Can Europe’s Latest Tech Darling Keep It Up?

Pieter van der Does doesn’t resemble the stereotype of a Silicon Valley executive who favors massive parties and private jets. He spent decades cycling around Amsterdam on the bike he got in high school. R&R generally means hiking with his family, not jetting off to St. Tropez or Ibiza. On his way to pitching potential investors on the initial public offering of his company, Adyen NV, last year, the chief executive officer crammed his 6-foot frame into a coach seat for six hours, mortifying his banker. Company policy, he says.

Quiet, frugal, steady—this is the image Adyen brought to investors, one that’s helped almost double the obscure Dutch company’s market value, to $21.8 billion, since its June IPO, suddenly ranking it among Europe’s hottest digital companies. If you’ve ridden in an Uber, subscribed to Netflix, or paid for Spotify Premium, there’s a good chance Adyen ran your card. The one past indulgence the CEO cops to is mountain climbing, and he carries the lessons with him. “There are specific reasons why you prepared to climb in a certain way,” Van der Does says. “It’s about not falling for the trap, that often climbers do, where you see a shortcut.”