In our article titled “Who is John Collison: Famous and Young Billionaire Entrepreneur”, we will delve into everything you need to know about the famous entrepreneur and billionaire, John Collison as desired by our readers at Zatrun.com.
Who is John Collison?
John Collison, along with his older brother Patrick, founded the company “Shuppa” in Limerick, Ireland in 2007, and later merged with Auctomatic, which was financed by Y Combinator. The company developed tools for the eBay platform and was also financed by Chris Sacca. Auctomatic was bought for $5 million in March 2008, when Collison was just 17 years old.
In 2009, Collison returned to Ireland to complete his secondary education at Castletroy College and achieved 8 A1 and 2 A2 grades in the Irish Leaving Certificate exam. He then continued his education at Harvard University in September 2009. Collison is also a pilot and pianist. In 2010, he founded Stripe with support from Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, Max Levchin, and Sequoia Capital. In November 2016, with investments from CapitalG and General Catalyst, the Collison brothers became the youngest self-made billionaires and were valued at least $1.1 billion with Stripe’s company valuation at $9.2 billion.
That same year, John Forbes listed him as 15th on “America’s Richest Entrepreneurs Under 40” list. In 2018, Stripe, under the management of the Collison brothers, donated $1 million to the California YIMBY, a housing development lobby organization. The Collison brothers are Irish citizens. In 2021 and 2022, John Collison purchased the Abbeyleix Estate and the dilapidated Millbrook House in County Laois, with plans to spend millions of euros over the course of several years to transform Millbrook House into a family home.
Navigating Success: Insights from Forbes
A profile of two brothers published in Forbes magazine claimed they had “escaped” from Limerick in 2021 due to the gang violence in the area, alleging it to be “Europe’s murder capital” with nightly “shootings, bombings, and stabbings”. It was claimed that some bad neighborhoods were surrounded by a 10-meter-high barrier covered in dirty graffiti like the “Berlin Wall”. The article garnered a lot of online attention and sparked a backlash. Patrick expressed his disagreement with the article by tweeting that the idea of overcoming anything is crazy and that it goes beyond a misunderstanding of Limerick.
He also said, “Who we are is related to where we grew up.” John tweeted that this was “ridiculous.” Patrick O’Donovan said that the magazine and the author should apologize for the “insults and pain” they caused to the people of Limerick in the article. He also tweeted, “Please let me know when is a suitable time to visit, and I am ready to tell the truth about what our county and city have to offer, contrary to your fiction.” Niall Collins said the article was a “disgraceful portrayal” of Limerick and that it is a place where many good and decent people live. The article was removed from the website on April 9, 2021.
