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Patrick Collison's Darkest Moment at Stripe: The API Went Down for 8 Hours. Nobody Noticed.

By Patrick Collison · Founding Stories · 1 min read

The pager went off at 4am. The API was down. This wasn't a social media app — this was the conduit for customers' revenue. Eight hours later it came back up. And nobody had noticed. That was the darkest moment.

Key Points

Their first bank meeting: the banker would have pressed the security button if she had one
Two years of people telling them it couldn't work, shouldn't work, was a bad idea
The darkest moment wasn't the outage — it was realizing nobody had noticed or cared

1pm rolled around and nobody had cared or noticed. On some level that was good news. But it was actually kind of existentially bad news.

The Security Button

Collison: I remember our first meeting with a bank. I don't know if she literally had the security button under the table, but I think if she had one she would have been pushing it. She told us in no uncertain terms that there was no possibility they would work with us.

There were two years of working away with so many roadblocks and headwinds. People telling us it couldn't work. Shouldn't work. Was a bad idea.

Our first bank meeting — she would have pressed the security button if she had one.

Pager at 4am

Collison: Maybe six months in, my pager went off at 4am. The API was down. This is not a social media app — this is the conduit for our customers' revenue. I was at the office within 5 minutes.

It turned out an upstream switch in our data center had failed. The API was down and we couldn't do anything about it. It was almost literally 8 hours before they got a new switch and replaced it. You want to be furiously typing, fixing, getting it back up — and you just can't.

The API was down. This is the conduit for our customers' revenue. And we couldn't do anything about it.

The Existentially Bad News

Collison: That's not why it was the darkest moment. The darkest moment was because I was bracing myself for the deluge — complaints, dissatisfied customers, anger, vitriol.

1pm rolled around and as far as I could tell, nobody had cared or noticed. On some level that was good news. But as I reflected on it, I realized it was actually kind of existentially bad news. I just remember walking home from the office to catch a little bit of sleep. It was not a great day.

Nobody had noticed. On some level, good news. But actually — existentially bad news.