Seven Lines of Code That Changed Global Finance

Updated on: 29-01-2026

Seven Lines of Code That Changed Global Finance
  • The Hook: Growing up in a small village in rural Ireland, the Collison brothers didn’t have a Silicon Valley network. What they did have was a deep frustration with the "plumbing" of the internet.

  • The Inciting Incident: In 2010, starting an online business was easy, but accepting a payment was a nightmare. You needed merchant accounts, bank approvals, and weeks of setup. To the Collison brothers, the internet was "broken" at its most basic level.

  • The Pivot: They didn't build a bank; they built an API. They boiled the complexity of global finance down to seven lines of code. They focused on the "developer experience," knowing that if they won the hearts of the coders, they would win the market.

  • The Triumph: Stripe is now one of the most valuable private companies in history, powering millions of businesses from Amazon to the smallest side hustles.

  • The Universal Lesson: If a process is "standard" but painful, that’s your billion-dollar opportunity. Complexity is the enemy of progress.