191–200 of 253 posts
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For comparison, Visa's stated FY 2025 (ended Sep 30, 2025) payments volume was $14.2T. rough math, but: $14.2T / $1.9T * 1.6% = 12% global GDP
At least it’s not 24.9% Americans and credit have an unhealthy relationship.
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Harder for activist investors to get into a private company than a public one imho. Keeps out those who would squeeze the business and bail, and potentially kick out the founders. With sufficient cashflow (which Stripe most certainly has), you can buy out existing investors without going public. (not ex-Stripe, but own startup equity and have no problem with them never going public if that is the choice; optimize for…
You'd need to amass 50% of the shares to kick out the founders. That'd be impossible for a hostile party to do if Stripe IPO's because they wouldn't release anywhere close to that number of shares. The only way to kick out the Collison's would be for the VC's to do it. They currently own 80%. It's easier for the VC's to do that if Stripe stays private than if Stripe IPO's.
1.6 percent of global GDP blows my mind.
Well, it's not exactly a fair comparison, since they're comparing a volume number with GDP, which is total value produced in a year. Volume numbers are usually much bigger than production numbers, since money moves around a lot. If I pay a restaurant $200 for dinner and my three friends each venmo me $50 for their share, then the exchanged volume was $350, but only $200 worth of value was generated.
The public can absolutely participate in this by way of syndication deals. Those syndicates are what's covering up the true extent of ownership and they're essentially charging for access with their fees. It's oddly shady, poorly regulated, and more expensive than just being public, but everyone can ride this ride.
How exactly?
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Well, it's not exactly a fair comparison, since they're comparing a volume number with GDP, which is total value produced in a year. Volume numbers are usually much bigger than production numbers, since money moves around a lot. If I pay a restaurant $200 for dinner and my three friends each venmo me $50 for their share, then the exchanged volume was $350, but only $200 worth of value was generated.
Stripe doesn’t power money transfers, just commerce. So 100% of stripe volume is economic activity.
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Well, it's not exactly a fair comparison, since they're comparing a volume number with GDP, which is total value produced in a year. Volume numbers are usually much bigger than production numbers, since money moves around a lot. If I pay a restaurant $200 for dinner and my three friends each venmo me $50 for their share, then the exchanged volume was $350, but only $200 worth of value was generated.
Stripe doesn’t power money transfers, just commerce. So 100% of stripe volume is economic activity.
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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,…
One advantage is that whales can't play around with the stock price, say VCs dumping stocks at an unfortunate moment and putting pressure on the price. But it's also just wall street folks doing price manipulation for options schemes that can be an issue (it's illegal but has low enforcement if you are rich and well connected). Also lower chance of activist investors, and less of a quarterly pressure to show nice numbers, etc.
The advantage is also a disadvantage: minority shareholders of non-public companies have much less rights than those of public ones, and that includes employees. That's part of why you are dependent on the founder's goodwill on whether a startup exit can screw over rank and file employees or not. I'm not sure how much that danger is still out there if the company is doing tender offers, but it might still exist actually. Similarly, you can structure tender offers in a way that say former employees are disadvantaged, and many other arbitrary criteria.
Note that this depends greatly on the jurisdiction, e.g. in Germany there is legislation that's unfriendly to minority shareholders even for public companies, e.g. visible in the Varta takeover, imo part of why the idea of adding stocks to pensions will be ripe for money grabbing schemes of whales against the smaller owners.
Also employee of private company with tender offers, but not Stripe. Opinions my own.
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I love this projection you're providing to me, how much money did you lose on these companies? I am in and have invested in YC startups, because I know which ones have growth potential and upside. > you can make a coherent case that companies should be required to be public at a much earlier stage (I don't think it's going to happen, but you do you) I didn't say they had to be a public company, you can invest in Stri…
I'm a principal at Fly.io (W20). I'm familiar with the dynamic. I don't invest in tech companies. Most funded tech companies don't return funds to investors. Noncontroversial claim. Investors invest in tech companies as a/in a portfolio strategy. They don't expect any one investment to succeed, and they allocate to the asset class in part to get exposure to decorrelated assets. That's not at all what retail investors…
You don't know that 100% and unfortunately for you the YC companies accepted my money and I now hold stock in these companies.
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I'm a principal at Fly.io (W20). I'm familiar with the dynamic. I don't invest in tech companies. Most funded tech companies don't return funds to investors. Noncontroversial claim. Investors invest in tech companies as a/in a portfolio strategy. They don't expect any one investment to succeed, and they allocate to the asset class in part to get exposure to decorrelated assets. That's not at all what retail investors…
> You keep talking about accreditation. The companies you want to invest in don't want your money and they don't care that you're accredited. You don't know that 100% and unfortunately for you the YC companies accepted my money and I now hold stock in these companies.
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The general public absolutely cannot. You have to be an accredited investor or qualified purchaser; you need to have access; you have to pay carry & fees (maybe multiple, stacked middlemen).
The path to declaring yourself accredited is uniquely easy. Just say it. The whole space is deeply unregulated and unaudited. What makes it insane is that those middleman are making a small fortune exploiting this loophole protecting large companies from being forced to go public. The number is 2000 private investors. Rest assured, more than 2000 individuals have money in Stripe today. It's a total scam.