Patrick Collison
28 statements across 4 episodes · 8 bullish · 3 bearish · 3 people on the record · first statement May 2, 2018 by Patrick Collison · said 17 times in 5 episodes since 2023 · across every show →
On the record as a speaker too: Patrick Collison's record, appearances and statements → this page counts the times other people say the name.
Mentions by year
brought up most by Shane Parrish (8), Michael Ovitz (7), Elad Gil (2)
tap a year for its mentions
2026 10 mentions in 2 episodes 5 per episode
2025 4 mentions in 1 episode
2024 1 mention in 1 episode
2023 2 mentions in 1 episode
Everything said about Patrick Collison, oldest first
May 2, 2018
May 2, 2018 neutral
Patrick Collison: I formally graduated from high school rather than dropping out
“Well, I didn't technically speaking drop out, although I sort of practically speaking did. But you know, given my lack of education credentials elsewhere, I do I should, for the sake of my parents insist that I do in fact, or did in fact formally speaking grad…”
May 2, 2018 neutral
Patrick Collison: I self-studied British exams to enter MIT early
“I decided to see if there was some way that I could just go to college in the U.S. The subsequent year, and it was sort of a long story, but I eventually figured out that I could not do it if I did the standard Irish, kind of followed the standard Irish educat…”
May 2, 2018 positive
Collison: Always discard your current book for a better one
“At every moment you should be reading the best book you know of in the world. I mean, I don't mean kind of the absolute best for everyone, but sort of The best book for you. But like as soon as you discover something that that seems more interesting or more im…”
May 2, 2018 neutral
Collison: Stripe invests roughly 70-80% on core optimization and 20% on speculative bets
“Roughly speaking, we invest most of our effort, we don't have a precise number on it, but let's just say 70 or 80% in optimizing that which we already have, that which we already know is producing, which Turns that which there's a sort of roughly clear line of…”
May 2, 2018 positive
Collison: Cold outreach to admired thinkers is highly asymmetric
“And, you know, when you reach out to these people, yeah, half the time they don't respond but, you know, half the time they do, and, you know, it's asymmetric. It doesn't really cost you much when they don't, and it can be incredibly rewarding when they do.”
May 2, 2018 neutral
May 2, 2018 bearish
Collison: Progress in physics slowed down substantially by 2010
“Progress in physics really felt like it had sort of slowed down pretty substantially compared to the, you know, The sort of, the period in which so much of what, you know, we were learning about you know, that, that, that's a broader period of discovery I felt…”
May 2, 2018
Collison: Stripe prioritizes rigor, determination, and warmth when hiring
“I think the three that kind of really stand out to me are this kind of rigor and clarity of thought, this sort of hunger, appetite, willfulness, determination and this, again, Warmth and desire to make people around them better off.”
May 2, 2018 neutral
Collison: Sociological Mindsets Impede Big Bets More Than Downside Costs
“It feels to me that actually the reasons that organizations don't take, don't tend to make more of these or make more good ones is It's more kind of sociological, more institutional, and less that it's fundamentally too costly, because in most cases, the downs…”
May 2, 2018
Collison: A startup's default outcome is non-existence and survival is unnatural
“Especially for a startup, like the default outcome is your relatively near term non-existence. Like the default outcome is that you do not survive to survive over the medium or, you know, even with even more difficulty over the long term. That is, that's like …”
May 2, 2018 positive
Collison: Cheaper land in top US regions would vastly outweigh landowner losses
“I think it is very clear that on a marginal basis, the social returns of cheaper land in the most production, productive region of the country would vastly outweigh the reduction wealth cut, you know, to existing landowners.”
May 2, 2018
Collison: Making twice as many decisions at half precision is often better
“If you can make, like, if you can make twice as many decisions at half the, kind of half the precision, that's actually often better. And then given the fact that sort of the rate of improvement of decision making with additional time almost necessarily tends …”
May 2, 2018 positive
Collison: Rigorous thinking requires enjoying finding where one's beliefs fail
“I think that sort of getting that kind of rigor and clarity of thought requires sort of a joy of discovery at like, ah, this thing I believe, this rule that I thought existed, like it's actually not good in this place. And having that be an enjoyable discovery…”
May 2, 2018 bearish
May 2, 2018
Collison: Organizations should optimize feedback loops over binary decisions
“I think the things to optimize are the incentive structures and the,
Mindsets, and the definitions of the goals, and the feedback mechanisms from the outcomes to the inputs, and the work, and the operations themselves, and all of those things, and less the bin…”
May 2, 2018 negative
Collison: Many organizations prioritize cohesion over intellectual correctness
“I think so many organizations prize sort of Smoothness and smoothness of sort of interactions and trying to reduce, minimize the number of sort of ruffled feathers. And they kind of at least sort of inadvertently, if not deliberately prefer cohesion over corre…”
May 2, 2018
Collison: Most Causally Influential Books Are Often Not the Best Ones
“What I've often found is I think the books that perhaps did in fact influence me the most in a causal sense are often not necessarily that good, right? And that maybe I'll read a book that sort of triggers a realization or some idea or something, and that, tha…”
May 2, 2018 positive
Collison: Life is too short to read un-enjoyable books
“There's a set of great books that are really worth reading, right? And there's a subset of those books that that are really enjoyable to read. Maybe it's like 10 or 20% of them, say. And the subset, the intersection of really worth reading and really enjoyable…”
May 2, 2018
Collison: A CEO being forced to decide indicates broken organizational architecture
“There are some decisions where if I'm making it or if I have to make it, that probably suggests that something else organizationally or institutionally has broken. And I think the need for a decision from anyone, not just from me is often like only a sort of a…”
May 2, 2018
Collison: Latent disagreement on optimization targets causes persistent organizational friction
“I think disagreement over sort of instrumental efficacy, you know, well, that's rarely that problematic a disagreement because, well, if you're right, then we'll soon learn that. If you're wrong, reality will probably sort of make that pretty clear in short or…”
May 2, 2018 neutral
Oct 25, 2022
Collison: Discrete organizational decision-making is overrated compared to continuous systems
“I'm inclined to say, I don't know if I actually believe this, but I'm inclined to say in response to that question that decision making in organizations is slightly overrated in that organizations are not like investment entities or funds or managers in that o…”
Oct 25, 2022 neutral
Collison: Persistent organizational friction comes from latent disagreement over goals
“I think the more troubling ones and the ones that tend to cause more kind of persistent friction in an organization are where sort of there is latent disagreement in what you're actually optimizing for but that's kind of never explicitly surfaced and uncovered…”
Oct 25, 2022 positive
Collison: Making twice as many decisions at half precision is often better
“If you can make, like, if you can make twice as many decisions at half the, kind of half the precision, that's actually often better. And then given the fact that sort of the rate of improvement of decision making with additional time almost necessarily tends …”
Oct 25, 2022 neutral
Collison: Escalated CEO decisions usually signal an underlying organizational breakdown
“There are some decisions where if I'm making it or if I have to make it, that probably suggests that something else organizationally or institutionally has broken. And I think the need for a decision from anyone, not just from me, is often like only a sort of …”
Sep 5, 2023 positive
Doshi: Stripe co-founders regularly conducted user research with frontline staff
“Patrick and John, until a very, very long time, as the company was scaling, and to a point where you wouldn't expect the founder to do so they were talking to customers. They were talking to users, and not only that, in many cases, they would kind of, you know…”