Many have also gone on to be successful in the tech and venture world. Photo of members of the PayPal Mafia from the 2007 Fortune story.ĭown the chain of command, there were countless others, many of them women, who held critical roles in the company's early days, from VPs and directors of product to the senior counsel and head of design. Most of the members of the PayPal Mafia left the company shortly after the eBay acquisition, but their accomplishments as founders or early employees of PayPal, one of the dot-com bubble's breakout success stories, can't be ignored.īut the oft-referenced list of bosses, capos, and consiglieri features mostly members of the executive team, all of whom were men.
In 2015, PayPal would return to the public markets when it was spun out of eBay and relisted as the company it is today. But just a few months later, eBay, the venue that PayPal relied on for a significant chunk of its business, announced plans to acquire it in August 2002 in a deal valued at $1.5 billion. Musk's x.com and Thiel's Confinity were competitors before merging and rebranding as PayPal in 2000.Īfter a couple scrappy years, PayPal went public in February 2002. The origins of the payments giant started as a race between two of the PayPal Mafia's most famous members: Elon Musk and Peter Thiel. The list has since been referenced in network analyses and refreshed lists of the Mafia's ongoing investments, new ventures, and overall influence on the global tech scene. The group's moniker was established in a Fortune profile in 2007, which included a photo shoot of the group dressed in leather jackets and tracksuits, playing cards and drinking bourbon - Maker's Mark, to be precise.
Its members - including Peter Thiel, Max Levchin, Reid Hoffman, Luke Nosek, David Sacks, Keith Rabois, and Elon Musk - are a who's who of powerful players in the tech world who went on to found iconic startups and VC funds. The PayPal Mafia has long been cited as one of Silicon Valley's most influential clubs. Here are 20 women who helped build PayPal early on, and the careers they've gone on to build.Historically, mentions of the group never included women who worked at PayPal.The "PayPal Mafia" is one of the most influential clubs in Silicon Valley.
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