@theventure: Stripe's real product was never the code. Seven lines is what the customer sees. What they are actually buying is the two years Patrick spent with banks, card networks and regulators, so that they never have to. Before Stripe, taking a card online meant registering a merchant account, negotiating a gateway, handling compliance paperwork and stitching together half a dozen systems built for shop tills. Every competitor left that work with the developer. Collison took it off them and kept it. He did the same thing in person. When a founder wanted Stripe, he did not send documentation, he asked for their laptop and installed it himself. The Irish banks turned him down, he joked they were three squirrels in a trenchcoat, and he kept going until an American one said yes rather than handing the problem back to his customers. The direction has not changed since. Seven lines is now zero lines. Stripe processed $1.9 trillion last year, runs payments for 90 percent of the Fortune 500, and is worth $159 billion. The brothers still have not sold it. @Patrick Collison @Stripe

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Monday 14 September 2026 20:09:00 GMT