Serial entrepreneur Pieter Levels on building in public and living as a digital nomad

Summary

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Cheeky Pint Podcast: Serial Entrepreneur Pieter Levels on Building in Public and the Digital Nomad Life

Date: July 9, 2025
Host: Patrick Collison (Stripe Co-founder)
Guest: Pieter Levels (Indie hacker, founder of Nomad List, Remote OK, Photo AI)

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Overview

In this lively, candid discussion over pints, Stripe’s Patrick Collison sits down with Pieter Levels, one of the world’s most prominent solo founders and a leading evangelist for the digital nomad lifestyle. The two dive deep into Pieter's journey, the realities and philosophies of bootstrapping internet businesses, automation, global living, European tech, and building public brands—all delivered in Pieter’s unfiltered, pragmatic style.

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Key Topics & Insights

1. Origins: Early Entrepreneurship and Bootstrapping

• Pieter recounts childhood efforts to monetize online, from pestering his father to sign complicated contracts at age 12, to experimenting with early web payments ([01:04]).
  • Quote: "My dad read the whole contract...you're liable for damages up to $100 million. And it's like, what am I signing for? I'm like, no, dad, you don't understand. I need to make money on the Internet. Just sign it." — Pieter Levels ([01:04])
• Discusses lessons from early YouTube monetization and gig economy hustles, down to organizing drum & bass nights to supplement university income ([02:45]).

2. Indie Hacking vs. VC Startups

• Pieter and Patrick critique the prevailing Silicon Valley pattern of "raising money, go big or bust," contrasting it with indie hacking's sustainable growth ethos ([00:06], [03:40], [04:30]).
  • Quote: "If you're a founder and you raise money, you kind of need to go big or bust, right? It's hard to stay in between." — Pieter Levels ([00:06], [05:23])
  • On the cost of failing startups: "A company with no users raise $50 million, $100 million, and you're like, what is this product? Like, it doesn't have any traction and it's just hype." — Pieter Levels ([04:30])
• Indie hacking’s feasibility has skyrocketed in the last decade, with Stripe and new payment tools enabling solo entrepreneurs to reach millions in annual revenue ([01:04], [03:40]).

3. Longevity and Maintenance of Internet Projects

• Pieter has launched over 70 projects. He prefers to maintain even small ones for the sake of ‘internet history’ and utility ([06:42]).
  • Quote: "I try to keep a lot of them running. I like to keep the Internet history existing. Like it's sad to see all these websites disappear." — Pieter Levels ([06:51])
• Example: His simple 10-year-old site "Go Fucking Do It" still makes $50 a month, highlight of sustainable micro-projects ([07:00]).

4. Digital Nomadism: Rewards and Psychological Costs

• Pieter, who’s lived in over 40 countries, advocates for travel regardless of age—expanding horizons and self-growth ([07:51]).
  • Quote: "There's nothing I can recommend as much as people. Just go travel and don't be scared, man...If you don't speak the language, you can use your arms." ([07:54])
• Candidly addresses the loneliness and psychological challenge of losing cultural roots:
  • "At some point, you become untethered...you have to rebuild that up. And that's a psychologically taxing process. Takes some years." — Pieter Levels ([08:51])

5. Public Building, Audience, and Brand

• 125,000 tweets over 10 years—Pieter credits his relentless public sharing for building a personal brand that helps product launches succeed ([00:06], [10:47]).
  • Quote: "I tweeted, like, I think 125,000 times over 10 years. So it's like 40 tweets a day." — Pieter Levels ([00:06], [10:47])
• Example: He sold $50,000 in preorders for a book before writing a word ([10:17]).

6. Automation & AI in Solo Entrepreneurship

• Automation, especially with ChatGPT, has transformed Pieter’s ability to operate solo, especially for content moderation ([11:32]).
  • "With GPT, it's actually neutral...I write down the rules of my chat group and it's 40,000 people and it doesn't ban anymore. It just mutes people for like a day or 10 minutes." — Pieter Levels ([12:16])
• ChatGPT referrals now drive a rapidly growing share of site traffic, reducing Pieter’s reliance on SEO ([10:59]).

7. Financial Wisdom & Product Ideas

• Advocates index funds and sound personal finance for entrepreneurs—most people lack this education ([13:02]).
  • "Most people don't know personal finance...your cash disappears the moment you have it." ([14:06])
• Jokes about creating an investment product for Europeans and laments home-country bias ([13:42]).

8. Fixing Europe: EU Tech and Attitudes Toward Wealth

• Pieter’s EU accelerationism movement crowdsourced thousands of ideas to fix European business climate—top suggestion: simplify regulation ([16:05]).
  • "Number one is just like remove the regulatory burden for new businesses. And there's other stuff like remove the cookie banner..." ([16:05])
• Cultural aversion to business and wealth is a major blocker; Europe has the talent, but success is stifled by regulation and mindset ([17:03], [18:42]).
  • "Getting rich is simply a representation of your added value to the world economy...In America, you get much more respect for being an entrepreneur." ([18:42])

9. Product Simplicity and Stripe Feedback

• Discusses importance of keeping platforms simple as they scale, praises Stripe for returning to user-centricity and laments corporate bloat ([19:32]).
  • "I want to go there to see how much money I make and I want to go back to my coffee and code a little bit." ([19:32])

10. Outlook and Flexibility

• On the future: Pieter is open to new roles (VC, investor), but takes pride and joy in current path, grateful for freedom and flexibility ([21:42]).
  • "I'm every day grateful to be able to live this life, and it's so good." ([22:00])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On raising VC:
  "If you're a founder and you raise money, you kind of need to go big or bust, right?...you can't like make $10 million a year. You kind of need to make $100 million a year." — Pieter Levels ([05:23])

• On automation:
  "I don't like hiring because I need to manage people, and I don't really like managing people because it's not my thing. I like to create things." — Pieter Levels ([12:49])

• On digital nomad life:
  "I never left Europe before...This changed you on such a fundamental level. Going to the other side of the world, it's amazing. And it's way safer than you think...I've never been robbed except in my hometown." — Pieter Levels ([07:54])

• On building a personal brand:
  "Of course it's part of it, but I also work really hard because I tweeted, like, I think 125,000 times over 10 years." ([10:47])

• On the complexity of Europe for startups:
  "You need to change this idea that business is bad, that getting rich is bad. Getting rich is simply a representation of your added value to the world economy." — Pieter Levels ([18:42])

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Timestamps of Key Segments

• [00:06] – Indie hacking vs. raising VC: "Go big or bust"
• [01:04] – Childhood merchant accounts & early web payments
• [02:45] – Early monetization: DJ gigs, YouTube
• [04:30] – Critique of startup hype vs. traction
• [06:42] – Pieter’s 70+ solo projects, keeping them alive
• [07:54] – Digital nomad lifestyle: who should try it?
• [08:47] – Loneliness of nomadism and rebuilding ‘home’
• [10:47] – Building in public, the power of consistent sharing
• [11:32] – ChatGPT as automation & site traffic driver
• [12:16] – Moderating a massive online community with AI
• [13:02] – Pieter's index fund investment advice
• [16:05] – EU accelerationism: crowdsourcing fixes for Europe
• [18:42] – Need to shift European attitudes toward wealth
• [19:32] – Product simplicity and Stripe feedback
• [21:42] – Pieter’s future: openness, flexibility, and gratitude

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Conclusion

This episode offers a high-energy, inside look at the world of indie hackers and digital nomads, straight from one of its most successful practitioners. Pieter Levels unpacks the mindset, tools, and philosophies that have enabled him to build a $3M+ portfolio solo, all while circling the globe. Whether discussing psychological costs, the intricacies of payment systems, or the path forward for European tech, Pieter’s advice and examples are direct, practical, and inspiring. The secret sauce: relentless building, radical transparency, and relentless execution.

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Transcript

[Peter Levels]

I think it's actually good that it's going so bad in Europe because it's almost like the patient is so sick.

[Patrick Collison]

Never waste a crisis.

[Peter Levels]

The problem is if you're a founder and you raise money, like, you kind of need to go big or bust, Right. It's hard to stay in between. I also work really hard because I tweeted, like, I think 125,000 times over 10 years. So it's like 40 tweets a day.

[Patrick Collison]

You've contributed so many brain cells.

[Peter Levels]

Yeah.

[Patrick Collison]

So like spending time on X. Peter Levels, one of the most prolific indie hackers and digital nomads whose businesses now do more than $3 million in revenue. And it's just Peter.

[Peter Levels]

Cheers.

[Patrick Collison]

I think you are maybe the most prominent indie hacker Nomad list. Got to 700k in ARR. Remote OK has gotten to $3.4 million in revenue. Photo AI got to 600k in ARR. And these are all just you. Like, these are not startups that you have started. These are just Peter Level's productions. You're also the vanguard of the digital Nomad thing. And so you've lived in more than 40 countries and 150 cities?

[Peter Levels]

Yeah, I think so. I've mostly just been working on my laptop for the last decade, right. Like traveling around, just making stuff, making little, like, creative projects that I needed to solve my problems. And then most of the times nobody else needed that problem solved. But, like, a few times it worked. And then, I mean, I use Stripe a lot, right? Like when Stripe came to Holland back then, lived in Holland. It was 2014, I think then I was like, oh, shit, now I can start making money. And that was the year I started making money. When I was a kid, I think I was like 12 years old. I was making websites too, and I wanted to charge money on the Internet. And I remember signing up to worldpay. I think it was worldpay. And there was a giant contract. It was in America and I live in Holland. And I asked my dad to sign for it. And my dad read the whole contract and I was like, you're liable for damages up to $100 million. And it's like, what am I signing for? I'm like, no, dad, you don't understand. I need to make money on the Internet. Just sign it. And he signed it. And we faxed it. We faxed it to America and I had a merchant account and I never sold anything luckily, maybe because otherwise we would be liable for damages.

[Patrick Collison]

I feel like this is a common thread Amongst entrepreneurs of getting their parents to help them with things they shouldn't do. Patrick at one point got a demo of like a Sun Microsystems workstation. Remember these were like very high end workstations and, and he just filled out the form and like, you know, got them and you know, they came with a truck and they unloaded it and.

[Peter Levels]

He was playing with it.

[Patrick Collison]

And I just remember the Sun Microstation's rep was calling the house and they were like, is Mr. Collison interested in continuing with a purchase? And our mom was like, Mr. Collison is doing his homework and you need to stop calling me. And they hadn't realized that he was like 12 years old at the time or whatever.

[Peter Levels]

Man. Amazing.

[Patrick Collison]

Did you try to monetize projects before you started building them?

[Peter Levels]

No, Uber. So what happened? I was making music and I was DJing. I was organizing like nightclub nights in Holland and UK and stuff. Drum and bass music. You're Irish, you know, drum and bass. Like drum and bass. Most people don't really know, but British people know, Irish people know. So when YouTube started monetizing videos, I was uploading my music already. So I was one of the first YouTube monetizing people. And I was like number one or number two in Holland for a while in the top channels. But the thing is I started making money like $1,000, then $2,000, then $8,000 per month. A lot of money. And I was in universities.

[Patrick Collison]

So it seems like you've done well on this kind of being a person on the Internet, how much of a partisan are you on the topic of the indie hacker approach? Because obviously most of tech doesn't run on the indie hacker way where again you're building multi million dollar revenue businesses all by yourself. Do you think way more people should be doing the indie hacking thing?

[Peter Levels]

I mean, I think Internet makes you partisan, right? So I don't think I've been partisan much, but I think until you got an X. Yeah, X does help with that. But you have to understand, 2013, 14, when I entered kind of the startup world, there was barely any indie. There was no indie hacking, there was no bootstrapping almost. Except Patrick McKenzie, who you know well, you would find investors, you would raise money, you would grow fast, you would hire a lot of people, you get a big office, remote didn't exist. Right. Remote work. So compared to that, like what's possible now? There's different, there's alternatives possible now. And you can make a lot of money with this. I don't think you can become A billionaire. Maybe we will see that in the future. But.

[Patrick Collison]

So you think for talented engineers who have a commercial brain and who are good at product, they should at least seriously evaluate the path of just building their own successful products on the Internet, like you are?

[Peter Levels]

Yeah, I think you just. Look, what I hate most about VC stuff is when you see people burn money. You probably hate this as well. A company with no users raise $50 million, $100 million, and you're like, what is this product? Like? It doesn't have any traction and it's just hype. We've all seen these startups and they just disappear. And I think it's much more interesting to. And maybe you guys did the same with Stripe, but validate first and build a business first, see if you get traction, like get to $50k or $100k a month.

[Patrick Collison]

No, look, I'm, I'm with you. You know, despite the fact Stripe has obviously raised vc, we just started writing code, we got a first paying customer way before we raised any money for the business. And then it just kind of grew and grew and grew. And it's a little bit different for coming in the financial services space. You need to be well capitalized from the point.

[Peter Levels]

But this is the thing. So it's natural, it's kind of organic, Right? Even if you raise money, you did it in an organic way and you only raise more when you see the growth coming.

[Patrick Collison]

Have you ever been tempted to raise for one of your projects?

[Peter Levels]

No, but a lot of VCs have been in my DMs and they want to invest. And I think now, because now, like, I'm financially independent, I made a lot of money now I could do it because now I'm at a point where it sounds fun to play with other people's money, you know, like, but also in a serious way, it sounds fun to go like to a bigger thing. I mean, that's something you typically say after you've been in a week, a week in San Francisco, right? You start talking like this. But I'm not convinced yet. But I think now it will be fun, for example. But the problem is if you're a founder and you raise money, you kind of need to go big or bust, right? It's hard to stay in between. You can't like make $10 million a year. You kind of need to make $100 million a year. You kind of need to become a unicorn. That's difficult because the odds of that happening are not super high. Like, it's a few percentage Maybe. So most people don't get there and they do spend like five years or, I don't know, seven years of their 20s on that. And that's something where if you would be in indie, you would have a $10 million a year company and you have an ownership that's amazing. You have so much money.

[Patrick Collison]

You're saying as a VC funded startup, you're kind of locking in the expectations for your company in advance as to what's successful and what's not. And it's quite liberating to just start building things. Peter Levels Enterprises, broadly is making $3.1 million a year and you've launched 70 projects.

[Peter Levels]

Yeah, probably more, you know. Cause I know I've done this list, but it's like it's my 50. 50.

[Patrick Collison]

You want so many that you lose track. But It's a key 70. Do you shut them down if they're like becoming too small to be?

[Peter Levels]

No. So I try to keep a lot of them running. I like to keep the Internet history existing. Like it's sad to see all these websites disappear.

[Patrick Collison]

Yes, yes.

[Peter Levels]

I keep them on my URLs.

[Patrick Collison]

Shouldn't break.

[Peter Levels]

No. Yeah. One product that still runs on Stripe is Go effing do it. I don't know if I can curse, but go fucking do it. Dot com. Where for example, you want to quit smoking. So you write, I want to quit smoking. And the deadline is like, or I don't want to smoke. And that one is like the 1st of December 2025. And you have to enter the email of your friend and he checks it and then you enter your credit card with Stripe and it creates a customer and it doesn't charge the customer yet. And you set a price. So for example, $100. And then on when December 2025, your friend gets an email. Did he smoke the last? And he says yes or no. And if yes, you get charged and I get the money. And it probably still works and it still makes I think like $50 a month. And it's been. I didn't change the code in 10 years. Php.

[Patrick Collison]

Yes.

[Peter Levels]

Yes, still runs.

[Patrick Collison]

So part of what you're doing is you're creating all these businesses that have actually pretty long lifetimes as well.

[Peter Levels]

Yeah, yeah.

[Patrick Collison]

Who should try the Digital Nomad thing. Who does it appeal to?

[Peter Levels]

I think anyone. Doesn't matter if you're 20 or 70 or whatever. It's so interesting because you changed as a person also. But I think Digital Nomad is so cool because leaving your own country, which I did the first time I did a study exchange program. I went to Korea in 2010, I think, and from university and I was like, this is a completely different world. I never left Europe before. I went to France, you know, like Italy. But like, this is like, there's neon signs and it's like far away places. Crazy. This changed you on such a fundamental level. Going to the other side of the world, it's amazing. And it's way safer than you think. Like, usually nothing happens and I've never been robbed except in my hometown. It was a burglary. So in 10 years of nothing ever happens. So yeah, I think it completely expands your horizon. There's nothing I can recommend as much as people. Just go travel and don't be scared, man. Just like there's always people who help you. If you don't speak the language, you can use your arms and like, how.

[Patrick Collison]

Did you make it not be lonely not knowing anyone?

[Peter Levels]

It was extremely lonely.

[Patrick Collison]

Oh, okay. It's just wildflower.

[Peter Levels]

No, it was like, it was like. I was like, this is amazing. And then you're, you, you, you get like, you lose contact with the grounds of your own culture, your home country, and it's. Everything's fine, people are nice. But you're like, it fundamentally removes your foundational culture. At some point it starts, you become untethered. Yeah, untethered. That's it. And you have to rebuild that up. And that's a psychologically taxing process. Takes some years.

[Patrick Collison]

Yes. What have you learned from Paddy 11, dude?

[Peter Levels]

Amazing guy. Like what Inspiration. So you have to go in the time machine. Back in 2013 or even earlier, I'm reading Hacker news in university And I read two types of articles. I read we're raising $40 million for a startup. Back then hacking was full of raising. It was like special. Now you don't see it anymore. Now it's more tech and you'd read like, Patrick McKenzie, I made $60,000 this year with appointment reminder this site, which is like he would go to hair salons, I think, and then sell his appointment reminder website. And I was.

[Patrick Collison]

And he would just reminded people to show up for their appointments.

[Peter Levels]

And I would read this post like, this is amazing that this guy like 60k a year, that's. That's big. Like we need to do this. So seeing somebody making a cool like honest business and another guy like Young Fuc. Jon Young Fuch. It was a few years after Patrick Mackenzie, but he was also traveling as a nomad in Singapore and Asia. And he was very well dressed and he was making a beautiful sass. And I was like. I was impressed that they were making like, honest, cool, clean businesses.

[Patrick Collison]

Yes.

[Peter Levels]

And I want to do the same thing.

[Patrick Collison]

One thing I was reflecting on is the fact that you are now a big brand in a way. The brand of Peter Lovells, where. Well, now think about it. You sold $50,000 of pre orders for your book before you had written any of the book. You just said, I might write a book and buy it here. And you got $50,000 of sales. And so to what extent does the recipe now work? Because you are launching these products and, you know, if someone else was to build a flight simulator or if someone else was to write simulator. Yeah, yeah. See these replies, too, that it wouldn't sell as well.

[Peter Levels]

Yeah, it's, man. I think it's. Of course it's part of it, but I also work really hard because I tweeted, like, I think 125,000 times over 10 years. So it's like 40 tweets a day.

[Patrick Collison]

You've contributed so many brain cells.

[Peter Levels]

Yeah.

[Patrick Collison]

So like spending time on X.

[Peter Levels]

Exactly.

[Patrick Collison]

Are you getting a lot of ChatGPT referrals? Yes. People talk about this.

[Peter Levels]

Amazing. Yeah. So ChatGPT. So I've seen the growth. ChatGPT a month ago was. So if you have the Google traffic, that's like 100. ChatGPT was like 4. So 4% and now it's 20%.

[Patrick Collison]

Wait, in the last month, ChatGPT has gone from 4% to 20%.

[Peter Levels]

Yeah. So it went 5X. And I check other websites, it's the same story. And I think it's beneficial for me because it's very hard for me as a solo person to do SEO stuff, and I hate SEO stuff. I just want to make a cool product and a cool website with a nice title and whatever.

[Patrick Collison]

You talk in your book about automation being really important for making the indie hacker recipe work, because I guess if you get drowned in operational work, you're not going to be able to do multiple projects. You won't do many shots on goal, everything like that. And so how much has the automation of your business tasks improved over the past 10 years, if at all?

[Peter Levels]

Man, it's been amazing for me.

[Patrick Collison]

Okay, what have you automated?

[Peter Levels]

So, for example, Nomad List, it's like this big. It's a big website. You can visit, you can find place to live and work remotely, but you can also join the community. You can pay for like $100. You join a community of like, meetups, chat group, all this stuff. This Chat group was like hell to maintain. I mean, you know, from Community, so much drama. I've had crazy stories.

[Patrick Collison]

But they are content moderating the community now, so.

[Peter Levels]

Exactly. So it was very hard for me to moderate this stuff, and it was very hard for me to be impartial. So you have politically different sides. And I feel I'm kind of in the middle, kind of neutral. But they don't like the moment you ban one side. They're like, oh, you're this, you're that side. And so with GPT, it's actually neutral. It's really good. I write down the rules of my chat group and it's 40,000 people and it doesn't ban anymore. It just mutes people for like a day or 10 minutes.

[Patrick Collison]

Like the debate moderators in the presidential.

[Peter Levels]

Debate, they just mute it.

[Patrick Collison]

Right, exactly.

[Peter Levels]

So that's it. So, like, I can either hire people or I can just use GPT API. I don't like hiring because I need to manage people, and I don't really like managing people because it's not my thing. I like to create things.

[Patrick Collison]

Well, in your book, you recommend that people build for their own understanding of the problems they have. Shouldn't you make an investment product? You and Warren Buffett basically have the same views, which is a lot of money managers and kind of wealth management products are very bad because they're charging you very high fees to invest in bad things. And actually what the vast majority of people should do is buy a simple index, maybe the s and P500 or the MSCI world or something, and then just leave the money there and don't touch it. And especially don't sell it to drawdowns.

[Peter Levels]

So Vanguard.

[Patrick Collison]

Exactly.

[Peter Levels]

But Vanguard already does that.

[Patrick Collison]

Yeah, but there aren't good products for Europeans. I feel like that's like less common.

[Peter Levels]

Buy them via Ireland.

[Patrick Collison]

Sure you do. But again, I feel like if you want an idea for the next business, I think good investment, there's a lot.

[Peter Levels]

Of money in there.

[Patrick Collison]

Good investment for your opinion.

[Peter Levels]

But then you increase the price. It's the problem. Like if you resell a Vanguard ETF that has 0.07 fee per year.

[Patrick Collison]

No, you need large scale to make it work. And maybe that doesn't fit with the indie hacker flop.

[Peter Levels]

No, I think it's a cool idea because it helps people get richer and wealthier.

[Patrick Collison]

Yeah. And you know, there's this home country bias in stock purchasing where people in Germany buy German stocks.

[Peter Levels]

This is crazy. I talked to my parents.

[Patrick Collison]

They're like, yeah, they're Buying the Dutch stock market, probably no.

[Peter Levels]

And I'm like, you need to buy S&P 500. They're like, no, we're not going to buy in America. We're going to buy Royal Dutch Shell. I'm like, come on. And they have all their money in Shell, like in oil. And then have you seen Tesla electric cars now? And they're like, no, it's not going to happen. So, yeah, I think index is very important. I think, look, if you make money as Eniac or as even as a VC founder, it's very important to not spend all this money because you have a limited time in startups to make money, I think, and put this money in the market. And it doesn't have to be only America. I always talk about Asia and it's very hard to benefit in Asia from the economies rising because the public market is not as efficient as in the US. So you should definitely have S&P 500. But definitely you can look at other ETFs in the rest of it. I got some China. Always never doing well. But at some point I'll be right. It's very important to invest your money well. And most people don't know. Most people don't know personal finance. Like, they don't. You don't get it in school. You know, you save money, but your money, your cash disappears the moment you have it.

[Patrick Collison]

Yes. Are you one of those people who hacks the thermostat when you get to a hotel room?

[Peter Levels]

I've tried, but I've never succeeded.

[Patrick Collison]

I've watched the YouTube videos and it's.

[Peter Levels]

Always some different model. Siemens, you know, like, I think they're.

[Patrick Collison]

Wise to such people. Like, they make it hard to get to override them.

[Peter Levels]

Now air conditioning problem, such a big problem.

[Patrick Collison]

We need people in the comments to teach us how to override the hotel thermostats, because the ones that are set to like, you know, 72 degrees Fahrenheit or 22 degrees Celsius in Europe, I mean, that should be a. I mean.

[Peter Levels]

How many times do you get back to Europe? Like, often, right?

[Patrick Collison]

Often.

[Peter Levels]

Yeah.

[Patrick Collison]

Yeah. It's a massive problem, the European hotels and air conditioning. It's not a good situation.

[Peter Levels]

No, but it's like, it's Airbnbs too. Like, my friend went to an Airbnb in Italy and it said, don't put it below 25 degrees because of regulation. It's like, this is unacceptable. And all the studies show, like, look at, like liquid you need really cold. Like, the sleep quality gets so Good.

[Patrick Collison]

Yeah. We're talking about European air conditioning. You've talked about the EU accelerationism movement. What is required for EU accelerationism?

[Peter Levels]

So I think it was two years ago, one year ago, I saw Beth Jesus, who's Guillaume Ferdan, he made eoc, which is like effective accelerationism, which is like, let's accelerate America again. Like, it's been a very depressing time, especially with COVID Let's look at the benefits of technology and AI for the future. And I thought that's amazing. We need to do the same for Europe. So I did eu. Ok. Like let's do this for Europe because Europe is the same kind of like depressing, kind of down vibe about the future. And I understand because there's a lot of problems. It's not an easy life for a lot of people. So that got a lot of traction. And I crowdsourced this like bugboard where everybody could submit their idea how to save Europe, how to fix Europe. And like tens of thousands of people submit ideas and then they upvote each other's ideas and stuff. I think number one is just like remove the regulatory burden for new businesses. And there's other stuff like remove the cookie banner and all this stuff. And I hope it will be easier in Europe to run, to start a business, run a business, as easy as it is in America.

[Patrick Collison]

Yes.

[Peter Levels]

I think there's so much. Nobody doubts the European talent or the intelligence. Like, like it's cool, smart, ambitious people. But they're like, they're getting, there's a ceiling for them. They can't go higher because they're getting pushed down by governments, by regulation. And it's like, what are you doing? European countries, you have amazing people, you could compete easily.

[Patrick Collison]

I think there's kind of two things. One is where the regs are just bad and the second is where the regulations are not standardized, where places where employment law is really annoyingly different across European countries. And so if you're a 10 person startup and you employ people across Europe, it's actually really cumbersome. Whereas in the United States that's quite easy.

[Peter Levels]

Yeah. So the problem with Europe is it's very funny, you have all these different countries and you have kind of the left side of the political spectrum are like not very pro business. They're more for regulation and for protecting people and understanding the climate change and stuff. And then you have the right side, which is pro business, but they're also nationalists. But the problem is what we need is like pro business and federal Europe. You need to be pro Europe, and that's not nationalist. And you see pro business. So it doesn't exist.

[Patrick Collison]

Yes.

[Peter Levels]

So it's like, where do you start? I think it's actually good that it's going so bad in Europe now, because it's almost like the patient is so sick.

[Patrick Collison]

Never raised a crisis.

[Peter Levels]

Yeah. Finally people are. Finally, Europeans are kind of like, maybe we should do something. Like two years ago, when I would tweet about this, it said, stop talking bad about Europe. It's going great here. And now they're like, okay, maybe we need to do something.

[Patrick Collison]

What would you highlight as the ideas that need fixing?

[Peter Levels]

I think the problem is if there's not a lot of opportunities in Europe for people to get jobs or start businesses, then they're going to look down on Americans getting rich with these big businesses because they're jealous. Europeans are jealous. And you need to change this idea that business is bad, that getting rich is bad. Getting rich is simply a representation of your added value to the world economy. In most cases, of course, as edge cases, generally the money in your bank account is how much value added to society. And in Europe, that completely does not. Like, they don't even. They really think different. In America, you get much more respect for being an entrepreneur. But I would say don't be afraid of money. Like, money is a tool in this world to. To change the world.

[Patrick Collison]

If you were running Stripe, how would you fix.

[Peter Levels]

I think it's going really well recently. I think it wasn't going well after Covid. There was a few years where things were getting. The API was getting more and more complicated. We all complained about. Felt like it was being run by engineers, not by people who actually use stripe. Like, illogical defaults on the API. You know, like one time I. I had this bug, and it was from the Stripe API, because it changed and it didn't create a customer anymore. Everybody was a guest. I was like, why would I want people to be a guest? Like, I can't even curate them as a customer anymore. Those kind of things. But now, now it seems much better. And it seems to be like, sanity has returned. But it's scary. And it must be scary for you because you're running a big company. It's very hard to. To manage a company from small to big and not become, like, corporate, you know, of course you're always corporate because you need to do B2B sales. It becomes more corporate. But you need to keep this. The original stripe mentality of, like, simple, right? Stripe js, it was one line of code you would add to your page and you had a payment button, you know, keeping that so important, keeping the original soul of the company. And I think you're doing a great job because essentially I don't want to go into Stripe do anything. I want to go there to see how much money I make and I want to go back to my coffee and code a little bit. Like I see all these new features, for example, Stripe make like workflows and stuff and I think it's very cool, but I don't have time to do this stuff because it's not that important for me.

[Patrick Collison]

I think our perspective is you should be able to get started with anything instantly. You shouldn't even need to integrate an API. You should just be able to send a payment link or something like that.

[Peter Levels]

That's amazing.

[Patrick Collison]

Yeah, I'm always saying to people that generally people will not even want to start by integrating the API. They'll want to start by sending people to a hosted page.

[Peter Levels]

Yeah, that's what I do now. Like a payment link.

[Patrick Collison]

Yeah, but you will, over time get to. We think the workflow engine is really cool because if you want to build something complex, you don't have to build yourself.

[Peter Levels]

But.

[Patrick Collison]

But if someone is starting with the workflow engine, then something's gone horribly wrong. You know what I mean?

[Peter Levels]

I think so. The challenge is like exposing them slowly to all the stuff that's possible.

[Patrick Collison]

Exactly. Last question. If we're back here in five years, will things be kind of similar where you've worked on a bunch of projects that are working really nicely, Will things be different where maybe you have sold a few of the projects, maybe you've started a VC funded startup and raised a billion dollars from selling. That would be like, you know. Exactly. But I'm just curious, what does the next five years. Hold on, man.

[Peter Levels]

I have no clue. It would be so funny if you become vc. I've been starting to invest.

[Patrick Collison]

Yeah, maybe you become a vc.

[Peter Levels]

No, I've been starting to invest and every time I invest I feel like bad because I feel like a faker, you know, but like I invest in cursor, for example, like very nice.

[Patrick Collison]

And that seems like that will do okay for you.

[Peter Levels]

Well, who knows? But yeah, it's fun to. I think you need to be Neuroflex. You need to be a little bit flexible with your neurons and like you can change your ways a little bit. And it's interesting to try different stuff. But yeah, I'm really enjoying life with my girlfriend now and we're still traveling a lot. It's fun, and we meet all these cool people here, and I want that to continue. And I'm just very happy. I'm every day grateful to be able to live this life, and it's so good. So thank you.

[Patrick Collison]

Thanks for coming by.

[Peter Levels]

Thank you for having me.