you can find about books are free mobile app watch book tv now on sundays on c-span2 or find it online booktv.org. television for serious readers. explaining is catherine bought a general partner. i'm pleased to be here today to welcome author jimmy to discuss his new book founder's the of paypal on the entrepreneurs who shaped silicon valley. it is especially wonderful to be here because i knew jimmy and my early 20s. this book really takes place to talk about a group of people who support each other and worked really hard to gather part have been lifelong friends, beating after college summit meeting in the early 20s but it's a very

special for me as a former fellow journalist and writer to be interviewing him because we showed that time together as well. but in founders jimmy unpacks the long and difficult journey of paypal. from a barely known start up from the largest tech companies in the world in a household name. he tells us of the unsung heroes extreme competition, and huge challenges faced by the company as it fought to implement cashless t courtesy. we'll be covering a lot of the next hour. we encourage you to put the question in the chat on youtube we would love to have audience questions at the end couldn't your questions later in the program but for now, welcome jimmy pay. >> thank you, thank you for having me. honestly, i cannot think of anyone better to do this with. we have known each other nownd well for over a decade. it will make it more fun and we can tell embarrassing stories as well as stories about the founders. >> was great is, when he first said you're doing this book as

you are an outsider to silicon valley. who's really jumping into subject matter you have not nicely dressed before. you're not summit on the west coast you're not a tech journalist but what made you want to tell the story of paypal? >> yes, i freely admit that in the introduction a kind of right and probably not the person should be doing this. i joke with my friends, this is a walter book. [laughter] might last book was about an mathematician on the course of doing that book which was the mind of player i look at the place where he spent a big chunk of his professional life which was bell laboratories. the 20th century and today and then it was renowned as this incredible hub of innovation. they invent touchtone dialing parade they invent the laser. they admit satellite technology,

communications networks, and the transistor. they went several nobel prizes for its basically like of the place to be innovative in the 20 century in the united states and technology. bell labs is incredible it's not for the mind of one person it's from a group of people parse our thinking what are other groups in american history where it has been that fertile and that rich and looked at other topics. the roads not taken work fairchild semiconductor reit famously have this group someone had written a book there is a book about xerox parks that covered that cluster as well. i think the book was called where the wizards stay up late. that is the best title for book. then there's the general magic break general magic i got excited about it but this incredible documentary came out. it is like nope it's so good everyone should see it.

paypal sort of went forward in history. i stumbled into it and i just started asking questions.mu i sort of assume because personalities involved, elon musk, founder of youtube, peter thiel, max, was like theum avengers right? i assumed someone had done this. though no one had the other thing i noticed a few questions stories were fantastic. asthe untold stories were so go. no there was potential there. that is how i came to a pretty most definitely came to it as an outsider. because you are my friend i can admit i called you the most basic questions that some freight money and terminology? i will say the virtue of being an outsider i found the same thing apply to book and in this book. if you are an outsider trying to decipher something in order to make an audience understand it,

you have to ask really basic questions and build it back up and writing. the way is most excited about that is evelyn think they know in an ipo is. initial public offering, was seen on stock exchange. but if you go back to basics to understand it i knew a lot of my readers were not going to be intact for their not going to take a company public. stuff like that, the basic question asking a think an assea not a liability for writers going to spaces are not familiar with the quickset certainly the of the views and commentary about the book. it reads like a historical book like written by a story but of course historians are never part of ecosystem they dive into. some ways it's one of these books that a lot of books are written by journalists who are part of the ecosystem. entail the objective lens and treat it in history. >> i think the other thing cometh really great thought. the other piece of it is someone

has the challenging task of reporting on people every day. you can ask questions are not allowed to ask. i admire daily journalists withh tesla, spacex there cap is so much harder than mine. i was always the enjoyable conversation and that enough antagonistic conversation. i'm not holding their profitability statement to account. and so for example, be back to the university illinois let's talk about college. i could and he was more than open about it. but coming out from an outsider i could ask random questions i think were relatively engaging. >> totally, totally. he start the book out i think even after reading the book andd thinking about it i still don't have the answer. i want to get your answer. people look at paypal as one of

lthese megawatt it's extraordinary touches every aspect, every adventure firm multiple companies and those valuable companies in the world. a blanket on the words used there is a word for talent growing together and supporting each other. what was it about paypal? and what have you learned about talent magnets? how this ecosystem functions but will yield all these incrediblea new companies and new results? >> that music producer use is like seeing genius. and he was describing actually artistic clusters. he was l describing. in place in which rembrandt and others were doing their work.

it was funny, he writes about a refund in the intro. he said when he was in art school he learned these were solitary geniuses,al revolutiony but when he started studying more he realized they are collectors there people underneath the art. they're like different venues and people in a whole cluster ecosystem that were supporting this particular. so this is interesting. it leads you to think about the story not as apple equals steve jobs, facebook equals mark zuckerberg, with paypal you do not have that. you have a lot of people at least 200 people in several hundred more in omaha, the pump company goes public you ask them of the brightest lights in modern technology. so for me what i was trying to do, one ambition was just tell the story. meaning what happens from 1998 to 2002 to create paypal?

no one had really gone back and done a detailed look at that. that was the goal. the hope was, and doing that yow might aluminate like oh, here are a few of the things like actually made this group -- made the group what it is later. my stories going to disappoint some people it stops in late ut2002. i read about these things are more famous for today but i do think there are some common thread and things in the water in those early years that were really striking to me. and hopefully striking to readers to pay. >> totally, totally. now you have some megawatt personalities in this book, very famous people, elon musk, hoffman, it start the story in the story it does in some ways revolve around max. talk to us about ways chose to start the story there and how he relates the story in many ways her's many personalities, he is one of the memory protagonists?

>> others a lot of editorialn curveballs. that was one of the ones i wanted to b throw. there are few in the book that was one of them. if you take a step back the paypal we know is the mergers created by the merger of two companies one is called x.com thatn' is elon company. another is called infinity, company creates a product called paypal. that companies cofounded by peter thiel and max. its origins are in the recent chapter one kicks off with max, it's origins are in cryptography and mobile encryption and mobile technology and devices. college max developed a passion for palm pilots, sharp wizards we're in a time machine now. low power devices. he was trying to basically take these devices and push them to their technical limit.

like how much could you make palmpilot do? that is what gives rise to the company that he pictures to peter thiel who is then an unknown investor. he has to say there were two mobile encryption libraries people are going to rent the libraries i will get many peers like okay, you seem smart will make a thing of it. that companies called goodling. that starts in late 1998 but chronologically elon does notnt start x.com in earlyso 99. so from accuracy max his kickoff. more personally i found because he is not a super well-known figure there are so many things about his life, his person either so interesting. one of my favorite writers has this line he says the best characters don't know that they are characters, right? they are intense and they come out on the page. but they don't know what they are not self-conscious about it, right? max is not household name famous. in a way there's not this

persona built up around him.mo so every time i would ask a few more questions or talk to fewer people i would discover he had this insanely real once in a generation line to give you an example. in college as a way of basically getting around requirements to write a paper for a class, he decided he's going to write a paper on a film. and that was seven samurai. he watches 710 right once and write the paper. that kind of gets into his head. he spent space this entire summer reit watching seventh samurai overcome and over again. i believe his numbers he'stc watched like 110 times. and this is like a three and half hour black-and-white japanese movie, right? this is not episodic it's not like billions. [laughter] and so i just found that -- to him that's perfectly normal. to the rest of us that is like

whoa, what are you seeing in seventh samurai that the rest of us don't see, right question wreck i found moment after moment like this. near photographic memory. he would say something i find a pizza paper lit spoke to it. he was a character that did not know he was a character. like his life is a stuff of legends. he is 90 miles away from chernobyl when the reactor explodes, hurls tons of radioactive material into the i sky. he is shipped on a train away from the closest site at the disaster. and on the way to the train a border guard with a geiger counter scans his footprints foot sets off the geiger counter think his foot is radioactive and at one point there is talk whether should have his foot amputated. mom was grandma said no, no, no, take off his shoe and rescan the foot. they do, the foot comes back clean. turns out it was a rose thorn in his shoe that it set up the geiger counter, chernobyl and theay aftermath shape his life n powerful ways, his family

secures funding from a jewish refugee agency to come to the united states. he arrives as a sophomore in high discovery learned english by watching different strokes. rand so i found these details that were so rich and candidly that were not pickeder over. he had not wanted nor built a big gigantic illuminating life for himself. he still regards himself and others regard him as an engineer's engineer. so when you have that as a writer, you have hit pay dirt. yosemite go watch the scene will be 100 times and also as a photographic memory. i am taking off with you. >> you mention something elsee when he was in college but one of the things if you are not familiar with the paypal story, everyone thanks oh this must've all happened at stanford. in that university actually matters is universe of illinois champagne. talk to me about that. what were they working on?

talk about the university plays into it. >> yes it's one of things i am more than happy to some degree up in illinois i was more than happy to discover this and correct the record. so stanford is a big part of the paypal story. to be fair a lot reit hoffman is a stanford graduate, peter has n you good on the roster and look at that. a lot of thehe engineering comes from the university of illinois. i had luke tell me about my first conversations with them he said he was very skeptical as were they all of this project, right? and he said if you're going to do this just please do not write university of illinois out of its history. so to give context in 1990 5a company called netscape think is 95, netscape goes public. netscape founder was himself at

university of illinois the person that founded your firm. for an entire generation of engineers not just university of illinois but a lot of places that was like a starting gun for the internet revolution. but it is personal. max and others that were there describe it as we used to see them in the bar we would see them on the quad nose on the cover of "time" magazine. if he do it, so can we. it's a very direct link. university of illinois has ann amazing history of contributions to computing parts of the world's first digital computers were made there. the world's early social networks are bornn there. a lot of defense department funding throughout the 20th century. they were able to do the big labs and national center for computing applications is there. and you have a time of really talented engineers to go there for the first two engineers he hires come out of the university

of illinois. the cofounders of youtube, two of the cofounders of you to come out of university of illinois. all these people are asked inspired. also places on campus where they are building things, building early prototypes. building primitive applications but a great example is describe this amazing technology called caffeine. caffeine was the use -- they put the office vending machine on the internet and you could pay using i think your mobile ju device. this obviously added time to the transaction you could just as easily go up and put a few coins in the slot. but you have this excitement about putting the coffee machine online. it is also emphatic in the middle is pop not soda i should correct that.g

but there is this enthusiasm up but digitizinght everything creating primitive prototypes and the students are doing this, right? you have a very fertile ground at the university of illinois max scott bannister to become influential he built several failed companies. and then very small exit with the last company that he built. it is enough money for him to come out west and begin theay process of building what becomes paypal. that is part of why i think at the university of illinois unheralded center for a lot of talents. it was a place so's a perfect place to start the story because it was hugely unexpected. everybody expects or about paypal, silicon valley's are on the west coast not of the midwest. >> no, absolutely. later in the book we get to the story of a long a totally different trajectory. but one of the things i think you talk about that i did not know anything about i think we all think of elon as a's

character but he had mentors. his mentor wasas a name doctor peter nicholson. tell me about their relationship, how he helped elon get a start in what you learned there. >> doctor nicholson was one of the best interviewees that i had throughout this project. i will offer a little bit of background. when elon moves from south africa to candidate to attend university on terry's a fresh arrival, he knows no one. so what he does, he will read newspaper articles in contact interesting people he finds in these articles. and find ways to kind of connect with them. he reads an article about doctor peter nicholson at the time as an executive of the bank of nova scotia. doctor nicholson has a background in computing and operations research and in physics.

he is a big scientific brain. said he has a giant praying like supersmart. i love that phrase, giant brain supersmart. i said okay, let me track them down. doctor nicholson has probably the widest set of interests i've ever seen in another human being. even today's passions are like square dancing and financial stuff. and computers and the history of technology. but for a young 19-year-old elon musk, peter nicholson is one of elon's only bosses ever. what happens is elon contacts him and elon and his brother go have lunch with doctor nicholson. he basically said i want an internship, elon decides to take it he joins scotia bank as an intern. what happens is he is joined a bank but he's joining the right part of the bank. which is this team run by a

gigantic brain. the team was essentially a little unit within the bank that reports directly to the ceo. the seal has an interesting problem he'll talk with doctor nicholson that people get to work.nd because it is a small team, doctor nicholson and elon develop a very close relationship and andti friendsh. they are still friends to this day. and he is said to me even then his first love they would sit in trade math problems and they would talk about space exploration for their talk about physics but they talk whether or not elon should start a company, go to grad school or join a company. all the quite basic probes exist for the rest of us did actually exist for elon at one point in his life and he had a mentor up and think through them. one thing that happens with doctor nicholson is heat notices right away this kid is very precocious. so he gives in more challenging assignments more demanding assignments. it was revealing to see that even then, some of the principal

thinking he applies in places like our mode of engineering, logistics, were evident back then. doctor nicholson is a serious person. quite clear even back then there's something about him you do not see many people. he was one of my favorite interviewees because he also -- he wasas thoughtful enough to se how those early experiences may have shaped and enabled some of elon's later successes. one of the biggest ways is after summer of working in a bank elon is a very of bank leadership and innovation. >> is going to say it's funny to think about him as an investment banking intern. now, one of things people probably w don't know his paypal was to companies that somewhat different ambitions. talk to us the difference with x.com and infinity and sort of how they merge. >> because we were on a long we

can start with the law which is in early 1999 elon is a fresh off he created him but he called zip to he sold it. he's thinking about what comes next. based in part on the bankingng experience he sees an opportunity in finance. what he wants x.com to do is everything under the financial son. it's going to beat your mortgage broker, your stockbroker, the going to do your checking accounts, the going to transfer money, few in a wire transfer going to go to them. if you want to take out a line of credit are going to go to them. as she put it it was supposed to be the global financial center, right? just context again , 99 dial-up internet. most have been using the internet are not using it forbo transactions. people still nervous about entering credit cards and parade but even then elon said we have this technology now they can help upgrade bankk mainframes generally written on pretty old

codes and cut out. that is x.com aut revolution in finance. on the other side of the paypal ledger you have infinity. it is come at the time in mid 1999 focused on making a sick successful product under pump pilot and money beaming. it had all infrared port in the corner. to understand i went back and read palm pilot for dummies so i could really get into these devices. it is really fun even in palm pilot for dummies it says if you hold the port too far away -- to behold to close they can't communicate. it's like goldilocks difference to get it just right for then they can communicate. no one i had a use case for cou. what are you supposed to do with that? the answer is you and i would be at lunch. you would need to send me $10 we

take out her palm pilots with the excruciating process of beating each other money and money being a thing. so infinity was focus on money beaming. in the summer of 1999 that product evolves to become like transmission over e-mail. that is where paypal is born. that is also the name paypal is born.. >> talk to us about the name. how they came up with the name, who liked it, wh' didn't. >> so you l know, when you are writing books you feel very surefooted for their places you feel like it puts was an outsider to the world of code. so i read a lot of papers about mobile encryption just to understand i read the academic papers there's a really great paper by a researcher named neil. even when it read those papers i was not on solidou ground. or it could be on sonograms with words. i wanted to find out where did this name paypal come from? shared with me they recognize

which is a few too many syllables and have can't have the beginnings of the right name for financial services company. he would interest web router and typed in naming.comparable at the website for company called eimaster mcneil. master mcneil was founded by master and is the firm they contract with the come up with the name paypal. it's one of my favorite characters in the book. because she is a word person she is so thoughtful about naming. should a whole long process when she contracts with the company to create like a product or amservice, she goes through hundreds of names but she interviews the team members to understand the history of the company. some of her claims to fame trackpad that's on your lap had she named she named touchtone pictures sheet name to westin hotel. one of her fondest memories isr naming paypal. her final list to show what history might have been, cachet,

momo, e money beam, zap you that was on the list, i was really fortunate. she'd kept in her file advocated for paypal bro to have that information in the book. six or seven reasons why paypal was the best possible name for thi' company. they are very specific. again has a view a lot of companies will come up with names is what she call a purely creative crop process but throw it up the wall and see what sticks she said no, and name is a crucial business decision. should a harvard mba and also a background literature. should this nice spot on the venn diagram were words in business meet. with paypal it's friendly sounding, and your pal is more than your friend for your pal hass her arm around her, right question rickett is a warmer relationship so warmer

definition and warmer image in your mind. she says peace you have to stop the air in your throat which leads you to remember the name for half the longer this some a pretty good linguistic on that. you have the p-uppercase-letter and the l-lowercase-letternd whh create sender c of b-lowercase-letter and the y-lowercase-letter i'm sorry y-lowercase-letter and create descenders. that's visually very symmetrical by the interesting thing we could never find the origin is that at some point to capitalize the middle p. she went into her files and she came back and said though thing i find is this little note i have chosen paypal with a a p-uppercase-letter. i could not recall its origin with that is where paypal is born it's a work of master and her team at master mcneil. really thinking through very diligently how are you going to make this process of even

beating money more inviting to people? it's really more inviting that a company that starts with the word con. >> very true. what is so interesting i have heard peter thiel many times talk about the name of start ups are so important to him as an investor. if you look at say paypal's friendly district instant text business boots up the goober has a menacing tone it has a name means things in other languages that are not necessarily acquainted with goodness.gh and some ways it's interesting to see that story may have carried on through a lot of investors but many people in this book go on to be great. >> he actually -- and other me, mention also to we always thought paypal was friendlier than x.com. and i believe facebook was more genial than myspace probably little more selfish. uber soundel little menacing.

i think of the naming -- i like how things come to be. so for me understanding where the name cameg. from. it's also interesting in spite of all of theri tail this room t the time that leading technologists of our day, they were so backwards on the name. she had to advocate for paypal for the team did not want to initially. people of the rooms think this is a terrible idea know it'sn going to trust her money with paypal. years later actually been one year later but years later specially she was right, we were wrong. she nailed it on the head for correct it's nice eiland did get his ex with spacex so everything goes full-circle. >> he now owns a again purchased it from paypal corporate some years ago. it is the end of why the final scenes in the book is him

reacquiring the domain it was restored to its rightful owner.t >> yes. one of the things you've got so much praise for is the fact that you talk to so many people who worked at the company but wasn't just talking to the famous names of the people that went on to be very successful party talk to many employees you were able to get troves of e-mails because a lot of people that worked at paypal or pack rats. talk to us about some of the lesser-known figures and how they impacted both your understanding of the story and also the story itself. p >> yes, it is a really good question. i am glad people have picked up on it. i had a view the most interesting stuff in companies ten not to happen in the board room. it's really in that micro- creations and ideas that happenn among employees you are going to get that richest materials, reflections and stories that are never told.

i also had personally -- when it started at the beginning of this story it's easy to get seduced with the idea the megawatt personalities the really well-known people that drove the company forward. but time and again those people would play back to me that you should really talk to david he was responsible for helping to create or you should really talk to amy because she basically ran this product team. you should really talk to skye lee she is the designer that made these things work. i would hear names into cold e-mails and reach out. i consciously wanted to tile these threads together. in some cases these people hadad never been spoken to about the experience. it was so easy to reach out to people who accustomed to press. for some it is ever been contacted byav a provide -- the writer they can have their guard

up i tried to when transferred to was subdivided fill out questionnaires i would do all sorts of things or take flights just to make schedules work. but part of what happened is i found a series of characters who, like max art novelistic but they don't know that they are. that was the best. and no one had actually gone into their lives. one of the examples from is a gentleman whose name is sans j. he is not someone who is a household name. elon hires staunchly very early on. sanjay is a brilliant mind who's worked in financial services for a long time at that point. had a failed start up joints x comfort when the signature contributions he makes is something that almost all of us listening and watching have used before. if you have had to register your bank account with another institution you probably gone to

the experience the have to send you a little bit of change. they sent you 3 cents and 25 cents recorded 0325. that was invented by sanja at paypal. was because the company needed to find a way to authenticate bank accounts or if you say on your bank account how do i really know is you can access a question if i have your checking account routing numbers anybody with a voided check and do that. sanja figures out what if we do random deposit. send random numbers you then can authenticate and verify you are who you say youas are. it was a breakthrough innovation for it help the company shipped its cost curve independency on credit cards. and it something even today is ubiquitous. i found it to be the most -- had summit say to me watching staunchly navigate the financial system is like watching a conductor conduct the symphony. which is the most amazing thing

to say you don't often hear the word symphony attached to it. i found him to be uncommonly thoughtful and travis breakthrough innovation. i went searching for those but he went searching for the person's closest to the action of the persons or names in the paper. you'd never know these things are going to work. but i will say paypal story is packed to the brim with those kind of people's these people gone on to dot amazing things in their post paypal life pair because person after person made these contributions they were hugely consequential which is why i write you cannot tell the story paypal the story of one, two or even three people. >> noo definitely. going back to the talent question there so many people in this book that are just known in the valley o as being the best judges of character, of talent, they can acquire talent very well there for their companies

when the differentiators of good and a great is how great they are recruiting. one thing that struck me or surprise me in the book we do not talk about elon is a greato recruiter. but a lot of people this book or recruited by elon. i would love to hear what was his approach to recruiting cap talent? was it surprising here that he was the one recruiting a lot of the great characters? >> yes, i'm quite you mentioned it. it's what i think sentiment written out of the history. he has, like a few others in the story, putting the spotlight on him, he has incredible i for engineering talent, product talent and businessd talent. he recruits amy, he recruits sanja, runs sequoia capitol per elon tries not once but twice to bring him aboard. and he actually rejects them both times untilav the third tie

is having a personal financial crisis and can i come in turn for you? when he has this kenai for the best people around. here's the other thing that makes them i think particularly effective recruiter as he is basically relentless and moves very, very quickly until he closes someone who is interested or someone he wants. to go back to the example of sanja, he was connected to elon through e-mail. he said okay great i will come and see you. he says no, i'll buy a plane ticket have to come tonight. so0 he flies specific ten minuts of dinner at some hamburger joint. they start it 8:00 p.m. the does not talk until 4:00 a.m. in the morning. can you comer.r. in at seven yer offer letter i'd like to make you an offer. so again and again he would make offers on the spot. he could sense this quality of ,somebody who's going to be a good fit for his team. but a good person to have on the team in general.

i would say one of things i hope the book corrects is peter and max get a lot of credit. i don't think elon has got equal credit for the folks he recruited braid there some places that make the place ticko and frankly successful. part of what i noticed was is very keen i for talent. writtenthink it's enough. when you're hosting snl is probably a dry subject. [laughter] it's one of things it definitely camen through. how h many people the other part is, painted in them inspiring portrait of what it can be. that also encourages these people to sign up for. >> absolutely. let's talk about fraud. a huge portion of the paypal story or devote a number of chapters two in the book. why does it matter? and how did you approach it in the book? >> yes. it is one of the many, i wouldn't say untold but

undercooked stories that has been in the culture. paypal is not the only payment system on the block in 1999. there are manys. others. early crypto currencies there's thdigital coins are's mobile wallets, their digital banks. and so one of the things you have to ask yourself if you're writing this coming from an outsiders whited others fail? one of the big reasons this paypal was able to successfully defeat digital andud online frad at a time when digital online fraud was just starting it was sort of the wild west for there is not established caselaw on how you deal with these things. so it happens is you have a successful platform and paypal. many thousands of people use including bad actors summer college students are using paypal using venison tennis get beer money that's fraud you can manage. the more sophisticated

fraudsters do come from abroad, from ex- soviet satellite state you have hacking groups based both in the united states and abroad. they are using paypal. there is a fraudster who created a website pa white pai. on your keyboard the eye and delke are so close we show he created copycat sites that looked exactly the same and dupe users into giving way the personal financial information. there's all kinds. in 2000, fraud is burning up the bcompany's balance sheet. $68 million in the bank they are 3burning through between 11 and $13 million a month. roughly five months. they have to figure out how to itfix this. it isn't one fix its multiple fixes involves human beings many whom i interviewed they are like star wars figures they are incredible. it's digital fixes paypal's

words and visit when you're ignored by fighting fire hydrants you have them to thank you. it is also working with law enforcement to educate u.s. attorneys, district attorneys and others but what did online fraud even look like? after 911 the government turns to paypal to help understand is her stair financing living through these networks. all of this is a thing that ought to have killed the company in the year 2000. it is also the thing that is hes signature breakthrough. it is the reason the company survives where others fail. one person, ken miller is one of the people responsible for some of his technology in the organizational he says to me fraudsters are kind of lazy. as we got better fraud fighting they would just move to our competitors who were not as good and clean them out. was a weird competitive advantage came from defeating the fraudsters. >> that is incredible.

now, one of the things going back to just how much detail is in this book, as a historian, someone who's used to going back to the elaborately hit contemporary history to hunt down people who saw the e-mails. still willing to open up. i would just love to hear about your process. how are you able to get this level of detail? a lot of the characters in the book to share some of these purely personal anecdotes and facts happening in the company that may may not make people look that favorable? >> there's a few answers to the question. the one thing i benefited from is a story is 20 years old. so paypal goes public mistress the 20th anniversary of the paypal. when two decades have passed it all these people are not involved in the day-to-day creation of the company, they are more open about war stories and reminiscing. i did not the push as hard to

get answers to questions. in fact how many of them made fun of me for being interested in this b that have been 20 yeas ago. in the back of my mind is that spent all day thinking about the future, no one you think i'm a curiosity thinking about the past, right? that was part20 of it 20 years d passed they were happy to chat. but i would say there are two other pieces that were helpful. one is i did have the good fortune of having a number of people who share e-mails i don't know why they kept these notes and documents andy the board minutes and various phone lesson things, but they did. they said hey, this could be helpful to you and ithe was. it gave me the ability to see now a somewhat through the haze of timet but someone wrote to te entire company in the moment. so i hope you get the immediacy of salt-and-pepper being played across the speakers pretty help people can see jokes about the

power rangers and things that are relics ofau the 19 '90s it's all what i was seeing ministering these notes and documents. the last thing is, the virtue of having friendless as i could diligently try to contact several hundred people over the course of five and a half years. so i would do is have low color coding system. i would try every what respectfully i would try one a incouple of times. and it kind of made my way through. the people i interviewed had been the company for two weeks or someone interviewed the company that was there for three months. there are other people who were there for the entirety of the. from 1998 -- 2002 for i interviewed board members. t a lot of this was shoe leather. it was the belief that maybe if you send a cold e-mail summit would respond to have enough people respond and very eager to talk and share memories. i think part of it was a work, part of it was luck and timing.

i also think, i like living as you know all too else always talk about is like living in the 1990s for five and half years, i would not read any news and then i woke up and dr. dre through the super bowl the 1990s are cool again. i'm like oh thisoer is great thy just caught up to her i was. [laughter] brexit's come full circle. >> before we hop into audience q and a, i went and i hope you're okay ending here is such a moving part of the book. in some ways i don't want to make yout' tell the story pay bt i do s want you to tell the stoy so moving and so impactful. in e you can tell us a little bit about how you how you found this this these people the story and and how it ends this way, yeah, it's the most surprising thing to me in looking back at it even so i struggled with how to end this book as as katie knows like

this was like the thing that kept me up >> . >> and it meant something different and when the day has some success from kenya they have written explicitly about now after the success bill that paypal mafia of east africa and india it was flipped cart there are tons of references to the flipped cart

what group could this emerge? and then i learned that a young man named chris wilson who was a friend of mine had studied about the mafia while he was incarcerated for murder one in jessup maryland. i knew chris because as a friend helping him on the book he had written i had no idea how it went way beyond what i thought maybe he knew a little bit but actually the book i was writing he taught the paypal story in prison and entrepreneurial workshops they manage to get a copy of the "fortune" magazine article in 2007 and they became cap divided by the stories what they started to do any

publication that came into the prison they would find articles about this group and assemble packets and then photocopy the packet and teach entrepreneurial workshops inside the maximum-security facility. this blew my mind. only interviewed them that weight length i realize they took all of the lessons and learnings and astonishingly both of them managed to earn their freedom and today they both run businesses one is a software entrepreneur his technology is helping cities do logistics for covid-19 testing and chris wilson his book debuted on trevor know e what and with real estate businesses and now has a very successful artist doing all kinds of things. they found inspiration in this

and it is the place where their thoughts went far beyond what we thought what was interesting to me that i was interesting to readers. >> it is a remarkable story and the impact of that paypal mafia on technology with normal people's lives is powerful. so turn to the audience question are any founders involved in any way in the company? >> i cannot speak there are shareholders but none of the original founders are involved operationally with paypal people have a very different company now but it's funny because it is the afterlife of that guy.

and today paypal is many times larger than ebay where it first found success. and whether the shareholders come up in conversation in the same way that paypal is part of the past. and then to start off in a not great way to get to know him i don't want to be the person who created just paypal. that cannot be my legacy. so in a way this thing evolve that they all credit but they all also try to escape in some way. >> we all want to forget who we were in college. [laughter] that's right so another

question are the founders friendly with each other now? >> it depends on how you define founders and friendly. so as far as i know i found there have been a few reunions that my definition of founder in this book is broader than maine cofounders on the investment document they could be back after people they have never heard one —- or does but my definition is with this very intense. the foundingik the company maybe that's not legally the definition of founders but i would defend that editorial choice because they went through this very difficult experience together and as

people refine the product technically you i are not a cofounder but i found there were certain friendships that matured and developed more than others they are always tied to this experience and they have inverse - - invested in and they hope to build youtube and then add a firm of alumni from paypal joining elon and tesla and space x so what you are talking about for the most part is a marginally positive relationship and certainly there are some professional ties. >> certainly on the investment side if you try to mask all of the investments in the former

colleagues then that would be completely if there was not friendliness. >> where peoplenk might be interested in the most there is some fiction about elon and peter not liking each other. i don't know the truth but the day i interviewed elon but if you don't like somebody you have your pick of the litter who you want for dinner but those that are co- invested with each other but then there's one other kernel on this that these people are operating intellectually so

there is that feeling from doing paypal together. and i cannot speak to those contemporary friendships i see a lot of interactions. >> and you may have already answered this but what were your impressions there quick. >> and then to think about the ideas in the book and talk about teambuilding with that link the meditation and then when he becomes your subordinate in a company and things like e that but basically he's also an employee and ceo of the company that goes

public. >> we only have a few minutes left but my last question is what if you personally learned about silicon valley? there is a lot of different misconceptions of the ecosystem and the crazy people thinking about the future. what have you learned how the system works and how the ecosystem works and what surprised you the most? >> it's a good question. and in future years i will have a better answer but what comes to mind is silicon valley is unusually tolerant of people who are on the fringes in other parts of society. there is a high degree of openness for those who do not communicate with perfect english that may not be

acceptable like the mckinsey and company job you have ideas like with space travel that is embraced that unorthodox thinking is embraced i know there are some ideas about that but i remember that very vividly in my discussions when those topics would come up all the time. talking about how you can live to be 150 like it was positive course there are other places in life that embrace that to thinking i found encouraging. that's great. the second thing as a writer and you know this from your time finding the perfect word

for a paragraph it is a complete well. and you and i chose lives but writing code has a lot in common with writing. i found in common was civil engineers the same satisfaction and then it all worked and that is real and it's easy to miss it when you press a button on your phone you type in the address in google maps it's very easy to miss with satisfaction and joy. we have a distant relationship. someone has to do all of that and i found speaking to the

engineers there is a private craft and enjoy when it fits into place the only way to describe it as if they have tethe same joy. >> and with that dichotomy you are either the engineer or reader and a writer or a literary. some of that worse energy. >> i i cannot go on —- kick off the book from ms. lovelace for that reason. to have a literary quality. >> thank you for joining the conversation. thank you for watching and participating live if you would like more please visit commonwealth club.com.

>> let me say that my heart goes out to those people that are overzealous i would tell you if i could spend more time to be a politician i would kick their butt out but i didn't know what they were doing.