September 23, 2025

Why ex-PayPal Employees Run the Tech World | Newsthink

8 minutes

Why ex-PayPal Employees Run the Tech World

How the PayPal Mafia took over Silicon Valley. Invest in iconic artworks with Masterworks using my custom link: https://masterworks.art/newsthink. See important Masterworks disclosures: https://mw-art.co/37WwvbD

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Thumbnail source:

Elon Musk: The Royal Society, CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

For other images, source is same as below

Sources:

0:04 LPS.1, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

0:12 “The PayPal Mafia” Fortune magazine article https://fortune.com/2007/11/13/paypal-mafia/

0:24 Elon Musk photo: Brian Solis / CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)

0:45 Sourced from Associated Press images

0:55 eBay campus: ebayinc, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0 via Wikimedia Commons

1:53 Fortune magazine interview: https://fortune.com/2007/11/13/paypal-mafia/

2:17 Photo supplied by The Slanted Door http://slanteddoorgroup.com

2:32 Jeremy Stoppelman image: LeWeb, CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 via Wikimedia Commons

Russell Simmons image: Joanne Wan https://www.flickr.com/photos/joeywan/324687443 Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/

2:55 Reid Hoffman image: startupofyou, CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 via Wikimedia Commons

2:58 New York Times interview: https://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/17/technology/17paypal.html

3:04 Keith Rabois image: Brian Solis, CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 via Wikimedia Commons

3:07 Quora comment https://www.quora.com/PayPal-product/What-strong-beliefs-on-culture-for-entrepreneurialism-did-Peter-Max-and-David-have-at-PayPal

3:52 Chad Hurley photo: World Economic Forum, CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0 via Wikimedia Commons

Steve Chen photo: Rico Shen, CC BY-SA 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ via Wikimedia Commons

3:55 Sourced from Alamy (Newsthink Ltd. Is a client)

4:33 Keith Rabois image: https://twitter.com/rabois

4:38 Roelof Botha image: TechCrunch. Photo by Dave Getzschman., CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 via Wikimedia Commons

4:50 Reid Hoffman image: Joi Ito, CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 via Wikimedia Commons

4:55 Peter Thiel image: Dan Taylor, CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 via Wikimedia Commons

4:57 Mark Zuckerberg image: JD Lasica from Pleasanton, CA, US, CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 via Wikimedia Commons

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