From 1961 to 1963 Albert Bandura Professor Emeritus of Psychology at Stanford University researched the question: how do we learn? After several experiments, including the famous Bodo Doll experiment Albert Bandura pioneered the “Social Learning Theory“. In a nutshell, the “Social Learning Theory” suggests that we can learn from others.
What does this have to do with the PayPal Mafia you may be asking yourself? If we learn from others as research suggests, then the PayPal Mafia is definitely the group of people to learn from. Why? Do you know Tesla, LinkedIn, YouTube or SpaceX? All unicorn companies product of the PayPal Mafia. From the 50 initial PayPal employees, 4 have become billionaires. They’ve founded 18% of all post 2003 billion dollar plus companies or otherwise said, 350 times more than google with 1/100 of the workforce.
WHO ARE THE PAYPAL MAFIA?
What all PayPal Mafia members have in common – other than being successful at what they do – is their contribution to the success of PayPal and attending Stanford University. The key players are:
ELON MUSK – TESLA, SPACE X, ZIP2 – $7.5 BILLION
Originally a co-founder of Paypal and the most innovative of the PayPal Mafia, Elon Musk has subsequently adventured to redefine the possibility frontiers of our world. Musk has founded Space X, the first commercial spacecraft to deliver cargo to the International Space Station. He also founded Tesla Motors and is currently redefining our current conception of powertrains. As of now he is working in redefining our means of transportation with Hyperloop. Hyperloop is a supersonic air travel machine completely reliant on solar energy capable of doing 570km in 35 minutes.
REID HOFFMAN – LINKEDIN – $4.4 BILLION
Co-Founder of PayPal, Reid Hoffman launched in 2002 LinkedIn. What has this member of the PayPal Mafia been up to since? During these last years he has become the most successful angel investor. His current portfolio includes Airbnb, One Kings Lane and Coupons.com amongst others. Past investments include Flickr, Digg and Nanosolar.
PETER THIEL – PALANTIR AND FACEBOOK – $2.2 BILLION
One of the other co-founders of Paypal, Peter Thiel is known for being the first outside investor of Facebook – invested $500,000 for 10.2% of Facebook in 2004 and sold on 2012 90% of his shares for $1,000,000,000. After exiting PayPal in 2002, this member of the PayPal Mafia founded Palantir Technologies the billion dollar giant that specialises in analysing data. Today Peter Thiel is presidents of Clarium Capital.
KEITH RABOIS – YELP & LINKEDIN – $1 BILLION
Keith Rabois was the Executive Vice President of PayPal. Since his exit in 2002 Keith has had executive roles in LinkedIn, Slide and Square and invested in Yelp and Xoom. Since 2013 Keith Rabois has been involved in the firm Khosla Ventures.
TIPS FROM THE MAFIOSI
So thats the story of the 4 most “successful” PayPal mafiosi. The question that now follows is, how did these members of the PayPal Mafia become so successful? What tips do they provide future entrepreneurs?
WORK WITH PEOPLE YOU CAN LIVE WITH
We didn’t only hire our friends, but we did hire people that we thought we could become really good friends with.
Peter Thiel
Peter Thiel suggests that in all successful companies good working environment is prime for success! Bare in mind that you will be spending night and day with this people. Surround yourself with people that don’t only know what they are doing but who also build team spirit.
YOU ARE THE PRODUCT OF YOUR ENVIRONMENT
The most important piece of advice is to choose and opportunity based upon people you’ll learn the most form.
Keith Rabois
It is essential when choosing a team to choose the people you can learn the most from. Why? Because in the future you’ll be able to put the acquired knowledge to good use.
ALWAYS BETTER!
I think it’s very important to have a feedback loop, where you’re constantly thinking about what you’ve done and how you could be doing it better. I think that’s the single best piece of advice: constantly think about how you could be doing things better and questioning yourself.
Ellon Musk
You should embrace constructive criticism and push your ideas to the limit why? Because if you think things can’t be done better you missed the point!
EMBRACE CALCULATED RISK
And people who take risk intelligently can usually actually make a lot more progress than people who don’t.
Reid Hoffman
Reid Hoffman suggests that we should all embrace calculated risk. Rome wasn’t been in a day neither without failures. Try fall, stand repeat. You will learn on the way.
