Quartz (Oct. 20) -- The PayPal mafia is one of Silicon Valley’s most iconic founding teams. Its members went on to create an array of billion dollar companies—including Tesla, LinkedIn, and Palantir—and their collective success has never quite been replicated. A lot has been written about the dynamics of the Paypal founders in order to understand their special formula. Among the most picked over revelations is how its members were ruthless in hiring friends with similar backgrounds. Mafia member and Illinois computer science alumnus Max Levchin once recounted how he chose not to hire a job applicant after he said he played hoops (the PayPal founders prefer chess), something that he has stood by in subsequent interviews.
Alumnus Max Levchin
10/20/2016