Irish people are amazing. They are great fun, have incredible accents, and can be found all over the world. There are more people with Irish roots living outside Ireland than there are people living in Ireland today. This explains while although it is an incredibly small country it is difficult to go anywhere in the world without stumbling on an Irish bar or a few Irish people. Despite the small population, the Irish have done well in sports and business to date too. Yet two Irish men are starting to really change the world. They are two of the youngest billionaires in the world.
To be more exact John Collison is the world’s youngest self-made billionaire and his brother Patrick is the third youngest. These two men grew up in Tipperary and Ireland and were experts at computing from a young age. Both took part in the nationwide school competition the ‘Young Scientist Award’ with Patrick winning it on his second attempt.
The pair’s first business was to create a software tool that aligned with eBay and made it easier to use. They sold that and became millionaires but it wasn’t long before they created Stripe. Stripe is a company that is clearly not as famous as Google or Facebook but is arguably as important. It allows online shopping to take place far easier and is used by many online retailers. The success of this venture, which has received backing from Elon Musk, Google, and more, is what makes the personal fortune of each brother worth over $1.9 billion today.
The valuation is partly based on future growth but this isn’t as high risk as it sounds. Only 5% of transactions are conducted online today and Stripe is important to online transactions. As the internet grows so too will the valuation of Stripe and the fortunes of the two men. If there is one thing you would want your success to be based on, the growth of the internet would be a pretty safe bet.
Yet the two boys are not living the lives of billionaires just yet. Although they have moved to Silicon Valley to pay close attention to their business, they are still pretty grounded. John, the youngest self-made billionaire in the world, lives in an apartment with his brother and his main hobby is running, as he says it is a practical and low maintenance activity.
Of course, this title does come with some controversy as it is hard to argue that anyone is truly self-made. Before they hit it rich the two men did attend MIT and Harvard but dropped out. Something that could arguably only be done if you had comfortable finances. Of course, Forbes did name Kylie Jenner as the youngest ‘self-made’ billionaire in 2019. Which is clearly absolute nonsense.
This was done thanks to some very strange accounting which has now come under a lot of scrutiny and shows that her business is not as profitable as it has been made to appear. While Kylie Jenner was handed a handsome business so that she could claim to be a business mogul, the Collison brothers have done the real work on their own. While they had a good upbringing and were raised at a standard that was certainly not struggling they still created a billion-dollar company on their own. In doing ss they have added further to the fame and class associate with the Irish people. While Conor Mcgregor may have done a lot for the sporting reputation, he did little for the class side of things. Let’s see what the Collison brothers do next and how great a share of the internet they will end up with.
