Stripe allocates roughly 70-80% of effort to optimizing existing, known-good systems with clear ROI, and roughly 20% to more speculative bets; this allocation ratio is necessary because without optimizing existing systems the company's default non-existence would be guaranteed.
factualpending
Speaker
Patrick CollisonEvidence Quote
“roughly speaking we invest most of our effort we have a precise number out but let's just say 70 or 80 percent in optimizing that which we already have that which we already know is producing returns that which there's a sort of relatively clear line of sight from sort of the input the work the optimization whatever to sort of the uh output improvement and then you know some fraction of the work and the sort of a distribution of um of bet skew but uh some factor of the work let's call it 20 um into things that are more speculative right”
Source
Patrick Collison: Philosophies for Running Stripe, Hiring, Decision Making, and Reading— The Knowledge Project PodcastCreated: 8/10/2026, 11:17:01 PM
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