PayPal’s founding team are called the ‘Mafia’ for a reason. Not because they’re criminals, but because they’ve had a rather sinister grasp on the startup ecosystem since they sold to eBay for $1.5 billion in 2002. The below infographic now makes that clear for all to see.
Names like Peter Thiel, Elon Musk and Reid Hoffman will likely be familiar, all were co-founders of the payments company back in 1998, but the likes of Scott Banister, Dave McClure and Keith Rabois have largely flown under the radar.
Between these 19 men, they’ve brought household brands like YouTube, Linkedin and Yelp to life. Whether it’s Reddit, Airbnb or Facebook, there’s never a PayPal Mafia man too far away acting as an investor or an advisor.
More recently many of them hooked back up to launch a political campaign group called FWD.US to lobby for immigration reform, better education and more investment in scientific research.
Like Google Ventures, now called GV, the PayPal Mafia has a potentially unhealthy presence across the Web. These guys sure have great experience, but you can’t help but wonder whether rich, white mean really have the monopoly on good ideas.
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