Company · Finance · Software · founded 1998
PayPal
Online payments company. Many of its early staff went on to found or fund other companies.
Of the 9 people here linked to PayPal, 4 are founders and 0 are still there. 4 of them also appear at Google. These are people who succeeded, not the odds of succeeding.
Description and founding year: en.wikipedia.org. Each person's role links to its own source on their profile.
9 people at PayPal
Founder Past
Role
Co-founder of X.com, which merged with Confinity in 2000; briefly CEO, 1999–2000
Source
· high confidence. Wikipedia says investors replaced him as CEO by the end of 1999, he returned after the 2000 merger, and the board ousted him that year.
Technology 2 / 2
Elon Musk
CEO, Tesla and SpaceX; owner, X (formerly Twitter)
wealthy · some · college degree
Founder Past
Role
Co-founder; vice president of marketing and strategy, 1998–2002
Source
· high confidence
Venture Capital · Finance · Technology 4 / 3
Luke Nosek
Co-founder of PayPal; co-founder of Founders Fund and Gigafund; SpaceX director since 2008
Polish-born · some · college degree
Founder Past
Role
Co-founder (Confinity) and CEO, 1998–2002
Source
· high confidence. The page gives no start year for his CEO tenure; CEO until the 2002 sale to eBay.
Technology · Venture Capital · Software 2 / 2
Peter Thiel
Co-founder of PayPal and Palantir Technologies; co-founder of Founders Fund; Facebook's first outside investor
professional-immigrant · elite · graduate degree
Executive Past
Role
First product leader, later COO, 1999
Source
· high confidence. Joined in 1999 after McKinsey; the page gives no year for the COO promotion or his departure.
Technology · Software · Venture Capital 2 / 1
David Sacks
PayPal COO; co-founder of Yammer; interim CEO of Zenefits; co-founder of Craft Ventures
professional-class · elite · graduate degree
Executive Past
Role
COO, then Senior VP of Business Development, 2000
Source
· high confidence. Was on the board at its founding and joined full time in January 2000. The page gives no year for leaving.
Technology · Software · Venture Capital 2 / 0
Reid Hoffman
Co-founder of LinkedIn; early PayPal executive; Greylock Partners venture capitalist
professional-class · elite · graduate degree
Employee Past
Role
Employee in eBay's PayPal division (designed the original logo)
Also at
Source
· high confidence. The page gives no years.
Technology · Software · Media 3 / 0
Chad Hurley
Co-founder and former CEO of YouTube
middle-class · some · college degree
Employee Past
Role
Early employee, 2002
Also at
Source
· medium confidence. The page places him there in 2002 and gives no end year.
Technology · Software 2 / 2
Jawed Karim
Co-founder of YouTube; posted the platform's first video
professional-class · some · graduate degree
Employee Past
Role
Software engineer
Also at
Source
· medium confidence. The page lists him as an employee and gives no years or title.
Technology · Software · Media 3 / 2
Steve Chen
Co-founder and former Chief Technology Officer of YouTube
immigrant middle-class · well-connected · some college
Connected companies
Other companies that share profiled people with PayPal.
Google
4 shared: Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, Jawed Karim, Max Levchin
Meta Platforms
4 shared: David Sacks, Peter Thiel, Reid Hoffman, Steve Chen
Airbnb
3 shared: David Sacks, Jawed Karim, Reid Hoffman
SpaceX
3 shared: Elon Musk, Luke Nosek, David Sacks
YouTube
3 shared: Chad Hurley, Jawed Karim, Steve Chen
Founders Fund
2 shared: Peter Thiel, Luke Nosek
Microsoft
2 shared: Reid Hoffman, David Sacks
OpenAI
2 shared: Elon Musk, Reid Hoffman
Palantir Technologies
2 shared: Peter Thiel, David Sacks
Apple
1 shared: Reid Hoffman
Los Angeles FC
1 shared: Chad Hurley
Netscape
1 shared: Luke Nosek
Tesla
1 shared: Elon Musk
The Coca-Cola Company
1 shared: Max Levchin
Twitter / X
1 shared: Elon Musk
Uber
1 shared: David Sacks
Y Combinator
1 shared: Peter Thiel
Yahoo
1 shared: Max Levchin
Yelp
1 shared: Max Levchin