Stripe subsidiary plans to open office in Baltimore | Hacker News Reader

Stripe subsidiary plans to open office in Baltimore

bizjournals.com

102 pointsgk150 comments

Does anyone understand why it's through a subsidiary / what that means? I can't seem to find any info about "Stripe Helm."

Is this some sort of optimization to open what's actually an outsourced support office but still get to to use the Stripe brand in news stories?

Is it common to be able to borrow money directly from a state like this?

The perpetual debt of the US federal and state governments makes some people forget that governments can actually be in the black. Governments like Norway, Singapore, Brunei, and Saudi Arabia run huge sovereign wealth funds that lend, for debt or equity, huge amounts of money to all kinds of companies.

> Norway, Singapore, Brunei, and Saudi Arabia

Tiny or oil wealthy or both tiny and oil wealthy. Not great examples for your point.

What is the problem with the examples?

It's easier to spend less than you make if you make a lot from effortless resource mining.

All of them are very wealthy due to unusual circumstances (mostly oil).

> and state governments makes some people forget that governments can actually be in the black.

I don't think it makes sense to include the states in that indictment. Most US states are dramatically better run fiscally than ~95%-97% of all national governments around the world based on debt & tax revenue levels. If you ranked the states with nations, the 50 states would all be among the top 100 nations on debt to revenue ratios, credit rating, stability and predictability of tax revenue. They often have to be fiscally sound by law. Out of the 50 states, only five or six tend to ever have serious or frequent fiscal problems (with California, New York and Illinois routinely having problems).

Florida for example has a $1 trillion economy, a $91b budget, and $1.7b in annual debt service costs. That ratio would be the envy of the world outside of a few nations. Most US states are in at least that good of condition or better on debt costs to revenue. Two dozen states are in essentially squeaky clean fiscal condition, as solid as any governments get outside of Norway.

Nearly all of the states get extremely good credit ratings. The particular exceptions are: Illinois, New Jersey, Kentucky (the last two still carry good ratings).

Even California is in good fiscal shape right now (after a ten year economic expansion of course). They can easily afford their annual debt costs.

Sure, it's one of the main ways states incentivize the growth of small businesses and moving business to their state.

Why City Governments Give Tax Incentives to Businesses (https://www.thebalancecareers.com/why-do-cities-offer-tax-in...)

Maryland Incentives and Workforce Development Guide (https://businessfacilities.com/2015/01/md-incentives-and-wor...)

Also today Square plans to move its St Louis office downtown and double headcount there https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20556142

> Helm will provide technical support services to software users of Stripe,

Hm, anyone know what this is? Are these just call center jobs?

I think tech firms have an opportunity to do good things when selecting a new office in a new city or state. Let me explain.

200 jobs means roughly 300-350 people (some are singles, some are couples, some have kids) that will be directly affected by Stripe opening these offices in Baltimore.

On average, 100 people with relatively high salaries (as it is the case for Stripe employees) "drive" 30 to 50 other jobs (services, etc). This means that this single move by Stripe has the capacity to influence 500-600 people in total. Not a small number.

In cases like this, I wish they would consider partnering with a local architect firm and/or construction firm, plus an investment firm, to repurpose a neglected area, or even build from scratch, using sound and proven architectural guidelines (a good example: https://nightingalehousing.org/ in Melbourne). This way they could offer both office and housing to their employees, and push for sustainable architecture.

Heck, with a larger workforce, they could even be as bold as designing a new town altogether. Some great architects and designers have already shared what's the best way to do it. TL;DR: it's not about cars, it's about people. [0] [1] etc.

I would love to chat with people interested with this idea, and share the little I've learned in my own free time.

[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KL_RYm8zs28 (Jan Gehl is one of the most amazing architects of our time, please try to find time to watch at least some of it, you will thank me later)

[1]: https://blog.p2pfoundation.net/an-introduction-to-christophe...

"Helm will provide technical support services to software users of Stripe," ... "Under Armour previously had a call center in the building."

Looks like the 200 jobs will be customer support call center jobs, which may not be relatively high salaries.

A good idea, but in Baltimore you don't have to build from scratch. There are over 16,000 vacant homes and 40,000 vacant properties in Baltimore, many in/near chronically neglected black communities. https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/baltimore-launches-a-pu...

I can't remember the name, but I've always thought that company that pays for you to become a trained computer programmer in exchange for a cut of your salary would work well in these areas. If they offered a tiered model, starting with basic business computer skills and working up to more technical jobs, in a few years they could fill dozens of offices with support technicians and programmers from local communities.

One of the companies that offers that model is Lambda School.

You might be right for Baltimore, but perhaps this could be a good idea for other places.

I live in Baltimore. Is this on hacker news because of Trump? Baltimore is great. It has rats, sure, but I just went to a synchronized swimming exhibition at a public pool in Druid Hill park (of Dru Hill fame) that involved a segment about allergies with a man dressed as Gluten in a bread costume doing coordinated swim moves with others dressed in pollen costumes. It's a weird place. Come visit.

It’s here because I saw it in /r/Baltimore and found it interesting and, as a Baltimore resident, encouraging.

Ok, what's interesting about it?

I used to live in Baltimore. It’s a neat place to be a rich ORM. Between bad schools and high crime, it’s not a great place for middle class people to raise a family. There’s a reason Baltimore has experienced a net African-American outmigration of 40,000 (10% of the black population) since 1990. People who have the means are heading to greener pastures.

ORM?

Over represented minority. Asian people, mostly from Hopkins. Along with white people, they disproportionately live in the few “nice” neighborhoods; they either don’t have kids yet or can afford to avoid the awful public school system; they don’t get randomly harassed by police.

I'm sure Baltimore is great if you have the money to live in one of the nice areas like Inner Harbor or Locust Point (where this office is being built). Not so much otherwise.

I lived in Baltimore for a few years in college. There are definitely some nice things about it, like the aquarium, and a decent choice of restaurants (however this should come with the caveat that the inner harbor has lots of police standing around, so its level of safety is not that organic). It also has a good selection of sports teams for a city its size.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_b...

It still has one of the highest crime rates in the US, so I don't think criticism of the city is necessarily ill-informed.

I was bored and looking at property costs in random cities, and it had shockingly cheap house / condos / apartments for sale in the urban core under $200k. I'm not sure how great some of the areas downtown are, but I live in a very low COL, but you normally only see prices like that in suburbs

I don’t know when you went to college, but this is pretty out of date now. Baltimore has developed enormously in just the past ten years (and it was the pits, relatively speaking, fifteen years ago). The Inner Harbor is nice to visit but it’s like Times Square in NY, only tourists go there. There has been massive development everywhere, but particularly in Harbor East, Locust Point, and up north in places like Remington and Hampden. It’s worth visiting again just to see how rapidly things have changed, and how many new restaurants have opened.

I find it amazing that the president is so powerful that he can move tech companies all over America (the world probably) just by issuing a morning tweet.

It's interesting to me that the article title names a "San Francisco tech firm" rather than "Stripe". I guess though it may be a ubiquitous name in the YC community, Stripe is not a household name.

By nature I suppose. You can use Stripe a bunch of times without ever knowing that you did.

WE DON'T MAKE A LOT OF THE PRODUCTS YOU BUY. WE MAKE A LOT OF THE PRODUCTS YOU BUY BETTER.

https://trademark.trademarkia.com/we-dont-make-a-lot-of-the-...

I don't think it will ever be a household name, at least unless it launches a consumer product.

Alternatively, it can get really really big. PwC and British Petroleum do not have any consumer products that I know of, yet they are household names all the same.

BP literally sells gas at BP branded gas pumps, that’s pretty consumer in my book.

Well, used to, until the 2010 oil spill, when like, every convenience store rebranded their gasoline offering (even if it still comes from BP).

I'm not sure PwC would be considered a household name. And BP has gas stations.

Really? I would be surprised if more than 10% of Americans have heard of PwC.

I am an American and I had to look up PwC. That said, you can be a household name outside of America.

Pretty sure PwC used to run television commercials for branding / brand awareness.

Doesn’t British Petroleum sell Petroleum from Britain?

I’ve certainly bought it at a BP-branded petroleum station before.

BP has gas/petrol stations, so close enough?

Enron also didn't have any consumer products, but I think is still a household name.

It hasn't been called 'British Petroleum' for 18 years, since it merged with Amoco, an American company.

Why couldn't Stripe be a household name? PayPal is.

PayPal has a consumer product, exactly as GP says.

This article seems out of place. A tech company opening a new office is rarely news worthy (except in the case of FAANG). Am I right to assume this is being posted as a "counter" to recent comments made by Trump regarding Baltimore?

As mentioned in another comment, I posted this because it’s interesting and encouraging as a Baltimore resident.

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