligning (dis)incentive structure. These are set on his subordinates, who then filter it down and specify it for their subordinates, and so on down the entire chain.
> Also, I'm not sure that enforcing unit tests is exactly a "cultural" issue. How many unit tests you write is a decision that weighs current development speed against future development speed and reliability. That is of course influenced by culture, but not exactly culture itself.
If you supposedly have a culture that values writing unit tests, then that should be reflected in action. The idea of tossing unit tests should be met with disdain, the same way we value not murdering people and murder is meet with disdain. It's not about tradeoffs, it's about stated cultural values (talk) versus the actual culture (walk). If there's nothing holding you to the stated cultural values, that's a management failure.
And as far as my last factor ("internally, guide the company to specific results"), I mean that CEOs make a lot of day-to-day tactical decisions. E.g., how many engineer/sales/marketing people do we add to that team, do we need a bigger office, do we sue someone or not, do we take VC money on the offered terms or hold out for something better.
These tactical decisions are less visible, but probably make up a good deal of a CEOs day.
And yes, CEOs can make tactical decisions, or at the very least give final approval on them. I think in smaller companies they tend to be more involved in such decisions, and as the company grows it becomes impossible to keep up and it gets delegated out. But in my opinion, those tactical decisions like the ones you list don't exhibit leadership as much as they need a leader to make them. It's a reversal of the reasoning: People aren't leaders because they make those decisions; they make those decisions because they're leaders.
When did 140 chars make sense? In the beginning of the social internet 10 years ago. For people new to sharing, it relieved pressure around saying something. For psychological reasons the false restriction made sharing on the internet frictionless. When the expectation is intentionally low, you don't have to worry if you're sharing enough or too little. And perhaps more subconsciously, such a low limit just kind of speaks to you, saying: "just say anything, and spit out."
But now, people are very accustomed to sharing. They don't need these training wheels.
It seems to me, regular people don't use twitter. Only various professional niches. That's just a problem, and will result in Twitter leaking users from their staple niches gradually over time, and probably has been going on for a long time now.
So in short, Jack's job and the decision he has to make is a very hard one. They've been too scared to make the hardest of decisions, and very naturally as a result have only rolled out these minor attempts. It seems like a very logical sequence of events to me.
They gotta do something bold, or die.
I'm not saying removing the limit is the answer on its own. I think it's more of a symbol of a willingness and capability to get back in the game. Do that along with something totally fresh front-and-center within the feed, and they would have a good recipe for success. Make a big moment out of dropping the restriction, and see what happens. Hell, try it for 30 days, and see what happens as a grand experiment.
The issue is that Twitter is seen as a medium of expression, but I don’t think it’s suppose to be a platform where people go in-depth with their thoughts; more for momentarily formed opinions, ideas, or announcements.
For publishment, people should be using something like Medium.
I don't think that's particularly fair to Square, for three reasons:
- For much smaller merchants, it can be cheaper overall than traditional payment processing, as you don't have to buy expensive hardware.
- Not having to "think about it" is probably underrated, the cost structure of traditional payment processing is very complex and can make it more difficult to know how you need to mark up your products to maintain a target margin, whereas with Square you're guaranteed a flat rate which will make a lot of other decisions easier.
- They provide a lot of other services for small businesses, like point-of-sale (I think the software is free for that? Big saving for small merchants) and payroll software (again a time/cost saving).
I think it's entirely reasonable that a thinking person might decide to pay 1% for these things, rather than because they don't know any better.
There is no magic technology that can automatically detect and stop harassment. Its a social problem and must be dealt with as such - e.g by shunning trolls online. In that light I don't understand what people want Twitter to do about it. Blaming Twitter is not a productive response given their limited ability to stop it, just as blaming HN would not be a productive response to being flamed in a comment on HN.
First of all, it's not so easy to block harassers when there are thousands. Seconds, victims of real-life harassment are also "free" to disconnect their phones and never leave the house. But doing so is letting the harassers win, and society has decided that harassment is unacceptable, and the harassers should be stopped.
> There is no magic technology that can automatically detect and stop harassment.
There is no magic technology that can automatically detect and stop crime, either, but that hasn't stopped every society in the world from establishing some sort of a justice system.
> Its a social problem and must be dealt with as such - e.g by shunning trolls online.
Yes, by an enforcement mechanism. In a strangers society, let alone one when people can have multiple identities, social sanctions don't work.
> In that light I don't understand what people want Twitter to do about it.
The same as anyone responsible over a public or semi-public space is expected to do -- establish an enforcement force. Just as office buildings, companies, and universities have security and often even a reporting and judgment apparatuses.
> just as blaming HN would not be a productive response to being flamed in a comment on HN.
If you think harassment on Twitter is on the same scale and of the same kind as unkind comments on HN, or that Twitter moderation is anywhere as effective as on HN, then you're unfamiliar with the problem. A mere hint of a threat of violence, or even strong verbal abuse gets you immediately banned from HN.
>The same as anyone responsible over a public or semi-public space is expected to do -- establish an enforcement force
Its simply unrealistic... there are roughly 350,000 tweets per MINUTE on twitter. It would take a massive workforce, working around the clock to get even close to policing all tweets or even all reported tweets.
Its easier to police physical spaces/companies/universities because there is a LOT less to police.
And there are no real identities, so even after banning an account the offender may just come back.
As I said above, in that light I don't think Twitter can do a whole lot about it.
2. While I don't think that Twitter can "solve" the problem (neither do justice systems "solve" crime), I don't believe that there is absolutely nothing they can do to effectively fight it and reduce it.
>1. The question of can is entirely separate from the question of should. Sometimes someone should, or even absolutely must, do something even if they currently can't, and the inability to do it does not make the demand that they do unjustified.
Wow... perhaps can/should are separate philosophically but frankly it makes no sense in the real world. We "should" all eat 200 calories a day so theres enough food to go around, we should all generate electricity out of thin air so theres less global warming, we should all be sure never to spread infectious diseases by force of willpower alone.. i mean what purpose does a demand that cannot be met serve? Thats insane.
BRB lemme go protest outside my barbershop demanding they solve the crisis in Chechnya.
Or maybe closer to home, I will be sure to demand that any software consultant I hire builds a system to handle 1M writes per second on an Arduino, and gets 1ms latencies across the world, real world be damned.
Even assuming that it cannot be met (that's your assumption, not mine), it serves to set a goal and a system of values. Most religions demand that there be no murder and theft even though they know there always will be. It makes sure that people do not fall into a naturalistic fallacy. The fact you can never make it to 100% doesn't mean you should be content at 40%.
> lemme go protest outside my barbershop demanding they solve the crisis in Chechnya.
What kind of power does your barber have in Chechnya?
> real world be damned.
I don't understand. Do you have some kind of scientific proof that Twitter cannot do any more than they're doing now to reduce the rampant harassment in the community they've built? Twitter is not some natural phenomenon. It is a community built by people.
With 350K tweets per minute I feel that is a much more likely assumption than the opposite.
>I don't understand. Do you have some kind of scientific proof that Twitter cannot do any more than they're doing now to reduce the rampant harassment in the community they've built? Twitter is not some natural phenomenon. It is a community built by people
I know they are taking some action already - with muting features and suspending certain accounts. I know whatever action they take manually cannot scale to stop most abuse. So there WILL be harassment. A lot of it. Ultimately its up to what people choose to do, and they have very little control in that.
Pretty much all online communities tend to become toxic without moderation, so when I see one of the biggest online communities in the world becoming toxic, and I know it cannot be effectively moderated... well my reaction is not to blame the people running the forum. The hate there is a reflection of hate in society.
I don't have proof that they cannot do any more, but I would ask if you have reasonable standards for how much they should do or proof that they are not meeting those standards. I just feel an online forum only reflects the views of its community, and as such it is not within their power or responsibility to change the people posting there. I feel the hate is better directed at the hateful people. This feels analogous to blaming paper manufacturers when people print hateful things on paper. They only create the medium, not the message.
That's a feature, not a bug:
> Twitter was designed, from Day 1, to enable any random person to send messages directly to any public figure. In other words, from Day 1, it was designed to be an abuse and harassment engine. It's not a bug. It's a feature. All that abuse and controversy is how it gets clicks and money.
http://jeff-vogel.blogspot.com/2016/04/how-i-deal-with-haras...
Yeah, you are stretching those words a bit too much. It was designed for normal people to be able to get in touch with famous people or vice versa. Some people misuse it and harass famous people. There's plenty of good that has come because of it as well.
I recommend considering the idea within the context of the entire blog post, which is the other reason I shared the link.
Not so sure about this. Wasn't it just designed to broadcast messages among people who knew each other. The celeb focus came later.
I'd also say it doesn't help that your onboarding focuses greatly on what celebs you're going to engage with on the service.
Easy to win elections when you get to pick the electors
Does Square make that much money off services?
Note also that Square is not actively losing hundreds of millions of dollars a year, which is a point in favor of its value.
Square's had a firm hold on hip small businesses for half a decade, I'm still not convinced they can use that as leverage to build profitable services.
I've literally never heard of Venmo before now
I know for me personally I'm far more likely to say "you get it next time" than bill my friends for some share of an outing. If it's sufficiently expensive that this doesn't make sense I'd just split the check. If I was younger and still a student I can absolutely see the appeal though.
https://www.zellepay.com/partners
While I think Square has some momentum, I believe the financial services industry as a whole is going to overshadow their Cash offering.
Worst case, you'll see people using online bill pay to mail eachother's banks checks as that is free and low effort. People just don't want to pay to move money friend to friend, and the US is an anomaly with our extremely high credit card processing charges, where we're at 1.5% to 2% in interchange, the rest of the world is below 1%.
Err... I'm old, but we have hip and trendy tourists?
Ah well... Another anecdote for ya.
Square, meanwhile, is offering both business and peer-to-peer options.
It might be a generational thing, but it does seem like Venmo has cornered the p2p market.
Yeah, I even have a landline. I did mention I'm old. ;-)
The banks get it. It's the interchange fee
Visa Interchange Rates: https://usa.visa.com/dam/VCOM/global/support-legal/documents...
[0] https://www.cardfellow.com/american-express-discount-rate/#P...
It doesn't seem like the kind of thing you'd have to wonder about. Just like restaurants can be profitable in a low margin industry, it takes incredible awareness of the costs of your business, and the ability to give greater value to your customers than it costs you to produce. Most companies, specifically tech companies, way overspend. Stripe seems not to do that.
Edit: the parent comment was originally just its first sentence. Kinda not nice to do that without saying so.
Sorry for not indicating it was editted, I'll be sure to do so in the future.
I'm not sure what proportion of square's revenue comes from processing vs services, but if I had to guess, I'd say most of the services are loss leaders for the processing. This is especially true with their rates so far above market. 2.75% is a fat chunk of change if they're processing 10 or 12 figures. (Working primarily with smaller clients, you get to charge that much, but it makes them less competitive with larger merchants who process more volume.)
Most of that goes straight to the credit card companies/bank, no?
http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20141201/TECHNOLOGY/141...
Also confirmed by a friend who works at Square. Internally they're pretty open about the business.
I'm sure they debated hard whether to go for this headline or the other one, and decided to go with "Square could pass twitter in value" because it would generate more page view.
My point is, it's Twitter that's doing bad. I don't understand why he doesn't just give up his CEO role and let someone else more dedicated take over.
It may make sense if the problem Twitter is facing can be solved by some creative vision, but it can't. These problems are ones that require a lot of care and effort and no matter how he spins it, he's pouring half the effort he can pour into Twitter.
To be clear, most of them come across as sharp. But it seems like a very lax, unfocused work environment, and knowing these things I’m not surprised that their only meaningful product changes happen once or twice a year and are minor tweaks and features (round profile pictures! hearts instead of stars!)
If I were looking for a job to just go hang out and get good benefits and pay, Twitter would be on top of my list.
It sounds like you think if Twitter engineers worked harder Twitter would be doing better. Besides your anecdotal observation about laid back engineers, is it not plausable that the company doesn't have a vision that contributes to monster growth?
Note, this comment doesn't allow for absurd comparisons such as "Forrest Gump coding 8 days a week will never match Donald Knuth coding 1 hour a month" or whatever. Ass comparisons should use reasonable definitions.
In case it's not clear, I really doubt that Twitter being an also ran has to do with a culture of laziness. If anything my impression was that they overengineered without making any real product changes.
Who said "engineers"?
I am very impressed with Square constantly. It's really amazing to see what they accomplished.
I'm shocked, utterly shocked.
Twitter's userbase isn't "dwindling" (diminishing gradually in size, amount, or strength.) It's not growing as fast as shareholders might like, but its monthly active users are growing in number: https://www.statista.com/statistics/282087/number-of-monthly...
I feel like 5 years ago Twitter was really popular among st friends and we talked about things people tweeted, etc.
Since then I don't have a single friend who actively uses twitter, maybe it's that my preferences simply changed, but the overall visibility of twitter seems to be diminished.
I don't know, maybe its me getting older, but more digitally connected than ever and feel much less personally connected than ever except with the friends that I keep direct/group imessage conversations going with for months and years at a time.
Another personal example, IG direct messages aren't used that much from my experience (could be different for others or in the odd one). That few times I've been hit up or hit someone up on it, response or messages back and forth usually take forever. It kills the conversation. The only time a conversation has survived and a friendship began was when the convo quickly moved over to another medium (FBM in that case).
I do get your point though of feeling at home in a general sense.
I hear about announcements via twitter than then link to actual new stories and usually skip twitter entirely. Maybe I'm just not the right audience.