I’m going to share three fascinating PayPal facts with you today that you probably didn’t know.
1. One of the ten worst company concepts of 1999 was PayPal.
This is so because PayPal’s original concept was somewhat different from what it is today. PayPal’s original concept involves sending money to users via Palm Pilots (Palm Pilots were personal digital assistants running the Palm OS that were introduced in 1997).
This straightforward example can be used to teach the initial concept. You went to a restaurant, ordered food, and when the bill comes, you realise that you didn’t have your wallet. But don’t worry; you still have your Palm Pilot, which is running the PayPal application, which can aid you with your transaction by beaming money from one Palm Pilot to another.
The initial product was a failure, but the PayPal Team didn’t give up because it was the product and not the idea that was flawed. As a result, they persisted while adopting a superior viewpoint, and today they are among the most well-known online money transaction services.
2. PayPal’s founders and early employers are colloquially known as the PayPal Mafia for the following reasons:
After PayPal went public in 2002, it was commonly known that eBay bought the company a year later. From the outside, everything appeared to be in order, but within, early PayPal employees were leaving the firm because they were not happy with the traditional work culture at eBay. As a result, within 4 years, half of the original 200 (approximate) employees had left.
After PayPal was acquired, the bulk of its employees departed and founded their own businesses, the majority of which were successful. Among them are LinkedIn, YouTube, Yelp, Reddit, Tesla Motor, SpaceX, Kiva, Adbrite, and numerous other businesses.
They are known as the PayPal Mafia and our very own Peter Thiel is regarded as the Don of the PayPal Mafia due to the high success rate of businesses formed by individuals connected to PayPal in its early days.
3. Peter Thiel offers $100,000 over the course of two years to 20 young people if they drop out of college and launch a business.
In September 2010, Peter Thiel announced the Thiel Fellowship, which aims to give college students with good ideas the necessary funding and resources so they can grow into a successful business. The only requirement to be met to receive all of these facilities is that the students must drop out of college in order to pursue their business idea.
More than 40 students have been chosen for Thiel Fellowships since 2010. Here is a link to the Thiel Fellowship’s official webpage.