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.
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Personal agents will reward better products, because they can gather quality signals people cannot
Our label. 6 claims in Patrick Collison's own words.
Patrick CollisonCo-founder and CEO of Stripe and co-founder of the Arc Institutetaking stock of all of the effects, it seems to me that the quality point may well be the biggest: that agents will change the nature of the backpropagation such that the rewards for better products increase. Maybe this is too optimistic, but I suspect (and hope) that companies that make things that they're proud of will feel that the universe is a little more partisan in their favor.↗@patrickc on Xx.com · 9 Oct 2026
Their wordstaking stock of all of the effects, it seems to me that the quality point may well be the biggest: that agents will change the nature of the backpropagation such that the rewards for better products increase. Maybe this is too optimistic, but I suspect (and hope) that companies that make things that they're proud of will feel that the universe is a little more partisan in their favor.
Patrick CollisonCo-founder and CEO of Stripe and co-founder of the Arc InstituteOn the margin, focusing on making a product better is, I think, going to become a more effective strategy for companies. This is good!↗@patrickc on Xx.com · 9 Oct 2026
Their wordsOn the margin, focusing on making a product better is, I think, going to become a more effective strategy for companies. This is good!
Tobias LütkeCo-founder and CEO of ShopifyGreat read from Patrick, as always. “Personal agents will, I think, act as a kind of structural subsidy for product quality.” Yes, and well put.↗@tobi on Xx.com · 10 Oct 2026
Their wordsGreat read from Patrick, as always. “Personal agents will, I think, act as a kind of structural subsidy for product quality.” Yes, and well put.
Patrick CollisonCo-founder and CEO of Stripe and co-founder of the Arc InstitutePersonal agents will, I think, act as a kind of structural subsidy for product quality.↗@patrickc on Xx.com · 9 Oct 2026
Their wordsPersonal agents will, I think, act as a kind of structural subsidy for product quality.
Patrick CollisonCo-founder and CEO of Stripe and co-founder of the Arc InstituteIt true, a corollary is that information about product quality will become more important and impactful.↗@patrickc on Xx.com · 9 Oct 2026
Their wordsIt true, a corollary is that information about product quality will become more important and impactful.
Patrick CollisonCo-founder and CEO of Stripe and co-founder of the Arc InstituteToday, most people have very limited ability to aggregate and integrate such data, but agents will have insatiable thirst for such signals.↗@patrickc on Xx.com · 9 Oct 2026
Their wordsToday, most people have very limited ability to aggregate and integrate such data, but agents will have insatiable thirst for such signals.
Patrick CollisonCo-founder and CEO of Stripe and co-founder of the Arc InstituteMuch of what I'm writing hinges on the assumption that personal agents will be on the consumer's side. I suspect that that will be the winning strategy, but whether it's true, and what it means to be true, involves a lot of other questions.↗@patrickc on Xx.com · 9 Oct 2026
Their wordsMuch of what I'm writing hinges on the assumption that personal agents will be on the consumer's side. I suspect that that will be the winning strategy, but whether it's true, and what it means to be true, involves a lot of other questions.
Patrick CollisonCo-founder and CEO of Stripe and co-founder of the Arc InstituteHow will the nature and value of this routing change in a world of personal agents? I don't know the answer, but I think that the effects might be pretty big.↗@patrickc on Xx.com · 9 Oct 2026
Their wordsHow will the nature and value of this routing change in a world of personal agents? I don't know the answer, but I think that the effects might be pretty big.
Patrick CollisonCo-founder and CEO of Stripe and co-founder of the Arc InstituteThis has led to some amount of inefficiency, as companies try to propitiate capricious ranking algorithms and incur various placement fees. It's not all deadweight loss (willingness to pay is itself a kind of signal, which is valuable to buyers), but it's not great.↗@patrickc on Xx.com · 9 Oct 2026
Their wordsThis has led to some amount of inefficiency, as companies try to propitiate capricious ranking algorithms and incur various placement fees. It's not all deadweight loss (willingness to pay is itself a kind of signal, which is valuable to buyers), but it's not great.
Patrick CollisonCo-founder and CEO of Stripe and co-founder of the Arc InstituteWell, certain kinds of price discrimination will work less well (how do coupons work if every agent hunts fastidiously for them?), and certain kinds of customer cross-subsidy will change (today, people who forget to cancel subscriptions subsidize those who don't).↗@patrickc on Xx.com · 9 Oct 2026
Their wordsWell, certain kinds of price discrimination will work less well (how do coupons work if every agent hunts fastidiously for them?), and certain kinds of customer cross-subsidy will change (today, people who forget to cancel subscriptions subsidize those who don't).
Patrick CollisonCo-founder and CEO of Stripe and co-founder of the Arc InstituteThanks to personal agents, we will probably get somewhat more rational in how we engage with companies.↗@patrickc on Xx.com · 9 Oct 2026
Their wordsThanks to personal agents, we will probably get somewhat more rational in how we engage with companies.
Patrick CollisonCo-founder and CEO of Stripe and co-founder of the Arc InstituteIt's often the case that they can use their amortized cognitive surplus to advance their interests against those of certain consumers: relative to the optimization capacity of companies, consumers can be inattentive, underinformed, irrational, etc.↗@patrickc on Xx.com · 9 Oct 2026
Their wordsIt's often the case that they can use their amortized cognitive surplus to advance their interests against those of certain consumers: relative to the optimization capacity of companies, consumers can be inattentive, underinformed, irrational, etc.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Their wordsI mean, obviously aviation was was a pretty big deal, but uh I I I don't think it was sort of quite the um the sociological rewriting that some of the you know excitable proponents at the time imagined. So I am you know it's it's hard to predict anything especially the future but I would I would take the under on this being the last couple of years to get a company going.
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 CollisonCo-founder and CEO of Stripe and co-founder of the Arc InstituteAnd just human organizations are complicated and it's very hard to have um to manage to aggressively prosecute 100 different priorities and to deal with all the issues and interference that arises among them and so forth. And so, you know, Google has done incredibly well in a bunch of specific places, but it's not like Google has done all the things even if in some kind of basic material sense, uh Google maybe, you know, had that ability.↗Patrick Collison: Is AI Breaking the Lean Startup Playbook?youtube.com · 31 Jul 2026 · 23:45 into the videoAll korrents from this video
Their wordsAnd just human organizations are complicated and it's very hard to have um to manage to aggressively prosecute 100 different priorities and to deal with all the issues and interference that arises among them and so forth. And so, you know, Google has done incredibly well in a bunch of specific places, but it's not like Google has done all the things even if in some kind of basic material sense, uh Google maybe, you know, had that ability.
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.
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.
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.
Their wordsUm in our domain, to answer your last question, because we had to do so much stuff around security and partners and money movement and infrastructure and reliability and you know, all the things. We just we didn't feel like we could scale a really good self-serve experience without getting a lot of the kind of the preconditions um and the infrastructure in place.
Patrick Collisonby Co-founder and CEO of Stripe and co-founder of the Arc InstituteMore broadly, nobody is going to teach you to think for yourself. A large fraction of what people around you believe is mistaken. Internalize this and practice coming up with your own worldview.↗Advicepatrickcollison.com · by 5 Jul 2018
Their wordsMore broadly, nobody is going to teach you to think for yourself. A large fraction of what people around you believe is mistaken. Internalize this and practice coming up with your own worldview.
Their wordsthere still seems to be an enormous premium on cognitive ability. And so, I wouldn't I I I I think, um, renouncing that before there's evidence that we've saturated, uh, those benefits would be premature.
Their wordsThat's a hell of a lot slower than knowing it in cognitive L1 cache. And you can have way more round trips in your brain than you can, you know, muttering through, you know, super whisper or typing it out or whatever.
Their wordsI mean, it's very interesting, right? Because these can prove the Jacobian conjecture, you know, whatever. Uh and so clearly they're capable of these monumental feats. Um but somehow I still haven't read the LLM essay that I found super compelling.