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Patrick Collison


Patrick Collison (born September 9, 1988) is an Irish entrepreneur and the co-founder and CEO of , a technology company that provides payment processing infrastructure enabling businesses to accept payments online. Born in , , Collison co-founded his first company, Auctomatic, with his brother John while studying mathematics at , selling it in 2008 for $5 million before dropping out to launch in 2010. Under his leadership, has grown into a multinational firm valued at over $100 billion as of 2025, processing a significant portion of global . Collison resides in California and maintains interests in scientific progress, co-founding the Arc Institute in 2021 as a nonprofit biomedical research organization aimed at accelerating discoveries in complex diseases through innovative funding and research models, though he holds no operating role there. He has advocated for faster technological and scientific advancement, drawing from first-principles analysis of historical progress rates. Earlier achievements include winning Ireland's Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition at age 16 for developing a programming language and AI system.

Early Life and Education

Childhood in Ireland

Patrick Collison was born on September 9, 1988, in Dromineer, a small rural village in , , situated on the eastern shore of Lough Derg. He grew up there with his parents, Denis Collison, an electrical engineer who had worked for before acquiring a local lakeside hotel, and Lily Collison, a microbiologist formerly employed at the , along with his two younger brothers, including future co-founder John. The Collisons provided an unstructured upbringing distinct from typical scheduled childhoods, with Lily leaving her career to homeschool the boys, emphasizing self-directed exploration over formal curricula. This environment, in a low-tech rural setting without reliable early , encouraged intellectual curiosity amid the family's modest, ordinary background by the lake. From a young age, Collison displayed aptitude for computing; he took his first computer course at eight years old and soon began programming, leveraging a basic used Compaq machine gifted by his parents. This early experimentation culminated in significant recognition: at 16, in January 2005, he won Ireland's prestigious BT (a runner-up the prior year) for developing Croma, an original dialect programming language aimed at simplifying .

Scientific and Academic Accomplishments

Collison demonstrated early aptitude in science and technology by winning the overall prize at the 41st Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition in Ireland in 2005, at the age of 16. His winning project, titled CROMA, involved developing a novel programming language. This achievement highlighted his precocious skills in computational problem-solving, as the exhibition recognizes innovative student projects in scientific and technological fields. Following this success, Collison enrolled at the (MIT) in 2006 at age 16 to study and physics. He had taken exam at age 13, enabling early admission. During his brief time at , he pursued introductory freshman physics courses and advanced coursework, reflecting his interest in fundamental scientific principles. However, Collison departed after approximately six months without completing a degree, opting instead to pursue entrepreneurial ventures. This early exit precluded formal academic credentials but aligned with his shift toward applied technology development.

Early Career Ventures

Pre-Stripe Startups

In 2007, at ages 19 and 17 respectively, Patrick Collison and his younger brother founded Shuppa, a based in , , designed as an auction management system for online sellers. The name Shuppa derived from the word "siopa," meaning shop, reflecting its focus on tools. Initially developed from their family home, Shuppa aimed to automate processes for sellers on platforms like but faced challenges securing funding from investors. Shuppa later evolved into or merged with Auctomatic, a software-as-a-service platform providing automation tools for large-scale sellers to manage auctions, listings, and marketplaces. Patrick Collison founded Auctomatic during his first quarter as a freshman at , and the company joined Y Combinator's Winter 2007 batch, relocating the brothers to . This early exposure to the U.S. marked a pivot from their Irish roots, with Auctomatic addressing inefficiencies in bulk auction management through features like pricing optimization and inventory synchronization. Auctomatic achieved rapid traction but operated for less than a year before its acquisition by Live Current Media in March 2008 for $5 million in cash and stock, making the Collison brothers teenage millionaires. The sale provided initial capital and experience in scaling software for e-commerce, though the acquiring company later faced financial difficulties unrelated to Auctomatic's core product. This venture honed the brothers' skills in rapid prototyping and market validation, lessons they applied to subsequent endeavors.

Sale of Auctomatic

In March 2008, Auctomatic, a software platform developed for automating auction listings targeted at power sellers, was acquired by Canadian firm Live Current Media Inc. The transaction, announced on March 26, positioned Live Current to enhance its technology and product development through integration of Auctomatic's tools. The sale fetched approximately $5 million, with Patrick Collison (aged 19) and (aged 17) holding shares as two of the four primary owners alongside co-founders. This early exit from their Y Combinator-backed startup, launched in 2007, yielded substantial returns relative to the company's brief operational history and pre-revenue stage at inception. Post-acquisition, Patrick Collison briefly worked at Live Current Media while the firm aimed to leverage Auctomatic's codebase for broader applications, though the integration's long-term outcomes remained limited amid Live Current's subsequent challenges. The proceeds enabled the brothers to finance future endeavors without external funding dependencies, marking a pivotal financial milestone in their entrepreneurial trajectory.

Stripe: Founding and Expansion

Origins and Initial Development

Stripe was founded in early 2010 by Irish brothers and in , with the aim of simplifying online payment processing for developers. The brothers, frustrated by the cumbersome integration of payment systems like into web applications during their prior entrepreneurial efforts, sought to create a developer-friendly that abstracted away regulatory and banking complexities. They began prototyping in early 2010, developing an initial version within two weeks and iterating over the subsequent six months before committing full-time in the fall. The company's initial product focused on a straightforward payments , enabling charges via a simple seven-line code snippet while incorporating security features like Stripe.js for tokenizing card details on the to prevent data exposure. Launched publicly in the United States in 2011 under the temporary name /dev/payments, it was rebranded to .com in June 2011 after acquiring the domain. Early emphasis was on credit card payments with synchronous finalization, gaining quick adoption among startups due to its ease of use compared to incumbents. Stripe secured its first institutional funding through acceptance into Y Combinator's 2010 batch, receiving approximately $20,000 to $30,000 despite skipping the traditional bootcamp and demo day, leveraging Patrick's prior connections from his work and Auctomatic venture. In 2011, the company raised $2 million from investors including , , , and SV Angel, allowing it to internalize payment operations previously outsourced for greater control. By 2012, had expanded to a team of 17 in a Palo Alto office, prioritizing technical hires to refine the and support initial marketplace features.

Technological Innovations and Market Impact

Stripe pioneered a developer-focused for online payments, launched in , which abstracts the complexities of traditional payment gateways into simple, programmable primitives that enable integration with just a few lines of code. This design emphasized idempotency, webhooks for real-time updates, and extensibility, allowing businesses to handle charges, refunds, and subscriptions programmatically without relying on cumbersome merchant accounts or compliance hurdles. Under Patrick Collison's vision as co-founder and CEO, Stripe's evolved to support machine learning-driven fraud detection, dynamic authentication, and adaptive routing to optimize authorization rates, reducing declined transactions by up to 5-10% for users. These innovations facilitated the rapid scaling of and software-as-a-service models by prioritizing developer experience, with tools like SDKs in multiple languages, CLI for testing, and for debugging interactions and event histories. 's infrastructure also introduced embedded finance capabilities, such as Connect for marketplaces to manage payouts to third parties and Treasury for programmable banking, enabling platforms like and to embed seamless financial services. In market terms, Stripe processed $1.4 trillion in total payment volume in , a 38% year-over-year increase equivalent to 1.3% of global GDP, underscoring its role in fueling digital transactions amid rising online commerce. The company's gross revenue reached $18 billion in , with net revenue estimated at $5.6 billion, reflecting efficient scaling through high-margin usage and volume-based fees. By 2025, Stripe's valuation climbed to $91.5 billion following secondary share sales, positioning it as a dominant player in infrastructure. Stripe captured 20.8% to 29% of the global online payment processing market by mid-2025, trailing only , by enabling higher rates through support for over 50 local payment methods—such as in , where adoption yielded up to 91% conversion lifts for merchants. This expansion lowered barriers for cross-border , with businesses adding one extra payment method beyond cards seeing average conversion gains of 7%, particularly in emerging markets. Overall, 's innovations have accelerated the shift to API-driven financial plumbing, processing 40% more volume in 2024 than 2023 and empowering millions of businesses to handle payments scalably without proprietary hardware or legacy systems.

Regulatory Scrutiny and Business Criticisms

In September 2020, Stripe agreed to pay $120,000 to the Attorney General's Office to settle allegations that its payment processing facilitated an illegal scheme by defendants who solicited over $8 million from investors without detecting suspicious transaction patterns. Stripe neither admitted nor denied the claims, opting for the settlement to resolve the matter without litigation. No further significant regulatory fines or enforcement actions against Stripe have been publicly reported as of October 2025. Stripe has faced business criticisms primarily from users and competitors over its practices, including abrupt account terminations and fund holds classified as "debanking." In , the company intensified enforcement of prohibited business categories—such as certain adult content, gambling, or —to mitigate and regulatory risks, resulting in widespread user complaints of sudden service disruptions that halted operations for some and businesses. These actions, while defended by Stripe as necessary for with anti-money laundering laws and rules, have drawn anecdotal reports from affected merchants on forums and blogs alleging inadequate and appeals processes, though such accounts often involve high-risk industries preemptively restricted by Stripe's terms. Competitors have accused Stripe of unfair practices, prompting a June 2022 defense from co-founder against claims of predatory competition in payment processing. Additionally, Stripe's policies barring certain esoteric services, such as readings, led to 2021 backlash from niche merchants who viewed the restrictions as discriminatory, though the company later clarified it would not terminate compliant accounts solely on that basis. In November 2022, Stripe reduced its workforce by approximately 1,100 employees (14% of staff) amid post-pandemic economic contraction, with Patrick Collison citing over-optimistic hiring projections in a public memo; this drew standard tech-sector for rapid scaling and reversal but no unique allegations of . Overall, these criticisms remain limited compared to Stripe's scale, with no substantiated patterns of systemic abuse beyond efforts.

Broader Contributions to Technology and Science

Development of Arc

The Institute was co-founded in 2021 by Patrick Collison, bioscientist , and bioengineer Patrick Hsu, with the aim of accelerating fundamental biomedical research into complex diseases such as cancer, , and neurodegeneration. Unlike traditional academic labs constrained by grant cycles and administrative overhead, Arc operates as an independent nonprofit that provides core investigators with long-term, unrestricted funding—initially $10 million per over five years—to pursue high-risk, high-reward projects without predefined deliverables. This model draws from Collison's experiences with fast-paced tech innovation at and prior philanthropic efforts like Fast Grants, emphasizing rapid iteration and freedom from bureaucratic hurdles to foster breakthroughs in understanding cellular and molecular mechanisms. The institute launched publicly in December 2021 with an endowment of $650 million, primarily from tech philanthropists including Collison and his brother , enabling the recruitment of elite researchers without reliance on government or short-term grants. established its headquarters in , partnering with , UC Berkeley, and UCSF to embed investigators in these academic environments while shielding them from institutional through dedicated Arc-funded labs and administrative support. By 2023, had expanded its core faculty to over a dozen principal investigators, focusing on interdisciplinary approaches integrating , , and to model disease at unprecedented resolution. Early development emphasized output-oriented metrics, with Arc publishing foundational papers on topics like genetic and predictive cellular modeling by 2022, diverging from academia's publish-or-perish incentives by prioritizing verifiable progress over volume. Collison, while not holding an operational role, contributed to shaping the institute's ethos of "plumbing the unknown" in , arguing that historical failures to cure complex diseases stem from insufficient investment in basic science rather than inherent insolubility. This approach has yielded tangible advances, including the first functional AI-generated bacterial genomes reported in 2025, demonstrating Arc's capacity to translate abstract into engineered biological systems.

ARC Prize and AI Advancement Efforts

In 2021, Patrick Collison co-founded the Arc Institute, a nonprofit biomedical research organization funded with over $650 million from donors including Collison and his brother , aimed at accelerating fundamental research into complex diseases through computational and mechanistic approaches. The institute emphasizes building predictive models of biological systems, positing that traditional incremental methods have failed to cure major diseases like cancer or Alzheimer's due to incomplete causal understanding, and advocates simulating cellular behavior via to enable hypothesis testing and intervention design. A key initiative is the Virtual Cell Challenge, launched by Arc Institute on June 26, 2025, as an open competition to AI models' ability to predict cellular responses to genetic perturbations or chemical inputs across diverse contexts like stem cells, cancer cells, and immune cells. The challenge provides a dataset derived from experiments on 300 target genes across 300,000 cells, evaluating models on generalization to unseen perturbations with prizes totaling up to $100,000 for top performers, intended as a recurring akin to a for virtual cells. This effort supports Arc's broader goal of developing a "virtual cell"—a comprehensive, AI-driven simulation of cellular function—to make biology computable and testable , potentially transforming by identifying causal mechanisms absent in empirical trial-and-error approaches. Arc Institute's AI advancements include the release of Evo, a genomic foundation model trained on long-context sequences to predict and design DNA, RNA, and proteins, achieving state-of-the-art performance in generating functional genomic architectures at megabase scales. In September 2025, the institute announced the world's first functional AI-generated genomes, alongside other discoveries like bridge editing for precise genetic modifications, demonstrating AI's role in producing viable biological systems from computational designs. Collison, as a non-operating co-founder, has publicly highlighted these milestones, underscoring their potential to address scientific stagnation in biology by leveraging scalable computation over labor-intensive wet-lab methods. These initiatives reflect a commitment to causal realism in science, prioritizing verifiable predictive power over correlative statistics prevalent in prior genomic AI models.

Intellectual Advocacy for Progress

Critiques of Scientific Stagnation

Collison has critiqued the apparent in scientific , arguing that despite increases in inputs—such as , the number of scientists, and published papers—breakthroughs have not scaled accordingly, yielding per unit of effort. In a 2018 Atlantic essay co-authored with Michael Nielsen, they cited a survey of physicists who ranked Nobel Prize-winning discoveries by , revealing a concentration of highest-value work in physics from the to (e.g., and ), followed by a post-1940s decline; similar patterns, though less pronounced, appeared in and . This stagnation persists even as global R&D spending has risen dramatically, from about 0.5% of U.S. GDP in 1930 to over 2.8% in 2017, suggesting inefficiencies in how resources are deployed. Supporting evidence includes the growth in research team sizes, which have shifted from individual or small-group efforts—like Ernest Rutherford's 1911 solo-authored gold foil experiment confirming atomic structure—to massive collaborations, such as the 2012 discovery credited to approximately 1,000 authors at . Collison and Nielsen also highlighted that the average age of at the time of major discoveries has increased from 37 during the early Nobel era (pre-1940) to 47 in recent decades, implying rising knowledge barriers and coordination challenges that dilute productivity. They attributed this to potential overemphasis on established paradigms, insufficient exploration of new frontiers, and institutional inertia that fails to adapt to evidence of reduced efficiency per researcher or dollar invested. In a 2019 Atlantic piece with economist , Collison extended these critiques by decrying the understudy of progress itself, noting historical hotspots of rapid advancement—like Renaissance Florence or —contrast with modern scientific funding mechanisms that discourage risk, such as the U.S. (NIH) shifting grants away from younger researchers (from 12 times more funding for under-40s in 1980 to only 5 times more for over-50s today). He argued that rigid, peer-reviewed grant systems prioritize incremental work over transformative ideas, as evidenced by studies showing alternative models like investigator grants boosted high-impact papers by 96% compared to traditional NIH funding. These patterns, Collison contended, reflect broader stagnation in rates, warranting a dedicated "Progress Studies" field to empirically dissect causes—such as bureaucratic standardization or misaligned incentives—and engineer accelerations, drawing parallels to how or systematized their domains.

Promotion of Abundance and Innovation Policies

Collison has championed policies aimed at fostering abundance through accelerated innovation and streamlined regulations, emphasizing technology's potential to drive substantial . He promotes an "abundance agenda" that prioritizes regulatory reform to enable rapid deployment of breakthroughs in areas like energy and infrastructure, countering supply-chain vulnerabilities exposed during the . Central to his advocacy is the progress studies framework, co-developed with economist in a Atlantic essay, which calls for empirical study of historical progress drivers—such as institutional openness and knowledge dissemination—to inform modern policy experiments that replicate successful conditions for . This approach seeks to address slowdowns in total factor productivity growth since the 1970s by identifying scalable mechanisms for advancement, rather than relying on incremental tweaks. In science funding, Collison recommends structural diversification to break funding monocultures, including greater allocation to investigator-led grants modeled on the , which have produced 98% more top-cited papers than project-based alternatives. He advocates reallocating portions of existing budgets from agencies like the NIH and NSF toward early-career researchers and heterogeneous team sizes, countering evidence of exponentially declining ideas per researcher and rising Nobel laureate ages from 37 to 47 since the mid-20th century. For commercialization, Collison endorses "government as buyer" strategies, exemplified by NASA's 2006 contracts that slashed launch costs via and Operation Warp Speed's 2020 vaccine acceleration, which demonstrated how can de-risk private innovation. He also urges reforming regulatory bodies like the FAA to eliminate outdated rules—such as restrictions on electric propulsion—preventing institutional sclerosis from impeding deployment. These recommendations align with Collison's broader view that societal priorities should center on generating "anywhere," including through global talent access via tools like Atlas, to maximize growth without mandating top-down designs.

Philanthropic Initiatives

Fast Grants During

In March 2020, Patrick Collison co-founded Fast Grants with economist to provide expedited funding for scientific research addressing the , addressing perceived delays in traditional government mechanisms such as those from the . The program, administered by the at , offered grants ranging from $10,000 to $500,000, with funding decisions made within 14 days and disbursements processed as quickly as recipient institutions allowed, often within days of approval. Fast Grants prioritized high-risk, high-reward projects in ten categories, including diagnostics, , virus-host interactions, , , clinical trials, and long-term effects of the virus, aiming to accelerate actionable insights amid the crisis. By mid-2021, the initiative had distributed approximately $50 million to over 300 projects worldwide, funding efforts such as rapid diagnostic development and serological studies that contributed to response tools, including partial support for a Yale University-sponsored test. The program's structure emphasized minimal bureaucracy, relying on trusted scientific networks for rather than formal proposals, which Collison and Cowen argued exposed inefficiencies in established systems where months-long delays hindered urgent . Outcomes demonstrated that fast could yield tangible progress, such as enabling speculative work with potential for future pandemics, though some investments remained unproven at the time of evaluation. Post-pandemic analyses by participants highlighted Fast Grants as a model for reforming by reducing administrative overhead and prioritizing speed over exhaustive vetting.

Support for Emergent Ventures

Patrick Collison has provided financial support to Emergent Ventures, a grant program at the of that funds unconventional, high-risk projects aimed at societal progress. In April 2020, alongside his brother , he donated to Emergent Ventures' rapid-response efforts against , enabling quick funding for innovative solutions to the pandemic. Collison also backs Fast Grants, a streamlined funding mechanism administered through Emergent Ventures to accelerate scientific research by minimizing bureaucratic delays. Launched in response to funding bottlenecks, Fast Grants has disbursed millions to researchers, with ongoing support from Collison listed among key individual donors including and . In a June 2021 co-authored essay with and Patrick Hsu, Collison reflected on operational lessons from Fast Grants, emphasizing the value of single-stage decision-making and rapid disbursement—principles aligned with Emergent Ventures' model of backing "moonshot" ideas over incremental grants. Beyond funding, Collison promotes Emergent as a resource for aspiring innovators on his personal page, recommending it alongside programs like for those pursuing ambitious ventures. This endorsement underscores his advocacy for flexible that prioritizes potential over traditional processes, as discussed in a 2019 where he and Cowen highlighted Emergent Ventures' one-layer approval system for high-upside proposals.

Political Engagement and Views

Early Positions on Immigration and Regulation

In 2017, Patrick Collison criticized U.S. policies for imposing "needless barriers" that hindered the attraction of high-potential foreign talent, arguing these restrictions had eroded the conditions fostering Silicon Valley's innovation boom. He specifically highlighted how visa limitations prevented immigrants from contributing to startups, stating that such policies were detrimental to the tech sector's growth and the broader economy. Collison advocated for expanded of both high-skilled and low-skilled workers to bolster innovation, while rejecting fully as politically unsustainable within a and incompatible with existing systems. In a January 2017 discussion, he proposed prioritizing visas for engineers, creators, and "eccentrics" over those for routine service roles, emphasizing a selective approach to maximize economic contributions without overwhelming public resources. He also urged engaging with immigration skeptics by understanding their concerns rather than dismissing them as prejudiced, reflecting a pragmatic stance on design. On regulation, Collison targeted local and policies in innovation hubs like the Bay Area as major obstacles, claiming in that they were "deliberately doing our best to asphyxiate this growth" by driving up costs and blocking talent inflows. He likened these measures to a strategy undermining U.S. competitiveness, as unaffordable prevented the geographic clustering of skilled workers essential for serendipitous breakthroughs. This critique extended to broader government interventions that stifled density and mobility, which he saw as self-defeating for fostering the concentrations driving technological progress.

Shift Toward Republican Support

In the lead-up to the 2024 U.S. , Patrick Collison shifted his political contributions from Democratic recipients to committees, marking a departure from prior patterns of support for Democrats. records indicate Collison donated approximately $200,000 to National Committee-affiliated entities and other GOP committees during this period, following years of contributions to Democratic causes, including thousands donated by Collison and his brother to efforts as recently as August 2024. This pivot aligned with a broader trend among executives toward backing, amid frustrations with regulatory overreach and economic policies under Democratic administrations. Collison's donations included support for House campaigns, though totals directed specifically toward Trump's presidential bid remained under $250,000 across relevant channels. In public statements, Collison emphasized non-partisan priorities, stating he backs candidates advancing pro-growth economic policies rather than adhering strictly to party lines, reflecting his longstanding advocacy for innovation-friendly and reduced barriers to technological progress. The change drew attention in and U.S. media, with observers noting it as emblematic of tech leaders' reevaluation of alignments in favor of platforms promising lighter on , , and —areas central to Stripe's operations. Despite the donations, Collison has not publicly endorsed or any specific Republican candidate, maintaining focus on policy outcomes over ideology.

Personal Life

Family and Relationships

Patrick Collison was born on 9 September 1988 in Ireland to Lily Collison and Denis Collison. The family resided in Dromineer, a small village in . He has two younger brothers: (born 6 August 1990), co-founder and president of , and Tommy Collison (born circa 1995), who was diagnosed with shortly after his first birthday. Lily Collison has advocated for earlier and intervention in cerebral palsy cases, drawing from her experiences supporting Tommy. In April 2022, Collison married Swiss-American biochemist in a private ceremony in . The couple met as teenagers at the 2005 Young Scientist competition, where Konermann took first prize and Collison placed second; she later became an at . Together with bioengineer Patrick Hsu, they co-founded the Arc Institute, a nonprofit focused on biomedical research, in 2021, with Konermann serving as .

Residence and Lifestyle

Patrick Collison primarily resides in the San Francisco Bay Area, the headquarters location of Stripe since its founding in 2010. This base aligns with his role as CEO of the payments company, which employs thousands in the region and focuses on technology infrastructure development. Collison maintains significant property holdings in Ireland alongside his brother John, including the acquisition of Millbrook House in County Laois in 2022 and involvement in the €20 million purchase of the Abbey Leix estate in 2021, which spans 1,500 hectares and features an 18th-century mansion amid Ireland's largest native woodland. These properties serve family and occasional guest purposes rather than primary residence, with plans explored to repurpose portions, such as converting parts of Laois holdings into a luxury hotel for visitors. His lifestyle reflects a transatlantic orientation, having divided roughly equal portions of his life between Ireland—where he was born in 1988 near Limerick—and the United States since relocating for entrepreneurial pursuits around age 20. Collison emphasizes an intensive work ethic, noting that building Stripe demanded "obsessive intensity" over extended hours, though he cautions against long hours as an end goal. Publicly shared preferences include practical conveniences like Sunday grocery availability and daily showers, which he contrasts favorably with European norms during his comparative reflections on the two regions. Despite his billionaire status, he projects a low-profile personal demeanor, prioritizing high-standards environments in career advice over ostentatious displays.

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