Square co-founder Jim McKelvey addresses a six-year patent dispute with Washington University professor Robert Morley regarding who invented Square's audio jack card reader.
Opinion
Middlemen organizations, not Visa and MasterCard, exploit small merchants with fees
“Where the crazy abuse is, is all the middlemen in those transactions. So Visa and MasterCard, they don't really abuse the merchant, but the abuse happens with all their partners. Like the independent sales organizations that work for the banks that work for Vi…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Square's early investor prototypes broke numerous banking laws and financial rules
“Everything worked, but it was breaking many, many laws and rules.”
Opinion
Venture capital pitches are adversarial games where entrepreneurs routinely lie
“If you've ever been a VC pitch, they're really weird things, because they're basically, the VCs are up there playing defense. They're like goalies. And the entrepreneurs, the people who are pitching are just lying to them.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Amazon board member offered VC funding to stop Amazon attacking Square
“I remember one guy telling me, oh, Amazon's gonna attack you? Don't worry, I'm on the board of Amazon, and I developed Amazon Prime, and we can get them to leave you alone. Like, if you take our money, we'll guarantee that Amazon doesn't attack you.”
Insight
Interdependent 'innovation stacks' protect novel inventions from giant corporate copiers
“If you invent something truly new, you're not inventing one thing. You're inventing a stack of things, and that invention becomes its own protection. And as long as you behave properly, I mean, it turns out there are a bunch of rules that if you follow these r…”
Assertion Supported
Early press reports actively erased Twitter founders Jack Dorsey and Noah Glass
“They not only kicked him out of Twitter, they tried to write him out of the history, and I know this very well because I was reading at the time The reports, and they would mention Biz, and they would mention Ev as the founders of Twitter, and they would omit …”