[HN Gopher] PayPal Mafia
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PayPal Mafia
Author : domrdy
Score : 99 points
Date : 2021-09-04 14:11 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (en.wikipedia.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (en.wikipedia.org)
| numair wrote:
| All of the conspiracy theories and hero-worshipping etc ignore
| the basic, boring reality of how these concentrations of power
| emerge: half the work is showing up.
|
| There was a time that you had to beg and plead with people to
| take websites and the Internet seriously. Nobody wanted to show
| up. These guys showed up. The rest is history.
| oleganza wrote:
| Same with Bitcoin.
| paulpauper wrote:
| The internet was a tiny niche...for a year or two. By 1998 it
| blew up. It,s not like there was not intense competion 24 years
| ago.plenty of ppl showed up but few made a lot of money
| xyzzyz wrote:
| Yes, and after 2000 it was again a niche for a while (though
| not quite so tiny). The collapse of dot com bubble also
| resulted in lack of faith in internet based businesses in
| general, lack of investment and difficult market conditions.
| The landscape of 2003 was much different than that of 2013,
| when internet startups again were fully en vogue.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > The internet was a tiny niche...for a year or two. By 1998
| it blew up.
|
| That's more than a year or two into the internet (and even
| the Web.)
| johannes1234321 wrote:
| > That's more than a year or two into the internet (and
| even the Web.)
|
| Around 1998 was the time when Microsoft started pushing it
| out of the geek space into mainstream, but AOL and
| CompuServe were still around. This was when Microsoft
| pushed the "Active desktop" and other things.
|
| However the Internet still was of united use for most
| people. eBay was founded only in 1995, Amazon in 1994. And
| global expansion took time.
|
| People still used 28.8 Baud or 56k Modems. ADSL wasn't
| broadly available, yet.
|
| Sure, some companies started using it as a communication
| network between offices, universities and geeks used it.
| But all in a relatively small niche.
| GDC7 wrote:
| The Paypal mafia run paypal into the ground.
|
| Peter Thiel was the only sane person on that boat, as soon as he
| was put at the helm he did the only sensible thing:
|
| Clear the deck and offload the ship to a bigger fool. Not exactly
| an heroic move.
|
| The whole genuflection towards the product of survivorship bias
| is very cringe. I still think that the SV intelligencia does this
| in order to cater to an audience who'd buy thier books and invite
| them on podcasts.
|
| Because otherwise....man it's really not that different from the
| gym goers who'd offer thier wives in tribute to Arnold if they
| could.
|
| At least those guys have some six pack that comes with their cult
| to show for.
| parhamn wrote:
| I really hate the use of 'survivorship bias' these days. It
| makes it seem like everything is just happenstance and nothing
| is consequential. Ask someone who uses the term, "what would be
| the indicator, this wasn't just survivorship?" and they rarely
| do come up with something.
|
| You can blame any success on survivorship. It's silly to do so.
| WanderPanda wrote:
| Interestingly survivorship/success is an unbiased estimator
| of merit imo. The actual survivorship bias comes from the
| high variance and only looking at the surviving/successful
| stories.
| GDC7 wrote:
| > Interestingly survivorship/success is an unbiased
| estimator of merit imo
|
| If that is the case, can you fail on purpose?
| WanderPanda wrote:
| Yes you can produce noise, I guess
| runawaybottle wrote:
| It's also worth noting that a whole lot of them survived and
| made decent products. In fact, I'd say way too many of them
| survived for it to be a coincidence.
|
| If you think about most of our lives, little to no one makes
| it out alive from a company. The bosses get the money and the
| workers mostly stay workers indefinitely at the same company
| or at another one.
|
| This group somehow made sure they would never be workers
| again.
| GDC7 wrote:
| > what would be the indicator, this wasn't just survivorship?
|
| "From now on can you please fail on purpose?"
|
| 6 months later:
|
| "Okay, back to pursuing success"
|
| 3 months later:
|
| "Please could you start failing on purpose again?"
|
| 5 months later:
|
| "Back to pursuing success, please."
|
| 10 months later:
|
| "Please fail until you are back being a nobody"
|
| X years later:
|
| "Okay let's get back to the top again"
| pbreit wrote:
| This seems like a gross representation of pretty much
| everything.
|
| The concept of "PayPal Mafia" as what they did AFTER PayPal
| (YouTube, LinkedIn, Yammer, Palantir, Yelp, Affirm, OpenDoor,
| Tesla, Spacex).
|
| Ebay bought PayPal for $1.5b and spun it out for $40b. Not
| exactly foolish.
| mcrittenden wrote:
| I just finished reading "Brotopia: Breaking Up the Boys' Club of
| Silicon Valley" which has a whole section on the PayPal Mafia. I
| never realized how influential that group was to startup culture.
| exogeny wrote:
| I would strongly posit that influence was a bad thing, unless
| you think following the example of someone who told a gay
| professor to die of AIDS is a good thing.
| bserge wrote:
| The beauty of the Internet: you say one stupid thing
| (possibly under influence) to one person and you're literally
| Hitler forever.
| Sebguer wrote:
| One stupid thing? The person later reiterated their stance
| as:
|
| "I don't necessarily hate homosexuals, but do believe in
| Jack Kemp's suggestion that they may not be the best
| teachers of young children in public schools and recognize
| that the spread of AIDS has a direct causal link back to
| their activity."
| Ansil849 wrote:
| Notably, the man who said that is now married to a man
| himself.
| 11thEarlOfMar wrote:
| How much of their many successes is due to abilities versus
| timing? The period they invested their initial PayPal fortunes in
| was in the nasccent Web 2.0 era. They had the benefit of capital
| from the PayPal exit, plus an up to date understanding of modern
| web capabilities, plus the initial open source platforms and
| leverage, plus a great deal of learning about what didn't work in
| the .COM 1.0 bubble.
|
| Plus intelligence, inventiveness and drive.
| lisper wrote:
| Success is _always_ a result of a confluence of abilities and
| circumstances. There has to be a good impedance match between
| what you can do and the state of the world so that what you do
| is exactly what the world needs at that point in time. Too
| early or too late and you fail.
| xyzzyz wrote:
| There were thousands of others who also started companies at
| the time, and yet have not enjoyed success, seeing their
| companies go into bankruptcy in the nascent 2.0 era.
| toomanybeersies wrote:
| After PayPal, most of these blokes would've had a good amount
| of personal capital to use in future ventures. Much easier to
| make a million bucks when you have a million bucks.
| dylan604 wrote:
| In the Rock-n-roll biz, the easiest way to make a million
| dollars is to start with two million. It is a more
| universal saying than that though
| diskzero wrote:
| True. I have always heard it applied to making money in
| aviation.
| ineedasername wrote:
| They also had the perspective of seeing countless failures to
| give them a sense of what might actually work.
|
| The initial success may have included a bit of luck, but after
| that there was a degree of experience as well.
| [deleted]
| roenxi wrote:
| The most stunning moment in my life was when I realised that in a
| world of ~7 billion souls a group of about 30 people could have
| such an oversized impact.
|
| It is no joke to think how few people would need to be swapped
| around to reshape the face of the internet. Seeing things like
| this also makes me think that it is risky to attack successful
| people and companies.
| yann2 wrote:
| Thats not how anything works. Having impact and having control
| over impact are two totally different things. You can get one
| atom to produce a nuclear chain reaction and level the planet,
| but that specific atom doesnt get into a position to do that by
| itself. If Peter Thiel had control over anything why run away
| and hide in New Zealand?
|
| These people are like that atom. They do have special traits
| and play a role in pulling enough chimps together and starting
| reactions sort of like uranium. But once you understand the
| process and know how to find uranium there are much more
| interesting things to do than worship the uranium.
| vmception wrote:
| its more about what the attack's consequences are, which can be
| done more holistically. the consequences can be giving up board
| seats to outsiders or a union, and giving up a bunch of shares
| in every settlement.
|
| that will make the chairs and CEOs take society more seriously,
| or wind up with _the people_ telling the company what to do
| WanderPanda wrote:
| How can people still believe that this would work (without a
| protectionism <-> productivity decline vicious cycle)?
| burntoutfire wrote:
| > The most stunning moment in my life was when I realised that
| in a world of ~7 billion souls a group of about 30 people could
| have such an oversized impact.
|
| There are much more stunning examples than that. For example
| Stalin has pretty much shaped the fate of billions for decades,
| and he was just one man.
| parhamn wrote:
| There will always be just a few leaders. This feels similar to
| lauding 500 CEOs for the success of the US S&P -- it's missing
| a ton of the picture as the organizations they ran and the
| teams were massive. To be fair, most of this list is good
| investors which makes sense (they had a strong exit at a good
| time).
|
| Very cool seeing the makers/innovators like Elon go on to make
| cool things. For example, I'm convinced the space industry
| would've been totally different if not for him. I doubt the VC
| space would've changed too much without FoundersFund et al.
| throwdecro wrote:
| Why would the "Paypal Mafia" make you think it is risky to
| attack successful people and companies?
|
| Ideally it wouldn't be risky at all; in some circumstances it
| can be risky; but I don't see anything about the "Paypal Mafia"
| that indicates _more_ risk. If anything most of these people
| seem like they started off as relative nobodies, and could
| return to obscurity just as easily.
|
| EDIT: This has ben downvoted :) I guess it's (very slightly)
| risky to say the Paypal Mafia isn't that scary.
| Swizec wrote:
| Well there is that Gawker vs. Thiel story where Thiel
| purposefully _destroyed_ Gawker because they said mean things
| and he decided an internet without Gawker is better.
|
| He's probably right that the internet is better without
| Gawker, but it's also a good example of what may happen when
| you upset successful people and companies enough.
| barrenko wrote:
| It is really a bit more complicated than that (but still
| simple). Legacy media and Gawker WAS and is a bully.
| catgary wrote:
| I mean, Gawker got destroyed when they ignored court orders
| to take down pornography that was made without the
| subject's consent.
| ineedasername wrote:
| That isn't what it got sued for. That all would have
| opened them to court sanctions and copyright claims, but
| that isn't the lawsuit that Peter Thiel bankrolled,
| probably because those things wouldn't have been enough
| to destroy Gawker.
|
| Instead, Thiel bankrolled a lawsuit for invasion ift
| privacy and emotional distress, because there's no
| ceiling on jury awards in cases like that.
| catgary wrote:
| Right, Gawker posted pornography made without a subject's
| consent. Then when they were sued about it, they kept the
| illegal pornography up on their website despite a court
| order.
|
| I don't like Peter Thiel, but to be honest I think more
| companies need to be Gawkered when they flagrantly ignore
| the law.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| Atlas667 wrote:
| All you gotta do is be a sellout to three letter agencies.
| JohnJamesRambo wrote:
| Is the world they have created better? Is this a photo of robber
| barons or liberators?
|
| > By the late 19th century, the term was typically applied to
| businessmen who used exploitative practices to amass their
| wealth.[2] These practices included exerting control over natural
| resources, influencing high levels of government, paying
| subsistence wages, squashing competition by acquiring their
| competitors to create monopolies and raise prices, and schemes to
| sell stock at inflated prices to unsuspecting investors.
|
| Wow this sounds so familiar.
| 88840-8855 wrote:
| I'm a regular consumer from Germany. PayPal is the best payment
| tool here. it's free of charge (for me), ist instant, ist
| available pretty everywhere. And the protection is just superb.
| PayPal has handled fraudulent cases or just very bad shopping
| experience very well.
|
| The added value to me over bitcoin, direct transfer, credit
| cards, etc is so significant that i always love to use it.
|
| hence, PayPal has contributed to a better life, at least to my
| digital life.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| Your PayPal is a regulated bank. American PayPal isn't.
| paulpauper wrote:
| Yeah now how about from merchant,s perspective
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| I receive almost all of my income via PayPal, and have done
| so for more than a decade. I could complain about the APIs,
| the clunky website and the very occasional odd behavior,
| but in the broad picture, PayPal offers me wider global
| coverage than any other payment processor, and a
| micropayment fee schedule that makes it viable to get paid
| mostly in amounts of US$1 to US$10.
|
| It could be done better, but PayPal does it well enough.
| bserge wrote:
| Yeah, it still improved the selling experience by _a lot_.
| No need to deal with banks and their ridiculous
| requirements, just set up an online shop and sell for a fee
| (that you can bake into the price).
|
| As you get bigger, you get better options, but for
| startups/small businesses it was and probably still is a
| godsend.
|
| Their quality has gone downhill recently though, that much
| is true, and there are more competitors these days.
| 127 wrote:
| I'm a little confused on what you're proposing of them robbing?
| travisjungroth wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robber_baron_(industrialist)
| danans wrote:
| > Is the world they have created better?
|
| I would question the notion that they have created a world,
| better or worse. They definitely put themselves in a place to
| profit from the way the world was changing, though, and to
| influence the shape it would take on the margins.
|
| > Is this a photo of robber barons or liberators?
|
| Why not both? And why not add: opportunists, megalomaniacs,
| utopians, idealists, "people who can afford failure with little
| personal lifestyle risk".
| toomanybeersies wrote:
| > Musk later became a co-founder of Tesla Inc
|
| Are series A financiers now considered co-founders?
| Ekaros wrote:
| If they pay for that fact long after company has been
| founded... What is more capitalistic than buying the history
| after all...
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(page generated 2021-09-04 23:02 UTC)