Patrick Collison (born 9 September 1988) is an Irish billionaire entrepreneur. He is the co-founder and CEO of Stripe, which he started with his younger brother, John, in 2010. He won the 41st Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition in 2005 at the age of sixteen. In 2020, he founded Fast Grants to accelerate COVID-19-related science with Tyler Cowen. Early life Patrick Collison was born to microbiologist Lily and electronic engineer Denis Collison in 1988, and he and his brothers were brought up in the small village of Dromineer in County Tipperary. The eldest of three boys, he took his first computer course when he was eight years old, at the University of Limerick, and began learning computer programming at the age of ten. Collison was educated in Gaelscoil Aonach Urmhumhan, Nenagh, before attending Castletroy College in Castletroy, County Limerick. Career Young Scientist Collison entered the 40th Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition with his project on artificial intelligence (nicknamed 'Isaac' after Isaac Newton, whom Patrick admired), finishing as individual runner-up. He re-entered the following year, and won first place at the age of sixteen on 14 January 2005. His project involved the creation of Croma, a LISP-type programming language. His prize of a €3,000 cheque and a trophy of Waterford Crystal was presented to him by President Mary McAleese. His younger brother Tommy participated with his project on blogging in the Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition in 2010. Auctomatic He attended Massachusetts Institute of Technology, but eventually dropped out in 2009 after starting businesses. In 2007, he set up software company 'Shuppa' (a play on the Irish word , meaning 'shop') in Limerick with his brother John Collison. Enterprise Ireland did not allocate funding to the company, prompting a move to California after Silicon Valley's Y Combinator showed interest, where they merged with two Oxford graduates, Harjeet and Kulveer Taggar, and the company became Auctomatic. On Good Friday of March 2008, Collison, aged nineteen, and his brother, aged seventeen, sold Auctomatic to Canadian company Live Current Media, becoming millionaires. In May 2008 he became director of engineering at the company's new Vancouver base. Collison attributes the success of his company to his win in the Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition. Stripe In 2010, Patrick co-founded Stripe, which in 2011 received investment of $2 million including from PayPal co-founders Elon Musk and Peter Thiel, and venture capital firms Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz,