
PayPal Mafia - robzyb
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PayPal_Mafia
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SuperChihuahua
Elon Musk is missing from the famous photo ([http://victorstuff.com/wp-
content/uploads/2013/09/paypal.jpg](http://victorstuff.com/wp-
content/uploads/2013/09/paypal.jpg)) because he received an innovator of the
year award in Chicago at the same time as when the picture was taken.

The YouTube founders, Chad Hurley and Steve Chen, were not allowed to
participate in the photo because the corporate handlers at Google didn't want
them to be linked to the mafia ;)

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sampk
Wow I had no idea you need your employer's permission to be in a photo..

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jedberg
You do when you work for Google and the picture is going to be in a magazine.
:)

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dwaltrip
Or what, they'll get fired? Could a company do so without risk of a lawsuit?

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product50
And these guys are YouTube founders - pretty sure exceptions can be made for
them. Also, they deserve to be in the photograph considering the relevance.

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jedberg
> And these guys are YouTube founders

And once they were acquired, no different than any other Google employee. That
is the cost of "selling out" as they say.

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dzink
To be a great entrepreneur you have to build a Mafia around you. Every
successful one I know (including my mother) has had to do that. If you can't
do that you fail as an entrepreneur.

You build a Mafia, by being so motivated you out-execute everyone who bets
against you and earn the respect of the smart people around you. The trick
here is to surround yourself with smart people you can learn from in the first
place.

A good startup Mafia picks its people veeery carefully and pulls in those it
wants. (a people hire a people, b people hire c people). It forms through
action, not job postings - you have to burn through the same fire everyone
else in your group is made of. Which is why a great startup Mafia sticks
together, and keeps leveraging the network to amplify its people in their
second, third and fourth attempts, while drawing a clout of deal flow towards
itself. Execution gets better and better, and deal-flow means they also see
the best opportunities coming their way to the point where the usual odds
don't apply anymore.

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erikig
I'm reminded of the Traitorous Eight too.

Many times the restrictions placed on creative technologists can act as the
fuse that triggers immense amounts of creativity when it is unleashed.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traitorous_eight](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traitorous_eight)

~~~
grinich
From what I heard growing up, Noyce was pretty much just like Elon.

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mbrutsch
Seems like Yelp took the "Mafia" part a little too seriously...

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debt
These guys were able to cash out and start their own companies relatively soon
after. I'm surprised we don't see this on a smaller scale amongst engineers in
the valley. They get paid such high salaries they could easily fund little
side ventures using designers and engineers from other parts of the country to
build the products. They'd act as managers, overseeing the construction of
their own app ideas while maintaining a full-time position at some company.

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judk
They wouldn't be employed long if they were consumed by running a side
business. And who are these employees making enough to fund multiple other
employers.

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api
Such positive and negative... SpaceX and fucking Palantir...

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dangerlibrary
I'm curious what you have against Palantir in particular. As far as government
contractors go, they don't seem especially problematic.

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bachback
muaha. read about HBGary. Palantir is scum of the earth. they participated in
targeting Glenn Greenwald. only thing they haven't done is flying drones
themselves to kill people. they are probably #1 in help NSA with their
programs.

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pbreit
Palantir cut ties with HBGary.

If government/banks/etc are going to use tools to pursue their objectives,
they could do _much_ worse than use Palantir tools. One important feature of
Palantir's tools is the "need-to-know" capabilities built-in to restrain
dissemination.

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bachback
well, I have about as much respect for them as people in the arms trade, oil
or mercenary business. fact of the matter is they designed a program to target
journalists. so they are actively building a distopian future. can you imagine
where this goes in 10-20 years? the Western world is pretty much galloping to
non democracy. how about building tools which improve democracy instead of
destroying it? Peter Thiel, the libertarian. honestly all of these trends are
really very troubling. I've worked in AI research, and is the top researcher
in the field building? killer robots. brilliant.

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camillomiller
The author of this Wikipedia entry will probably sleep with the phishes very
soon.

~~~
tobylane
Every time a fish is sold on eBay it'll be delivered to the author, and eBay
will say "Delivered to customer".

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rudolfosman
"Arctic Startup" published an article recently about the #estonianmafia
hashtag that was coined by none other than Dave McClure of the PayPal Mafia:
[http://arcticstartup.com/2014/01/28/tyler-crowley-dave-
mcclu...](http://arcticstartup.com/2014/01/28/tyler-crowley-dave-mcclure-and-
the-story-behind-sthlmtech-cphftw-estonianmafia)

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CSDude
I expected a mafia which extorts businesses get the "protection money" via
PayPal. But this is more impressive of course.

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fjcaetano
That's an impressive list of overachievers.

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ballard
[http://www.foundersfund.com/](http://www.foundersfund.com/)

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kenrikm
It's not what you know but who you know. But what you know about who you know
helps too. ;)

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ycmike
Talk about hiring the best people.

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michaelochurch
But I thought Silicon Valley was a meritocracy where connections didn't
matter!! [/troll]

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bfe
Look back 4 or 5 years prior to the founding of X.com/Confinity/PayPal: Elon
Musk was a South African-born undergrad at Pennsylvania, Peter Thiel was a
German-born lawyer trading derivatives at Credit Suisse, and Max Levchin was a
Ukrainian-born undergrad at Illinois. Now, which comes first in Silicon
Valley: merit or connections?

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vonmoltke
> Elon Musk was a South African-born undergrad at Pennsylvania

Who first emigrated to Canada, where he attended Canada's most prestigious
business school for two years before transferring to the United States' most
prestigious business school.

> Peter Thiel was a German-born lawyer trading derivatives at Credit Suisse

After which he ran his own hedge fund for two years, then co-founded PayPal.

These guys certainly had more merit than many people, but to hold them up as
people who succeeded with merit over connections is silly.

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bfe
Musk first arrived in Canada alone at 17 with very little money and worked
manual labor jobs to make ends meet. When he first got to Silicon Valley he
basically spent his first six months there locked away in his room coding the
initial version of Zip2 which he co-founded with his little brother. What more
do you want to decide someone succeeded by their own intelligence and drive as
opposed to connections?

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Consultant32452
Can we agree that, to a certain extent, both are necessary?

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bfe
How about, can we agree that when you spend years achieving great successes,
you tend to form relationships of trust with high-performing colleagues who
learn to value your drive and intelligence and to look forward to helping you
or working with you again?

That still seems like a boundary value at one end of the personal merit vs.
connections continuum of drivers of success, as contrasted with the other end
of the continuum, which we might define as being a VP at JP Morgan because
your dad is on the politburo standing committee of the PRC.

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ycmike
Cannot agree more.

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wellboy
So, did PayPal actually kick-off the Silicon Valley?

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cpr
You've gotta watch Steve Blank's "The Secret History of Silicon Valley". Goes
back to its post-war roots in 40's and 50's. A real gem and quite surprising.

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTC_RxWN_xo](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTC_RxWN_xo)

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ycmike
Thanks!

