The Mafia that you wish you were a part of..

8 lessons from 8 of the PayPal Mafia

@elonmusk
@peterthiel
@rabois
@DavidSacks
@reidhoffman
@mlevchin
@roelofbotha
@Chad_Hurley

— THREAD —
1/ Who are they?

PayPal founders and employees that built these companies:

@Tesla
@SpaceX
@YouTube
@Yelp
@LinkedIn
@PalantirTech
@Square
@Yammer
@Opendoor

+ investors and advisors in many others
2/ @elonmusk First Principles

First principles are basic assumption that cannot be broken down further. They are the lego blocks of thinking.

“It’s important to reason from first principles rather than by analogy. The normal way we conduct our lives is we reason by analogy.”
3/ @peterthiel Failure is overrated

• Failure is too complicated to result in easily applicable lessons

“Most businesses fail for more than one reason. So when a business fails, you often don’t learn anything at all because the failure was over-determined.”
4/ @rabois Movie Production Method

You don’t discover a startup market, you create it.

“Building a successful product and company is like producing a movie. You have a script and vision first and film the movie. Then you sell tickets.”

(Opposite of @ericries Lean Startup)
5/ @DavidSacks Friction

Instead of thinking, “how do I build my company?”

Think… “What are sources of friction to this thing scaling and how do I remove it?”
6/ @reidhoffman 4 Factors to Blitzscale

• Network effects: networks become more useful for all with each new member

• Market size: dominate a niche to to get to mainstream consumers

• Distribution: pick channels that suit speed of your expansion

• High gross margins
7/ @mlevchin Hiring

“Whenever there’s any doubt, there’s no doubt.”

(Similar to @sivers Hell Yes or No decision framework)
8/ @roelofbotha Understanding Founder Motives

Learn HOW and WHY the founder makes decisions.

• What are the key decisions you faced in your life and what did you decide? What were the alternatives?

• Why did you go to this school?

• Why did you move to this city?
9/ @Chad_Hurley Empower and Evolve with Users

• Enable users to do things they care about and spread the word about your product

• PayPal originally wanted Beam payments to PalmPilots. Be flexible and notice how your users interact with the product

• • •

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More from @chrishlad

7 Oct
1/ Founder Focus #26: @kylebrussell of @PlaybyteInc

What framework do you use for delegation?

"I tend to delegate by first prioritizing speed, then effectiveness.

I put a simple solution in place; then pass to whoever has the maximally relevant skills or experience."
2/ How do you recruit the best talent?

"I bring in the best talent by doing as much as I can to increase the odds that the best talent knows what we're doing and that we're aggressively pursuing the most ambitious form of the central idea."
3/ What is your primary focus for Playbyte over the next 12-18 months?

"Our primary focus is achieving product-market fit. Until then, we have to continually update our Pitch, Process, and Product to reflect the information we get back from our users."
Read 4 tweets
5 Oct
10 LESSONS from an incredible first episode of Founder’s Field Guide with @rahulvohra and @patrick_oshag @InvestLikeBest

👇🧵
1/ Software as a Game

• Most startups worry about what users want or need

• When you make a game, you OBSESS over how they FEEL

• When your product is a game, people don’t just use it, they play it
2/ Schlep Blindness (h/t @paulg)

Founders think:
• It looks hard, so let’s not attempt the problem

Attack MUNDANE areas of business with stiff competition

ie: @Superhuman vs. gmail
Read 12 tweets
28 Sep
10 Tweets from 10 of the best startup operators and investors

@DavidSacks
@chamath
@rabois
@CindyBiSV
@briannekimmel
@patio11
@awilkinson
@AmandaMGoetz
@bgurley
@andrewchen

🧵👇
Read 11 tweets
26 Sep
THE Angel Investor you definitely HAVE heard of : @Jason

1 book, 51 podcast guest appearances👇

@APompliano
@JordanHarbinger
@ShaneAParrish
@karaswisher
@HarryStebbings
@garyvee

and 1,000+ episodes on @TWiStartups

10 of his BIGGEST ideas on investing and life

🧵👇
1/ Who is @Jason

• Founded and sold Webblogs, @markcuban invested

• Angel investor in @Uber, @thumbtack, @RobinhoodApp,@calm

• Host of @thisweekinstartups, @allinpod

• Founder of Launch and The Syndicate

• Writer of Angel: How to Invest in Tech Startups
2/ Invest in People not Companies

“People aren’t everything, they are the only thing”

"When the right person fails, they always improve on their mistakes, but when a company fails, it can’t try again"

People > Market > Tech
Read 14 tweets
22 Sep
1/ Founder Focus #24: @ShaneMac of @assist and @gosquaredaway

Hardest part of building Assist and Squared Away?

"Believing in yourself for 3 years before anyone has any clue what you are doing.

And having partners that make that easier."
2/ Underrated leadership quality?

"Pure curiosity. Many leaders ask questions to fit their own agenda. They think they know the answer and use questions to get the other person there. Great talent hates this. They teach you so much if you let ego fall and be purely curious."
3/ How you persevere despite adversity?

"I’d love to have some bad ass answer of how powerful I am and can knock down any wall. Truth is, I don’t. I struggled so much and without really close mentors who I could be open and vulnerable with, who knows if I would have persevered..
Read 4 tweets
16 Sep
A MASTER operator and investor: @rabois

Yesterday: @chamath’s SPAC merger with @Opendoor

Today I inhaled Keith’s podcasts:

@APompliano
@eriktorenberg
@Jason
@david_perell
@Patrick_oshag
@AdamDraper

Here are 10 of his most IMPACTFUL ideas

🧵👇
1/ Who is @rabois?

• Political Science at Stanford, Harvard Law

• Exec at @PayPal @LinkedIn @Square

• PayPal Mafia with @elonmusk, @peterthiel, @reidhoffman, @mlevchin

• Investor @Airbnb, @YouTube, @stripe, @DoorDash

• Partner @foundersfund, Founder @Opendoor
2/ Barrels vs. Ammunition

• Barrels: people that take ideas from conception to shipping

• Ammunition: people that can execute a given task

• A company’s output is tied to the number of barrels

Find barrels by constantly expanding scope of responsibilities for employees
Read 15 tweets

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