Person
39 episodes · 58 quoted claims
John Collison said OpenAI launched a personal agent called Dots a few weeks before the conversation, as other companies also launched personal agents.
“you guys launched Dots a few weeks back at this stage, and there's a bunch of other people also launching in the field.”
Scott Kirby became CEO of United Airlines in May 2020.
“Scott Kirby took over United Airlines in May 2020 at the height of the pandemic.”
John Collison says a recent transaction valued the Mercedes F1 team at 4.6 billion pounds, about seven times its value a few years earlier.
“this transaction valued Mercedes F1 at 4 .6 billion pounds and that's many, many, seven times increase from even just a few years ago”
John Collison says DoorDash recently acquired Deliveroo as part of its European expansion.
“You talked about your European expansion. You just acquired Deliveroo.”
John Collison describes Stripe's Tempo as a new initiative for scalable crypto payments, which he says was developed with agents in mind and with DoorDash's help.
“Tempo, our new initiative that you guys were nice enough to work with us on, is coming in, is very scalable crypto payments.”
Dmitri Dolgov joined Google's self-driving car project in 2009 as one of its first engineers and took it over in 2021.
“He joined Google's self-driving car project in 2009 as one of its first engineers and was repeatedly promoted until he took it over in 2021.”
John Collison says sportsbooks typically take around 10% while prediction markets take roughly 1% to a few percent.
“the order of magnitude rake for sports betting companies is around 10%. And the order of magnitude for prediction markets is, you know, 1 % or a few points.”
John Collison says public markets valued the software industry roughly 20–30% lower than about three months earlier.
“the software industry 20, 30 % less valuable than they did maybe three months back.”
John Collison says Block announced a layoff of roughly 45–50% of staff, attributed to AI, the day before the interview.
“Block Doc announced their 45%, 50 % AI layoff yesterday, and you have some companies not growing as quickly.”
John Collison says Twitter under Elon Musk runs with 80–85% fewer people and that Nikita Bier tweeted its engineering, product and design total is about 50 people.
“Elon is now running Twitter with 80, 85 % fewer people? I think Nikita Beard tweeted recently that all of Eng Product and Design at Twitter is 50 people.”
John Collison says the Check 21 Act allowed a scan of a check to be treated as good enough, so physical checks no longer had to be flown around the country.
“And then there was the Check 21 Act in 2000 where they said a scan of a check is good enough.”
Stripe says there is a 92 percent chance it has seen a given card before when a payment occurs on a site.
“When a payment happens on your site, there's a 92 % chance we've seen that exact card before, so it's easier for us to spot misuse.”
John Collison says Microsoft's share price peaked around 1999-2000 and did not exceed that level until about 2016.
“Microsoft's share price peaked in the late 90s, early 2000s, and then didn't surpass it until 2016, I want to say.”
Collison says Stripe launched its agentic commerce offering in ChatGPT a few weeks before the interview.
“We launched a few weeks back in ChatGPT as well.”
Collison says Stripe has published an open source Agentic Commerce Protocol.
“we have some open source protocols like our agentic commerce protocol. We obviously have the regular Stripe products.”
Collison says that in 1985 most of Microsoft's revenue came from applications for the Macintosh.
“I don't think people realize how open Microsoft was in the early days where in 1985, most of Microsoft's revenue was from Macintosh applications.”
Collison gives rough headcounts of about 200,000 people at Microsoft and 10,000 at Stripe.
“Microsoft is 200 ,000 people. Stripe is 10 ,000 people.”
John Collison says banking markets outside the US typically have between three and eight banks, compared with thousands in the US.
“Whereas every other banking market has between three and eight banks.”
John Collison says YouTube is now a business with about $50 billion in revenue, and had essentially no revenue when Google acquired it.
“YouTube is now a $50 billion revenue business, and I believe they literally had no revenue”
John Collison says Google Maps, Google Earth and Google Docs came from Google acquisitions made at an early stage.
“There were acquisitions that became Google Maps and separately Google Earth and Google Docs and all this kind of stuff.”
John Collison says the remittance app Felix Pago runs on stablecoins but doesn't mention stablecoins or crypto on its website.
“Felix Pago is a remittance app. It's powered by stablecoins. It doesn't mention stablecoins or crypto anywhere on the website.”
John Collison says Tesla sold cars directly to consumers and had to get laws changed in some states because dealership systems were entrenched.
“Tesla invented a new mode of selling cars direct to consumer. They had to get the laws changed in certain states because the current dealership system was enshrined.”
John Collison dates the Stripe–Shopify partnership to around 2011–2012, about 13 years of working together.
“I mean, I guess if you dated 2012, which I think is like maybe 2011, 2012, like 13 years, it's certainly more tenured than some.”
John Collison said Andy Bechtolsheim wrote a $100,000 check to 'Google Inc.' before the company legally existed.
“He actually wrote a 100K check to Google Inc., even though they didn't have a company.”
John Collison said the Bitcoin white paper appeared in 2008 and Stripe was founded in 2009.
“the Bitcoin white paper dropped in 2008, and I want to say, and Stripe was founded in 2009.”
John Collison said SpaceX's key business metric in building its launch business was dollars per kilo to orbit.
“dollars per kilo to orbit being the metric that we're going to optimize for”
John Collison said John Malone recounted that Fox News was created because existing channels seemed left-leaning and conservative talk radio was popular.
“He was talking about creating Fox News because they were like, well, the existing channels seem a little bit to the left.”
John Collison used Netflix as an example of a company that reinvented itself, starting with DVD by mail before moving into streaming.
“they started with the original DVD by mail business and then, oh my God, the internet's coming and they had a few abortive attempts at streaming”
John Collison says 95 platforms on Stripe process more than $1 billion in gross merchandise volume.
“There's now 95 platforms on Stripe with more than $1 billion in GMV.”
Collison says Stripe powers tens of thousands of vertical software platforms, including Ambrook for farming and MindBody for gyms.
“Stripe powers tens of thousands of these, from Ambrook for farming to MindBody for gyms.”
John Collison said Boeing and United Airlines were once part of the same vertically integrated company before being split up.
“Did you know Boeing and United used to be the same company?”
Zipline's Platform 2 hovers about 300 feet above a home and lowers the package on a line.
“It sits up at 300 feet above your house and then long lines the payloads down to you”
John Collison said the book Apple in China argues Apple's direct investment in China exceeded the Marshall Plan in inflation-adjusted terms.
“The point the book makes is that Apple's direct investment in China is much larger, even in inflation-adjusted terms, than the Marshall Plan in Europe.”
John Collison states that Michael Dell was 19 when he started Dell and 23 when he took the company public.
“Michael Dell was 19 when he started Dell, 23 when he took it public.”
After Coinbase's 2020 mission-first post, the company offered a buyout to employees who did not want to work there, and a few percent accepted.
“And you had a buyout offer if people didn't want to work at such a company, and a few percent of the company took the buyout.”
Collison said sending a small amount such as $2 from the U.S. to Turkey is historically not feasible with existing payment products, which stablecoins solve.
“if you want to send $2 from the U .S. to Turkey, it's actually not even really a thing you can do”
John Collison says Stripe's owners, apart from early investors, are largely employees, and that Stripe likes that ownership model.
“And so the current set of owners, if you leave aside kind of early investors, are employees. And we kind of like that model.”
John Collison recalls that Amazon Web Services began reporting its own financial numbers separately from Amazon's in 2015.
“I remember finding it so striking when AWS finally had to break out their numbers in 2015. Remember, they used to be wrapped up in Amazon's numbers.”
John Collison says Dwarkesh Patel predicted that by 2028 an AI could do a person's taxes from emailed financial documents.
“His prediction was 2028. What do you make of that prediction?”
John Collison notes that Dario Amodei has discussed the potential for AI to power 10% annual economic growth.
“you've talked about the potential for 10 % annual economic growth powered by AI.”