By EDEN STIFFMAN The Chronicle of Philanthropy Patrick Collison, the now 34-year-old billionaire CEO of the online payments company Stripe, and economist Tyler Cowen worried scientific progress seemed to be slowing down. They wanted to chage that. Collison and his brother, John a Stripe co-founder contributed and along with Cowen raised more than […]
In March 2020, an experiment in science philanthropy was hatched in the span of a five-minute call. Patrick Collison, the now 34-year-old billionaire CEO of the online payments company Stripe, and economist Tyler Cowen were chewing over a shared concern: Scientific progress seemed to be slowing down. As the first pandemic lockdowns went into effect, researchers were in a holding pattern, waiting to hear if they could redirect their federal grants to COVID-related work.