The math checks out.
He’s another Silicon Valley cliché, and he’s living proof that the best barometer for success is risk.
You know the type - total nerdo. And recipient of Ireland’s “Young Scientist” award. (That’s him. In the picture above. At age 16).
The year is 2007.
Meet Patrick Collison (PC). He’s 18, and his brother John (JC) is 16.
They’re kids.
Who drop out of college.
To do the whole tech startup thing and change the world.
It’s a lot of rah rah for two kids who fail to secure VC funding from Enterprise Ireland.
But they’re onto something with “frictionless e-commerce.”
And Silicon Valley’s Y Combinator recognizes that “something.” Here kids, take this VC money…
Enter Auctomatic. It helps individuals manage their sales on sites like Amazon and eBay.
It takes one year. One year and the brothers sell their cryptically named company for $5 million.
So yeah, they’re teenage millionaires.
The year is 2008.
American banks trigger a global recession, and the brothers do something stupid.
They start Stripe.
With all their newfound wealth.
It does what PayPal didn’t.
It’s a payment processing platform valued at $36 billion, and it’s revolutionized the way online businesses interact with banks to accept credit card payments (oooh ahhh fascinating).
PayPal helps the customer. Stripe helps the seller.
Chances are, you’ve used Stripe - 4 out of 5 credit cards have purchased something online via its infrastructure.
And hey, the first person to invest in Stripe is the same guy who missed this massive opportunity - Peter Thiel, PayPal cofounder. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice…
So take one from PC and JC. It’s safe to say these two have earned their stripes.
And that’s the skinny.
Fascinating!