Why Stripe’s 1st Employee Bought a Bank | Darragh Buckley, Increase

The Peel with Turner Novak · Oct 15, 2026 · 1h 14m

Darragh Buckley was the first employee at Stripe. He’s since started Increase, the banking infrastructure that moves over $500 billion a year. And he just bought a bank.

We talk about how to buy a bank, why putting an API on a bank is like "strapping a jet engine to a go-kart", operating with high-empowerment, the overnight sprint that turned on Stripe’s first dollar of revenue, why Patrick and John Collison would run across the office, and why you want your banker to be bored.

Thanks to this episode’s sponsors:

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