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Stripe valued at $159B, 2025 annual letter

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Re: Stripe valued at $159B, 2025 annual letter

#41

Post by jez »

paxys wrote: post #27
armadyl wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As an ex-Stripe, I understand the sentiment, and the tender offers are a nice middle ground for now, but I still would like to see them go public eventually. This is an incredibly odd sentiment, imo. What’s the desire to see them go public unless you personally are profiting from it? Going public would quickly set Stripe on a pathway to potential enshittification and at minimum starting to squeeze the consumers and…

If they are ex-Stripe they are likely holding shares, and so yes they would personally profit from going public.

The tender offer announced in the article is open to former employees as well, so they personally profit regardless of Stripe being public (unless the claim is that by being public the valuation would be materially higher than the stated valuation for this offer).

Re: Stripe valued at $159B, 2025 annual letter

#42

Post by paxys »

colesantiago wrote: post #17

Private markets is where the wealth is (if you invested at the bottom), as soon as Stripe goes public you're getting dumped on. Unfortunately you need to be an accredited investor to access these markets. This is the real gatekeeping here as rich pop stars, actors, sports stars and musicians who aren't versed in tech has more access to investing in these private companies than the academics, students in europe creati…

You need an annual income of $200K to become an accredited investor. If you don't have that, you anyways shouldn't be participating in risky private markets.

If anything they should also restrict options trading, sports gambling, prediction markets etc. to accredited investors.

Re: Stripe valued at $159B, 2025 annual letter

#43

Post by malfist »

tyre wrote: post #34
jameskilton wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stripe has been doing annual tender offers. Their stance on not being public yet is that they don't need to be, as an IPO is mainly a way to raise money. As an ex-Stripe, I understand the sentiment, and the tender offers are a nice middle ground for now, but I still would like to see them go public eventually.

I hope they never go public (also as an ex-Stripe!) I can't really see a net-positive benefit to having public shareholders and reporting requirements. Do we think Stripe's leadership needs feedback from random investment advisors or analysts? Do employees need the distraction of daily-updating stock prices? Would quarterly reporting incentivize better decision making? In my opinion: ehhhhhhhhhhhh I see the benefit,…

Do very many companies provide daily liquidity? Most of my time getting RSUs have had trading windows, once a quarter if you're lucky.

Re: Stripe valued at $159B, 2025 annual letter

#44

Post by tptacek »

triceratops wrote: post #30
colesantiago wrote: post #17

Private markets is where the wealth is (if you invested at the bottom), as soon as Stripe goes public you're getting dumped on. Unfortunately you need to be an accredited investor to access these markets. This is the real gatekeeping here as rich pop stars, actors, sports stars and musicians who aren't versed in tech has more access to investing in these private companies than the academics, students in europe creati…

Something like 20% of American households meet the accredited standard. It isn't some ultra-elite bar. Stripe being able to find all the capital they need in private markets is the actual indicator of wealth disparity.

Not to mention: Stripe doesn't want your money, whether or not you're accredited.

Re: Stripe valued at $159B, 2025 annual letter

#45

Post by 303space »

onion2k wrote: post #13
fourseventy wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To give liquidity to investors.

The cost of that liquidity is missing out on realizing future growth though. It's fairly safe to assume that as there isn't an IPO yet the investors want to hold rather than cash in returns. They probably believe there's more growth potential, and that the board are the right people to deliver it.

If you bought Stripe at a 95b valuation in 2021 your returns are barely keeping up with the SP500 after this latest round. Not exactly an elite capital growth machine.

Re: Stripe valued at $159B, 2025 annual letter

#46

Post by [deleted] »

shevy-java wrote: post #35

> Businesses running on Stripe generated $1.9 trillion in total volume I think we hackers in general also need to have a value assigned. Even open source authors generate real value but right now I see an imbalance as to who makes money and who does not. I'd even almost go as far as say that taxes (a state gathers) should go to a certain percentage value back to the open source community. There are a lot of details m…

[deleted]

Re: Stripe valued at $159B, 2025 annual letter

#47

Post by zer00eyz »

anovikov wrote: post #9
mercwear wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope they hold off - going public tends to kill innovation and replace it with bureaucracy

Almost as if there's a lot to innovate in a "dumb pipe" a payment processor naturally is.

The thing is they have "tooling" to help create their own customers:

https://stripe.com/atlas

They also have a tax product, and a few other things that are in the orbit around payment processing.

Their product offerings are a bit more than just the "dumb pipe" portion of the transaction.

Re: Stripe valued at $159B, 2025 annual letter

#48

Post by malfist »

dewey wrote: post #15
anovikov wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost as if there's a lot to innovate in a "dumb pipe" a payment processor naturally is.

Can probably build it in a weekend.

You let me know when VISA lets you colocate into their rack for processing payments with your built in a weekend vibe coded project.

Re: Stripe valued at $159B, 2025 annual letter

#49

Post by ericmay »

shevy-java wrote: post #35

> Businesses running on Stripe generated $1.9 trillion in total volume I think we hackers in general also need to have a value assigned. Even open source authors generate real value but right now I see an imbalance as to who makes money and who does not. I'd even almost go as far as say that taxes (a state gathers) should go to a certain percentage value back to the open source community. There are a lot of details m…

Well when you're giving away your product for free... maybe open-source maintainers who want payment for their "free" products should consider going to business school?

I'm in favor of funding the arts, for example, but I'm not sure open-source is something we should tax/fund for. There is real business value in the projects that are created, but open-source maintainers insist on "giving them away for free". Start charging and then we don't need to fund/tax.

Re: Stripe valued at $159B, 2025 annual letter

#50

Post by skybrian »

onion2k wrote: post #13
fourseventy wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To give liquidity to investors.

The cost of that liquidity is missing out on realizing future growth though. It's fairly safe to assume that as there isn't an IPO yet the investors want to hold rather than cash in returns. They probably believe there's more growth potential, and that the board are the right people to deliver it.

Even for good investments, investors will want to sell at some point rather than owning an investment forever, if only to diversify.
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