Patrick Collison
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| Patrick Collison | |
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| Name | Patrick Collison |
| Caption | Collison in 2018 |
| Birth date | 9 September 1988 |
| Birth place | Dromineer, County Tipperary, Ireland |
| Education | Massachusetts Institute of Technology (dropped out) |
| Occupation | Businessperson, Entrepreneur |
| Known for | Co-founding Stripe |
| Net worth | $7.2 billion (2024, Forbes) |
| Spouse | Silvana Konroki, 2023 |
| Relatives | John Collison (brother) |
Patrick Collison is an Irish-American billionaire businessperson and entrepreneur, best known as the co-founder and CEO of the financial technology company Stripe. Alongside his younger brother John Collison, he built Stripe into one of the world's most valuable private companies, fundamentally simplifying online payment processing for web businesses. Recognized for his intellectual breadth, Collison is also a prominent advocate for accelerated scientific and technological progress, supporting numerous research initiatives and think tanks.
Early life and education
Patrick Collison was born in Dromineer, County Tipperary, and grew up in the nearby village of Castleconnell, County Limerick. His parents, Lily and Denis Collison, were both engineers who worked at the Limerick Institute of Technology. Demonstrating prodigious talent in computer programming, he won the 41st Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition in 2005 at age sixteen for his development of Croma, a Lisp-based programming language. After completing secondary school at Castletroy College, he briefly attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) but left to focus on entrepreneurial ventures, having already sold his first company, Auctomatic, while still a teenager.
Career
Collison's career began extraordinarily early; at age sixteen, he secured a contract to write books on AppleScript for O'Reilly Media. In 2007, he and his brother John founded Auctomatic, a software platform for sellers on eBay, which was acquired the following year by Live Current Media for $5 million. After a short stint at MIT, he worked as a director of engineering at Live Current in Vancouver. In 2010, he and John identified significant friction in e-commerce payment systems, leading them to develop the initial code for what would become Stripe during Y Combinator's summer batch. He has served as Stripe's CEO since its inception, guiding its growth into a global payments infrastructure giant.
Stripe
Collison co-founded Stripe in 2010 with his brother John Collison, serving as its CEO. The company provides APIs that allow businesses to easily integrate payment processing into websites and mobile applications. Under Collison's leadership, Stripe raised significant funding from investors like Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, and General Catalyst, achieving a peak valuation of $95 billion in 2021. Headquartered in San Francisco and Dublin, Stripe's products power millions of companies worldwide, including major clients like Amazon, Salesforce, and Microsoft. Collison's strategic vision has focused on expanding the Internet economy by reducing complexity in financial technology.
Other ventures and investments
Beyond Stripe, Collison is deeply involved in projects aimed at accelerating scientific and technological advancement. He is a co-founder of the Arc Institute in Palo Alto, a research center focused on complex diseases, and has provided significant funding to the University of Oxford's Future of Humanity Institute. He serves on the board of the Long Now Foundation and has invested in or supported a wide array of organizations, including Watsi, GiveDirectly, the Center for Emerging Risk Research, and the Fast Grants program for COVID-19 research. Collison also co-authors the newsletter and blog Progress Studies, promoting the study of societal progress.
Personal life and views
Patrick Collison lives in San Francisco and became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2023. He married researcher Silvana Konroki in a ceremony at San Francisco City Hall that same year. An avid reader with broad intellectual interests, his personal library is extensive, and he frequently discusses topics ranging from economic history to biotech and Urban planning. Collison is a signatory of the Giving Pledge and, with his brother, has made substantial philanthropic commitments, particularly toward scientific research and global poverty alleviation. He is a vocal proponent of the idea that deliberate effort and improved institutions can dramatically increase the rate of human progress.
Category:1988 births Category:Living people Category:Irish billionaires Category:Irish technology entrepreneurs Category:Irish emigrants to the United States Category:Businesspeople from County Tipperary Category:Stripe (company)