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Profiles

PayPal Mafia

The "PayPal Mafia" is a group of former PayPal founders and employees who have gone on to found or lead major Silicon Valley technology companies and venture capital firms.[1]

Members

Name Role at PayPal Notes
Roelof Botha Director of Corporate Development, Vice President of Finance, Chief Financial Officer Sequoia Capital, Square, Eventbrite, Weebly, 23andMe, Tumblr, Instagram, YouTube
Steve Chen Engineer YouTube, HitRecord
David Gausebeck Technical Architect Matterport
Reid Hoffman Board member, Chief Operating Officer and Executive Vice President LinkedIn, Microsoft, Greylock Partners, OpenAI, Inflection AI
Ken Howery Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer eBay, Founders Fund, United States Department of State, Kiva
Chad Hurley Web designer YouTube, Uptime
Eric Jackson Director of Marketing CapLinked
Jawed Karim Engineer YouTube, Y Ventures
Max Levchin Co-founder Slide, Yelp, Affirm, Glow
Joe Lonsdale Finance intern Clarium Capital, Formation 8, 8VC, Palantir Technologies, America PAC
David McClure Director of Marketing Founders Fund, 500 Startups, Practical Venture Capital
Andrew McCormack Assistant to Peter Thiel Sprezzatura Restaurant Group, Thiel Capital, Valar Ventures
Elon Musk Founder (X.com), Chief Executive Officer (PayPal) Tesla, SpaceX, X, The Boring Company, Neuralink, America PAC
Luke Nosek Co-founder Founders Fund, Gigafund, SpaceX, ResearchGate
Jason Portnoy Vice President of Financial Planning and Analysis Clarium Capital, Palantir Technologies, Oakhouse Partners
Keith Rabois Executive Vice President LinkedIn, Square, Founders Fund, OpenStore, Yelp, Xoom, Reddit, Khosla Ventures
David Sacks Chief Operating Officer McKinsey & Company, Geni, Zenefits, Craft Ventures
Jack Selby Vice President of Corporate and International Development Clarium Capital, Thiel Capital, AZ-VC
Premal Shah Product Manager Kiva, Branch Financial
Russel Simmons Lead Software Architect Yelp
Jeremy Stoppelman Vice President of Technology Yelp
Peter Thiel Co-founder (Confinity), Chief Executive Officer (PayPal) Founders Fund, Palantir Technologies, Clarium Capital, Thiel Capital, Mithril Capital
Yishan Wong Engineering Manager Reddit

  1. Brehse, T., & Kirschner, K. (2023, November 12). Members of the PayPal Mafia include tech titans like Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, and Reid Hoffman. Here’s where they are now. Business Insider. https://web.archive.org/web/20240813015701/https://www.businessinsider.com/paypal-mafia-members-elon-musk-peter-thiel-reid-hoffman-companies ↩︎