Background
Patrick Collison was born to Lily and Denis Collison in 1988.
Patrick Collison was born to Lily and Denis Collison in 1988.
Collison was educated in Gaelscoil Aonach Urmhumhan, Nenagh, before attending Castletroy College in Castletroy, County Limerick.
He lives in San Francisco. The eldest of three children (two younger brothers, John and Tommy), Collison 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. He entered the 40th and Technology Exhibition with his project on artificial intelligence (nicknamed "Isaac" after Isaac Newton, whom Patrick admired), finishing as individual runner-up.
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. After attending Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the United States for a time Collison dropped out.
Enterprise Ireland did not allocate funding to the company, prompting a move to California after Silicon Valley"s Y Combinator showed interest. Here, they merged with two Oxford graduates, Harjeet and Kulveer Taggar, and the company became In May 2008 he became director of engineering in the company"s new Vancouver base.
On 18 July 2009, at the age of 20 and following the publication of McCarthy Report, Collison outlined his ideas for the future of Ireland on popular talk-show Saturday Night with Miriam.
In 2010, Patrick cofounded Stripe, which received backing from Peter Thiel, Elon Musk and Sequoia Capital. In 2015, Patrick was on the cover of Forbes magazine.
