Jimmy Soni - Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, and the Paypal Mafia

Jimmy Soni is the author of The Founders: The Story of Paypal and the Entrepreneurs Who Shaped Silicon Valley. Episode website + Transcript: https://www.dwarkeshpatel.com/p/jimmy-soni Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3Rp9RNX Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3cDeTaL Follow me on Twitter to be notified of future content: https://twitter.com/dwarkesh_sp Follow Jimmy on Twitter: https://twitter.com/jimmyasoni Buy the book: https://amzn.to/30PqMV2 Timestamps: 0:00:00 Intro 0:00:32 Bell Labs vs PayPal 0:05:44 Scenius in Ancient Rome and America's Founding 0:07:34 Girard at PayPal 0:15:49 Thiel almost shorts the Dot com bubble 0:20:21 Does Zero to One contradict PayPal's story? 0:28:29 Hilarious Russian hacker story 0:29:38 Why is Thiel so good at spotting talent? 0:35:22 Did PayPal make talent or discover it? 0:41:12 Japanese mafia invests in PayPal?! 0:45:14 Upcoming TV show on PayPal 0:48:43 Musk in ancient Rome 0:52:44 Why didn't Musk keep pursuing finance? 0:57:04 Why didn't the mafia get back together? 1:00:38 Jimmy's writing process