Stripe's CEO never studied finance.
Instead, he reverse-engineered PayPal’s docs—and built a $95 BILLION company at 22.
How? A learning method so powerful, it's now taught in colleges.
Here's his genius framework for learning anything fast: 🧵
Picture this: It's 2009.
A 20-year-old Irish kid sits in his cramped apartment, staring at his laptop screen.
He's trying to add payments to a simple web app.
Should be easy, right?
Wrong.
Days turn into weeks.
PayPal's documentation reads like ancient hieroglyphics.
Complex jargon. Endless requirements. Zero clarity.
Patrick slams his laptop shut in frustration.
This was supposed to be simple.
But something strange happens next...
Instead of giving up, Patrick gets curious.
Really curious.
He opens his laptop again. But this time, he's not trying to integrate payments.
He's trying to understand something deeper.
Why is this so damn hard?
That question changed everything:
While experts accepted the complexity, Patrick questioned everything.
He spent months doing something nobody else bothered to do.
He reverse-engineered PayPal's entire system.
Line by line. Function by function.
But he didn't stop there...
Patrick started cold-emailing payment industry veterans.
CEOs. Engineers. Compliance officers.
Not asking for jobs. Not pitching ideas.
Just one question: "Why?"
Why is it this complicated? Why these rules? Why this structure?
Their answers shocked him:
"That's just how it's always been done."
Nobody had questioned the fundamentals. Ever.
Legacy systems piled on legacy systems.
Everyone just worked around the mess.
Patrick saw opportunity where others saw obstacles.
He and his brother John got to work:
Seven lines of code.
That's it.
That's all developers needed to accept payments with Stripe.
Compare that to the weeks of integration hell with PayPal.
Early Y Combinator founders tried it first.
Word spread like wildfire...
Peter Thiel called.
Then Elon Musk.
The PayPal founders wanted to invest in the company built to replace PayPal.
They saw what Patrick had done and realized:
This kid understood payments better than they did.
Patrick's learning method was deceptively simple:
1. Reverse-engineer everything obsessively
2. Question every assumption
3. Talk to insiders who built the system
4. Build rapid prototypes from first principles
No fancy degrees.
Just raw curiosity and relentless execution.
This approach forced him to understand problems at their core.
Not memorize rules. Understand why they exist.
Not accept complexity. Question if it's necessary.
You see patterns others miss. You find shortcuts others can't.
That's how a dropout disrupted an entire industry.
Today, Stripe processes billions in payments.
Patrick's net worth exceeds $11 billion.
All because he refused to accept "that's how it's always been done."
His story proves one thing:
True expertise comes from questioning everything, not following the rules.
The best innovations don't come from insiders.
They come from outsiders who dig deeper than anyone else.
Patrick's edge wasn't just knowing payments better than anyone.
It was making sure the world knew he knew.
That's how outsiders become leaders...
While others build in silence...
Tomorrow's winners are sharing their expertise with a megaphone.
The megaphone changes everything...
Competitors become customers.
Investors call instead of being pitched to.
Expertise with visibility becomes a business model.
And those who win tomorrow?
They're starting today.
That's exactly why...
We'll build YOUR personal/company brand on 𝕏 (and beyond)
without you lifting a finger.
To date, we've helped 140+ founders get:
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Want to see how we can do this for you?
Book your FREE strategy call here: https://thoughtleadr.typeform.com/to/mv1dalwz?utm_source=kxpostf
Thanks for reading!
A bit about me:
2 years ago, I cofounded @ThoughtleadrX — a premium personal branding agency for world-class founders, executives, and investors to dominate socials.
If you enjoyed this, hit "follow" for more breakdowns!
Video Credits:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBLJ05y_LvU
https://youtu.be/FircVGJK-SA?si=ZYC5LTUAKGP7x2o2
https://youtu.be/qQpHfvEaF3I?si=IHSe6c8eqDG6h123
