[SpicyLemonZest]

Most innovators aren't striving to reach some grand self-motivating concept. The world is much better off for having people like the Collison brothers, who see that a moderately sized piece of infrastructure is too complicated and try to earn a lot of money by making it simpler.

[sl1ck731]

I'm not sure I follow. They were still motivated by money. I doubt there was some altruistic revelation that got them incredibly interested in processing credit cards.

[SpicyLemonZest]

Sorry, that's my point. They were motivated by money and not some deep underlying passion for payment processing, meaning there's no way Stripe would be what it is in a world where they could only make $10 million each from it.

[sl1ck731]

Ah sorry I misread. And that could be the case but I see a net positive from it. They might do enough to get theirs and then once they flatline it becomes someone else's opportunity.

For example Bezos might have had enough from just being the bookstore of the internet. Everything else Amazon does would be open to small business fighting it out.

There are still shareholders for public companies to please so just hitting the mark might not mean just stop innovating.