Will Gaybrick attributes Stripe's 50% year-over-year signup growth to AI enabling entirely new product categories and dramatically lowering the barrier to software creation, driving a broader market opportunity landscape. ✦ AI generated
Will Gaybrick · a16z Podcast · 2026-08-17 · original ↗
starts at this moment · 8:14
“So, what has changed?”
AI is giving rise to so much opportunity for new business creation. There's just things you couldn't do before that you can do now. You couldn't build a Suno four years ago. Or you could maybe build a much worse one four years ago. You couldn't build a Higgsfield four years ago. On the other side the sort of cost of doing more software has decreased a lot because you just need many fewer engineers to build the things that you want to build because of, you know, agentic coding. And so we're just seeing this explosion in new software creation.
verbatim transcript · starts at 8:14
7:58So, um I think you guys publicly said that uh first half signups grew 50% >> year-over-year >> and that the median 26 cohort is generating 50% more revenue than the comparable 25 cohort. So, um and then I think the 25 cohort was generating 70% more revenue than the comparable four cohort. >> Um so, what has changed? >> Yeah. Well, I think two things. one is um AI is giving rise to so much opportunity
8:34for new business creation. There's just things you couldn't do before that you can do now. >> Uh you couldn't build a sunno four years ago. Um or you could maybe build a much worse four years ago. >> Uh you couldn't build a Higsfield 4 years ago. You know, there's um there's just new things that you can do. And so suddenly the um market opportunity landscape is just much broader and you
8:57can do more with software. Uh on the other side the sort of cost of doing more software has decreased a lot because you just need many fewer engineers to build the things that you want to build because of you know agentic coding. And so we're just seeing this explosion in new software creation. You know, when you look at the year-on-year increase in usage of Stripe billing, it's actually a lot higher than
9:22usage of Stripe overall because it disproportionately skews towards people creating software companies. >> Yeah. Yeah. Oh, that's fantastic. That's awesome to hear. Um I want to shift now to >> um some of the products that we talked about, right? So, you have this proliferation of new products to serve all the needs of companies online. Um the high level question is like how do you do that? Like how do you guys ship
9:48so much product? >> Yeah. >> Well speed has always been you know near the top maybe maybe user relentless focus on user is probably the top part. Yeah. Exactly. >> But speed is is right up there. Um and it's interesting you know we're I think a lot about institutional progress. Um, and you know, we we study the great companies that have come before us and now are, you know, beside