Opinion
Square intentionally sacrificed card reader reliability for attention-grabbing novelty
“We made a critical decision at the company to release a card reader that was actually too small to do the job it was supposed to do, but got your attention in a way that nothing on the market had ever done. And I believe that attention was super important. And…”
Insight
McKelvey: Put 99% of focus on feedback over protecting ideas
“So I put 99% of the emphasis on getting feedback and one percent on protecting ideas. I've literally never seen an idea stolen. Okay. I mean, I've seen ideas copied. I see it all the time. But I've never seen somebody outrun the entrepreneur. Most people who a…”
Assertion Contradicted
McKelvey: Apple kicked VeriFone out of Apple Stores after Square attack
“He ended up upsetting Apple, and Apple kicked them out of the Apple store.”
Opinion
Jack Dorsey's 2008 ousting from Twitter was 'unconscionably terrible'
“No. Absolutely not. What they did to him was unconscionably terrible, and I was very angry.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Jack Dorsey opposed Square's iconic hardware, preferring a camera scanner
“I said, we need to build a piece of hardware, and Jack thought I was crazy because he said, we don't want to build hardware. Hardware is a terrible business, and it'll slow us down, and we can just use the camera on the phone”
What-if
Early Square contractor rejected an equity offer now worth nearly $1B
“And what we offered him was a very generous offer. It would be close to a billion dollars today. You know, if he accepted our offer, he'd probably be a billionaire. And he didn't want it.”
Assertion Supported
Amazon ruthlessly cloned Square's card reader and undercut its price
“Amazon came after us in a way that was terrifying. They copied our product, they undercut our price, and they added the Amazon brand name to that, along with some customer support that we at the time didn't have.”
Insight
McKelvey: Copying established solutions is almost always the best problem-solving method
“If you have a problem, your best way of solving it is usually to find somebody else who solved the same problem and do what they did. That is almost always the best solution, and I don't care what it is”
Disclosure
McKelvey plans to donate his fortune rather than build generational wealth
“We've made an absurd amount of money, which we're planning to give away, because I don't think it serves me or my family to, you know, pass on generational wealth.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
McKelvey: Square was inspired by losing a glass sale to an Amex card
“Jack Dorsey and I, who had been friends for years and worked together on another company that actually I still own he and I were going to start a new company. We didn't have an idea. I'm a glass blower, so I work in a grubby studio and I sell stuff that nobody…”
Opinion
McKelvey: Bypassing Apple's dock connector for the audio jack was right
“Our, you know, our first product was bypassing the dock connector, which was that, you know, multi-pinned thing at the bottom of the phone. And We went through the hardware jack, and I think that was still the right decision”
Assertion Supported
Amazon conceded to Square by mailing Square readers to Amazon customers
“What they did was they said, the best thing for our customers is to make them Square customers. So they mailed all their soon to be former customers, one of our Square readers, and said, look, if you like what Amazon is doing, you'll be happy with Square. So t…”
Insight
McKelvey: Applying copying strategies to unprecedented problems leads to failure
“If you're on one side of that line, a totally familiar set of behaviors, which is the behaviors of copying, are optimal and appropriate. But if you're on the other side of that line, those behaviors will get you in deep trouble.”
Insight
Jim McKelvey: Every market offers billion-dollar opportunity at the bottom
“It turns out in every market, I believe there's opportunity at the bottom. And if you want to, you know, you want a new business, billion dollar business idea here, I'll give a hundred away right now. Just look where the market ends.”
Disclosure
McKelvey raises VC money strictly for validation, not for capital
“I don't fundraise because I couldn't fund things myself, but I fundraise for the validation That comes with getting other people to believe in what you're doing.”
Insight
McKelvey: Nobody Is Ever Qualified to Do Something for the First Time
“You're not qualified, but nobody on the planet is ever qualified to do something the first time.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Jack Dorsey managed a tech team at just 16 years old
“So Jack actually was a manager by the time I guess he was 16 years old.”
Assertion Supported
McKelvey: Square pivoted to payments before first employee started
“We already had the team together and we'd actually already hired our first employee and he was starting in a week. And we pivoted the company before he even started.”
Jim McKelvey