PayPal Mafia: How Silicon Valley Became the Camorra

When you think of the mafia, you picture Italians in three-piece suits, cigars, and someone making "an offer you can't refuse." But that's old school. In the 21st century, the mafia wears hoodies, invests in startups, and hacks your brain with ChatGPT. Meet the PayPal Mafia — the most dangerous billionaires who will never go to jail.

🎭 From PayPal to the Pentagon

What happens if you put Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, Reid Hoffman, and a dozen other brilliant but slightly crazy guys in one garage? You get PayPal. An electronic wallet that eBay bought for $1.5 billion, not realizing they were buying not a startup, but a Silicon Valley nuclear bomb.

After the deal, the heroes scattered across the world — like envoys of the tech future. But they didn't just go their separate ways — they stayed "in the circle." They helped, invested in, and promoted each other. A clan, just without the blood feuds (well, almost).

💵 Who Are These People?

Elon Musk — the guy who sent Twitter into space and called it X. Built Tesla, then sank it himself in an ocean of hype. At the same time, he's colonizing Mars and torching OpenAI's servers.

Peter Thiel — the main philosopher with the face of a tax inspector. Funds politics, builds "analytical states" through Palantir, believes in immortality and young blood (literally). Reid Hoffman — the LinkedIn dad. Invented a way to build a career without leaving home: just add the whole world as friends.

Max Levchin — PayPal CTO and founder of Affirm. The man who made loans "sexy" again (if you like overpaying threefold, that is).

David Sacks — a specialist in political radicalism, invests in those who shout "cancel cancel culture!" the loudest.

Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, Jawed Karim — the trio who created YouTube because they wanted to rewatch home videos. Now you have to watch a 15-second shampoo ad before you can see a cat.

🧠 Their Philosophy: Build a Monopoly, Call It Freedom

Thiel said: "Competition is for losers." And they really didn't compete — they took over everything. Finance, transportation, neural networks, video hosting, politics, news, fashion (okay, not fashion).

🕵️‍♂️ Is This a Coincidence? Or a Covert Operation?

It's naive to think such a concentration of geniuses is a coincidence. It's like if Mario Puzo wrote a novel about startup founders. But instead of a Tommy gun — stock options, instead of a hitman — an investment round, instead of "Cosa Nostra" — Founders Fund.

📜 The Irony Is...

...what they fear most is AI. The very AI they themselves raised. Like Frankenstein, only with servers and a Pro subscription.

In Conclusion:

The PayPal Mafia isn't about money. It's about power. Soft, technocratic, smiling at you from FaceID. They're not heroes or villains. They're just the ones who hit "Enter" before everyone else.