Meet John Collison, the 27-year-old Harvard dropout whose tech startup turned him into the youngest self-made billionaire in the world

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Meet John Collison, the 27-year-old Harvard dropout whose tech startup turned him into the youngest self-made billionaire in the world

john collison stripe

Brian Ach/Getty Images for TechCrunch

John Collison, cofounder and president of Stripe, speaks at TechCrunch Disrupt NY in 2014.

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  • John Collison, cofounder and president of Stripe, is the world's youngest self-made billionaire.
  • He started Stripe, which has transformed the way people make online payments, with his older brother when he was just 19 years old.
  • He's originally from small-town Ireland, but came to the US to attend Harvard - until he dropped out to focus on Stripe in Silicon Valley.


John Collison cofounded tech company Stripe in 2010, when he was only 19 years old.

Seven years later, 27-year-old Collison can call himself the youngest self-made billionaire in the world, with a net worth totaling $1.1 billion after Stripe's $9 billion valuation in 2016. The company transformed the way websites accept online payments, and is a favorite of huge companies like Lyft and Facebook.

Collison started the company with his older brother Patrick, Stripe's CEO. Although the siblings have struck Silicon Valley gold, they haven't forgotten their humble roots in small-town Ireland.

Today, Collison enjoys flying planes, running, and going on hikes with members of the Stripe team.

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