korrents
Patrick Collison

What Patrick Collison thinks about startups

@patrick-collison · 26 positions · 0 changes of mind

Co-founder and CEO of Stripe and co-founder of the Arc Institute. Keeps a personal site of reading lists, open questions and notes on scientific progress and how research is funded.

Everything they publish, on ppll ↗

Patrick Collison did not write this page.

We collected these quotes from things they published elsewhere, and every quote links to where it was said. They have no account here and have not endorsed this site. Quotes are word for word; the short line under each one is our own restatement, not their wording. Their own site. Is this you? Claim it or ask us to remove it. Or tell us what is wrong here.

14 dated positions, 2026, in their own words. Our reading of what Patrick Collison has said — not written or endorsed by them.

  1. Our readingThe difficulty of incorporating a company in Germany is understated rather than exaggerated, and it pushes founders to incorporate elsewhere.

    Their wordsMet a German founder this week and asked him if all the stories one reads about the challenges of startups in Germany are exaggerated. "No, they're understated." Proceeded to describe spending a full day having a 90-page investment contract read to him (mandatory under German law; § 13 BeurkG) by a notary that then charged €30,000. That was for his first company. His second company, needless to say, was not incorporated in Germany.

    ↗@patrickc on Xx.com

    Interesting
  2. 4 weeks earlier

  3. Our readingStartup opportunities are not fleeting; Silicon Valley has reliably had a surfeit of them for decades.

    Their wordsYou know, in hindsight, I think that um that was a a poor intuition. Uh it's been pretty robustly and reliably the case over many decades in Silicon Valley has a surfeit of opportunities.

    ↗Patrick Collison: Is AI Breaking the Lean Startup Playbook?youtube.com 5th of 20 in this recording

    Silicon Valley

    Interesting

  5. Our readingBuild on a customer problem somebody viscerally feels and would pay to fix, because it is very easy to imagine one that nobody does.

    Their wordssomething we learned from YC uh was that the importance of focusing on very concrete easy to explain customer problems. Like it's it's very easy to to hallucinate or to you know imagine some customer problem that's not actually something viscerally felt by a person who would pay money.

    ↗Patrick Collison: Is AI Breaking the Lean Startup Playbook?youtube.com 7th of 20 in this recording

    Interesting

  7. Our readingAn idea can be obviously good and obviously ridiculous at the same time; being grounded in a real user problem is what carries it through.

    Their wordsSo, anyway, I'd say it like it both seemed like an obviously good idea in that people really wanted this, but also a bad idea in that nobody took it seriously. Um but I I think that I think the fact that it was ultimately the fact that it was grounded in such a concrete actual real user problem saved us.

    ↗Patrick Collison: Is AI Breaking the Lean Startup Playbook?youtube.com 8th of 20 in this recording

    Interesting

  9. Our readingWeekly contact with paying users is what the launch-early rule is really for: it means learning from reality instead of your own extrapolated conception of it.

    Their wordsAnd so, every, you know, every week, we had actual customer feedback, requests, new users coming in. We're learning things from reality as opposed to our own kind of hypothesized or extrapolated conception of it.

    ↗Patrick Collison: Is AI Breaking the Lean Startup Playbook?youtube.com 10th of 20 in this recording

    Interesting

  11. Our readingMany of the most successful companies of the last decade were built against the lean startup playbook, not with it.

    Their wordsmany of the companies that were most successful over the last 10 years, so many of them are are very anti-lean startup, right? Uh whether it's, you know, the labs themselves or Anduril or um yeah, you you you you can go down the list. A lot of them have this characteristic.

    ↗Patrick Collison: Is AI Breaking the Lean Startup Playbook?youtube.com 11th of 20 in this recording

    Interesting

  13. Our readingThe lean startup was almost the only option twenty years ago; with AI you can start something far more aggressive and ambitious up front.

    Their wordsSo, I um yeah, I think maybe maybe a better way of saying it is 20 20 years ago that whole lean startup thing was uh was almost the only thing to do because of capital available and you didn't have AI that made, I don't know, spinning up an organization with many different potentialities and capabilities so much easier, whereas now I think you can start these much more aggressive and ambitious things up front.

    ↗Patrick Collison: Is AI Breaking the Lean Startup Playbook?youtube.com 12th of 20 in this recording

    Interesting

  15. Our readingBefore you raise money, ask what happens if you succeed - whether you will still want this company in ten or thirty years.

    Their wordsI think you need to ask the uh, the sort of converse of that, uh, what if you succeed? And you know, you raise money and you've customers and you've employees and a whole thing. Like are you going to be are you going to enjoy that? Are you going to want to work on that for 10 years, for 17 years, for 30 years?

    ↗Patrick Collison: Is AI Breaking the Lean Startup Playbook?youtube.com 13th of 20 in this recording

    Interesting

  17. Our readingThe schleps of building a payments company were repaid, because no Stripe customer has ever turned out to be boring.

    Their wordsBut yeah, just like it's it's I've never met a Stripe customer and thought that's boring. Um so so it's actually the business as a whole has been the opposite of uh of the Schlep Blindness um instinct.

    ↗Patrick Collison: Is AI Breaking the Lean Startup Playbook?youtube.com 14th of 20 in this recording

    Interesting

  19. Our readingNew businesses are being started at close to twice last year's rate, the largest relative jump Stripe has ever recorded.

    Their wordsUm, as I speak, the number of new businesses starting on Stripe is up around a bit under, but around 2x year-over-year, um, which again is the largest relative jump, uh, we've seen.

    ↗Patrick Collison: Is AI Breaking the Lean Startup Playbook?youtube.com 16th of 20 in this recording

    Interesting

  21. Our readingThe new wave of businesses is not lightweight slop: the median one is doing better than a year ago, and more of them clear every revenue threshold.

    Their wordsUm, but actually the median business, uh, is doing better this year than a year ago. Um, and so and then if we kind of, um, stratify and look at the probability that any given business will reach some revenue threshold, a million dollars, five million dollars, 10 million dollars, whatever, um, those all seem to be getting better.

    ↗Patrick Collison: Is AI Breaking the Lean Startup Playbook?youtube.com 17th of 20 in this recording

    Interesting

  23. Our readingBy every objective metric Stripe can see, there has never been a better time to start a business.

    Their wordsUh, business are uh, the time to revenue for new companies incorporated with Atlas is declining. And so, by all the kind of objective metrics we can look at, uh, it seems to be a better time than ever to start a business.

    ↗Patrick Collison: Is AI Breaking the Lean Startup Playbook?youtube.com 18th of 20 in this recording

    Interesting

  25. Our readingEnterprises buy from startups now because the risk of keeping the status quo has come to look larger than the risk of the startup.

    Their wordsBut now, people know that, well, the risk of the status quo is actually extremely high. And so, even if there's risk in doing all the new things, well, this path also looks pretty dangerous. And so, I really think there's never been a better time for startups to to sell um and to have their products get adopted at, you know, pretty meaningful scale right out of the gate.

    ↗Patrick Collison: Is AI Breaking the Lean Startup Playbook?youtube.com 19th of 20 in this recording

    Interesting

  27. Our readingAI will not centralise the economy into a handful of companies; there are going to be many thousands of winners.

    Their wordsBut based on what we can see at Stripe, the hunger and the intensity with which other companies are either getting started, taking advantage of these new capabilities, or existing companies are retooling, I don't worry about the centralization in the same way. Uh I think there I think there are going to be many thousands of winners.

    ↗Patrick Collison: Is AI Breaking the Lean Startup Playbook?youtube.com 20th of 20 in this recording

    Interesting