♪ emily: the brother -- they are brothers who came to america to pursue the entrepreneur dream. together, they created a company called strike in 2010, making it debt simple for small, young companies to accept payments from all over the world. it has grown into a giant of valued at $9.2 billion. half of all americans who bought something online in the last year did so without knowing the us stripe. the company now works with customers as biggest lyft, facebook and amazon.

joining me today on bloomberg -- on "bloomberg studio 1.0." patrick and john collison. they are the cofounders of stripe. have interviewed you both separately many times. i'm excited to have you here. we are going to start at the beginning you were born in rural ireland. what was it like growing up? >> we grew up in the countryside. it's like a 40 minute drive to get to the -- get to school in the morning. none of our friends lived anywhere close to us. when we came home from school, we would -- we couldn't run around and play with them. we had to run around and play with each other. we would go read books. to the internet until i was a teenager. you got used to present websites, -- to browsing websites, to scrutinize the fine print and be like, offer not available in the republic of ireland. it was his amazing world and

internet out there and not all of those opportunities being available or equally available. stripe is focused on global access and expansion of global opportunity and all those things. this really was not conscious and anyway. but looking back over the last 20 years of my life, i think in some ways, that mindset was instilled by the experience of growing up in 1990 ireland. emily: how did you discover computers? john: we were free range kids. i am always struck in the u.s. like people need finer grained counter controls for their kids life. it is like half hour increments are not precise enough. in our case, our parents were busy. they were both entrepreneurs running businesses they had started. i had a lot of latitudes to figure out what we were interested in. and go explore that. >> you are the one that started

with programming. that was not the plan. >> we read a lot we took the defender routine, we would go to the library. we would go home and read the books, rinse, repeat for the next day. at some point, i happened to get a programming book. you read about programming before you had a computer. >> i read about the internet before we had the internet. it seemed awesome. i built my first junkie website. i was very proud of myself. emily: did you follow older brothers lead here? >> i got into it when i was a teenager. emily: didn't you hack each other's websites or something like that? >> i think that did happen.

i think it's an important duty as a 16-year-old older brother to help educate the slightly younger brother. i took that obligation and duty very seriously. emily: you made it to m.i.t.. you made it to harvard. in two thousand nine comey you both dropped out. how did you make that decision? safety in numbers, i suppose. ofpatrick has the honor dropping out of college twice. just startedad college at we had been building all sorts of side projects. i don't think anyone -- certainly in our case -- you don't set up to start a huge thing. you don't set out to build a large company. we want to to solve a problem. there was this disconnect between the fact that all of these services and businesses were getting started, smart phones have just arrived, and then you went to do anything on the business side and accept money for what you built, it is

like back to the 1970's. i think it was helpful. we were young, we started out. fromwe were not coming being industry professionals who had been in the industry for 30 years or anything like that. you can bring a fresh perspective. we started approaching it from the perspective of the people who actually prove to be the most important decision-makers of all, the software of building it. lettuce tohat dropping out was a realization of what we initially conceived of, as being a niche pride for developers. was -- the lake was actually an ocean. the problems we were addressing in terms of what is the global economic infrastructure for the internet? and why is it not possible? even then a 2010, to accept customers payments revenue from internet users anywhere in the world. emily: how did your mom and dad

feel about this? i know they are entrepreneurs. >> i often wonder if i were in their shoes, how would i react? the assets can explain our decisions. they were always supportive. i think john and i are very likely -- lucky to have parents like that. emily: you got into white commentator. you moved to gwen's eyes to build the company. walk me through the early days of building? >> the early days of building were not that glamorous. john, myself and programming all day, everyday. up and runningt with real customers as soon as possible. we accepted stripe in january of 2010. only had a couple of weeks of working on it. the feedback was, what does this business want? and how will be implemented that? let's make it happen as quick as we can. when we are added -- ready,

let's add a second business. emily: you say no one has to fill in order for strike 26 he does that mean? does it mean you don't think you have real competitors? >> i think there is a desire to set these things up as stripe versus banks. a very large fraction of the time, when people are busy -- building businesses on strike, they are building businesses on white space as opposed to replacing another business. it is very motivating for us that 5% of global commerce takes place on the line together. that is what we mean when we say no one has to fail. emily: you have done partnerships with companies that could be perceived as your competitors. like apple, google, lisa. walk me through the strategy. -- visa. walk me through the strategy. >> we thought they would be successful over time what has been lacking is a platform for the businesses to manage

complexity of doing business online in 2018. when you talk to businesses, even for table space to get up and running, managing the payments and the treasury and the regulation and the compliance, and all the capacity -- complexity of doing that, take doing that in the u.s. and then take doing that all around the world. that was a heavy lift before hand. damaging effect where only large companies could do it and they could not pivot quickly. you look at what businesses are doing today. changing,dels are their global, getting more complex like a multiparty interaction. that is what we are focused on. that is why apple pay has been growing like a weed. that is phenomena and -- phenomenal. basis, the market site has had the opportunities have never been greater.

workingtripe has been

with smaller businesses for a long time. bloomberg broke the news you are working with amazon, facebook, microsoft, allianz. lyft.g.com, how does a startup that is growing served such huge companies? >> i think our success with these larger companies is despite the fact that we -- is we despite the fact that started with startups, but because we are working with startups. you can't bamboozle them with fancy sale materials and this big marketing campaign. there is not -- they will not be deceived. they will assess you on the product merits. what helps them innovate fast as and for fill their ambitions and goals. is punishing we are forced to build a product that helped them execute as quickly as possible. emily: stripe makes money by charging a small fee on every

transaction. you are processing billions of dollars a year for hundreds of thousands of companies. taking payments worldwide. you are valued at $9.2 billion. you have raised 450 million dollars in funding. some analysts say your valuation is not justified. we have seen companies that have not been able to hit the market cap they raised out. do you have concern you will not be able to hit that mark? >> i think we are certainly always paranoid that we need to execute strongly to meet the potential with stripe. if you are asking what the potential market size support that kind of valuation? absolutely. many times over. so vast and so much smaller than it will be if we actually have good infrastructure. emily: do you see strike as a public company? >> someday. quite possibly. but the way we have always thought about ourselves is that we are in such an expansion

phase, we are so far from reaching the plateau of that when things stabilize and the whole business becomes predictable. and man,asia last week there is such vast opportunity there for every internet business, stripe included. i guess we are so fixated on making sure, how do we ensure what stripe is doing in the u.s., eight europe, asia, that we are capitalizing on the opportunities that -- opportunities there. what ispeaking of, happening more broadly, we are in a world of great political and economic uncertainty with president trump being elected, with brexit, with facebook and apple and google on the other hand squelching all of the smaller companies. in a way, you could say squelching innovation. could that hurt stripe?

given you depend on businesses getting started? >> when you take stock of what is happening on a local basis, the number of internet connection -- users and people in the world rises incredibly quickly. around the world, middle classes are rising to 100,000 people are leaving poverty every. i think on a global basis, the market sizes and the forrtunities presented people who want to do something new or want to build something significant, i think those opportunities have never been greater. there has always been concerned with the particular giants of the day are overly dominant and exercise force. generally speaking, those giants have only prevailed for a particular window. we had microsoft in the 1990's, ibm before that, and so on. has always been preeminent

technology companies. i don't see anything distinctly different about the current generation. emily: coming from island, what do you think of brexit? is it concerning? the generalerned by trend we are seeing in a number of countries around the world intods more inward looking more retrenchment. in part because i don't think it is a global long-term trend. been a mistake historically to bet against more global integration or to assume there will not be more migration of people, there will not be more migration of cultures, of goods and services on things like that. i don't think things like brexit will change that. emily: you both spent time with president obama. as a trump administration takes things in a different direction, a slight toward protectionism, what are your biggest concerns? >> we benefit from such an amazing set of tailwinds. there has never been more people employed in the u.s. at any time

in the past. the global inequality is falling. there is so much good that is happening, that i think -- emily: yet there are things that are alarming turn and some bad that is happening, arguably. >> absolutely. i guess where it was going to do is if youg to go really look out at the time series, all the major trends are going in the right direction. what concerns me is what are the tail events that could really jolt these off course? it is not clear how much influence a single person, a single country can have against all these broader trends. that is what gives me concerned. ♪ >> our determination was that bitcoin is not a good payment method.

emily: are you at all concerned

that stripe will be on the wrong side of history but that decision? >> at the time we made the decision, it was trending toward that way. i think that is a valuable thing to have existed in the world. i wish them the very best. it works less well for our case. where wene thing that are looking at the data. it was declining rapidly in uses of payment method. if it increases, then sure, we will go back. emily: bitcoin, cryptocurrency, is it hyped? reality, a bubble? our determination was at the bitcoin was not a good payment method. emily: because the value was shifting dramatically? >> and the speed of those transactions was the main thing. we remain fascinated by cryptocurrencies from a technology point of view and the general speed of execution of the space. i see tons of companies and

getting distracted by vanity projects of we will put this data place on that -- database on the blockchain. people are not weathered into the technical details. emily: there is a concern that bitcoin is mostly young and mail. -- male. if the tech industry does not do a better job including people of all backgrounds, what are the consequences? >> the tech industry has to be a place where people of any background or any demographic, or whatever origin, can thrive. there have been big missteps on that front. >> people are paying a lot of attention to the silicon valley and how it is we do things and it has had a real ripple effect around the world. for myself and john, we try to can'tat home and if we

build a company into a culture and an organization that we can be proud of, and that we can really feel good about, and where people of any background can really thrive, then we have not achieved anything of value. emily: stripe, you guys have interesting things are you have an open floor plan. people changed desks every so often. gender-neutral bathrooms. you have an interesting female -- email policy where everyone can read everyone else's emails. >> people can choose to make certain email's available. ultimatelyy: resulted in the seo leaving uber. she works at stripe. what do you see yourselves continuing to work to attract and retain whether it is women are underrepresented minorities?

>> there is a whole bunch of specific initiatives. making sure that people are becoming moms and parents stay with the company. we track those numbers carefully. we are delighted they are as high as they are. goals, what we set for managers. i think sometimes people leave to quickly to what their checklist is of initiatives. if you are actually going to take this seriously and do it well, it has to be something suffusedly deeply is in the culture and everybody lives every day. again, you can have a good list of initiatives. it is not really -- if it is not in the culture, it will not work. emily: before we go, i understand there is a third brother who as i hear is even more tech savvy than you are? tell me about tommy. >> tommy is a four years my

junior. tommy was very interested in this topic that we talk about, the implications of technology and the fact that more of our lives are moving online. he was really interested in that before it was the talk of the town and before it was the cool thing to be into. he worked at the electronic frontier foundation. a nonprofit around digital rights and digital privacy and things like that. he now works for a nonprofit called tor who produces trace less or privacy preserving software. i think he is the one to watch, really. he is taking a very different tack. emily: he was born with cerebral palsy. i'm curious how that impacted your relationship as a trio? >> it affected the whole family environment. as a kid, growing up, whatever circumstances you had, you consider normal.

family, itd for our was very no-nonsense. this is an unfortunate piece of luck, we will figure out the game plan to overcome it and work to make it happen to her he walks, he runs, swims, cycles. that took a lot of work. there was no wallowing in self-pity or anything like that. as john mentioned, both of our parents were entrepreneurs. sometimes people ask us what inspired us to become entrepreneurs? the normal thing. i see it as a theme running through our upbringing in general. the no-nonsense way in which both he and our parents approached it. i find them inspiring, honestly.

it helps keep it in perspective the challenges of building a fast-growing company. seeing the work that he has invested over the course of decades, it keeps and in perspective. fory: what is your advice aspiring entrepreneurs, or people who may not look like you who want to do what you do? >> the first thing is you don't have to be here. ke, but is very different versus 10 or 15 years. the company were building. there are benefits of being here. but you can almost certainly do it for wherever you are today. i would take advantage of the community's tools and knowledge that is available and start where you are right now. emily: how do you see your selves -- your selves navigating your partnership, your relationship as brothers, and the stakes, if all goes well?

only get higher. >> we have survived this long and i am not too worried on the go forward basis. in particular, it is -- after 20 years, we can extrapolate whether we will last a couple more years. emily: gets the last word during an argument? >> i can't even remember. we are still hiring quickly. there is always the next problem and interaction to go with. one of the things i find enjoyable is when you have a high trust environment, which we do, and we have worked together for a long time, you're not focused on the meta-structure and how to be arranged. you are focused on the next problem. emily: where will stripe be in let's say five years? we substantially completed this work of building this globally unified economic infrastructure. of everyes companies

size. and makes it possible for way more companies to get started no matter what country in the world they are in. i still think it is absolutely crazy that if you started a business in indonesia, good luck selling to customers in america. we should be up in arms with the fact that the internet doesn't make its infrastructure available today. i'm proud of the progress we have made over the first 6, 7 years. we have quite a ways left to go. when we are sitting here in five years, i hope, i hope that foundational infrastructure has been put in place and now we're at the point where we can be turning our sites to what comes after. --ly: i'm scheduling hour scheduling our catch up five years from now. thank you for joining us on the show. it has been great to have you. ♪ retail.

under pressure like never before. and it's connected technology that's moving companies forward fast. e-commerce. real time inventory. virtual changing rooms. that's why retailers rely on comcast business to deliver consistent network speed across multiple locations. every corporate office, warehouse and store near or far covered. leaving every competitor, threat and challenge outmaneuvered. comcast business outmaneuver.

messages from asia to the economy. china's manufacturing remaining robust. a slowdown in japan. -- a huge messn on estimates last month. we have trade tensions against all the spirit washington will be opposing medals tariffs. the european union, canada, and mexico also facing penalties. in hong kong, i'm rishaad salamat. in sydney, i'm haidi lun. financial raises its fundraising target to more than $12 billion that would value the company at $150 billion. this is "bloomberg markets

asia." ♪ heidi: the relief rally is obvious. we get the panic sentiment over italy's starts to send side that there was an outside move we saw and global bond. the rebound is on foot and helped along by the positive my numbers. near export orders generally as well as activity bradley looking pretty positive. the best we had in eight months. trade, always on the back burner there. rishaad: trade talks going on as we speak. other things we're looking at. we're looking at the jobs report out friday. the last set of data there on employment before the fed