Stripe’s John Collison: AI Agents Will Rewire the Internet
Oct 5, 2026 · 28:01
Stripe co-founder John Collison tells host Molly O'Shea that AI agents will rewire commerce, calling computer use the "ultimate backwards compatibility layer" for the real world. Collison says Stripe processed $1.9 trillion in 2025, up 34%, and almost no one now integrates its API by hand, so Stripe is rebuilding for "AI ergonomics" rather than developer ergonomics. He argues AI discovery will reshuffle merchants the way Facebook ad targeting did, predicts more breaches over the next five years, and says Stripe deems January 1, 2026 the start of its "singularity epoch." He explains the Bridge, Privy, Metronome and OpenRouter acquisitions—crypto, usage-based billing, model routing—and internal AI wins like legal agents. His 17-year lessons: no shortcuts, stickwithness, users first.
