Stripe联合创始人：远见和实干，一个都不能少

    帕特里克•克里森从小在爱尔兰长大，如今，25岁的他已是全球在线支付公司Stripe的联合创始人。经历过短暂的麻省理工学院（Massachusetts Institute of Technology）求学生涯之后，他创办了好几家公司，其中就包括他和弟弟约翰•克里森共同创办的Auctomatic网站。2008年3月，这家网站被Live Current Media公司以500万美元的价格收购。

    帕特里克和约翰如今住在旧金山，兄弟俩共同创办的Stripe公司逐渐显露出颠覆全球财务系统的潜力。Stripe公司的技术可以让企业通过在线支付的方式摆脱复杂的货币兑换流程，随时随地地把产品或服务出售给任何人。目前，拥有80名员工的Stripe公司员工人数在不断增长，而且还从安德森霍洛维茨基金（Andreessen Horowitz）、红杉资本（Sequoia Capital）、贝宝（PayPal）创始人彼得•泰尔、马克思•莱文奇恩以及埃隆•穆斯克等投资者手中募集到超过4,000万美元的资本。

    克里森痴迷阅读和编程。最近，他跟《财富》交流了他最敬佩的科技企业家和公司、最近读的书单以及如何从事最重要的工作等话题。

    1. 你最敬佩哪位商界或科技界人士？为什么？

    在科技界，我常常把人分为两类，一类是像道格拉斯•恩格尔巴特、泰德•尼尔森、艾伦•凯和J.C.R.立克里德等拥有远见的人。他们能够激励人们创造出令人惊讶的成就，比如互联网、麦金塔电脑（Macintosh）等等；而另一类则是像林纳斯•托瓦兹、丹尼斯•里奇、文顿•瑟夫以及约翰•卡马克这样的实干家，他们亲手创造了这些不可思议的科技成果。

    我到现在也不清楚哪一类人更为重要，但我想，远见与实干最好可以兼而有之。而像法布里斯•贝拉、杰夫•迪恩和丹•伯恩斯坦等少数人，他们的成就多得惊人。相比之下，我甚至因为成就平平而感到羞愧。所以，我无法选出最敬佩的人，通常来说，我比较欣赏那些善于思考、同时又能搭建基础架构的人，而我们运营Stripe公司的许多想法也是源自于此。

    2. 你比较欣赏的公司有哪些？为什么？

    我欣赏那些将投资周期作为竞争优势的公司，比如那些会从事投资回报期超长、其他公司没耐心等待的事业的公司，那些仍旧在艰苦地从事着基础研究的公司、那些虽然规模庞大但仍然注重细节的公司、那些坚持超越自己业务范围的宏伟事业的公司以及那些设法厘清一个行业基本行事原则的公司。

    3. 企业家是不是非得上商学院？

    我想不出哪个伟大的企业家曾经上过商学院。

    Patrick Collison, 25-year-old co-founder of global online payment company Stripe, grew up in Ireland. After briefly attending Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he started several companies, including Auctomatic, which he co-founded with his brother John Collison and was later acquired by Live Current Media for $5 million in March 2008.

    Patrick and John now reside in San Francisco, where they founded Stripe, a company that has come to be a disruptor in the global financial system. Stripe's technology allows businesses to circumvent the complexity of currency exchanges with online payments, enabling them to sell products or services to anyone, anywhere, in minutes. Stripe's 80-member team is growing and has raised more than $40 million in funding from investors like Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital, and PayPal founders Peter Thiel, Max Levchin, and Elon Musk.

    Collision, an avid reader and programmer, spoke to Fortune about what technology entrepreneurs and companies he finds most admirable, his laundry list of recently read books, and how to do important work.

    1. What business or technology person do you admire most? Why?

    In technology, I sorta see people in two camps -- the visionaries like Douglas Engelbart, Ted Nelson, Alan Kay, and J.C.R. Licklider who inspired others to do amazing things, like create the web or the Macintosh or whatever, and the implementers like Linus Torvalds, Dennis Ritchie, Vint Cerf, or John Carmack who've pulled off incredible technical accomplishments.

    I'm still not sure which group is more important. I guess you need both. There are also a few individual people, like Fabrice Bellard, Jeff Dean, and Dan Bernstein, who are just generally fabulously productive and make me feel guilty about how little I get done. I couldn't pick one person. In general, I have a bias towards people who think about and have built basic infrastructure. It's informed a lot of our thinking with Stripe.

    2. What other companies do you admire? Why?

    I admire companies that use time horizons as a competitive advantage -- doing things that pay off over a longer timeline than competitors are willing to wait; companies that still do hard, basic research; companies that manage to pay attention to the details even when they're big; companies that manage to retain a specific mission that's broader than their business; and companies that try to figure out how an industry should work from

    first principles.

    3. Is business school necessary for entrepreneurs?

    I can't, offhand, think of a great entrepreneur who went to business school.