Comments on: The PayPal Mafia

By: PayPal Startup Lessons: Smart Management Is Good, But Money Is Even Better

PayPal Startup Lessons: Smart Management Is Good, But Money Is Even Better — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 21:31:57 +0000

[...] so-called “PayPal mafia” has certainly achieved a phenomenal amount for a relatively small group — one which includes Thiel (who has become a powerful investor [...]

By: YouTube Founder Spending His Money on Startups « NewTeeVee

YouTube Founder Spending His Money on Startups « NewTeeVee — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 22:25:58 +0000

[...] Kevin Hartz and Slide’s Keith Rabois, peHUB reports. The three, all members of the PayPal mafia (that is, people who used to be involved in PayPal and now cross-pollinate each other’s [...]

By: The Secret History of Silicon Valley « Jeremy Welch :: The Blog

The Secret History of Silicon Valley « Jeremy Welch :: The Blog — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 03:08:25 +0000

[...] ex-PayPal employees include Youtube, LinkedIn, Slide.com, Yelp.com, SpaceX and many more. Check out this story and this story on the PayPal Mafia for [...]

By: The PayPal Mafia personified [Picture Of The Day] »TechAddress

The PayPal Mafia personified [Picture Of The Day] »TechAddress — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 21:17:53 +0000

[...] the PayPal Mafia’s an old story online, it’s hilarious that a print magazine would pick up on the meme and actually get some PayPal [...]

By: dmc

dmc — Wed, 18 Oct 2006 08:08:31 +0000

for the record: Elon Musk was actually the founder/CEO of X.com. PayPal was originally founded by Max & Peter Thiel (altho in its earlier incarnations, Peter was an investor before becoming CEO).

when X.com merged with PayPal, Elon became CEO for a short period of time until Peter later resumed the CEO role (also an interesting story there) and led the company thru the IPO and subsequent acquisition by eBay.

however, since Elon had invested a lot of his own money in X.com, and since the X.com-PayPal merger was slightly in X.com's favor, Elon ended up with the largest non-institutional investor stake in PayPal when it IPO'd.

trivia note: on the day of the PayPal IPO (Valentine's Day 2002), the party in the company parking lot was highlighted by a) Max busting open a pinata using a sword, b) Peter playing 10 simultaneous games of chess with other PayPal execs & employees, and c) "keg stands" by numerous folks, including the senior counsel who hadn't slept for about 72 hours straight.

needless to say, PayPal was quite an adventure for everyone ;)

By: Liz Gannes

Liz Gannes — Tue, 17 Oct 2006 16:10:36 +0000

carl, fixed your link. should be working now.

By: dave

dave — Tue, 17 Oct 2006 15:06:28 +0000

i believe that you can also keyword search for paypal on linksv.com and see much more interesting results…not sure if there's a need for such a tool (tech mafia tracking) but it sure would be interesting to see it (like theyrule.net, but for just tech startups…)

By: carl

carl — Tue, 17 Oct 2006 12:13:38 +0000

sorry for all that link confusion - i can't seem to paste the hyperlink without it being transformed here and not working; serves me right for being as crude as using good ole cut n paste, i guess. just ignore me(!).

By: carl

carl — Tue, 17 Oct 2006 11:28:04 +0000

'incestuous investing'?

noooo, surely not - heaven forbid - most funding is purely on merit, isn't it …?

http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-FdwzWgMyerTwwDcn4Q--?cq=1&p=478

oh.

;-)