The PayPal Mafia is the group of people who founded the renowned payment service company PayPal. These individuals are behind most of the famous companies that exist today, even billion-dollar ones. The group got together in the early 2000s, founded PayPal, and then sold it to eBay in 2002 for 1.5 billion dollars. The founders of PayPal went on to create generation-defining companies respectively. As you can see in the picture below, the PayPal Mafia consists of the most notable entrepreneurs and companies in the world. These include people like Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, Max Levchin, Reid Hoffman, and companies like Tesla, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Yelp! We will be looking briefly into who these founders are, what their role in PayPal was, and what have they been up to since 2002.
Peter Thiel was the Co-founder and CEO of PayPal. He earned $55 million from his 3.7% stake in PayPal from the eBay deal.
As of June 2020, Peter Thiel has a net worth of $2.3 billion.
Elon Musk originally founded financial services and email payment firm X.com in 1999. The company merged with Peter Thiel’s Confinity. The company was named PayPal and Musk became CEO for a short time. He was also the new company’s largest shareholder by the time of its sale to eBay. He earned $165 million from the deal.
Elon Musk is the face of technology and innovation today. He founded several major companies after PayPal including the famous Tesla and SpaceX. Following is the list of ventures he has been a part of after PayPal.
Related Article: Elon Musk Inventions and Projects You Might Not Know Off
As of June 2020, Elon Musk has a net worth of $42.1 billion.
Max Levchin co-founded PayPal with Peter Thiel. He was the company’s Chief Technology Officer (CTO), and was well recognized for his contribution in PayPal’s anti-fraud efforts.
As of June 2020, Max Levchin has a net worth of $300 million.
He created PayPal’s real time anti-fraud system, and was also responsible for a myriad of key components of the company.
Airbnb – Jawed invested in the company’s first initial seed round
As of June 202, Jawed has a net worth of $140 million.
Product Manager
Premal Shah’s net worth is unknown, but is rumored to be between 1 – 5 million dollars.
Chief Operating Officer (COO)
David Sacks’ net worth is unknown, though it is rumored to be between 1 – 5 million dollars.
As of June 2020, Reid Hoffman has a net worth of $2 billion.
At Sequoia, Botha handled the firm’s investment in YouTube, Instagram, and Square, among others.Â
The net worth of Roelof Botha is unknown, however, it is rumored to be close to a million dollars.
Vice President of Engineering
Founded Yelp along with fellow PayPal colleague Russel Simmons.
As of June 2020, Jeremy Stoppelman has a net worth of almost $250 million.
Executive Vice President, Business Development, Public Affairs and Policy
As of June 2020, Keith Rabois has a net worth of $1 billion.
Other members of the PayPal mafia include Russel Simmons, Ken Howery, Andrew McCormack, and Luke Nosek. The PayPal Mafia is the epitome of “Your network is your worth”.
“When we started PayPal, I remember one of the early conversations I had with Max was that I wanted to build a company where everybody would be really great friends and, no matter what happened with the company, the friendships would survive.”
Peter Theil
This just shows how important networking, and surrounding yourself with the right people is.
Read more: The First Mover Advantage and Why It May Not Be Important