In other words, PayPal’s success rate relative to billion-dollar companies is 350x that of Google. If Google’s unicorn companies are estimated at two, that means that PayPal got 3.5 times the result with 1/100 of the people. Thiel estimates that only one to three unicorn companies have been produced, with none close to a $10 billion valuation. Of those Google employees, the number of unicorn companies is harder to pinpoint. SpaceX – $20 billion value (private company, estimate)įor comparison’s sake, the Google employee equivalent number would be around 20,000 or 30,000. Palantir – $20 billion value (private company, estimate)Ĥ. LinkedIn – $26.2 billion value acquisitionģ. Tesla Motors – $43.5 billion market capĢ. Some of those seven companies are valued north of $10 billion. Unicorns are companies with a valuation of more than $1 billion. That group of 220 people went on to create seven distinct “unicorn” companies. The PayPal Mafia does not include the 700 person customer service operation that was running in Omaha, Nebraska at the time. Former PayPal CEO Peter Thiel estimates the PayPal Mafia to be around 220 people. While those may seem like vastly different stages in a company’s life, it’s more like splitting hairs, as PayPal’s IPO happened only a few months before it was acquired. The PayPal Mafia–a term that’s used with affection and awe in Silicon Valley–is defined as the Mountain View PayPal team either pre-IPO or pre-acquisition, depending on which founding member you ask. Yet even more extraordinary is that exit becoming the catalyst for a revitalization of a local economy and a specific type of investing.ĭespite astronomical odds, this is what happened when PayPal sold to eBay in the summer of 2002, and the PayPal team members went on to found some of the most important startups–and make some of the most strategic investments–of all time. What is decidedly less common is that startup reaching an exit upwards of $1 billion. It’s a pretty rare occurrence that a startup will make it from inception to exit. The ominous “they” in this story is eBay, and eBay is partly responsible for both the success of PayPal and why the founders walked away from it. ![]() That’s how David Sacks, former COO of PayPal and former CEO of Yammer, described it. So, we were scattered to the four corners of the globe, and we had to make new homes.” “Basically, we were kicked out of our homeland and they burned down our temple. For more info, visit our Terms of Use page. This may influence how and where their products appear on our site, but vendors cannot pay to influence the content of our reviews. We may be compensated by vendors who appear on this page through methods such as affiliate links or sponsored partnerships. Their blueprint for explosive growth and scale forever changed the tech industry. How the ‘PayPal Mafia’ redefined success in Silicon ValleyĪfter its acquisition by eBay, PayPal's original team built unicorn startups, such as Tesla, LinkedIn, and YouTube.
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