A lot of his claims seem weak. I wouldn't work with a person like this either.
The tweet about the fraud detection seems straight up false. People pointed out that Stripe posted it before Bolt. Can someone confirm?
Even if Stripe posted after Bolt, it would be pretty damn strange for Stripe to write a blog within an hour.
Hover over the dates in the links.
Stripe's post [1]: 17:41 UTC
Bolt's [2]: 20:08 UTC
Considering this is the only thing he claimed to have "proof" on, and it turns out not only to be false but to be the actual opposite, this is really damning for the rest of his claims. If that was such a traumatizing event, how can one not think of checking the timestamp once in 4 years to at least know if you have a reason to be mad.
Not to entertain the conspiracy, I’ve just done it before so it comes to mind
But over on Twitter the same is true, with Stripe's annoucement coming a few hours before Bolt's:
https://twitter.com/stripe/status/986651162760724480
https://twitter.com/bolt/status/986700626364055552
And anyway Stripe's release was announcing the release of the product on that day, it wasn't just a random marketing filler. There is a just no way a company the size of Stripe is going to put something as sensitive as a new fraud detection system in production, on a 1h notice just to steal some views from a competitor's blog post if it's not 100% ready.
I don't trust for 1 second that the CEO of a company in the same space can believe that either.
Edit: internet archive links are now at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30070287.
Edit: also, the timestamp that pops up when you hover over "X days/months/years ago" is always the original submission time, never the second-chance time.
A strange an unfounded accusation.
I collected both of these stories when they came in:
* 16869290 2018-04-25 21:25:32 Stripe announcement
* 16870692 2018-04-25 21:33:27 Bolt announcement
Could it be about who hit the front page first, and not exact timestamps? (i.e., he meant the Stripe post hit the front page an hour after their post did?) That makes sense, since some posts quickly hit the front page and then disappear. Just as an alternative explanation.
I suppose it's more exciting to paint yourself as the underdog incumbents are actively working against, rather than a mediocre investment opportunity offering easily replicable services.