An entrepreneur from Ireland has been named the youngest self-made billionaire in the world. John Collison who is the co-founder and President of Stripe, the company that lets businesses and individuals easily accept payments over the internet is just 26-year-old, two months younger than Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel.
According to a list released by Forbes, the number of billionaires has reached an all-time high at 2,043. Their total net worth rose by 18 percent to USD 7.67 trillion, also a record. This year, there were 195 newcomers including Collison.
Collison along with his brother Patrick Collision hatched the idea for Stripe during a vacation trip to South Africa. He was still in his undergrad at that time, pursuing a major in Physics.
Both the brothers started working on the company in 2009 and launched the product in September 2011. Eventually, Collison dropped out from Harvard.
Global financial giants like American Express, Visa, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, and Sequoia Capital are some investors in the company.
Currently, his company employs 696 people and processes billions of dollars in transactions every year in 25 different countries. Stripe is valued at USD 9.2 billion.
This, however, is not the first success for Collison. He and his brother founded Auctomatic, another startup which helped sellers on e-retailing websites manage transactions. They sold the company for USD 5 million in 2008, becoming teenage millionaires.