David Marcus: How I Came to Lead PayPal; Why FB's Crypto Failed; How AI Fixes Inequality | E1001

When I think about the Facebook adventure with Libra, I still call it Libra because it's a better name than DM, when I, I basically decided it, it was not worth fighting for it anymore, I felt really good, like, really, really good that we had tried everything in our power, and then some, to convince regulators and, and, you know, world powers basically, that this was something of merit and that the world needed. But, uh, it just wasn't going to happen.

What was the core reason it wasn't gonna happen?

It, it was just really hard for regulators and others to accept that Facebook would be at the center of, uh, a protocol for money for the internet. And that's why we devolved so much power into this consortium that we didn't control, that we were just a member of. But that wasn't enough.

David, I am so excited for this. I heard so many great things from Dana at Matrix, from Shaq, of course, Frederic at Felix. But thank you so much for joining me today.

Thank you for having me. It's great to finally connect.

Now, I'd love to go back to the very beginning. Um, you founded your first company, (laughs) I didn't know whether to say this, in the year I was born, in 1996.

(laughs)

Um, how did you come to found your first company, David?

Well, I think it was a series of events, uh, on, in my personal life, uh, as well as, uh, a deeply rooted, uh, frustration about, uh, a monopoly, um, you know, one of telecom and internet service providers in Switzerland, where I was at the time. Uh, but basically, uh, I was forced to drop out of college because of a family situation where, you know, the family lost everything, and then I had to go, uh, try to figure out, um, how to make money, which, uh, took me to working in a bank, which I really didn't like. Uh, but that's what you do with... when you're in Switzerland. Uh, and, um, and then after a year at that bank, uh, I decided I was frustrated enough with, uh, the state of the, the telecoms industry in Switzerland that was, uh, a monopoly basically at the time, and decided that, uh, knowing almost nothing, or actually nothing about, uh, the telecoms business, I was going to try to go and build a company to compete with, uh, the incumbent at the time. And, uh, and that's how I started.

David, there are so many things for me to unpack there. You said about losing everything. I hope it's okay for me to ask. My, my family did too, and it, it really, it gave me a ferociousness that I would never, ever let that happen again. Um, wha- w- how did it impact you seeing your family lose everything?

Yeah, I think, you know, the s- same deal here. I think that, you know, I'm, uh, I'm actually thankful that this happened in my life, because I think it, uh, it, you know, put me on a very different trajectory that I would've been otherwise. So, uh, you know, it definitely, it definitely, uh, pushed me to rebuild from scratch at a, at, at a perfect age actually. So, you know, I'm actually thankful that, that this happened to me.