INTELLIGENCE · PERSON DOSSIER
UPDATED 2026-08-13Patrick Collison
Founders & CEOs
Stripe · United States
Net worth
$17.5bn
Source of wealth
Stripe equity — payment software, self-made
Valuation underpinning the stake
$159bn
Ownership position
The Collison brothers hold a controlling interest in Stripe
Political giving
$7m to Building a Better California (2026)
Identity & Ownership
Current role
Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer, Stripe
Founded Stripe with his brother John in 2010 and has been chief executive throughout. Stripe describes him as "CEO and cofounder".
Born
9 September 1988
Born in Limerick, Ireland; raised in the village of Dromineer, County Tipperary. Parents Lily, a microbiologist, and Denis, an electronic engineer.
Nationality
Irish
Forbes records his citizenship as Ireland; he is resident in California.
Based
San Francisco Bay Area, California
Forbes lists San Francisco as his residence. Californian campaign filings reported by The Irish Times in July 2026 carry a Redwood City address.
Company headquarters
South San Francisco, California
Stripe's US address on his March 2025 congressional testimony is 354 Oyster Point Blvd, South San Francisco. Stripe also runs a Dublin headquarters.
Education
Castletroy College; Massachusetts Institute of Technology (left without graduating)
Began computer coursework at the University of Limerick aged eight. Left MIT to work on Stripe full time.
Family
Eldest of three brothers
Brother John Collison is Stripe's co-founder and president. Younger brother Tommy Collison also entered the Young Scientist exhibition, in 2010.
Spouse
Silvana Konermann
Married April 2022. Konermann is a Swiss-American biochemist, a Stanford professor and a co-founder of the Arc Institute; the pair met at a European young scientist competition.
Personal site
patrickcollison.com
Carries his essays on progress, the speed of large projects, Silicon Valley history and a public reading list.
Personal Wealth & Holdings
Net worth
$17.5bn
Forbes real-time estimate as of 12 August 2026, placing him #157 on the 2026 Forbes billionaires list. An estimate derived from a private valuation, not a disclosed figure.
Source of wealth
Stripe equity — payment software, self-made
Forbes classifies the fortune as self-made from payment software.
Valuation underpinning the stake
$159bn
Stripe's February 2026 tender offer price, agreed with investors including Thrive Capital, Coatue and Andreessen Horowitz. A private mark, not a traded price.
Ownership position
The Collison brothers hold a controlling interest in Stripe
Stripe is private and does not publish a share register; the controlling-interest description is not company-confirmed.
Political giving
$7m to Building a Better California (2026)
$2m in January 2026 and $5m in March 2026 to a political action committee opposing a proposed Californian billionaire wealth tax, per campaign filings reported by The Irish Times.
Philanthropic vehicle
Arc Institute — co-founder and founding donor
Non-profit biomedical research institute. Founding donors include Patrick and John Collison, Vitalik Buterin, Dustin Moskovitz and Cari Tuna, and the Ron Conway family.
Recognition
TIME100 Philanthropy, 2025
Named to Time's inaugural philanthropy list, cited for Fast Grants and the Arc Institute.
Background
Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition winner, 2005
Won aged 16 for Croma, a Lisp-type programming language he wrote; the prize was presented by President Mary McAleese.
Auctomatic, sold for $5m in March 2008
Started in Limerick as Shuppa with John Collison, then merged with a Y Combinator project run by Harjeet and Kulveer Taggar. Sold to Canadian firm Live Current Media when Patrick was 19.
2010, with John Collison
In his own words to Congress: founded "in the United States with my brother John in 2010 to make it easier for businesses to accept payments online".
House Financial Services Committee, 11 March 2025
Witness at "Navigating the Digital Payments Ecosystem: Examining a Federal Framework for Payment Stablecoins and Consequences of a U.S. Central Bank Digital Currency", alongside witnesses from BNY, Paxos, Davis Polk and the Atlantic Council.
Director, Meta Platforms, since 15 April 2025
Elected alongside Dina Powell McCormick. Mark Zuckerberg said he "is deeply committed to expanding economic opportunity".
Essayist on progress, institutional speed and science funding
Co-authored the July 2019 Atlantic essay with Tyler Cowen that coined the term "Progress Studies".
Maintains a public bookshelf
Forbes describes hundreds of books on physics, feminism and literary criticism; the list is published on his own site.
Stripe Press
Stripe's book imprint, publishing on technological and economic progress. Stripe operates it as an in-house press.
$1.9 trillion total payment volume in 2025
Up 34% year on year and about 1.6% of global GDP, per Stripe's 2025 annual letter. Stripe describes itself as "robustly profitable" and says it serves more than 5 million businesses.
Notable Coverage
21 items
Collison gave $7m to a campaign group opposing California's billionaire wealth tax
Stripe did not respond to the newspaper's queries about the donations.
Collison fronts 288 product launches at Stripe Sessions
Tender offer values Stripe at $159bn, up 74% in a year
Stripe's Bridge wins conditional US approval for a national trust bank charter
Collison introduces Tempo, a payments blockchain built with Paradigm
Stripe acquires crypto wallet infrastructure firm Privy
Collison elected to the Meta Platforms board
Collison testifies to Congress on a federal stablecoin framework
Tender offer values Stripe at $91.5bn on $1.4 trillion of 2024 volume
Stripe closes its $1.1bn acquisition of stablecoin platform Bridge
Campaigners call for a Stripe boycott after Collison posts from Tel Aviv
Neither Collison nor Stripe issued a public response in the reporting.
Stripe raises $6.5bn at a $50bn valuation to settle employee share tax bills
Collison cuts 14% of Stripe's workforce, about 1,100 roles
Collison wrote: "We overhired for the world we're in."
Stripe leads a $925m advance market commitment for permanent carbon removal
Forbes removes profile of the Collison brothers after Patrick disputes its description of Limerick
Collison replied publicly: "Not only mistaken about Limerick but the idea of 'overcoming' anything is crazy. We are who we are because we grew up where we did."