American digital payments company co-founded by Max Levchin and Peter Thiel as Confinity in 1998 — merged with Elon Musk's X.com in 2000 — which created the dominant internet payment platform and whose alumni (the PayPal Mafia) went on to found or fund Tesla, SpaceX, YouTube, LinkedIn, Yelp, Yammer, and more.
Created internet payments as a mass market product and produced the most consequential startup alumni network in Silicon Valley history — the PayPal Mafia whose subsequent companies have been worth trillions — making PayPal not just a business but a talent incubator whose main output was its founders.
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