10 successful companies sprung from the PayPal Mafia

By Conner Forrest July 10, 2014, 11:50 AM PDT

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10 successful companies sprung from the PayPal Mafia

Tesla Motors

PayPal employees are known for producing hugely successful companies. Here are some of the biggest companies to come from members of the PayPal Mafia.

Tesla Motors is an electric car manufacturer that was founded by former X.com CEO and PayPal co-founder, Elon Musk.

SEE: How the ‘PayPal Mafia’ redefined success in Silicon Valley (TechRepublic cover story) | download the PDF version

Palantir Technologies

Image: Palantir

Palantir Technologies

Palantir Technologies is a computer software company, primarily providing data analysis services, founded by Peter Thiel. While still a private company, its estimated worth is in the billions of dollars.

SEE: How the ‘PayPal Mafia’ redefined success in Silicon Valley (TechRepublic cover story) | download the PDF version

Image: Palantir

Yelp

Image: Kmeron for LeWeb13/Flickr (Creative Commons)

Yelp

Yelp is an online review site for restaurants, cafes, and other local businesses and sites. It was founded by Jeremy Stoppelman (right) and Russel Simmons (not pictured.) Both of the founders are former PayPal employees.

SEE: How the ‘PayPal Mafia’ redefined success in Silicon Valley (TechRepublic cover story) | download the PDF version

Image: Kmeron for LeWeb13/Flickr (Creative Commons)

Yammer

Image: Wikimedia Commons/Robert Scoble

Yammer

Yammer is a social enterprise software company that was founded by former PayPal executive David Sacks in 2008. The company was acquired by Microsoft for more than $1 billion in 2013.

SEE: How the ‘PayPal Mafia’ redefined success in Silicon Valley (TechRepublic cover story) | download the PDF version

Image: Wikimedia Commons/Robert Scoble

Slide

Image: Slide

Slide

Slide was a photo sharing tool for social media sites such as Myspace, and was acquired by Google in 2010. The company’s founder and CEO, Max Levchin, was an original founder of Confinity, which would later become PayPal.

SEE: How the ‘PayPal Mafia’ redefined success in Silicon Valley (TechRepublic cover story) | download the PDF version

Image: Slide

CapLinked

Image: CapLinked

CapLinked

CapLinked is a SaaS platform for online business collaboration and workflow optimization. CapLinked was founded by Eric Jackson, a former employee at PayPal and author of The PayPal Wars.

SEE: How the ‘PayPal Mafia’ redefined success in Silicon Valley (TechRepublic cover story) | download the PDF version

Image: CapLinked

Geni

Image: Geni

Geni

Geni is a social networking site based around genealogy discoveries. The company was also founded by David Sacks and was acquired by MyHeritage in 2012.

SEE: How the ‘PayPal Mafia’ redefined success in Silicon Valley (TechRepublic cover story) | download the PDF version

Image: Geni

By Conner Forrest

Conner is a former Senior Editor for TechRepublic. He is now a Senior Research Analyst at 451 Research.

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