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41 reviews for:
The Founders: Elon Musk, Peter Thiel and the Company that Made the Modern Internet
Jimmy Soni
4.02 AVERAGE
41 reviews for:
The Founders: Elon Musk, Peter Thiel and the Company that Made the Modern Internet
Jimmy Soni
4.02 AVERAGE
Fascinating story of PayPal's origins and founding, I think more of a storybook than hard takeaways, it reminds me of the VC book.
What stood out to me was Musk's outing as well as Thiel wanting to trade the $100m they raised to short the market, I think the moral of this one is to succeed you have to do it different. (At the time PayPal was extremely innovative in many different ways)
Musk's vision was also very different from where Paypal ended up, he wanted it to be an online bank, much like the challenger online banks today - Starling, Revolut, its clear musk has a much stronger vision for the company and probably would of taken it further (I mean in hindsight now considering SpaceX and Tesla)
What stood out to me was Musk's outing as well as Thiel wanting to trade the $100m they raised to short the market, I think the moral of this one is to succeed you have to do it different. (At the time PayPal was extremely innovative in many different ways)
Musk's vision was also very different from where Paypal ended up, he wanted it to be an online bank, much like the challenger online banks today - Starling, Revolut, its clear musk has a much stronger vision for the company and probably would of taken it further (I mean in hindsight now considering SpaceX and Tesla)
A worthwhile read, interesting and thrilling. Reading about the people who made PayPal was fascinating, but what was even more fascinating was seeing how from a single startup, emerged a whole new generation of founders who are influencing today the startup landscape.
It is even hard to fathom that all these people were together in one company, seems like a "dream team". I recommend it as a valuable reading, not just for history, but also to hear how they overcame some of the challenges which were appearing in the early web. A lot of stuff we take today for granted, was developed for PayPal, or by people from PayPal, e.g. the Captcha form was created to combat bot accounts on PayPal.
It is even hard to fathom that all these people were together in one company, seems like a "dream team". I recommend it as a valuable reading, not just for history, but also to hear how they overcame some of the challenges which were appearing in the early web. A lot of stuff we take today for granted, was developed for PayPal, or by people from PayPal, e.g. the Captcha form was created to combat bot accounts on PayPal.
informative
reflective
fast-paced
Incredibly written. Fascinating story about one of the most interesting and influential tech startups
Perhaps I'm slightly biased working for one of the "mafia" members, but I can't imagine a more motivating read than this one. The amount of hard work and talent within this group is almost unfathomable. Imagining the small cohort of people all sleeping under their desks in sleeping bags, doing everything they can to build something incredible - it's impossible not to be inspired by them.
It's so wild to think this small group of people have gone on to build and support some of the largest tech companies to ever exist. That last story in the epilogue was the perfect ending - what a wild ride.
It's so wild to think this small group of people have gone on to build and support some of the largest tech companies to ever exist. That last story in the epilogue was the perfect ending - what a wild ride.
3.5
I knew nothing about the story of PayPal so this was really interesting to me especially as I use paypal on the regular. It was really well researched, it had a lot of detail and the author spoke to lots of people involved to get their thoughts in their own words. It was easy to understand and follow, even without a technology background. I reccomend it if you're interested in how paypal came to be.
I knew nothing about the story of PayPal so this was really interesting to me especially as I use paypal on the regular. It was really well researched, it had a lot of detail and the author spoke to lots of people involved to get their thoughts in their own words. It was easy to understand and follow, even without a technology background. I reccomend it if you're interested in how paypal came to be.
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
dnf - found this to be a bit of a bore and gave up. Would recommend 'The Contrarian' by Max Chafkin about Thiel, or 'Power Play' by Tim Higgins which is Musk-centric.
Audiobook
I liked some of the behind the scenes stuff. I wish I could remember the people and companies better - it would probably be more meaningful for me. But it is fun to know more of what Paul is talking about with tech stuff.
I liked some of the behind the scenes stuff. I wish I could remember the people and companies better - it would probably be more meaningful for me. But it is fun to know more of what Paul is talking about with tech stuff.