Inside Stripe, The PayPal Competitor Backed By PayPal Founders Peter Thiel, Elon Musk (and YC!)

by Alexis Ohanian2/2/2012

A great in-depth look at Stripe:

Off of Ramona Street in Palo Alto, down a narrow alcove lined with potted plants and flowers, is a small office hidden by hanging leaves that passersby might confuse for a misplaced country cottage. Inside, Patrick and John Collison, brothers in their early 20s from Limerick, Ireland, are punching away at their keyboards. Crumpled bags of chips are on a nearby table; the hum of a maid’s vacuum is heard from another room. This is the humble headquarters of Stripe, a startup with a decidedly not-so-humble mission: to become the next PayPal.

Don’t let the implausibility of that mission throw you: Stripe is backed by Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, and–how’s this for irony–PayPal cofounders Peter Thiel and Elon Musk. A source at Google Checkout recently told me Stripe is one startup the company has definitely had its eye on in the Valley. And Paul Graham has boasted to Fast Company that he believes Stripe is the next big thing. (Y Combinator backed Patrick’s first startup, Auctomatic, which he sold for $5 million at the age of 19.)

Read the full story at fastcompany.com »

Author

  • Alexis Ohanian