
Stripe founders are the youngest Irish billionaires on paper - aburan28
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-11-28/stripe-founders-are-youngest-irish-billionaires-on-new-valuation
======
dpandey
Rather than fret about the valuation, it's useful to look at the big picture
and ask what stripe has created: an incredibly valuable product in a massive
market with lots of potential. It's also rapidly capturing the value it has
created: its running ahead of projected revenue and has become the preferred
provider for giant companies: [http://fortune.com/2015/07/28/stripe-
visa/](http://fortune.com/2015/07/28/stripe-visa/)

You can have a long discussion about the real or implied valuation, but the
truth is this company has a great product and terrific momentum. Who's going
to stop it from becoming the next paypal?

~~~
zuzun
But the easy-to-use API is 90% of the great product, isn't it? Because I
noticed most other payment processors offer similar APIs now. PAY.ON develops
a white-label platform for third-parties, so now my online bank offers me
RESTful payment processing for Visa and Mastercard and I think they even
support PayPal.

~~~
BillinghamJ
I haven't seen a single payments API made as clean or simple as Stripe's. The
magic is in what you _can't_ do with it imo.

The solutions from old style banks adopting nicer looking APIs still force you
to mess around with setting up your own acquiring bank account, etc.

~~~
zuzun
Yes, you have to open a free business bank account (but most companies need
one anyway) and then you apply for the payment processing. I should have added
a link to the platform in my initial post. [1]

It might not be as easy to use as the Stripe API, but it offers you many more
payment options. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that this will put Stripe
out of business, I'm just saying there seems to be a change in the payment
processor landscape and in a few years, people might take these simple online
payment platforms for granted.

[1] [https://docs.aciworldwide.com/](https://docs.aciworldwide.com/)

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nhorob67
Startup valuations drive me crazy. Preferred stock is not common stock!

This article says they sold a 1.6% stake, derived by taking the amount raised
divided by the valuation. Once again, preferred stock is not common stock.

~~~
nstj
Amen. You'd have to be even more concerned when staff etc use this valuation
when considering value of equity grants etc.

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jakozaur
Yet another case of European founders that moved to San Francisco and became
succesful.

They tried to start in Ireland, but without much success (e.g Enterprise
Ireland hasn't allocate them funding to previous vencture).

~~~
winter_blue
Hm, I wonder what visa they used to move to SF.

Right now, there's no startup visa of any kind. The closest thing is the EB-5
investor visa, but that requires investing $500k-$1mil _of your own money_
(not investor money). And, the H-1B work visa prohibits starting your own
company and self-sponsoring.

If they figured out a way to move here and start a company under the current
U.S. immigration system, it would benefit a lot of people to know how they did
it.

~~~
doh
I don't know their story, but I imagine that they took similar route as
others: \- start on ESTA or B1/B2 \- switch to E2 \- once successful-ish go
for O-1

Actually these days there are lawyers specialized on obtaining O-1 in a pretty
short period of time (3-5 weeks) for founders that get into incubators or
raise >$300k.

~~~
winter_blue
Working on ESTA or B1/B2 would actually be considered "working without
authorization" as neither permits gainful employment or self-employment (incl.
remote/contract work).

The O-1 seems more plausible. You do have to be very impressive to get an O-1,
but raising $300k in funding probably qualifies you.

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dang
Since Patrick and John have as much distaste for bullshit as the rest of us, I
don't think they'll mind if we excise the silly euphemism "billionaires with
funding" from the title.

Also, this is kind of a weak article that doesn't add much if any information.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13037654](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13037654)
was a big thread on the actual recent story.

~~~
minimaxir
And thanks for adding "Paper" in its place, too.

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GomezSandra
Silicon Valley entrepreneurs who are immigrants. Another to the list!

~~~
bogomipz
What is the reason for your distinction?

The United States is a nation of immigrants. To quote John F. Kennedy:

“Every American who ever lived, with the exception of one group, was either an
immigrant himself or a descendant of immigrants”

~~~
flukus
He was wrong about the exception though.

~~~
bogomipz
Indeed, it was most certainly the only group that arrived by foot and a ice
bridge :)

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richartruddie
That's great. Always proud when entrepreneurs create a great product that has
seamless integreation with other platforms and improves efficiencies.

Whats not to love about this?

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minimaxir
Not to diminish the accomplishments, but "Youngest Irish Billionaires with
Funding" is an overly narrow superlative.
([http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OverlyNarrowSuper...](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OverlyNarrowSuperlative))

~~~
nostrademons
I think the intended grouping of that sentence is (((Stripe founders) are
(youngest Irish billionaires)) (with funding)), i.e. they're simply the
youngest Irish billionaires, not the youngest Irish billionaires with funding.
Still a fairly narrow superlative, but less ridiculous than the original
interpretation. "Youngest Irish billionaires" is the lede, "with funding" is
the actual news story - they're announcing Stripe's funding round.

~~~
minimaxir
Normally I would agree with this interpretation, except that Bloomberg did a
proper story on Stripe's new funding a few days prior:
[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-11-25/payments-...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-11-25/payments-
startup-stripe-valued-at-9-billion-in-new-funding)

------
contingencies
They still can't process my card.

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troels
So. If I value a company, of which I own 100%, at 1B, does that make me a
billionaire?

~~~
invisible
If others are willing to trade ownership in your company such that 100%
equaled 1 billion then the answer would be yes. Valuations are made based on
exchanges relative to the whole's worth. That's a simplified way of how public
stock markets work too.

~~~
matt_wulfeck
So if I buy a 0.0000000001% stake in his company for $1, then suddenly it
really is worth $1B?

I'm suddenly reminded of his onion article[1]:

> _U.S. Economy Grinds To Halt As Nation Realizes Money Just A Symbolic,
> Mutually Shared Illusion_

1\. [http://www.theonion.com/article/us-economy-grinds-to-halt-
as...](http://www.theonion.com/article/us-economy-grinds-to-halt-as-nation-
realizes-money-2912)

~~~
NumberCruncher
Basecamp is valued at 100 B$: [https://m.signalvnoise.com/press-release-
basecamp-valuation-...](https://m.signalvnoise.com/press-release-basecamp-
valuation-tops-100-billion-after-bold-vc-investment-c221d8f86ad7#.4gvg4umsd)

