I had the chance to briefly meet Patrick in Estonia some years ago when he came to our offices at e-Residency. He immediately struck me as an incredibly intelligent person that had a crazy mix of intellect, curiosity, and eq. This interview definitely solidified for me that he is probably one of the best, and underrated, entrepreneurs out there right now.
Having worked with them in the past (when Patrick was a newly "on paper" millionaire and not a widely known billionaire visionary), I feel the same way.
They're smart, sure, and have great ideas and execution, sure, but they're also just really, really great people, and fun guys to hang out with.
The one thing that stands out for me - and this goes for both brothers - is their modesty. There are a lot of people thumping their chests all day long about very minor achievements and these guys just plug away at what underpins a very large fraction of all e-commerce. Stripe one day will be really too big to fail.
Patrick is a great many things but I wouldn’t include underrated on that list. I don’t think anybody operating with or around him believes he’s anything but one of the most competent executives on the planet today. If you surveyed 100 venture capitalists and asked them the likelihood of Stripe hitting a $1T market cap, I think 99 would agree and one would be trying desperately hard to appear contrarian.
Yeah, for sure not underrated in the valley and by people who know him but I meant generally. I doubt the average person knows much about him or Stripe
The general public only cares about consumer goods. Why would they know anything about a payments processing CEO? The "star" CEOs are all from consumer goods - Steve Jobs, Bezos and Elon Musk are probably the only ones any American can name.
This is interesting and I'm trying to think of others. You're on to something. Zuckerberg comes to mind. Jack Dorsey, maybe. Warren Buffett - consumer business.
I think the Shark Tank cast are probably pretty well-known by now, at least as much as Bezos. Though I don't know if they're known for their companies, so maybe it doesn't make sense to include them. In fact, Daymond John is the only whose business _I_ know, and that one was a consumer business. They're all much smaller time, ofc, than the other names mentioned. Cuban makes me think a bunch of sports CEOs are probably well known. Vince McMahon.
Jack Welch, Lee Iacocca, and Ray Kroc I think were big deals, back when.
Probably there's no value in the CEO of a non-consumer company having celebrity. Nobody's deciding between PWC and E&Y based on a TV appearance by the CEO, so the CEO won't spend time on that.
Stripe’s not a publicly traded company yet — it will be at some point — and I get the sense that Patrick and John are enjoying the relative obscurity while they still can.
