An Irish Entrepreneur Is The World’s Youngest Self-Made Billionaire

John Collison, 27, is considered the world’s youngest self-made billionaire. But, he seems to be uncomfortable when you ask how wealthy he is.

John is a bold and self-reliant entrepreneur, who co-founded the U.S.-based software business known as Stripe. He co-founded Stripe with his older brother, Patrick, 29, who is now the world’s third youngest self-made billionaire. Meanwhile, the second-youngest self-made billionaire is Evan Spiegel, 27, who is the co-founder of social media firm Snapchat, according to BBC News.

Stripe is a new technology company that manages and controls online payments over the internet and runs the websites of companies. It aims at providing technical, fraud prevention, and banking infrastructure, which are crucial for the online payment system and processing.

It has over 100,000 customers all around the world. The company has a new round of funding that values Stripe at about $9.2 billion or £7 billion. This makes John and Patrick each worth about $1.1 billion in November, 2016, according to Forbes magazine.

How has John’s life changed after becoming the youngest self-made billionaire? The Irishman said that people want him to take up some elaborate new hobby such as Faberge egg collecting or yacht racing. However, John, chooses to run during his spare time and describes it as a “very practical and low maintenance hobby.”

The young billionaire grew up in the rural Republic of Ireland in a small village in County Tipperary, in western Ireland. He completed his secondary school at Castletroy College, where he received eight A1 and two A2 grades in the Irish Leaving Certificate examination. Then, he pursued his studies at Harvard University in September, 2009. It is reported that Collison is also a pilot and a pianist.

During his teenage years, he was skilled in computer programming, together with his brother, Patrick. Both brothers had already become millionaires before John started schooling at Harvard. They had their first business venture, which was a software firm that could let small firms and sole traders make business easily on the auction website eBay. It was known as Auctomatic, which was later sold for $5 million, according to BBC News.

Then, they established Stripe after John started at Harvard. The users of Stripe grew in numbers and it secured additional funding. Customers are charged an amount per transaction processed using Stripe software. The company also received support from Tesla founder Elon Musk and Paypal developer Peter Thiel.

[Featured Image by Naoise Culhane/Handout/Getty Images]