Braintree 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.
I 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)
Stripe needs all that byzantine fraud prevention, on top of what they had a decade ago, because they are a huge concentrated target.
A smaller firm could be way simpler. Because they simply wouldnt have enough money to provide a decent payday for dozens of malicious geniuses going at them 24/7/365.
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.
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, but if you're joining Stripe you know the trade-off of RSUs in a company that doesn't provide daily liquidity. They provide it on a regular basis, so you're not locked in forever (a la my 2014 Gusto shares).
I'm sure they already have more than the 500 non-accredited or 2000 accredited shareholder total that would trigger most of those reporting requirements anyways. So Stripe already has most of the drawbacks of being a public company without the benefits.
The vast majority of public shareholders don't vote their shares. A VC is much more likely to apply unwanted pressure to the board/management than the general public is.
IMO, the best reason to avoid an IPO is to stay out of the media.
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 the enterprise and existing stakeholders, not the public market mechanics broadly speaking)
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.)
When I was an employee of a subsidiary of Infospace, my RSUs were always worthless (honestly, I don't remember if any vested while I was there), at Yahoo, we could generally trade, although one shouldn't trade immediately after earnings, but I don't remember if this was enforced at the affiliated brokerage. At Facebook, I think it was typically a three week window every quarter.
Of course, if you quit, the windows are no longer in force, although if you have material non-public information, you're still not allowed to trade. Maybe there'a a share price where you'd rather quit and sell than hold on until the window opens.
Above certain amount of shareholders, the rules for the public companies start applying, so you get all of the disadvantages of being a public company (like SEC filings, etc.) without the advantages (like ability to raise money.) IIRC this is what forced $MSFT to do IPO in 1986.
I'm glad. I don't think every company needs to be on the stock market, and companies that are profitable like Stripe is, absolutely do not need to be on the stock market. Why? So people can buy and sell their stock on a whim?
Are there caps on how much you could sell during the tender offer? I had one come through my email ~3 years ago for a company I previously worked for. IIRC it allowed you to sell up to 10% of your stock.
> 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 businesses it provides services to more.
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).
An IPO today is mainly a way for major investors - those that want out - to liquidate out in a big way by dumping to a very large mass of investors. There is no other means to do that without signaling a gigantic loss of confidence.
Raising money as a private entity is trivial these days if you're in the league that Stripe is. See: the comical AI private funding levels.
The markets are skeptical at the moment. A bunch of tech IPOs in the last few years have tanked 70+% since the IPO and that can be devastating to a company.
Also there’s a ton of overhead associated with being public that nobody really wants to do so companies now stay private as long as they can get away with.
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.
> The cost of that liquidity is missing out on realizing future growth though.
Why would it be? I don't believe an IPO has to be dilutive, it can be done with already issued shares.
I grant you that's not usually how they're done though.
IPOs also kill a lot of companies. Now you have a new list of investors you are obligated to attend to, and what those investors what is not always to make your company more successful, if it can make more money now.
I don't think PE buyouts are the right comparison here; we're talking about companies that never go public versus the ones that do.
And, of course private companies fail at a much higher rate. The set of private companies includes every company that doesn't succeed to the point where it has the realistic choice to go public. Again: wrong comparison.
Not just the IPO. Being public at all subjects you to the perverse and destructive incentive of needing to maximize shareholder value. Just because some private companies take VC funding (and subject themselves to analogous forces) doesn't mean that's required or expected.
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.
Sure, it's a dubious legal requirement at best. But you try telling people that on an earnings call and watch your valuation plummet because you took a long position and the market wanted a next quarter position. And even if you don't care about selling your stock personally, it does impact your ability to raise funds.
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.
High risk high reward - I think if I ponied up capital, I'd rather not feel obliged to 'share the success' unless it were part of a needed capital raising.
I see it differently, and not in a particularly popular manner. Public companies allow those that are already pretty well off to rocket past those who can't afford shares, therefore adding to the disparity. I despise sudden or inherited wealth though so I'm not the best barometer for how things should work when it comes to this. I can't count how many times I've been made almost physically ill hearing about the next meme stock that made some nobody a millionaire overnight.
We usually hear about the success stories, but public markets have killed wayyyy more companies than they have helped. Unless they really need the money it's always in a company's own best interests to stay private for as long as possible.
At scale, payment processors are amongst the most difficult things you could do because every two bit crook out there is going to try to scam you somehow.
I wonder if there will be a class of VC that intends to provide LPs with income in addition to capital appreciation. If it doesn't make sense to go public, then focus on cash flow and kick of steady income to investors.
Investors can pressure you when you are worth single digit or low double digit billions. At $100B+ you are calling the shots, and if investors aren't happy they can sell their shares in the next tender offer.
You don’t have to go public at all. If you’re profitable and your investors don’t want an exit, then you can stay private in perpetuity. Epic is a great example of that.
> 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 missing here, of course, but from a core view this only seems fair.
I'l also never forget Bill Gates anti-open source letter. That should instantly yield a 99.999% extra tax on him.
If a maintainer has chosen to open source and use a permissive license (key word chosen, this isn't a default), they are explicitly saying via their license that they are not charging for the use of the code. What's the issue here?
If a maintainer wants to make money directly from their code, they are free to charge for it, or for services around it (examples: Sidekiq, Oban, Tailwind, not to mention large examples like RedHat or Ubuntu).
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.
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.
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 creating the algorithms that power them.
An 11 year old can inherit $100 million and be more "accredited" than you, even though they (may) have no knowledge of the industry, no investing experience and no years of industry experience.
Even if you have knowledge in the tech scene and you know which companies are going to go big in the future, unless you're ultra rich already to qualify as accredited, you're shut out early on.
"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.
Again: 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). It has nothing at all to do with accreditation though. You're pining for access to companies that wouldn't take your money even if you were a well-known institutional investor. They get to pick which VC/PE firms they work with, and they know it, and it is their job to pick the ones that best serve the interests of their firms.
I mean this respectfully, but: you do not sound, in this thread, like someone whose registration on Stripe's cap tables would be a service to Stripe. To society? Maybe? Who knows. But that's how Stripe makes decisions.
I also think you drastically overestimate how much broad wealth creation would follow from letting retail investors into private tech companies. You're debating entirely based on a survivor artifact and ignoring the fact that most tech companies --- even most of the highly-capitalized ones --- return $0 to investors.
If you don't meet the financial requirement ($200K annual income or $1M net worth), you can also qualify as an accredited investor by passing the Series 65 exam and filing a form with the SEC.
So you have to prove that either you can afford to lose some money or you have enough investing knowledge to know what you're getting into. Seems fair.
So someone who inherits $100 million (11 year old or not) doesn't have take the exam, but someone who knows about the industry inside out has take an exam to participate?
Seems "fair" to be honest.
I have a few friends that that have told me about certain companies they would like to invest in and they are knowledgeable about but they cannot access them but I can and not give them any shares.
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.
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%.
Because that is what the SEC was created for, and (in theory) it is their job to protect regular invesors from market risks. Now how effectively that works is a different conversation, but at the very least you have reporting requirements, earnings releases, material disclosures, insider trading laws, SIPC insurance, circuit breakers etc. It is very unlikely that you are going to lose all your money in a stable blue chip company or broad index fund, but a regular joe trying to invest in a "private opportunity" is absolutely going to be taken for a ride.
Honestly, I wouldn't touch Stripe with a ten foot poll at this valuation. Fintech is an industry that just disappoints in the end.
[0]https://www.paypal.com/us/braintree
Stripe cites 34% growth for the same period and metric.
[1]: https://s205.q4cdn.com/875401827/files/doc_financials/2025/q...
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)
A smaller firm could be way simpler. Because they simply wouldnt have enough money to provide a decent payday for dozens of malicious geniuses going at them 24/7/365.
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 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, but if you're joining Stripe you know the trade-off of RSUs in a company that doesn't provide daily liquidity. They provide it on a regular basis, so you're not locked in forever (a la my 2014 Gusto shares).
They get to _choose_ who they let in if they are private (by definition).
They don’t need the public’s money and don’t want the headache of dealing with the public. I’d completely agree if I were them.
Disclaimer: ex-stripe who is still an investor.
IMO, the best reason to avoid an IPO is to stay out of the media.
(not ex-Stripe, but own startup equity and have no problem with them never going public if that is the choice; optimize for the enterprise and existing stakeholders, not the public market mechanics broadly speaking)
Also, not sure what you mean by "tiny". It's been billions of dollars.
Of course, if you quit, the windows are no longer in force, although if you have material non-public information, you're still not allowed to trade. Maybe there'a a share price where you'd rather quit and sell than hold on until the window opens.
The important part is that the Collison's control Stripe now. When that changes things may go down hill. It won't matter if it is public or not.
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 businesses it provides services to more.
Raising money as a private entity is trivial these days if you're in the league that Stripe is. See: the comical AI private funding levels.
Major investors and insiders. Stay the hell away from IPOs if you're not an institution getting access to shares at a reasonable price.
Also there’s a ton of overhead associated with being public that nobody really wants to do so companies now stay private as long as they can get away with.
Why would it be? I don't believe an IPO has to be dilutive, it can be done with already issued shares. I grant you that's not usually how they're done though.
Liquidity!= ability to liquidate or not, BTW, it's more of a continuous spectrum.
Public companies allow the rest of us to participate in a success story like this.
Until IPO it’s only a selected group of affluent people who have access to these private companies.
Also, private companies fail at a much higher rate than public ones do.
And, of course private companies fail at a much higher rate. The set of private companies includes every company that doesn't succeed to the point where it has the realistic choice to go public. Again: wrong comparison.
Delaware corporations must act in the interests of shareholders.
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.
Navigating the risk and growth allows them to navigate their growth and rewards while maybe in the drivers seat a bit more.
But for the good of all of society, it would be better if they did.
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.
Private companies can say whatever they want about their performance as long as they don't lie to their own investors; public companies can't.
But how is it 5x bigger than Adyen, which had 2.3B revenue and 1B earnings in 2025?
Stripe's bigger _and_ growing faster.
Adyen reported 500 million EUR in pure profit: https://investors.adyen.com/financials/h2-2025-4r9rc
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 missing here, of course, but from a core view this only seems fair.
I'l also never forget Bill Gates anti-open source letter. That should instantly yield a 99.999% extra tax on him.
If a maintainer wants to make money directly from their code, they are free to charge for it, or for services around it (examples: Sidekiq, Oban, Tailwind, not to mention large examples like RedHat or Ubuntu).
Everyone involved is making informed choices.
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.
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.
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 creating the algorithms that power them.
An 11 year old can inherit $100 million and be more "accredited" than you, even though they (may) have no knowledge of the industry, no investing experience and no years of industry experience.
Even if you have knowledge in the tech scene and you know which companies are going to go big in the future, unless you're ultra rich already to qualify as accredited, you're shut out early on.
Stripe being able to find all the capital they need in private markets is the actual indicator of wealth disparity.
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.
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.
With Stripe's non IPO example, many will follow and will stay private.
So more gatekeeping.
I mean this respectfully, but: you do not sound, in this thread, like someone whose registration on Stripe's cap tables would be a service to Stripe. To society? Maybe? Who knows. But that's how Stripe makes decisions.
I also think you drastically overestimate how much broad wealth creation would follow from letting retail investors into private tech companies. You're debating entirely based on a survivor artifact and ignoring the fact that most tech companies --- even most of the highly-capitalized ones --- return $0 to investors.
So you have to prove that either you can afford to lose some money or you have enough investing knowledge to know what you're getting into. Seems fair.
Seems "fair" to be honest.
I have a few friends that that have told me about certain companies they would like to invest in and they are knowledgeable about but they cannot access them but I can and not give them any shares.
If anything they should also restrict options trading, sports gambling, prediction markets etc. to accredited investors.