Airwallex CEO @awxjack shares why he rejected Stripe's $1.2B acquisition offer when they had $2M in revenue: "So I think it comes down to two things. First, the deal is a five-year lockup. And, you know, I was 34." "I mean, what am I going to do when I'm 39, when I finish the lockup? Do I have the energy to build another startup that can kind of keep compounding in a very large TAM industry?" "I wasn't really sure what that's going to be. So I don't really know what's going to be what I'll…

Jack Zhang@awxjackDec 8, 2025

Stripe offered to acquire us for $1.2 billion when we had $2M in revenue. Today, we've raised $330M at an $8B valuation and reached $1B ARR. We could've died three times during this journey. This is the story I've never told anyone before: