Collison tried to become a physics professor at MIT but decided against it after a year because he felt physics progress had slowed substantially compared to the early 20th century, and he realized he enjoyed programming and software more than mathematics and physics.
factualpending
Speaker
Patrick CollisonEvidence Quote
“went back um because i felt that i hadn't sort of really you know properly rejected the hypothesis that maybe i should try to become a professor right maybe kind of physics is what i should be again at least attempting to spend my career on um and after a year back at mit i decided that that was not the case um progress in physics really felt like it had sort of slowed down pretty substantially compared to the you know 1910s 20s 30s the sort of the period in which so much of what we were learning about um you know that that's at a broader period of discovery um i felt like the period in which sort of you know we existed in say 2010 was there really was just not the same rate of progress”
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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