Google Mafia Aims to Take Over Silicon Valley

Stock options have turned a growing number of Google employees into millionaires, and they’re not sitting on the money. Google alumni are becoming a force in Silicon Valley venture capitalism, pumping money into likely-looking startups. Now, they’re hoping to organize, the New York Times reports. “We are planning to bring all the ex-Googlers… together to tighten up the network,” one said.

It’s hardly an unprecedented ambition in Silicon Valley. For several years now, PayPal alums, flush with cash after their company’s sale to eBay, have funded each others’ projects in what some jokingly call the “PayPal Mafia.” So far, the Google Mafia is in its infancy, but it’s slowly coalescing. A big dinner meeting of some two dozen alumni investors is planned for early next year. (More Google stories.)