#233 Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, Max Levchin PayPal

In "The Founders," author Jimmy Soni chronicles the tumultuous journey of PayPal, from its conception by a group of driven and visionary entrepreneurs to its eventual dominance in the online payment industry. The narrative reveals the intense rivalries, strategic coups, and relentless innovation that characterized the company's early years. Key players like Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, Max Levchin, and David Sacks are depicted as fiercely competitive and resourceful individuals who, despite internal power struggles and external challenges, managed to steer PayPal through the dot-com bust and onto a successful IPO. With candid insights into the founders' unorthodox approaches to problem-solving and their unwavering commitment to customer experience, the book illustrates the hard-won triumphs that propelled PayPal alumni to reshape Silicon Valley and establish some of the most influential tech companies of the 21st century.

• Jimmy Sony dedicates his book to his daughter, Venice, who was one year old when the project began and six upon completion.
• The five years of the project brought Jimmy immense happiness, largely due to Venice's presence and her unique wisdom.
• Jimmy acknowledges that while Venice may not recall the events of the past five years, they are unforgettable to him.
• He advises Venice that life is shaped by what one creates and the people with whom one creates.
• The importance of surrounding oneself with people who challenge and improve you is emphasized.
• Jimmy expresses a desire for Venice to find a collaborative and challenging group like the one he experienced.
• He notes the difficulty in playing the challenging role for his daughter, suggesting that she will learn certain lessons on her own.
• Jimmy highlights the necessity of having life editors, just as books need editors.
• He concludes with a lighthearted note about his advice and Venice's potential for success without his guidance.

"The intervening five years have been among the happiest of my life, in large measure because you made them so." This quote reflects the joy and fulfillment that Venice brought to Jimmy's life during the creation of his book.

"Your life will be shaped by the things that you create and the people you make them with." Jimmy imparts a life lesson to Venice, emphasizing the significance of creative endeavors and collaborative relationships in shaping one's life.

"I hope you find people like that, too, and that you make things with them. That sounds simple, but it's awfully hard." Jimmy wishes for his daughter to find a supportive and challenging group of collaborators, acknowledging the difficulty in doing so.

"Authors of books like this should usually refrain from burdening readers with lessons. The reader is smart enough to figure those out for themselves." Jimmy explains his departure from the norm of not imparting direct lessons in books, justifying it as a personal message to his daughter.

"Books need editors lives. Do too." Jimmy draws a parallel between the editing process of books and the need for guidance and feedback in life, suggesting that everyone benefits from constructive criticism.

• The book "The Founders" by Jimmy Sony is about the story of PayPal and the entrepreneurs who shaped Silicon Valley.
• Jimmy received an early copy of the book and has been engrossed in it, recognizing its value for entrepreneurs and founders.
• The book begins with an impactful quote from Elon Musk, setting the tone for the narrative.
• Musk's enthusiasm for the PayPal story is evident, even after 20 years.
• The book highlights the significant influence of the PayPal alumni, known as the "PayPal Mafia," on Silicon Valley.
• The PayPal founders are seen as either heroes or heathens, with strong opinions on both sides.
• Jimmy emphasizes the importance of understanding the creation story of PayPal to appreciate the founders' later achievements.
• The book captures the spirit of early Silicon Valley and the journey of entrepreneurs before they became successful.
• The story of PayPal includes improvisation, gumption, fear, and arrogance, reflecting the drama of the tech industry.
• PayPal's early days were characterized by intense competition, legal challenges, and survival against the odds.
• The company's growth occurred post-dot-com bubble burst, which is considered significant.
• PayPal hired for inexperience, valuing intelligence and enthusiasm over industry expertise.
• The company's culture embraced nonconformity and eccentricity, which contributed to its success.

"The story of PayPal isn't just people banding together to shape a product. It's about how banding together shaped the people themselves." This quote captures the essence of the book's theme, which is the mutual growth and development of PayPal's founders through their collaboration.

"Both in the foreground and behind the scenes, PayPal's alumni have built, funded, or counseled nearly every Silicon Valley company of consequence for the last two decades." The quote highlights the widespread influence of the PayPal Mafia on the tech industry and Silicon Valley.

"To skip PayPal's creation is to neglect the most interesting stuff about its founders." Jimmy Sony stresses the importance of understanding the early days of PayPal to fully appreciate the founders' later successes.

"The company wasn't hard to create at all, he said. Rather, it was a hard company to keep alive." Elon Musk's quote reflects the challenges PayPal faced in its early days, emphasizing the difficulty of sustaining the company rather than starting it.

"Many remember that the company was as cutthroat as it was creative, and it was unforgivingly intense." The quote describes the competitive and intense environment at PayPal, which played a role in shaping the company and its employees.

• Max Levchin, a co-founder of PayPal, grew up in Soviet Russia with limited access to computers, which instilled in him a tenacity and resourcefulness.
• Levchin's grandmother, a physicist, exemplified perseverance and never giving up, influencing his outlook on life.
• Levchin immigrated to the United States as a teenager, where he received a computer as a gift, sparking his passion for the internet and programming.
• He displayed early signs of intense dedication to his interests, aiming to excel in everything he did.
• Levchin's experience at MIT and his obsession with the film "Seven Samurai" provided him with a metaphor for leadership and startups.
• The film's theme of a small band organizing to fight for survival resonated with Levchin and paralleled the startup experience.

"The notion that you could tell a machine to do things in the future was this profound realization." This quote from Max Levchin reveals his early fascination with programming and the potential he saw in computers to execute tasks autonomously.

"She was fortitude personified, a woman who triumphed in a male-dominated field." Levchin's reflection on his grandmother's strength and determination highlights the impact of role models on his development.

"Immigrating to the United States was risky, but for Levchin, who had just turned 16, it was the first step on an epic quest." The quote captures Levchin's adventurous spirit and his view of life as a series of quests, starting with his move to the United States.

• Peter Thiel's intelligence and potential were recognized early on by those who interacted with him, inspiring loyalty and admiration.
• Thiel's early investment in a smart calendar app taught him valuable lessons about competition and differentiation.
• Thiel's lectures at Stanford attracted a small audience, including Max Levchin, which led to their collaboration and the eventual creation of PayPal.
• The initial concept for PayPal focused on palm pilot applications, with a team that included Thiel, Levchin, and others working in modest conditions.
• The early days of PayPal were characterized by intense ambition and a belief in the potential for significant impact.

"Peter might be the smartest person I've met in my four years at Stanford." This quote from an interviewee reflects the high regard in which Peter Thiel was held by his peers, even in his early career.

"The company now boasted an angel investor with a closet office, a CTO without air conditioning, and a CEO with a 2100 miles commute." This quote describes the humble beginnings of PayPal, with its key players working under less-than-ideal conditions to build the company.

• Jimmy Sony discusses the prehistory of PayPal, detailing the challenging work conditions and the importance of trust between founders.
• Founders Max Levchin and Peter Thiel had a strong partnership, which was essential during tough times.
• The concept that founders need trustworthy partners is emphasized as critical for success in complex ventures.

"Founders have to have somebody they can actually trust. There are so many people who are good at being good to you when things are great, but when shit's not really working, who do you objectively talk to? Levchin and Thiel had each other."

The quote highlights the necessity of having a reliable partner in the entrepreneurial journey, particularly during challenging periods.

• Elon Musk's early career is marked by his distinct perspective on innovation, particularly within the banking industry.
• Musk's interest in physics and existential questions influenced his thinking and approach to problem-solving.
• His reading habits, especially of Douglas Adams' "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy," shaped his belief in the importance of asking the right questions.

"If they're this bad at innovation, then any company that enters the financial space should not fear that the banks will crush them, because the banks do not innovate, Musk said."

This quote captures Musk's critical view of the banking sector's lack of innovation, which he saw as an opportunity for new entrants.

• Musk values the study of physics over business school, believing it provides a fundamental understanding of how the world works.
• He regards the framing of questions as crucial to finding answers, a lesson he derived from science fiction literature.

"A lot of times, Musk explained, the question is harder than the answer. And if you can properly phrase the question, then the answer is the easy part."

This quote underscores Musk's belief in the significance of formulating the right questions to facilitate finding solutions.

• Musk's intense work ethic, including living at the office and showering at the YMCA, is highlighted.
• His aggressive leadership style and hands-on approach to coding and deadlines are noted.
• Musk's willingness to invest his own money into ventures like X.com is discussed as a demonstration of his commitment and as a recruitment strategy.

"My bank account went from five thousand dollars to twenty one million and five thousand dollars."

This quote illustrates the dramatic financial success Musk experienced at a young age, reflecting his entrepreneurial spirit and risk-taking attitude.

• The founding of X.com by Musk and his vision for the Internet as a transformative technology are discussed.
• The early employees of X.com noted Musk's high energy and ambition to become a prominent entrepreneur.
• Musk's insight into marketing and the importance of using common sense over relying solely on domain experts is shared.

"I had deferred brand and marketing and whatever to people I thought were domain experts, Musk said, and then discovered subsequently that you just have to use common sense, and that's actually a better guide."

The quote reveals Musk's realization that common sense can be more effective than expert opinion in certain business decisions.

• The beginnings of Confinity and its focus on cryptography and mobile money transfer are outlined.
• Peter Thiel's belief that the creator of Bitcoin might have been present at a cryptography conference is mentioned.
• The challenges of raising funds for startups in the financial cryptography space are emphasized.

"Confinity and X.com occupied adjoining office suites in Palo Alto. It started as a mere coincidence."

This quote sets the stage for the eventual merger of Confinity and X.com, which would later become PayPal.

• Max Levchin's approach to recruitment, emphasizing the importance of not hiring 'B players,' is detailed.
• The company culture at Confinity and X.com prioritized speed and quality in staffing.
• The story of David Sachs' candid interview and eventual hiring at Confinity is shared.

"Max kept repeating, a players hire a players, b players hire c players. So the first b player you hire takes the entire company down."

This quote reflects Levchin's philosophy on maintaining a high standard for talent acquisition to ensure the success of the company.

• The pivot from using Palm Pilots to email-based money transfer at Confinity is described as a breakthrough.
• The realization that the 'afterthought' product was more useful than the original focus leads to a strategic shift.

"I had become an avid user of an afterthought product, but I'm still committed to the vision of the original that I'm not really using."

This quote from Max Levchin illustrates the moment of clarity in recognizing the potential of the email-based money transfer system over the initial product vision.

• The challenges faced by X.com, including the loss of key team members, are highlighted.
• Elon Musk's decision to raise external funding despite his own significant investment is noted.
• The investment from Michael Moritz of Sequoia Capital and his influence on Musk is discussed.

"In late summer of 1999, Elon Musk's X.com was a pale shadow of the digital finance behemoth he envisioned."

This quote captures the difficulties X.com faced before its eventual success and merger with Confinity, leading to the creation of PayPal.

• Investing most of your assets in one company can be highly risky.
• Michael Moritz of Sequoia Capital advised against having all your assets, except your house and car, invested in one company.
• Elon Musk reflected on the possibility that Sequoia might not have invested if they had known the full extent of the risks.

"Musk remembered. And Moritz makes a good point. He's like, if I knew what was about to happen, we might not have done it."

This quote highlights the uncertainty and potential regret that can come with risky investment decisions, especially when the full scope of the risk isn't known at the outset.

• Traits observed in successful entrepreneurs like Elon Musk are consistent over time.
• Musk's disdain for complex language and preference for simplicity is a long-standing trait.
• Hiring experienced individuals ("gray hairs") was a strategy employed to balance the youth-dominated team.

"There's just a memo leaked where Elon just. I think it was in SpaceX. If I'm not mistaken. He was apoplectic on the use of acronyms. He wants simple language."

This quote exemplifies Musk's preference for clear and straightforward communication, a trait that has been consistent throughout his career.

• Elon Musk's leadership involved working closely with his team and facing challenges together.
• Musk's approach fostered a powerful work environment and a sense of camaraderie.
• The culture of working hard and enduring challenges was evident even before the company's later success.

"We slept under desks. Even Elon slept under his desk. He didn't pull himself away from that sort of thing."

This quote illustrates Musk's hands-on leadership style and the intense work culture that was present in the early days of his companies.

• There were multiple coup attempts at X.com and PayPal, with varying outcomes.
• The coups were driven by differences in vision and leadership style.
• Despite these challenges, the companies continued to innovate and grow rapidly.

"There's several coups in the book. There's a coup@x.com. They're trying to get rid of Musk, which is not going to happen."

The quote captures the internal power struggles within the company, showing that even successful startups can face significant leadership challenges.

• The idea that "there's no speed limit" in business is attributed to Derek Sivers.
• Rapid growth and progress can be achieved by moving quickly and not adhering to "standard paces."
• X.com and PayPal's rapid growth exemplified this principle.

"It was the summer of 1999, and X Dot Com's banking heavyweights had tried to oust Musk, a CEO, and then they fled. The company, quote, unquote, was essentially a mysterious URL, some loyal holdouts, Musk's dwindling capital, and an idea four months later."

This quote underscores the speed at which the company was able to recover from a leadership crisis and achieve significant milestones in a short period.

• Negative publicity can sometimes lead to increased sign-ups or interest in a company.
• The Streisand effect is when trying to suppress information leads to more public attention.
• X.com experienced a surge in sign-ups following negative press coverage.

"The extensive coverage, although it was negative, left X.com with more sign ups than before, the negative headlines."

This quote demonstrates how negative attention can inadvertently benefit a company by increasing its visibility.

• The simplicity of transferring money online was initially underestimated.
• Musk found it frustrating that the simpler aspects of X.com's services were more popular than the complex ones.
• The concept that "people pay you according to how valuable they find your work, not how hard you find it" is a key business insight.

"Then we'd show them the email payments, which was the easy part, and everybody was interested."

This quote reflects Musk's realization that consumers were more interested in simple, easy-to-use services rather than complex financial products.

• Marrying existing services with fast-growing technologies can lead to success.
• X.com did not invent money transfer but made it more useful by integrating it with email.
• Understanding the market's growth potential is crucial for product development.

"So he says, it wasn't even that we invented money transfer, we just made it useful."

The quote illustrates the importance of improving upon existing ideas and adapting them to new technologies to create successful products.

• Effective product management often involves rejecting ideas that do not align with long-term strategy.
• David Sacks of Confinity emphasized the importance of simplicity and efficiency.
• The "as easy as email" philosophy became a guiding principle for PayPal.

"I kind of became like Dr. No, because I'd always have to say no to everyone's stupid ideas."

This quote from David Sacks highlights the necessity of maintaining focus and avoiding distractions in product development.

• Listening to customer feedback is crucial for understanding how products are used in the real world.
• eBay became a critical platform for PayPal's success due to customer adaptation.
• Founders like Steve Jobs and Jeff Bezos were known for paying attention to customer emails.

"And so they wind up realizing, hey, people are adapting our product in ways we didn't understand."

This quote emphasizes the importance of being responsive to customer needs and adapting products accordingly.

• The learning curve at startups can be incredibly steep and intense.
• Competing startups in the late '90s and early 2000s were in a race to outspend each other for customer acquisition.
• The competitive nature of the market led to aggressive tactics and rapid growth.

"The cadence of learning at a startup fucking intense is an understatement."

Reed Hoffman's quote captures the fast-paced and high-pressure environment typical of startups during that period.

• Recognizing market conditions and securing funding quickly can be critical for a startup's survival.
• Peter Thiel's macroeconomic foresight led to a successful funding round just before the market downturn.
• The funding secured by PayPal allowed it to outlast competitors who were starved of capital.

"If we hadn't raised that 100 million dollar round, there would be no PayPal, there would be no SpaceX, no LinkedIn, and no Tesla."

This quote highlights the pivotal role that timely funding played in the survival and success of several major companies.

• Efficient customer service can be a competitive advantage.
• PayPal's customer service strategy involved decentralizing and expanding their service team.
• Quick and innovative problem-solving approaches can have long-lasting impacts on a company.

"So they go from a backlog of 100,000 customer complaints to zero in a matter of months."

The quote shows how PayPal managed to address a massive backlog of customer service issues through strategic planning and execution.

• Tolerating failures is essential for innovation and rapid iteration.
• Making quick decisions and learning from mistakes can be more effective than prolonged deliberation.
• The willingness to embrace failure is part of a successful entrepreneurial mindset.

"If you can't tell me the four ways you fuck something up before you got it right, you probably weren't the right person who worked on it."

Elon Musk's quote underscores the importance of learning from failures and understanding the iterative nature of problem-solving.

• Confidence and a certain level of arrogance can be necessary to push through creative ideas.
• Founders need to be self-assured to overcome challenges and persist with their vision.
• The success of PayPal and other startups can be attributed to the strong convictions of their leaders.

"Only the arrogant are self confident enough to push their creative ideas on others."

Nolan Bushnell's quote reflects the idea that entrepreneurs must have the confidence to advocate for and implement their ideas.

• Founders often have a unique vision and understanding of their company's direction.
• Even if their management style is unconventional, founders can be the best leaders for their companies.
• The success of founder-led companies like Apple under Steve Jobs supports this idea.

"The founder may be bizarre and erratic, but this is a creative force and they should run the company."

Elon Musk's quote emphasizes the importance of allowing founders to lead their companies, even if their approach is unorthodox.

• Small, independent teams can lead to more rapid innovation and less bureaucracy.
• As companies grow, there is a risk of becoming less productive due to increased communication channels.
• The mythical man-month concept explains why adding more people to a project can lead to inefficiency.

"More programmers assigned to a given project, Brooks explained, multiplied the number of communication channels."

This quote from Dr. Frederick Brooks' "The Mythical Man-Month" explains how increasing team size can decrease efficiency due to more complex communication requirements.

• A culture of impatience can drive a company to make decisions quickly and avoid delays.
• The leaders of X.com set a tone that valued rapid progress and decisiveness.
• Emphasizing speed and efficiency can be crucial for a startup's success.

"Be intolerant of slowness."

The quote captures the ethos of X.com's leadership, which prioritized speed and decisiveness in their operations.

• PayPal encouraged users to maintain balances in their accounts for cost-free internal transfers.
• Internal transactions cost nothing, making it desirable to keep money within PayPal.
• Debit cards and checks were distributed to prevent users from transferring money out of PayPal for bill payments.

"If enough customers kept money on their accounts, the team realized that the company could transfer dollars between users at no cost. The internal transaction costs like a millisecond, Musk explained. It's basically zero."

This quote emphasizes the strategy to encourage users to keep money in PayPal accounts to facilitate cost-free internal transactions, which occur almost instantaneously.

• David Sachs highlighted that any customer friction was an opportunity for improvement.
• Elon Musk wanted to rewrite the entire PayPal product to switch from Linux to Microsoft.
• Internal conflicts arose regarding company direction and Musk's leadership style.

"Important insight for you. David Sachs has brought something to their attention when they're building out this product. And he said every moment of friction for the customer was fat to be cut."

The quote captures the philosophy of reducing customer friction to improve the product, which was a key focus during PayPal's development.

• Musk faced a clandestine effort to remove him from the company.
• Despite personal sacrifices, Musk responded without seeking retribution.
• Musk's moderation and understanding of the situation were unexpected by his allies.

"The whole thing is making me. So sad that words fail me. I have given every last ounce of effort, almost all my cash from zip two, and my marriage is on the rocks. And yet I stand accused of bad deeds to which I have not even been given the opportunity to respond."

This quote reflects Musk's emotional state and the personal toll of the ouster, yet he chose not to retaliate against the company.

• Max Levchin revealed that PayPal's true innovation was in big data security, not just payment processing.
• The company's risk management system was key to identifying fraudulent transactions.
• PayPal's losses to fraud were seen as necessary for building effective predictive models.

"What business are we actually in? What is the value that we're adding? This submerged part of PayPal is the massive and very, very numerically driven risk management system..."

This quote by Max Levchin clarifies the misconception about PayPal's business, highlighting the significance of their risk management system in adding value beyond simple payment processing.

• PayPal faced platform risk from eBay, which could have eliminated PayPal as a payment option.
• Peter Thiel and David Sachs were outraged by eBay's potential to integrate their own payment system.
• Reed Hoffman built a back-channel relationship with eBay to mitigate this risk.

"This change sent Peter and David Sachs into fits of anger. David and Peter would get totally hysterical and say things like, 'They can't do this. How dare they?'"

The quote captures the intense reaction to eBay's Buy It Now feature, which posed a significant threat to PayPal's presence on the eBay platform.

• PayPal's IPO was successful despite negative press and the dot-com bubble burst.
• The company used misdirection and strategic silence during the quiet period before the IPO.
• Guerrilla marketing tactics were employed to assert PayPal's importance to eBay.

"If eBay is in negotiations to buy us, if they say anything to the public market, it's breaking fiduciary responsibility."

Reed Hoffman's quote illustrates the strategic thinking behind entering acquisition talks with eBay to ensure their silence during PayPal's IPO period.

• PayPal alumni reflect on the company's early days and the pride in their collective achievements.
• The company's culture valued smart, hardworking people and embraced inexperience as an asset.
• The founders' success posed challenges in relating to new entrepreneurs risking everything.

"The very best employee at any job, at any level of responsibility, is the person who generally believes that this is their last job working for someone."

This quote, reflecting on the ideal PayPal employee, underscores the entrepreneurial spirit that was valued within the company and contributed to its success.