Can Stripe’s next decade match its previous one for growth? Can the Collisons take the next step into a global ultra-elite tier of tech founders (as opposed to the mere standard elite shelf they’re on right now)?

Last week’s public letter from the two Limerick brothers about the health of their company, as well as its goals, context and challenges, gave us an insight into some of the things they’re thinking about, as well as a clue to some of the things they may not consider to be a threat.

The big issue, addressed up front, was the “significant deceleration” in the growth of payment-processing it has seen from its clients. This growth rate fell from 60pc in the 12 months from 2020 to 2021 to 26pc in the following 12 months.

Allied with a funding round that cut the firm’s valuation almost in half, to a paltry $50bn (€46bn), and 14pc staff layoffs, is this a sign that the company’s best growth days are behind it?

No, say the brothers, for a few reasons.

First, that 60pc growth rate from 2020 to 2021 was, to quote the Collisons themselves, “breakneck”. The growth spurt that the tech industry saw in the first year of the pandemic was, the letter intimates, unsustainable. It was based on a rush to online systems and processes that, while possibly part of a long-term transition, was also temporary. You can’t keep growing by 60pc when you’re a company of Stripe’s size: it’s not natural. The current growth rate of 26pc, the letter suggests, is more normal.

A similar rationale applies to the company’s reduced valuation and its staff layoffs. At the time of its $95bn value tag, venture capital was sloshing around like never before. The tech industry was at the peak of its pandemic hype cycle – March 2021. And because of the massive growth in business, the company – like almost everyone else in the industry – took on hundreds more people than a more normal growth trajectory could sustain.

Other than that, it’s business as usual: $817bn in 2022 with more than 1,000 new ventures launched using the company’s platforms every day last year. In all, 100 companies now handle more than $1bn in payments with Stripe every year. And a huge number of the company’s startup clients go on to use the company’s other products and services, such as subscriptions, sales tax (developed in Dublin) and revenue recognition, expanding their embedded business with the company.

So it’s doing fine. As much as ever applied, its boat rises with the ongoing adoption of online services and payments. And that’s still only going one way.

Even still, what about other stuff?

While the letter addressed developments in AI, cyber-attacks and payments tech, it didn’t specifically address some of the other big things that could yet have an impact on the industry sector that Stripe operates in, if not the company, narrowly, itself.

Successive banking messes and scandals of the last four or five months – including Silicon Valley Bank, Credit Suisse and others – have the potential to linger, either dragging wider economic indices down or seeping into regulatory trends, either of which could affect Stripe’s industry growth.

The Collisons don’t appear to believe the current fiascos bear much of an equivalence to 2008’s meltdown. Contagion isn’t, apparently, feared. While this fits with a general consensus among most in the financial sector on these matters, the risks of jittery behaviour among, and toward, tech-adjacent financial businesses are still worth keeping in mind as 2023 plays out. One interesting side-issue that wasn’t addressed, but that has been on the Collisons’ minds before, is immigration. Patrick, in particular, has taken strong pro-immigration stances in the US before, not just in the context of companies being able to recruit the best people, but also as an issue of human decency.

But 2023 is turning out to be a tense one in this regard. All across Europe, populist demonstrations and political parties are gaining support for what they see as excessive immigration. This could lead, as we’re starting to see in the UK, Italy and other big countries, to stricter rules on who gets to enter countries and for what purpose. Eventually, this has to affect companies like Stripe, which recruit from all over the world for their bases in San Francisco and Dublin.

The Collisions’ position, supporting pro-immigration frameworks, is unlikely to have shifted much in recent years. But the environment in which they recruit may have done so.

Overall, there’s still no shortage of faith in the Collisons in Silicon Valley or anywhere else. Over the last 10 years, few individual founders have created growth as consistently and reliably as they have.

There is no real whiff of anything unsavoury, unwise or unfortunate, either about them or their company.

That doesn’t guarantee them a place on top. But it should see them there or thereabouts for the foreseeable future.