Patrick Collison

Patrick Collison (born 9 September 1988) is an Irish entrepreneur, investor, and philanthropist. He is the chief executive officer of Stripe, which he co-founded with his younger brother, John, in 2010. A billionaire since 2016, his net worth as of August 2026 is estimated at $17.5 billion.

Originally from the west of Ireland, Collison won that country’s 41st Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition in 2005 at the age of sixteen. In 2021, he co-founded Arc Institute, a nonprofit research organization, with bioscientists Silvana Konermann and Patrick Hsu. In 2026, he co-founded the Rhine Group with Mario Draghi.

Early life Patrick Collison was born in Limerick on 9 September 1988 to microbiologist Lily and electronic engineer Denis Collison. He and his brothers were brought up in the small village of Dromineer in County Tipperary. The eldest of three boys, he took his first computer course when he was eight years old, at the University of Limerick, and began learning computer programming at the age of ten.

Collison was educated at Gaelscoil Aonach Urmhumhan, Nenagh, before attending Castletroy College in Castletroy, County Limerick. He re-entered the following year and, at the age of sixteen, won first place on 14 January 2005.

His prize of a €7,500 cheque and a trophy of Waterford Crystal was presented to him by President Mary McAleese.

Auctomatic He attended Massachusetts Institute of Technology, but eventually dropped out in 2009 after starting businesses. In May 2008, he became director of engineering at the company's new Vancouver base.

Stripe In 2010, Collison co-founded Stripe, which in 2011 received investment of $2 million including from PayPal co-founders Elon Musk and Peter Thiel, and venture capital firms Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, and SV Angel. By 2017, the brothers were notionally worth at least $3.2 billion each.

In 2018, Stripe, under the direction of the Collison brothers, contributed $1 million to California YIMBY, a pro-housing development lobbying organisation.

In September 2019, it was announced that Stripe had raised an additional $250 million at a valuation of $35 billion. Together, the brothers hold a controlling interest in Stripe.

Collison joined the board of Meta Platforms in April 2025.

Views On 18 July 2009, at the age of 20 and following the publication of the McCarthy Report, Collison outlined his ideas for the future of Ireland on popular talk-show Saturday Night with Miriam.

Metascience

According to Collison, he reads books and is interested in a broad range of subjects on history, technology, engineering, fiction, philosophy, and art. Metascience has been a theme of Collison's advocacy and philanthropy. In November 2018, Collison published a piece in The Atlantic with Michael Nielsen entitled Science is Getting Less Bang for its Buck, arguing that increased investment in science has not produced commensurate output. In 2019, Collison published an opinion piece in the same outlet with Tyler Cowen arguing for a new academic discipline called "Progress Studies", which would study the cultural and institutional conditions which lead to the most progress and higher standards of living.

In April 2020, Collison and Cowen launched Fast Grants to fund COVID-19-related science. In 2021, Collison co-founded Arc Institute, a nonprofit biomedical research organization focused on research and technology development towards understanding and addressing complex disease, which in 2026 published the first AI designed genome of a new virus.

Forbes article

A profile of the brothers published in Forbes in 2021 claimed the brothers had "escaped" from Limerick, describing it as a "warzone" because of a gang feud and it was "the 'murder capital' of Europe". It claimed "shootings, pipe bomb attacks, and stabbings" happened there every night.

Collison lives in San Francisco, California. He has donated $7m to a group opposing a one-off wealth tax on California's billionaires.

In November 2024, Collison was criticized for visiting Israel and posting an image with the Israeli flag, amid the Gaza war.