The Stripe Founders’ Right-Hand Man
There are few hats Will Gaybrick hasn’t worn at Stripe. Chief financial officer. Head of payments. Chief product officer. Gaybrick’s versatility has quietly increased his influence in the C-suite as Stripe prepares for what could be the biggest U.S. IPO ever.
A few years ago, a saying started to ricochet around Stripe’s brick-faced headquarters in San Francisco: If Stripe co-founders Patrick and John Collison, both licensed pilots, were to ever get in a plane crash on one of their jaunts, Will Gaybrick would be first in line to succeed them.
The morbid banter, recounted by former staff, reflected how essential Gaybrick, 35, was becoming as Stripe transformed from a scrappy startup to a 4,000-person company by offering internet businesses an easier way to accept payments. Out of the public eye, Gaybrick built Stripe’s internal financial functions largely from scratch. Then, as chief product officer and head of payments, he drove Stripe’s push into new markets, such as deposit services and lending, that Stripe’s founders view as critical steps before taking the $95 billion–valuation company public.