Thread by @kevg1412

The PayPal Mafia on Culture

11 stories (and uncountable insights) from @rabois, @DavidSacks, @peterthiel, @mlevchin, @reidhoffman, and @yishan

Including:
PayPal's Key Values
The Spirit of Entrepreneurship
Building Great Teams
Pranks
+ More

1/ @reidhoffman on the key values that led to early PayPal's culture of entrepreneurship

1) hiring
2) taking no answer at face value
3) intence need to survive
4) entrepreneurial culture
5) luck

2/ @rabois on the key values that led to early PayPal's culture of entrepreneurship

1) Confrontational culture
2) Anti-meeting culture
3) Internal promotions
4) Anti-team bias

3/ @rabois on free meals while at work

4/ @rabois on whether a student should go to college or work for a startup

1) See @paulg's advice in Students Guide to Startups
2) Shares that at PayPal, they urged students to drop out
3) Some of the best entrepreneurs have dropped out

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7/ @DavidSacks on @peterthiel on what it was like at PayPal just after the eBay acquisition

It was like "the Fall of Saigon"

8/ @rabois on why so many successful entrepreneurs and startups came out of PayPal

1) Talent
2) Culture and Ideology
3) eBay
4) Macro views of the future of the Web
5) Pressure

9/ @yishan on how @peterthiel and @mlevchin built such a great team at PayPal

1) Hiring smart people regardless of experience
2) Willing to fire people
3) High intensity from the top

10/ @rabois on how @peterthiel and @mlevchin built such a great team at PayPal

1) Peter's uncanny ability to assess the ability of people
2) Peter and Max personally interviewed all final candidates until IPO
3) Peter and Max avoided MBAs like the plague (except @roelofbotha)

11/ @yishan on the one of the best pranks he ever pulled.

This one was on YouTube cofounder Jawed Karim while they were at PayPal

PayPal wasn't *all* intense competition – they had fun too