♪ emily: they are brothers from rural ireland 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 since 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 -- via stripe. the company now works with customers as big as lyft, facebook and amazon. joining me today on bloomberg --

on "bloomberg studio 1.0." patrick and john collison. they are the cofounders of stripe. i have interviewed you both separately many times. and i am so excited to have you here together. we are going to start at the beginning you were born in rural ireland. what was it like growing up? the brothers collison. >> we grew up in the countryside. so it was like a 40 minute drive to 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. we didn't get to the internet until i was a teenager. you got used to present -- to browsing websites, to scrutinize the fine print and be like, offer not available in the republic of ireland. so the sense was airing through the glass at this amazing world

and internet out there and not all of those opportunities being available or equally available. so, in a way stripe is focused on global access and expansion of global opportunity and all those things. this really was not conscious in 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? it would be fair to say that we were free range kids. patrick: 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. patrick and 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. patrick: we read a lot we took the standard routine was 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. and read the book. emily: you read about programming before you had a computer. patrick: i read about the internet before we had the internet. i got a programming book and read it and it seemed awesome. i built my first junkie website. i was very proud of myself. emily: did you follow older brothers lead here? john: yeah. i similarly got into it as a teenager. emily: didn't you hack each other's websites or something like that? patrick: i think that did happen.

john: 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 2009, you both dropped out. how did you make that decision? safety in numbers, i suppose. john: patrick has the honor of dropping out of college twice. in 2009, we had just started college at we had been building all sorts of side projects. and internet misses and things this. and i don't think anyone ever -- 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 new internet 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.

so i think it was honest lee helpful that we were young, we started out. and two, we were not coming from 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. patrick: the thing that lettuce to dropping out was a realization of what we initially conceived of, as being a niche product for developers. the lake wasly -- actually an ocean. the character and 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.

patrick: i often wonder if i were in their shoes, how would i react? they asked us to explain our decisions. they didn't rubberstamp. they were always supportive. i think john and i are very lucky to have parents like that. emily: you got into white commentator. you moved to buenos aires to build the company. walk me through the early days of building? john: patrick: the early days of building were not that glamorous. it was myself and john, programming all day, everyday. we wanted to get up and running with real customers as soon as possible. we accepted the first real payment on 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 ready let's add a , second business.

emily: you say no one has to fail in order for strike 26 he does that mean? does it mean you don't think you have real competitors? patrick: 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. john: it is very motivating for us that 5% of global commerce takes place on the line today. the other 95% is off line. 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. -- like 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 hugely heavy lift before hand. it had this damaging effect where only large companies could do it and they could not pivot quickly. you look at what businesses are doing today. this is models are changing, 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 phenomenal. on a global basis, the market site has had the opportunities have never been greater.

emily: stripe has been working with smaller businesses for a long time. bloomberg broke the news you are working with amazon, facebook, microsoft, allianz. booking.com, lyft. 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 not despite the fact that we started with startups, but because we are working with startups. especially when you are serving startups you can't bamboozle , them with fancy sale materials and this big marketing campaign. they are just not going to be deceived by it. they will assess you on the product merits. what helps them innovate fast as and for fill their ambitions and goals as rapidly as possible. it 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 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? john: 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. again the economy is 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? john: 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. i was in asia last week and man, 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., in europe, asia, that we are capitalizing on the opportunities there. and will go to the long-term structure of the company, that we will fit within that. emily: speaking of, what is 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? john: when you take stock of what is happening on a local -- a global asus, the number of internet connected users and people in the world rises incredibly quickly. and of course 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 opportunities presented for 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. there has always been preeminent technology companies. i don't see anything distinctly different about the current

generation. emily: coming from ireland what , do you think of brexit? is it concerning? >> i am concerned by the general trend we are seeing in a number of countries around the world towards more inward looking into more retrenchment. in part because i don't think it is a global long-term trend. it has 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 slide 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 if you really look out at the time series, all the major trends are going in the right direction. so 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. but that is what gives me , concerned. ♪ >> our determination was that bitcoin is not a good payment method. ♪

emily: cryptocurrency is all the rage now. stripe initially accepted

bitcoin and that 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 genuinely wish them the very best. it works less well for our case. this is one thing that where we 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. which is a very different discussion dan cryptocurrencies generally. 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 people getting distracted by

vanity projects of we will put this database on the blockchain. people are not weathered into the technical details. emily: there is a concern that bitcoin is mostly young and male. this, as tech industry is grappling with a diversity problem. 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. they have attracted prominent headlines. >> 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 start at home and if we can't 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. as i understand it. >> people can choose to make certain email's available. it's on an in basis. then fowler who wrote discrimination ultimately resulted in the ceo of uber leaving the company 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. hiring goals, what we set for managers. i think sometimes people leave too 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 that really deeply is suffused in the culture and everybody lives every day. again, you can have a good list of initiatives. but if it is not really in the culture, it is just going to 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 very storied 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. for him, and for our family, it

was very no-nonsense. this is a disadvantage or sort of 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. again that took a lot of work. ,but 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? for us, it was 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. emily: what is your advice for 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. like, but is very different versus 10 or 15 years. it depends on 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. how do you see yourselves 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. when you are so focused -- stripe just past thousand people. 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? >> i hope that we substantially completed this work of building this globally unified economic infrastructure. that serves companies of every 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. that it is not complete and 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. emily: i'm scheduling our catch up five years from now. thank you for joining us on the show. it has been great to have you. ♪

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