Patrick Collison on human agency
From Patrick Collison on Innovation and Scientific Progress 01/28/2019 · · EconTalk
“I'm very optimistic about sort of individual human agency and I'm very optimistic about sort of the width of the right tail and I'm very optimistic about the sort of transmissibility of new knowledge and I'm sort of pessimistic about the ability of groups of humans to engage in effective ex-ante top-down design.”
On , Patrick Collison, CEO at Stripe, spoke about human agency during Patrick Collison on Innovation and Scientific Progress 01/28/2019 on EconTalk.
About Patrick Collison
Patrick Collison, CEO of Stripe, has been active in public appearances discussing the state of entrepreneurship and the impact of artificial intelligence. At Stripe Sessions in April 2026, Collison stated that Stripe now processes more than 25% of all new Delaware incorporations and serves more than 5 million businesses worldwide. He said that the rate of new business creation on Stripe in March 2026 was up almost 2x year-over-year, a spike he attributed to AI. Collison also noted that Stripe businesses collectively generated revenue equivalent to about 1.6% of global GDP, totaling approximately $1.9 trillion in payment volume, up 34% year-over-year. Collison has described the current period as "the singularity," which he said arbitrarily started on January 1, 2026. In conversations with Sam Altman and others, Collison said that productivity is re-accelerating and that "the great stagnation seems to be over." He discussed the role of AI agents in commerce, suggesting that payments may shift from being a moment to a policy set by agents with guardrails. Collison also announced new Stripe products, including the acquisition of Metronome for real-time billing and the ability for businesses to send money between Treasury accounts at zero cost instantly.