Patrick Collison, the CEO and co-founder of financial technology firm Stripe, has said that we live in a volatile world and that businesses need to be more adaptable than ever.
Mr Collison was speaking to RTÉ News at the Stripe Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition which is taking place in Dublin this week.
He won the competition in 2005 and now his company is the main sponsor of the event.
He took questions today from students at the exhibition and visited some of the stands.
"It's a huge honour and it's slightly terrifying and mildly distressing, the idea that it was 21 years ago, which, somehow, it is!" Mr Collison said.
"But what's amazing just walking around the floor is how the feeling and the culture and the spirit really hasn't changed."
President Catherine Connolly officially opened the Young Scientist exhibition yesterday and in her address, she made reference to Venezuela and the current global uncertainty.
What does that uncertainty mean for a global company like Stripe?
"Well, we operate now in more than one hundred markets and it's a volatile world, and I think businesses globally, we work with millions of businesses, are finding that they themselves need to be more adaptable than ever," he said.
It was reported last year that Patrick Collison had contributed to Republican Party causes as ahead of the last US election.
Does that sit comfortably with him given all the disruption, rhetoric and controversy that we see from the White House right now?
"Stripe has always been a bipartisan company, and I think it's a failure mode of any business to become a political entity," Mr Collison said.
"We're building infrastructure, and it is important that Stripe operates reliably under any government, in any of the markets in which we operate, and we'll obviously continue to do that," he added.
John Collison made headlines last year highlighting infrastructure deficits in Ireland and planning problems in this country, but Patrick said that is an area that he will leave to his brother.
"He knows more about infrastructure in the Irish context than I do. I have recently been publishing and tweeting book reviews."
"Stripe is a company that is building economic infrastructure."
"We think about economics, I'm aware of my comparison advantage and he (John) knows infrastructure."
So what advice would he give this year's Young Scientists who might want to someday end up like Patrick and John Collison?
"I think it's just about curiosity and finding what it is that you in particular are passionate about, and you care about and that you want to pursue even when the going gets tough in the face of obstacles and discouragement."
"And the good news is it's very clear from the exhibition this year that curiosity is very much alive and vitally well among Irish, not only secondary school students, but also primary school students."
