Jared Issacman Made His Billions After Decades in the Payment Processing Industry
He's a billionaire. Of course people don't like what he does.
Published Sept. 12 2024, 12:47 p.m. ET
These days, people are pretty are pretty dubious of billionaires, and for good reason. While it's fun to fantasize about having more money than you know what to do with and being able to earn enough to live as comfortably as possible, the truth in its simplest form is that no one makes that much money without a lot of help or accruing skeletons in their closet.
However, that doesn't make billionaires any less shy about using their riches to achieve things that few others could. Just ask Jared Isaacman.
As one of few highly-privileged folks to be able to call himself a private astronaut, Jared Isaacman made history on Sept. 11, 2024, when he led the Polaris Dawn crew of four total astronauts on a historic spacewalk aboard the Resilience, a Crew Dragon spacecraft developed by SpaceX in collaboration with fellow billionaire/creepy X owner Elon Musk.
With his mission deemed a success, folks are wondering how Jared Isaacman managed to get to this point as an entrepreneur. Naturally, he did so within an industry that folks don't like.
Jared Isaacman founded a payment processor company. Here's what that means.
Jared Isaacman first got his start in entrepreneurship in 1999. He'd founded his own business, formerly known as United Bank Card, which he used to operate out of his basement. The business was later renamed Shift4 Payments and has exploded as a tech company ever since. As of 2023, the company reported a revenue of over $2.9 billion. As CEO, Jared Isaacman himself has a net worth of over $1.8 billion.
As for what he and his company do? Well, Shift4 is a payment processor.
A payment processor is a company that acts as an online mediator that manages credit card transactions between banks and merchants. In other words, it can be said that Shift4 is there whenever you use your cards to pay for something. The Shift4 official website lists several familiar businesses as part of its industry and partnerships including restaurants like Burger King, Wendy's, and Popeyes.
In essence, Jared was at the forefront of e-transactions by the time the company hit it big.
Of course, no industry that can facilitate billionaires is without its controversy. In fact, plenty of people have voiced their disdain for payment processors like PayPal.
On the r/Entrepreneur subreddit, one person complained, "I am pretty much sick of payment processors like PayPal and Stripe and others basically stealing funds and getting away with it over and over and over again."
They went on to cite incidents at the time in which small business owners had funds frozen during the COVID-19 pandemic.
As of this writing, neither Shift4 nor Jared Isaacman has been publicly linked to any major controversies within the payment processing business. However, his status as a billionaire and bedfellow in Elon Musk would certainly be enough to raise questions about how he flaunts his wealth.
