This is the youngest billionaire you never heard of...
He was an MIT dropout who built Stripe into a $95B company from his dorm room.
His growth strategy was so GENIUS that PayPal, Square, and Visa executives couldn't believe it.
Here's the full story: 🧵
Meet Patrick Collison.
At 19, he dropped out of MIT to solve the internet's biggest problem:
Paypal...
In 2009, accepting online payments was a nightmare.
PayPal's integration took 7 days and required a 100-page manual.
Meanwhile, companies lost $40B yearly to failed payment processing.
Patrick saw an opportunity hiding in plain sight.
His solution?
Make payments stupidly simple.
Just 7 lines of code to accept payments. (PayPal needed 500+)
When Patrick showed this to PayPal execs, they laughed.
"It's impossible to make it that simple" they said.
But Patrick had a secret weapon: his brother John.
• Both spoke multiple languages.
• Both dropped out to build Stripe.
• Both were programming since age 10.
They lived on ramen, coded 16 hours daily, and focused on one metric:
Developer happiness.
Y Combinator's Paul Graham called their demo "suspiciously good."
Peter Thiel, PayPal's founder, was so impressed he invested $2M.
Stripe's first office?
A 2-bedroom apartment with 6 people coding non-stop.
Their mission: "increase the GDP of the internet."
Here's Patrick's belief for the first 10 hires:
2011: Stripe launches publicly.
Their timing was perfect:
- Shopify was taking off
- App stores were booming
- SaaS was exploding
Every startup needed simple payments. Stripe was there.
The growth was insane:
2011: $1M processed
2012: $100M processed
2013: $1B processed
2015: $20B processed
Traditional banks called it "beginner's luck."
They were wrong, here's why:
Patrick's realized payment complexity wasn't necessary – it was just historical baggage.
While competitors added features, Stripe removed them.
Result: Developers could integrate payments in minutes, not weeks.
By 2016, Stripe powered:
- Lyft
- Instacart
- DoorDash
- Shopify
- Amazon
The college dropout was now worth billions.
Patrick's next move shocked everyone:
He expanded beyond payments into:
- Business incorporation (Atlas)
- Fraud prevention (Radar)
- Company cards (Issuing)
Each product simplified another complex problem.
2021: Stripe becomes worth $95B
More valuable than:
- Goldman Sachs
- BMW
- General Motors
- Target
Patrick's age? Just 32.
Key lessons from Patrick's success:
1. Simplicity beats complexity
2. Focus on developer happiness
3. Think decade-long games
4. Stay humble, keep building
5. Solve real problems
Here's Patrick vision for the future of the internet:
The craziest part?
Stripe still has less than 1% of global payment processing.
Their mission to "increase the GDP of the internet" is just beginning.
And Patrick's still just getting started.
I hope you've found this thread helpful.
Follow me @BusinessGTX for more threads on business and marketing.
Help me reach 100k before April 2025 :)
Like/Repost the quote below if you can:
Before you leave, if you want to write genius threads like this, join my free 5-day email course.
I will debunk the 5 dangerous mistakes most creators make and help you write your first viral thread today:
writeviralthread.com
Share this Scrolly Tale with your friends.
A Scrolly Tale is a new way to read Twitter threads with a more visually immersive experience.
Discover more beautiful Scrolly Tales like this.