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SATURDAY, JULY 4, 2009

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Inside the 'PayPal Mafia'

(Newser Summary) – They may be the most brilliantly successful—or luckiest—or both—small group of entrepreneurs in history: PayPal alumni who, like founders Peter Thiel and Max Levchin, left the company to create $30 billion worth of innovation: YouTube, Facebook, Slide, Yelp, Digg, investment firms, philanthropies, solar-power companies, an electric car maker and a Mars colonization plan. Fortune Magazine infiltrates the "PayPal Mafia" for clues to their success.

 "Google wanted Ph.D.s, and PayPal wanted the people who got into Ph.D. programs and dropped out," former CFO Roelof Botham recalls. Levchin says he hired people just like himself. "He thinks like me, he's just as geeky, and he doesn't get laid very often," Levchin said. "Great hire! We'll get along perfectly."
Source: CNN

elsewhere:

PayPal Mafia

 If at first you do succeed... New York Times • Peter Thiel talks with Kara Swisher All Things Digital

More about:  Facebook • YouTube • eBay • Silicon Valley • PayPal • Peter Thiel

Members of the PayPal mafia have gone on to build...
Members of the PayPal mafia have gone on to build and acquire fortunes of stock in sites like YouTube, Facebook and Digg.   (Getty Images (by Event))
A PayPal screen capture. Former PayPal founders and...
A PayPal screen capture. Former PayPal founders and employees have branched off into many profitable internet ventures, referring to themselves unofficially as "The PayPal Mafia."   (Wikimedia Commons)
Facebook Co-Founder Dustin Moskovitz Speaks At CTIA....
Facebook Co-Founder Dustin Moskovitz Speaks At CTIA. Am early stake in Facebook has helped support the fortunes of at least one member of the PayPal Mafia.   (Getty Images)
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