Earlier quoted context omitted.
You let me know when VISA lets you colocate into their rack for processing payments with your built in a weekend vibe coded project.
dewey was joking.
Management reading a thread like this need the /s.
Stripe valued at $159B, 2025 annual letter
91–100 of 253 posts
Re: Stripe valued at $159B, 2025 annual letter
#92Earlier 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,…
Also ex-Stripe. This suggests an opportunity to build an exchange that addresses these problems. Could one build an exchange with deliberate "turn-based" liquidity to avoid the problem of daily stock price distraction, for example? (This is hard because there will always be secondary markets, but presumably this is already the case.)
Re: Stripe valued at $159B, 2025 annual letter
#93Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not to mention: Stripe doesn't want your money, whether or not you're accredited.
"Private markets is where the wealth is (if you invested at the bottom)" Stripe might not need your money now, but they certainly needed it at the pre-seed, seed stage where if you were an angel/seed investor you would have been able to participate.
No they didn't. They were picky at the seed stage. They were picky in their first priced round. They were picky in every subsequent round. There was never a point where they wanted your money. The most promising companies fight off investors when word gets around they're raising.
There is never a point in the lifecycle of any of these companies where they wanted random retail investors with no network on their cap tables. The kinds of companies that do want those investors tend, for clear reasons, not to be the kind you want to invest in.
You don't want accreditation rules relaxed or eliminated. You simply want Stripe to be a public company instead of a private one. Fair enough, but Stripe doesn't want to be a public company.
Re: Stripe valued at $159B, 2025 annual letter
#94> 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 ch…
We have a bunch of socially minded people providing free value in the form of open source that enjoy the gift they are giving to others. When they become aware that their charity disproportionately benefits selfish people who have opposite inclinations - who employ people to search for exploits, without fixing them, to suck up as much wealth as possible - I'm not surprised they would want to take a step back and ask for a share of that.
And that's totally fine under the same market mechanics you're recommending. If you want maintainers to stop complaining and filing potential petitions asking for funding via taxes etc, just pay them.
Re: Stripe valued at $159B, 2025 annual letter
#95I remember when Stripe started and it was super fun to set it up as a developer and build stuff.
Today I find it does way too much for small projects and the fees are too high. Does anyone knows of good alternatives for that? (Someone recently shared https://astrafi.com/ with me and it seemed promising, with much better fees, but I haven't tested or used anything other than Stripe)
Re: Stripe valued at $159B, 2025 annual letter
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
Needing to maximize shareholder value is a myth. There is no law that requires you to do that - people like to use the idea as an excuse to do scummy business.
Depends. In Michigan it is binding precedent, see Dodge v. Ford (1919). Delaware corporations must act in the interests of shareholders.
That's an incredibly vague standard and courts have repeatedly declined to get involved in second guessing management decisions. Aside from outright fraud or negligence executives can claim almost any business related decision is in the interest of shareholders because they have a reasonable expectation that the future benefits outweigh the costs. Judges aren't going to be delving into financial projections and expense reports to override the leaders of a business.
A widget company could sponsor a soccer team or whatever and say the costs are worth it. Or that same company could not do that and say it's not worth it. Two opposite decisions that both would count as acting in the interest of shareholders.
Re: Stripe valued at $159B, 2025 annual letter
#97Braintree had $1.53 trillion TPV in 2023[0], and it's just a subsidiary of Paypal which has tanked to $40 billion market cap despite revenue and profit that are probably lightyears ahead of Stripe.
Honestly, I wouldn't touch Stripe with a ten foot poll at this valuation. Fintech is an industry that just disappoints in the end.
Re: Stripe valued at $159B, 2025 annual letter
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Why don't we extend this to the risky public manipulated stock market?
Because the odds of you losing all your money on private tech company shares are nearly 100%, and the odds of you losing all your money in SPDR or VFINX are nearly 0%.
Re: Stripe valued at $159B, 2025 annual letter
#99Earlier quoted context omitted.
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,…
The latest self funded tenders have been pretty tiny. I wouldn’t term it as “liquidity” as much as a symbolic gesture.
AFAIK none of the recent tenders have been self-funded. They’ve matched external investors who want shares with employees.
Also, not sure what you mean by "tiny". It's been billions of dollars.