Stripe's growth is driven by both the expansion of the internet economy and the increasing share of that economy that Stripe captures, with significant headroom for growth as the global economy continues to expand.

Stripe's moat lies in its deep understanding of the payment domain and a culture that prioritizes solving the problems they claim to address.

Stripe was created to address the pain points that Y Combinator founders experienced with existing payment solutions, which were cumbersome and difficult to use.

As Stripe has grown, we've placed a large emphasis on internal transparency, which has proven valuable for aligning everyone with the company's mission and ensuring access to information.

At Stripe, we prioritize a cultural focus on making the product great and enhancing the customer experience.

At Stripe, we focus on building roads for technology, enabling others to build their own solutions, rather than just creating products ourselves.

Stripe's success in hiring good developers may be attributed to our focus on building tools for developers, creating a natural affinity for our company. I learned to be okay with taking a really long time to hire people, which means being painfully persistent in the process.

A mission statement should encapsulate the core purpose of the company, while long-term goals provide a framework for its future direction. Stripe's mission is to enhance the experience of developers integrating their payment solutions, as they are the core users of Stripe's tools and documentation.

Stripe aims to enhance existing financial systems rather than replace them, believing that integrating with current infrastructures creates more value than creating isolated solutions.