If you’ve ever networked through LinkedIn, driven in a Tesla, or even watched a YouTube video, you have PayPal to thank. The founders of all these companies got their start when the internet was just taking off, at a fledgling payments startup. PayPal would become a defining tech company, with many of its breakthroughs becoming standard practices for a generation of startups. But these lessons were hard-won in the company’s chaotic start. The PayPal of today only exists because of how its team navigated early crucible moments, including a merger between enemies, a battle against fraud that resulted in security innovations still in use today, and a decision to pursue one of the most significant tech IPOs following the dot-com crash. Explore the inflection points that shaped a cornerstone of Silicon Valley.


Max Levchin
Max Levchin co founded PayPal in 1997 at the age of 23. Like others in the "PayPal Mafia," Max has since founded and funded numerous companies around the world. He currently serves as the founder and CEO of Affirm, a next-generation credit card network.

Michael Moritz
Michael Moritz was the Sequoia partner who joined the board of PayPal in 1999. After 38 years with Sequoia Capital, Michael now serves as an advisor to Sequoia Heritage and as president of his family foundation, Crankstart.

Dave Gausebeck
Dave Gausebeck joined PayPal when the entire company fit into a single conference room and, while there, co-developed the first commercial implementation of a CAPTCHA. He now leads technological research and operations at Matterport, a spatial computing platform he founded in 2011.

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