We are technically old enough to remember when you couldn't send money or pay for things online, but it feels like it was centuries ago! This week, Farz starts us off on his PayPal series with a peek at the origins, who was involved, and what the right place, time, and amount of money was able to create!
We are technically old enough to remember when you couldn't send money or pay for things online, but it feels like it was centuries ago! This week, Farz starts us off on his PayPal series with a peek at the origins, who was involved, and what the right place, time, and amount of money was able to create!
Taylor: I love vegan food. Yeah, we don't really have much of it here
>> Taylor: In the matter of the people of state of California versus Orenthal James Simpson, case number ba zero nine six. And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your.
>> Farz: And we are live and recording. Hi, Taylor. Happy Sunday. How are you?
>> Taylor: Good, how are you?
>> Farz: I'm very, very well, thank you. One of our. Well, I don't even know if you were really good friends with them, but a friend, I guess, of mine. Armagon, you remember Armaghon, right?
>> Taylor: Yeah, yeah.
>> Farz: He's visiting. He's staying here and he is going to be cooking us up a vegan dish, that he is really proud of. He said it's like, it's gonna be the best vegan food ever, apparently. So I'm really excited about that.
>> Taylor: I love vegan. Vegan food.
>> Farz: Yeah, we don't really have much of it here in Austin. yes, you do.
>> Taylor: Do you think that's true? Blair's. My sister's a vegan and she lives there.
>> Farz: So there's two that I know of, which is, Casa Deleuze. And there's another restaurant, I can't remember the name. Bolden creek, I think it's called, But you can always get something vegan at a restaurant here. But like dedicated vegan restaurants. The way, like cafe gratitude we had in LA, it's not like that.
>> Taylor: But anyways, I forgot.
Welcome to Doom to Fail, the podcast that brings you history's most notorious disasters
Oh, let me introduce, hold on, I'm doing like four things for no reason. Let me introduce us.
>> Farz: Go for it.
>> Taylor: Hi, everyone. Welcome, welcome to Doom to Fail, where the podcast that brings you history's most notorious disasters and epic failures twice a week. I am Taylor, joined by Fars. if you're just joining us for the first time, we have like 120 episodes. You can go back and binge and learn a lot. We've been learning a lot for the past year and a half, so we've.
>> Farz: Been learning a lot. And actually this week was really exciting for me, Taylor, because I started researching, so I started researching a topic, then I found another topic that I found another way. Now I have like 14 different tabs open.
>> Taylor: Jealous?
>> Farz: Yeah.
>> Taylor: You have like all these ideas. I have like a bunch of ideas, but I'm just like, jealous of you.
>> Farz: It never happens like that, for the record, just so you know. Like, I never actually get that lucky, but I started researching one thing, I was like, oh, my God. Yeah. And then another thing and then another, and now I have like 14 different half started outlines.
>> Taylor: That's awesome.
I cried all afternoon watching the closing ceremonies today
So, before you start, though, metal kill. Talk about the Olympics. Yes. Oh, my God. Okay. I was just. I just had to pause to text my friend that he used to work with because he works at figs, which is like the, scrubs company. They make scrubs for doctors.
>> Farz: Okay.
>> Taylor: and their Olympic ceremony commercials were so good. I cried during those. I cried all afternoon watching the closing ceremonies today. Did you watch them?
>> Farz: No.
>> Taylor: Incredible. It was incredible. They were like, there was singing, there was dancing. Everyone's there holding their medals. Everyone's super proud. And then the mayor of Paris handed the Olympic flag to Karen bass and the mayor of LA, and she was. She had it. And then she, her, and Simone Biles stood while her, the singer, her h e r, she sang the national anthem. and she played electric guitar, and it was awesome. And then Tom Cruise comes from the top of the city. He zip lines down the stadium. He runs through the crowd. He grabs Olympic flag from Karen bass nicely. He takes it from her, hugs her, takes that, takes it, runs down, gets on a motorcycle, motorcycles out of the stadium. Then it goes to a video of him riding his motorcycle through Paris, getting on a plane. On the plane, he ties the flag to a parachute. Then he's in LA. He parachutes down to the Hollywood hills. He's running through the Hollywood hills. Then he covers the O's in Hollywood and adds three more. He personally covers them in fabric, so they're the Olympic, Olympic rings now. And then they take the flag and, put it on like a speed bicycle, person's bike. She takes it down through LA. People start joining her, joining her. They go to the coliseum. The skateboarder, gold medal guy, he grabs it, he skates. Oh, they're in Venice beach. Guess who's there? Red hot chili peppers, Billie Eilish. Snoop is back. Doctor Dre is there. It was so exciting.
>> Farz: I, feel like I don't need to see it, actually now.
>> Taylor: I was like, Florence is like, who's doctor Dre? I'm like, it was so good. It was such a great closing ceremony. It was so like the way the. The people who spoke, you know, I'm so freaking jealous of people in Europe who speak like, six languages. But, like, the people who spoke, you know, were like, we know the Olympics can't bring peace, but this was a very peaceful thing, which was so wonderful, you know? So, I'm really happy when I got a hitch.
The United States tied with China for the number of gold medals at the Olympics
Paralympics are next. I do want to have some highlights from those, a couple of things. Just of note. We tied with China for the number of gold medals, but we have more medals in total. the men's basketball won the gold, and the women's basketball won the gold for the 9th time in a row.
>> Farz: So, I mean, I don't know how the US doesn't win basketball every year.
>> Taylor: Ever, honestly, like a disgrace when they don't win it. and then another one kind of thing that is still up in the air. So a lot of the gymnastics was last week, and, Jordan Childs, who is, one of our female, gymnasts, she got bronze in the, floor, I think, or vault, I don't remember. But whatever it was, she got it. And then, she got it because her coaches filed a motion against the judging, but they did it 4 seconds too late, so they're taking it away from her. So that's going to go to trial, whatever that means.
>> Farz: I don't even know what that means. Yeah, I don't get it.
>> Taylor: Yeah, they had, like, a minute to challenge it, and they challenged it, like a minute and 4 seconds. And so, like, there's like. It's like, very whole picky thing. So we'll see. We'll see where that goes. the women runners ran the 400 meters relay, and we got gold in that. That was super fun. So, yeah, a lot of really fun things that kind of ended up women's soccer got the gold, which is super exciting. yeah, it was great. I love it.
>> Farz: I heard that if Texas was a country, it had the 6th highest medal count.
>> Taylor: I'm sure. Because it's huge.
>> Farz: Yeah, well, yeah, fair.
>> Taylor: And, like, there's some countries where some people got, like, the first medal their country's ever had, which is so lovely.
>> Farz: one thing that I did learn that was, like, really disgusting was that Iran was, like, there as, like, the. The athletes were there under, like, the generic Olympic refugee state banner. It was like, oh, my God, these people turned Iran into a refugee state in the. It's like, so, so winning, but, yeah, that's,
>> Taylor: I'm, happy that they got there. trying to think of what else was, like, super awesome.
>> Farz: And I did learn that breaking is no longer going to be a sport.
>> Taylor: Oh, I'm still kind of talking about this. Okay. So I think. I think that people are like, oh, we knew it would just be an exhibition and just be, like, one year, because I was also looking at, like, a list of sports and when they started and, like, karate was in there only one year, which I think is weird. Like, I feel like, I don't know why I wouldn't be in there more, but, like, some things only have one year. Next time, it's flag football is going to be in the Olympics. but. Oh, my God, that australian woman, that australian b girl, it was. That's all I've done the past two days is watch videos of her. Apparently, she's, like. It has her PhD in breakdancing.
>> Farz: There's something so, like, patently offensive that, like, this thing that was rooted in, like, Brooklyn black culture and then, like, this woman in Sydney, like, it's just like. And I'm not even.
>> Taylor: There's women of people of all races that do it. The winner was japanese. Like, whatever.
>> Farz: I know, but they're good at it.
>> Taylor: That woman did not deserve to be there.
>> Farz: I know, but they're good at it. Like, they actually. What I'm saying is, like. Like, they didn't treat it like a joke the way she did.
>> Taylor: Gianna. I just. Like, some of the commentary is. I just have laughed so hard. it is really wild that she was able to do that, but it was fun to watch because, like, you know, the MC's are all, like, yelling in french and everybody's screaming and, like, I don't know. It was fun.
>> Farz: yeah, I mean, yeah. My Olympic, consumption has been pretty limited this past week, so I missed all of it. I actually didn't even know today was the closing. Closing day, but I will watch.
>> Taylor: See my. Did you see my reel when I did my, artistic swimming?
>> Farz: Yes, I did see that.
>> Taylor: I put that on our honor thing. We went. Our friends have a pool, and we. It was. Went through all day yesterday, and it was so nice, and I was like, let's see if I can put my legs straight in the air. And the answer is no.
>> Farz: You can make the australian swim team.
>> Taylor: I mean, like, no, I'm sure Australians are real good swimmers. no. Like, even, like, miles can't swim very much. He weighs, like, 50 pounds, maybe. And so I would, like, have to jump into the deep end and, like, kind of, like, help him across, and that is really hard. Like, I can't imagine, like, having enough treading water to, you know, a person who weighs probably, like, 100 pounds, but, like, to push them out of the water. It's wild. So, yeah, I feel. I feel very emotionally drained after watching the closing ceremony.
>> Farz: Well, hopefully this can bounce you back.
>> Taylor: Yes.
Get into some fun topics today to bounce back from emotional withdrawal
Yes.
>> Farz: Get into some fun topics today, and you can bounce back from the emotional withdrawal.
>> Taylor: Emotional. Yeah. Trauma of just being a. Being a person. Who watches olympics? It's been hard for us. There's billions of us.
>> Farz: There's billions of us.
Taylor: I'm going to do a series on Paypal mafia
>> Taylor: All right, but you, you go. You're first, right?
>> Farz: I'm first. And I am going to do a series. I'll start a series. And again, like, has nothing to do with doom to fail. So forget the entire premise of what we're doing here as a show. So I'm going to start a three part series on an organization collection of individuals who have had one of the most, like, huge, tremendous, long lasting impacts on society. Technology, business, finances, politics, you name it. I am going to be covering the Paypal mafia. Taylor, you must be familiar with this terminal.
>> Taylor: I am, but I really dont know a lot about it, Jeff.
>> Farz: Okay. Which is great, because I said, listen, if you are familiar with it, and I know a lot of you all are, and if you think you know the story, you probably dont. So you should keep listening because I learned so much going through this and actually thought I knew a lot before. And then as I was going into it, I was like, oh, it all kind of, kind of comes together.
>> Taylor: So, this is. I know Im super interested when I. So my daughter Florence is almost ten, but the time, the three months that I was out of the office on maternity leave was the three months that Venmo became a thing. I remember coming back to the office and feeling like I was 1000 years old because everyone was like, oh, will you venmo me? And I was like, I have never heard that word before. I have been home with my infant for three months and it was just like hilarious that it was like, in the three month months, it became something that we couldn't live without.
>> Farz: I'm going to actually bring up Venmo.
>> Taylor: Nice many use it all the time.
>> Farz: Yeah.
>> Taylor: Oh, yeah.
>> Farz: It's like invaluable.
Paypal mafia is assumed to be responsible for creating millions of tech jobs
so to talk about the impact real quickly, just so we have a sense of who these folks are. So to kind of summarize the impact, it is presumed that for the folks who are part of the PayPal mafia, that they essentially funded, founded, or in some way took ownership of businesses that roughly have a market cap about $2 trillion, which is crazy. And it is assumed, the math has been assumed, that they have been responsible, directly or indirectly, for creating millions of jobs in the tech sector. And this all comes from like 19 or so people. It's like insane, the impact they've had.
>> Taylor: I also think that, I don't know if you're going to mention this, but my job and your job aren't jobs that I could have grown up wanting to have because I didn't know they existed. They didn't exist. You know, I think that's so interesting too, that you're like, once these companies exist and it's this, then you're creating jobs that didn't exist before, you know?
>> Farz: Okay, Taylor, think about it this way. Think about it this way. So one person who's part of the PayPal mafia was the initial seed investor for Facebook and was being pitched by then the president of Facebook, Sean Parker.
>> Farz: And then because he was able to secure this half million dollar investment, the company was able to accelerate and grow into becoming a multi billion dollar company. And Sean Parker became a multi billionaire himself and was able to turn around and invest in the business that our founder founded. M you see what I'm saying?
>> Taylor: It's all like, no, wild.
>> Farz: So I laugh.
>> Taylor: I laugh only because he's nothing like Justin Timberlake and I don't even like Justin Timberlake, but in person you're like, I can't believe you had Justin Timberlake to play you in a movie. Great job.
>> Farz: He did good for himself.
>> Taylor: Really, really great job. Like, weren't you.
>> Farz: This was on elevator with him once. Was it you?
>> Taylor: We were at a party with him.
>> Farz: We were at a party, I remember the party, but we were also, somebody was also with him once. anyways, so suffice say that most of the way tech companies today think and do building of software, iterating and marketing their businesses, these guys basically invented those concepts that we just consider like totally normal, which I'm going to get into here in a little bit. So I'm going to break this down, this series down into three parts. So today's part is going to start with the most obvious thing, which is the conception slash exit of PayPal and who all was involved in that. Part two will be about the rise of the PayPal mafia because really, like it's after the exit, they became a thing. And we're going to call out some of the key stakeholders and individuals that are within it. Part three will be about some controversy surrounding them and final thoughts and lessons about what weve learned from what they were able to achieve in the tech sector. So thats kind of the layout I have here. But if theres other things folks want to hear again, write to us at humanflpod m@gmail.com dot this is a hugely rich topic. Like theres again, it spins in so many different directions. And also I learned that theres a whole host of other kind of mafia types in, Silicon Valley, too, which could be interesting to cover. But anyways, well, start with these guys because they have been the most impactful, I think. So I structured it this way because, as the name implies, the Paypal mafia consists of the founders and early employees of PayPal. So starting with its history is kind of like an obvious starting point. So let's get into part one, which is the formation.
Between 1990 and 1997, household ownership of personal computers increased from 15%
So we, I'm going to do a little bit of a history lesson here, and you definitely should chime in because I bet I'll uncover some old, distant memories for you. So we're hopping into the wayback machine to the Internet of the late 1990s. So between 1990 and 1997, household ownership of personal computers increased from 15% to 35%. And around the same time in 1993, Mosaic introduced the, web browser Netscape, which was the first popular web browser so people can find stuff on the Internet. Also, interestingly, the guy who invented mosaic was the guy who funded the last business that Taylor and I worked at.
>> Taylor: That's what I thought. And, you know, so I was thinking on this other day, remember that? Have you seen that commercial for Microsoft Excel from the eighties where they're in the elevator and they quickly make the spreadsheet?
>> Farz: No.
>> Taylor: You've seen that. It's like really, it's really crazy. It's like you do's, they're like, we don't have the reports business. What are we going to do? And then the guy takes out his laptop, which is like, you know, a brick, and he's like, making this spreadsheet and he's like, there's no way you're going to get it done in time. And it's like four lines, you know, but he like, you know, makes it, it was like the sum function and changes the, the font and everybody's like, oh, my God, the boss is going to love this. And I'm like, what did spreadsheets do before then? You just had to, like, manually put the numbers in. And that's how I feel about, like, browsers on the Internet because I'm like, I was not there before that. And I don't understand, I don't.
>> Farz: Totally understand either, if I'm being honest.
>> Taylor: How did you navigate it? You know?
>> Farz: Yeah, I don't understand. I do remember having, to type in file directories to actually find stuff on a computer. But how you can connect to something else on the Internet before a browser, I don't actually know how that works. Yeah, so, but anyways, so mosaic comes around, netscape comes around, and all of a sudden as a result of this, the Internet basically develops into this new potential storefront for commerce, which is how we came to know the word ecomore in the days before PayPal existed. Let's say you set up an online shop that you wanted to sell products through. Your options to complete a transaction were of the following one, you asked the customer to mail you a check or money order.
>> Farz: That sucks. You could ask for what's called coD, cash on delivery. Which meant that the delivery person would literally take the cash off of you in the moment. Again, stupid option.
>> Taylor: All the commercials in the eighties, they'd be like, no CoD.
>> Farz: Yeah, no cod. Yeah, totally, totally.
>> Farz: You had the option of wire doing a wire transfer, but that would require you to physically go to a bank, pay dollar 35 to dollar 100 fee and then wait several businesses for the transaction. And complete also sucked. Then there was the more preferable option, which was to pay using a credit card, which I know today. Duh, obvious, super easy to do. But the reason it's super easy to do is because stripe exists, is because a company came about that tied together all the different credit card companies into one payment gateway that you can just copy paste a line of code embedded onto a website and now you can process payments yourself. It wasn't like that before. Before you would have to hire a developer or actually a team of developers to create the forms to tie into banks and they would have to tie them individually. It was insane. It was an insane proposition.
>> Taylor: I think that there's also like, I don't know if this is true, but didn't like when you first, when you used your credit card like a store and they did the thing where they did the choppy m of it. I didn't someone at the end of the day have to call the credit card company and tell them all the transactions?
>> Farz: That was also a thing. Yes, yes, that was also a thing. Or the other option you had actually, now that you mentioned that is you could actually call the company and give them your credit card information in that moment, which like, none of this is secure, like a good way to transact business.
>> Taylor: I definitely still do that.
>> Farz: But you still do that.
>> Taylor: I've done that because like when you send a contractor to the Home Depot, that guy will stand in a line and then get to end the line. And then someone will call you and be like, can this guy buy a bunch of wood on your behalf? And you say yes, and give him your credit card.
>> Farz: It's exceedingly rare. It's exceedingly, exceedingly rare.
>> Taylor: Yeah, yeah, that's my only example.
>> Farz: There you go. Yeah. So in, nine. So that was what the Internet looked like. So in 1998, three individuals named Max Levchin, Peter Thiel and Luke Nosek founded a company named Field Link, which will later be renamed Confinity. And the point of confinity was to basically create some security software applications for the Palm pilot, which was the most popular phone at the time. This is how old this shit is.
>> Taylor: I love that. I'm reading like a dumb mystery novel. And they just mentioned the palm pilot and I laughed.
>> Farz: I know, I think I had one. so that was basically going nowhere. And so they decided to pivot into the digital wallet space by creating a product called PayPal. It was a product of confinity, which launched in 1999. So back then, the value proposition was the user could send and receive money through their email address. And they especially focused on what was becoming the largest, ecommerce website at the time, eBay. So they're really, really hyper focused on doing transactions for eBay customers.
>> Taylor: Mm
>> Farz: So around the same time again, this stuff's gonna blow your mind, Taylor. Like, I think you're gonna be like, pleasantly surprised by how much it's gonna blow your mind.
X was founded around the same time that PayPal was launched
So around the same time that PayPal was launched, literally, their next door neighbor, the next door to confinity's office, was another young, enterprising startup. Let me, let me do this.
>> Taylor: So is it Amazon? Like, is it just.
>> Farz: No, it was. Let me tell you this. It was founded by four people, three of which are irrelevant. So it was founded by a guy named Ed Ho, Harris Fricker, Christopher Payne, and Elon Musk. Guess what the name of that company was?
>> Taylor: Tesla. No, what's the name of the company?
>> Farz: X.com.
>> Taylor: Really? That's so stupid.
>> Farz: Really?
>> Taylor: Okay. That's been, that's been a long one for him.
>> Farz: It's been a long way from 1999.
>> Taylor: Till almost kind of excited for him that he got that. Yeah.
>> Farz: And then I was like, I was trying to go into like, how he ended up having to go back to eBay and Paypal and then buy the domain of his own company off. It's insane. It's insane. So when I refer to x, I'm not referring to Twitter, I'm referring to this business.
>> Taylor: Hilarious.
>> Farz: Anyways, so x's business model was to run financial services online through a particular bank. There was one specific bank in Colorado, I think it was. They're doing all these financial services. I would argue that X was way, way more practical and useful and closer to what we consider online banking today, but on a, much smaller scale. So they provided the portal through which you could do online banking like you would today, and also send money digitally, through an email address. So again, we look at your bank online today, and, it's such an obvious, easy thing that you should do that didn't exist. Like, they literally created that concept. Everything was so hard, so hard, so hard. So X actually took off, like, immediately. It didn't have this weird fit and start thing that confinity had. Within two months, it attracted 200,000 users, which is like, kind of almost on par with the growth rate of our podcast listenership. Thank you.
>> Taylor: That was incredible.
>> Farz: so confinity and X realized that they had obvious overlap and an ability to kind of dominate the grumming space if they joined forces, which is ultimately what they ended up doing by merging. So in March of 20, March of 2000, the two companies merged and started operating under the brand of PayPal, with Musk installed as the CEO.
>> Taylor: Wow.
>> Farz: This actually only lasted a few months because he was replaced as CEO while he was on his way to his honeymoon on a plane by Peter Thiel. Like, it was a really ugly, ugly, like, replacement. It was not done in a very tactful way. But I, I did find this story really interesting because it actually shows, like, who he always kind of was, as you see what he's doing now. So just as a little background today, Elon Musk has had a hand in founding, owning, buying, or controlling SpaceX, Tesla, Solarcity, OpenAI, Hyperloop, Neuralink, the boring company, and Twitter.
>> Taylor: So Hyperloop, is like tunnels for cars?
>> Farz: Yeah, the whole idea was to go under, under LA instead of through the traffic of the four or five, but I have no idea what's going on with it. So this all was going on when he was 29 years old, is when he got replaced as a CEO of then PayPal. but even then, he was also kind of like this scatterbrained focus on a thousand different things at once. His reason, the reason for his replacement was because Peter Thiel and a bunch of the other early founders of PayPal, they were like, hey, we should just become exceptionally great at online payments. Whereas Musk wanted them to become a full fledged financial services company, like an online bank, essentially. And, like, on the one hand, I can appreciate someone wanting to tackle a hard problem, but on the other hand, the magnitude of what he was trying to do was basically, like, almost impossible. He was going to have to basically found a legal company, a regulatory company, an accounting company, a DC based lobbying firm, and a tech company just for this thing to actually happen. Yeah, so there was other issues, too. He was also, like, considered like a, rough and kind of like, not a great manager. And he also wanted to migrate platforms at a time that made no sense to. The founders were like, why are we doing this? So anyways, that's what happened. Peter Thiel replaced Musk, and Musk ends up staying active, but not operationally active, within PayPal. He actually's on the board of directors, but he's off doing his own thing. It was only a year after this that he found SpaceX, which I never knew was that early on.
>> Taylor: Is that why SpaceX has an accident?
>> Farz: Huh?
>> Taylor: Is that why SpaceX has the accident?
>> Farz: What accident? The x. Oh. Oh, my God.
>> Taylor: Does he love the x so much?
>> Farz: My God, Taylor, it probably is.
>> Taylor: See, I told you.
>> Farz: You learned something new.
>> Taylor: I know. Look at this.
>> Farz: Damn. Yeah, it's all. Yeah, it must be, because I also read that he was adamant that the emerge business should be called x. And then they focus grouped it through some marketers. They're like, every thinks is porn a porn site. So that's why they dropped it. But, yeah, he probably did. Yeah. Wild, wild. so teal ended up, taking the company public in 2002. And about four months after he took it public, eBay, acquired them for $1.5 billion in eBay stock. this made Musk was already rich. Musk had already sold one business off to compact. He was already worth like, 34 something million dollars. this made him exceptionally richer. I think it came out to somewhere at $165 million was his ownership interest once that sale went through. From then on, PayPal operated independently of eBay and continued to grow until 20, 14, when it was spun off as its own independent company. And that's when they went on a tear with some acquisitions, acquiring venmo. So that's what. That's where. Where they ended up.
From conception to $1.5 billion in four years
>> Farz: so we're actually going to pause on the story about PayPal there, because that's kind of it. From conception to $1.5 billion. Exit, dude. Four years. Four years.
>> Taylor: Wow.
>> Farz: Yeah. Yeah.
Max Lupchin made off with $34 million from PayPal acquisition
But I've already brought up a few members of the Paypal mafia, so let's do a quick recap of these guys. So Max Lupchin, who was the founder and CTO of PayPal, made off with about $34 million from the acquisition. He went on to create a company called Slide, which was a photo sharing technology acquired by Google for $182 million. He was also the very first investor in Yelp. So if you like to share photos on your camera or your. On your cell phone or you like to use Yelp, you can thank this guy, Luke Nosick, who was also co founder of PayPal and more focused on the go to market activities of the business. he ended up founding a VC firm called Founders Fund. And he, was. His fund was a launch pad for Stripe, Airbnb, Facebook, Spotify, Lyft, Twilio, and like, a thousand other businesses that you don't even know, you use because they created some underlying technology that is the foundational technology of the other technology use, right?
>> Taylor: Totally.
>> Farz: Ed ho, Harris Fricker and Christopher Payne, those were the ones that founded Musk. xdev with Elon Musk. they. Frankly, they just ended up unceremoniously leaving the business due to conflicts with Musk. And they went on to have great careers in tech, but no shade of them. They're not really part of the PayPal mafia. They just ended up going away. It's really interesting because, like, a couple of these ended up going to Twitter, and then we're at Twitter when Musk came back and bought it. So I can't imagine what that meaning was.
>> Taylor: Like, welcome back.
>> Farz: Not again, you nerd.
>> Taylor: Yeah.
Peter Thiel is heavily supportive of Trump and the republican party
>> Farz: So then we have Peter Thiel, who I would argue is the most fascinating member of the Paypal mafia. I think Elon gets all the press because he's like the uber crazy richest out of all of them and, like, has his hands like 5000 different things. But Peter Thiel's what they consider, like, they call him the dawn of, the Paypal bounty. He's the. He's a central cog that kind of is. Is the hub through which all these guys are kind of operating on the. He was, again, the confinity founder who replaced Musk as CEO, was the driving force behind the acquisition with eBay. And he's going to play a huge, huge role in part two of our series when we get to the rise of the PayPal mafia, and highlight some of the most notable members within it. LinkedIn, Reid Hoffman, Paypal mafia.
>> Taylor: Wow.
>> Farz: It's just. It's everybody. It's crazy. It's really interesting because it's these guys and then, like. And recent Horowitz, like, yeah, they own all of it. Dave McClure, he's the founder of 500 startups, which ended up becoming 500 global, which launched thousands of other businesses, also paid by mafia. Like, it is crazy. Once we get into the details of who these guys are and what they do now, they're super involved in politics. You'll hear a lot about Peter Thiel's involvement in politics. heavily supportive of Trump and the republican party, as now is Elon Musk and a whole host of the other folks that are part of. Part of that organization, which is, like, resulting in a really strange party switching that's happening within Silicon Valley, because it's not just these guys. Like, it's happening. I don't know for sure, but I get the impression that Zuckerberg is flipping. I get them. I get the impression that a lot of those, like, middle aged ish billionaire types who were super progressive are now becoming super conservative. And I'm not entirely sure what the genesis of that is.
>> Taylor: I don't know if either. No, I know, like, my husband has expressed his sorrow when he sees some folks, like, getting really weird on Twitter. You know, I've been like, oh, you were, like, a cool thought leader, and now this is, like, the way you're acting. And, like, I don't know if it's, like, just about, the money, you know, where they're like, we don't want to be taxed.
>> Farz: I don't think it can be. Here's the thing. Like, these guys, the amount of money they have, it's just. It's just astronomic. It, was interesting I told you about the conversation I had earlier this week with somebody, and it's just, they live on such a different plane. Like, it's a different level than the rest of us that I don't think that, like, 2% marginal tax increase versus 5%. Like, I don't think they give a shit about that.
>> Taylor: Then I don't know what. Then I don't know what it is, because, like, some of the things that I'm seeing, like, against, like, democrats, is like, well, oh, like, okay, so, like, one of the big things that, like, pisses me off is when people don't want to give kids free lunch at school. And, like, one state was like, it'll make them spoiled. And you're like, they're fucking children and they're hungry, you know, like, but how dare you? But, one of the arguments is, like, well, community organizations do this anyway. They are the ones who solve the problem. And you're like, no, they don't. What are you talking about?
>> Farz: My assumption was I think you're. I think that might be going a layer deeper than my assumption was. My assumption, actually, was that they are. They built businesses, and they build businesses as a matter of, like, course, day to day.
>> Farz: And that democratic policies include regulations and restrictions that make it almost impossible to, like, move fast in the way that you'd want to move fast if you're of this industry. It's. Seriously.
Doomfeld: Ezra Klein's show is awesome. I think he should be sponsored at this point
Because totally coincidentally, I was just listening to another one of Ezra Klein's shows. I think he should be sponsored at this point. They keep drop name dropping his show. Listen, Ezra Klein show. It's a New York Times podcast. It is awesome. And he's, like, an amazing interviewer and speaker one. Anyways, he, was interviewing someone about the $1.7 million toilet in San Francisco. And again, he comes from it from, like, a liberal perspective, but he was like, even I, from my perspective, think this absolutely ludicrous. And he was interviewing somebody who has, studied up on the politics of things that go on with regulatory boards in San Francisco. And what she was saying was, yeah, because every special interest has something that is their pet project. And it goes in a place where, like, aggressive thinking is, like, rampant. You want to be as inclusive as possible, but when you're inclusive as possible, you can't do anything.
>> Taylor: Exactly.
>> Farz: Everybody's opinion is the most valuable. And I think that that's. That's the train of thought that I kind of picked up on with the, with Silicon Valley billionaires. It's like the ability to run as fast as you want to run becomes inhibited by having to listen to every voice that comes into your purview.
>> Taylor: I just. I feel like there are social things that are more important.
>> Farz: Like, I don't know, people not having.
>> Taylor: Health care and dying.
>> Farz: That's what I'm getting at. When you brought. Bring that up, I'm like. I'm like, dude, you're talking about people who have so much, they don't understand what you're talking about.
>> Taylor: I know.
>> Farz: They're trying to figure out how to colonize Mars. They don't give a shit about option.
>> Taylor: And that sucks. You know? I don't know. I think that sucks. there was, one, of our athletes in the olympics when I was like, her, whatever. Her post was viral because, she kept going to the doctor because they get free healthcare when they're there. And they were like, cool. And she was like, cool. Can I get all these tests? Can I do all these things? I can't do this at home.
>> Farz: You're preaching the choir. You have to tell me that. I literally haven't seen a dentist, like, seven years. I literally do not know how to log in to my dental insurance to schedule an appointment with a dentist. Like, I don't understand how this stuff works. But anyways, that's my theory on it. I would love to hear other people's perspective. Like I said, it's three parts. and if there's other things that you want to know about. This stuff is so fascinating to me. Like, I could, I could do this for the next 20 years, and it'll always be interesting. write to us@doomfeldpod.com let us know what your thoughts on this stuff is. And, I would love to incorporate any of that into the rest of the series. And if you are interested in this kind of topic, I'd be so into doing other versions of this. Like I said, there's the other versions of these groups. Like, I mentioned the founder of Mosaic. Like, again, nobody younger than Taylor and I know even heard of Netscape, even know what the hell Netscape is. But going to the weeds on it. There was an antitrust lawsuit. Netscape reshaped antitrust laws and reshape Microsoft for the first time since Rockefeller had to break up standard. Like, it is crazy what these things. Anyways, it's fascinating.
>> Taylor: So it's fascinating. Yeah. and I feel like we talked about, like, the Internet in general before, but, like, it's just wild how you're like, well, of course we need that.
>> Farz: Yeah.
>> Taylor: We could not live without that. You know, like, I literally, we, like, get our groceries delivered because they buy them online. Like, there's just no amount part of my life that is not affected by it or jobs.
>> Farz: Like, yeah, yeah. This podcast, podcasting it all, you know, I learned.
>> Taylor: But the word podcast came from iPod.
>> Farz: Okay, that makes sense.
>> Taylor: That's where the pod part comes from, which is hilarious. And, like, we all have ipods now. They're all in the trash. It's so wild.
>> Farz: I know.
>> Taylor: There's a mountain of garbage, and it's all ipods and old phones.
>> Farz: Yeah.
Do you have anything to report out about grain silo deaths
anyways, do you have anything to report out?
>> Taylor: I do, actually. I have a bunch of stuff, and I'm actually gonna have to, like, spread it out because we got some, like, YouTube comments. Oh, hold on that. Hold that thought. That's needed comments. but let me first just tell you that my dad, he texted me, and I told you this. hold on. I made a whole page to share it with you, but my dad used to work, at the board of trade in Chicago, when? In the eighties. And so he knew a lot of, people who worked in, like, he worked in commodities to people who were, like, farmers, and they traded, like, cattle and grain and all those things. But, one of his customers was a farmer who died in his grain silo. He said that he was, like, accidentally in it, and then the door opened and he got smothered.
>> Farz: So terrifying. So absolutely terrifying.
>> Taylor: He said, he said, my dad said. I listened to a recent podcast, had a farm customer in the early nineties talked to him, and a couple of days later, his wife called to close the account. He was smothered in a grain storage unit on the farm. Wild.
>> Farz: Yeah. in terms of ways to go, that ranks as one of the worst.
>> Taylor: Yeah, absolutely terrible.
Taylor found some vintage eight millimeter reels in her house that are haunted
but also, I just wanted to announce our new initiative that you didn't know about until I did it. our found footage on YouTube.
>> Farz: This is also terrifying. So what Taylor's doing now is she found some footage, some old, old vintage eight millimeter reels in her house that is obviously haunted. And she watched them or got them digitized and then uploads them to, like, music that you can kind of just, like, have in the background listening. You seem sinister. I don't get why.
>> Taylor: No, I know. Well, so I know. So I moved into this house, I don't know, nine years ago, and they were in the back of the pantry on, like, the top shelf, and I'll take a picture of them. They're just, like, real to real things, and I've always wanted to watch them, and I kept them. And then our friend Jay, who loves horror movies, they came over one weekend, and I really wanted to watch it with them, like, because of sinister. I thought, like, our favorite guesses were a murder, homemade porn, or the Kennedy assassination. There's none of those. It's just, like, a lovely family trips. And there's, like, one of them that I put in. There's, like, houses that are destroyed by a hurricane. There's an anniversary party. There's snow, there's a dog. They have, like, a cute little poodle. so they're really fun. And so I got. I was like, I don't know how I'm gonna get to watch these. And then I found a place called legacy box online, and I was like, they had, like, a 50% off sale, but I was like, it still would be like a $100, but I was like, I don't know, maybe I'll do it. And then I went in and did it, and I have one of those things that automatically puts coupons, and I found 100% off coupon, so I got them for free.
>> Farz: That is awesome.
>> Taylor: That was awesome. And then I, so then I just down, I downloaded them, and there's eleven of them. one of them is all of their. I don't know who it is. It's like. So the people who lived in this house were from Pennsylvania, so it's probably like their family. It's from the 1960s. and, one of them is just holidays, and it has, like, halloween, and it does have, like, really weird, creepy sixties kids Halloween costumes. So that one's fun.
>> Farz: you should. It might be fun to look up, like, the property records and find out who owned the house and then, like, send them links.
>> Taylor: Yeah, I mean, I know who owned my house. Only one other person owned my house.
>> Farz: Seriously?
>> Taylor: Yeah.
>> Farz: They built this house, isn't it?
>> Taylor: No, it's from M 1987.
>> Farz: Oh, I thought it was. Seriously. Oh, okay.
>> Taylor: They built it. I have the plan that they signed off on framed in the hallway.
>> Farz: You know what? I just, I just, I just literally, it didn't occur to me that if the footage is from the sixties, the house might not be from the sixties.
>> Taylor: Yeah, no, the footage is not from here. The footage is definitely from the east coast and, like, travels around.
>> Farz: Right.
>> Taylor: so I have two of them up right now. They're on our YouTube channel. and there's just like, a half hour of, like, nice stuff. And we did get a comment on them that was like, I love watching fawn footage. Thank you. Like, it's just fun to, like, see someone else's life. And I was thinking about that weekend, like, I was looking at pictures at my mom's house, my childhood, and I love, like, the background details. Like, oh, I remember that wallpaper, and I remember that picture. And like, blah, blah, blah. So that's kind of fun.
>> Farz: Thank you for doing that. I think that was a really, really cool idea.
>> Taylor: And I want to find somewhere.
>> Farz: Yeah, I did let it run. I was telling Taylor. Reminds me of, like, that Netflix channel where it's just like a crackling fire fireplace. Let it run. And, like, the music's lovely. The footage is lovely. I'm just waiting for a devil to pop out.
>> Taylor: Me too. Me too. there was one where there were some people kissing, and I was like, oh, is this. Is it happening? And it's like someone was recording, all my children. It's like, a. I don't know. It's super fun. So, yeah.
>> Farz: Is it happening?
>> Taylor: I was like, is this homemade porn? What is happening?
>> Farz: But, I mean, you can find that elsewhere.
>> Taylor: No, I don't know that. But wouldn't it be cool to find it in your house?
>> Farz: Yes. Yes, I would.
>> Taylor: yeah, maybe I'll watch sinister later.
>> Farz: Very cool.
>> Taylor: yeah, so that's my updates. Thank you, dad, for listening.
Taylor: If you have any questions or ideas, we're at doom to fail
And I will, Yeah. If you have any questions or ideas for us, we're at doom to fail podmail.com at Doom to fail on all the social media and YouTube.
>> Farz: Sweet. we'll rejoin y'all in a few days. Thanks, Taylor.
>> Taylor: Thanks, guys.