One-on-one with Square co-founder Jim McKelvey

Startland News reporter Ashley Jost sat down with Jim McKelvey, co-founder of Square and LaunchCode, during his visit to Techweek. Here’s a bit of the conversation.

On Kansas City’s strengths as a tech hub …
You’ve got the classic things – it’s mostly talent. Kansas City is a town that very few people want to leave. Once you’re rooted here, it becomes a very good place to have a company because the workforces are very stable. It’s not a hypercompetitive winner-take-all environment, and that’s good because that allows startups to have a few more swings at it.

On Kansas City’s weaknesses as a tech hub …
We don’t have the same competitive fervor or frenzy (as Silicon Valley). … If you want to be at the super cutting edge of what’s being done, then the Valley is pretty much the only spot in the world where you can do that. Then there are second-tier cities – London, Barcelona, Berlin, Copenhagen, Singapore – but now you’re starting to get into this thing where it’s not quite Silicon Valley.

And then there are cities where they’re at a level they can do a lot of fantastic things, and some world changers. I was just at Garmin. Garmin is a world changer. I literally bet my life on some of their products… That’s a homegrown company. You have world changers here, but the pace is a little slower.

On what to expect from LaunchCode in Kansas City …
You can expect an accelerated version of what we did in St. Louis, which has been very successful. … The idea with LaunchCode is we are about bringing people into the ecosystem on behalf of the businesses. LaunchCode focuses on the needs of the businesses. We do education, we do reach out to underserved populations, but that is not our mission. Our mission is to solve the tech talent gap. So the way we do that is very specific: we start with the companies, we find out what the companies need and we help them. We don’t want the companies to do us any favors…It’s entirely greed-driven on behalf of the companies. The idea is the companies desperately need this talent, we provide the talent for them in a way that’s easy for them to onboard to their organizations and once they see it, they want more.

The model has been successful in St. Louis and I would imagine it will be equal if not more so successful here because now we’ve got the backing of the Kauffman Foundation, which we didn’t have in St. Louis. Also, we have a proven business model from what we launched in St. Louis and those lessons will be applied here.

On philosophies regarding innovation …
I tend to be very problem focused. I don’t believe in chasing opportunities. This is the thing that differentiates me from some of my peers. I am no good at saying, ‘oh, that’s an opportunity.’

What I am good at is seeing problems, and they’re different. A problem has a defined impact. You can see where it’s having its effects. I’m a big believer that any problem can be solved. It sounds really negative but I’m from a problem-solving background. I’m an engineer by training. Engineers don’t work on stuff that functions, they work on stuff that’s broken. If it works, you call the marketing department. I’m very comfortable in a world where it’s not working — there are problems. I think it’s a pretty good attitude for entrepreneurs.

On lessons from Square that others can learn from …
Team, team, team. The Square team is literally the most-competent team I’ve ever been associated with. I credit Jack (Dorsey) for that. He’s been exceptionally good at that and from the early days at Square we had an emphasis on talent that was profound and really expanded my view of what’s possible. It’s not that I worked with bad people, but the caliber of the people at Square and the energy at which they do their jobs is exciting. When we passed 50 people, 100, 500, 1,000 and I have yet to find a spare part in the company. The guy who checks you in at the front desk for security badges is awesome at his job. I’m constantly inspired by the caliber of people.

On his tendency to start companies, not run them …
I don’t believe my skill set is good for sustained execution. It’s just not my DNA. I tend to get bored if things work too well. I’ve noticed with my company that I tend to drive too much new into the organization. … One of the things that led to the formation of Square was I was so frustrated with my (glass-blowing business) after achieving worldwide stature. We had just gotten off of that in 2006, recovering and the team was burnt because we did it without tremendous resources.

I had this relentless energy and at some point a working organization doesn’t need too much of that. Just do the stuff you’re supposed to do and do it well. It’s self-indulgent of me to not step up and just manage but if I had done that then there wouldn’t be a Square.

On what his walk-up song would be as a batter for the St. Louis Cardinals …
It would be Peter Frampton’s “Do you feel like I do?” because it’s 11 minutes long, and I would stall as much as I could possibly stall if I could bat for the Cardinals. I’m not terribly good at sports.