PayPal Mafia

The PayPal Mafia is the most fascinating phenomena of the entire history in business.

A group of people – seemingly randomly – work on a startup, exit, and each founder and employee ends up (co-)founding companies which re-defined the entire internet as we know it.

Tesla, SpaceX, Palantir, The Boring Company, Neuralink, OpenAI, FoundersFund (arguably Facebook), Affirm, Yammer, Sequoia Capital, YouTube, LinkedIn, Yelp, 500 Startups, Geni.com, and through acquisition X (formerly Twitter).

Let’s look at the current valuation of each:

1. Tesla: 795 Billion
2. SpaceX: 140 Billion
3. Palantir: 33 Billion
4. The Boring Company: 5.5 Billion
5. Neuralink: 5 Billion
6. OpenAI: 80 Billion (est.)
7. FoundersFund: 11 Billion (in assets)
8. Affirm: 6.5 Billion
9. Yammer: 1.2 Billion (acquired by Microsoft)
10. Sequoia Capital 80 Billion (assets under management)
11. YouTube: 1.6 Billion (acquired by Google; today’s valuation is estimated to be 180 Billion)
12. LinkedIn: 26.2 Billion (acquired by Microsoft)
13. Yelp: 2.9 Billion
14. 500 Startups: 2.4 Billion (assets under managemet)
15. Geni.com: >>100 Million (acquired by MyHeritage for indisclosed amount)
16. X: 44 Billion (acquired by Elon Musk who holds as the largest shareholder 9.2% of the company)

Who wants to have fun adding up these numbers?