22
January
2014
|
03:29 AM
America/Los_Angeles

PayPal Chief Says Banking Regulations Require Staffs Of Thousands, Barrier To Startups

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I dropped in on ReadWrite's interview series last night, which featured PayPal president David Marcus (above, right) on stage with Editor-in-Chief Owen Thomas.

Marcus said payment startups face considerable difficulties because of the banking regulations and that there was no chance that it would become easier in the future. 

He said that some banks are hiring 4,000 to 5,000 staff just to make sure they comply with all regulations.

It was a decent turnout and a great space for mixers. A few photos:

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Local entrepreneurs Scott Rafer and Brian Zisk.

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 Christel van der Boom, from Flipboard (left) and Dana Oshiro from Code for America.

Christel says Flipboard is looking for engineers. Big project coming out soon -- the full Flipboard experience. At it's most recent valuation, Flipboard and its 100 employees, had nearly half the valuation of the New York Times.

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Owen Thomas, Editor-in-Chief, ReadWrite.

I still think the original name, ReadWriteWeb is the better name because it underscores the two-way nature of the Internet, and the web of connections and ideas.

ReadWrite is published by Say Media, a very savvy advertising network that owns several high profile publications and is constantly trying new formats and experimenting with advertising. It has to because the ad revenue model is constantly changing, and the ad industry is trying to deal with the growing problem of fake traffic and clicks.

Surprisingly, mobile advertising is a big problem rather than offering a partial panacea to media industry problems. It could accelerate the demise of some publications. 

 Matt Sanchez, CEO and co-founder of Say, last year warned that Mobile Is Killing Media - Say Daily 


Digital publishing is headed off a cliff ... There's a five fold gap between mobile revenue and desktop revenue. In other words, for every page viewed on a mobile device, publishers currently see only 20 percent of the revenue they'd receive from a desktop visit.

What makes that gap even starker is how quickly it's happening. By the second half of next year, we predict that greater than half of all time spent with online content will happen on a mobile device. On the industry's current course, that's a recipe for disaster.