Why Stripe isn't worried about an AI bubble
My chat with co-founder John Collison. Also: Anthropic v. the Pentagon, Amazon's AI departure, and more.
“No one’s looking for a refund of their tokens”
I spoke with Stripe co-founder and president John Collison on Tuesday morning to discuss the company’s new annual letter, which has become one of the most anticipated documents in tech — a kind of state-of-the-internet-economy address that founders, investors, and operators actually take the time to digest each year.
Stripe had other big news today: a tender offer for employees valuing the company at $159 billion, up 74% from $91.5 billion a year ago, with Thrive Capital, Coatue, and a16z providing the bulk of the capital. The payments firm processed $1.9 trillion in total volume in 2025, up 34% year over year. Shortly after my convo with Collison, Bloomberg reported that Stripe is considering acquiring all or parts of PayPal.
AI has unsurprisingly consumed Stripe’s annual letter narrative over the last three years. In the 2023 version, AI companies were a fast-growing customer cohort deserving of a couple of paragraphs. In 2024, they got a dedicated section and name drops (OpenAI, Anthropic, Cursor, Lovable). For 2025, AI is the organizing principle of the entire letter, driving Stripe’s “sorting machine” thesis on profit concentration, the future of commerce, stablecoins, and even its lending operation.
But how much of Stripe’s 34% volume growth is actually attributable to AI companies?
