The PayPal Wars: Battles with Ebay, the Media, the Mafia, and the Rest of Planet Earth

As the title of the book suggests, this is a first hand account showing what a rough ride the entrepreneurial & startup journey can be. With the never ending list of challenges from different segments to internal conflicts within the team itself, this is an excellent read for any determined entrepreneur to be mentally prepared on a road very few chose to travel. The incidents documented in this book show an outright example of the battle between David vs Goliath (Paypal vs Ebay). It is a true testimonial of how innovative thinking and delivering solutions based on what customers require can overcome any kind of manipulative or power whiplash from the competitor who is not prepared as what to expect next.Kudos to the initial Paypal team for their persistence and determination in overcoming all odds and rewriting history in the Silicon Valley circles. No wonder the Paypal Mafia has gone on to create more innovative startups and support a new breed of entrepreneurs ready to take on the world. The book delivers a key lesson in the words of Peter Thiel towards the end at the Paypal celebration party. Although I would not like to spoil it for future readers, the essential lesson is that the world encourages the spirit of entrepreneurism and likes to see risk takers come on out all front and deliver the unexpected. But at the same time it places a lot of hurdles in the path of an entrepreneur. It is up to the entrepreneur to chose whether to get knocked down by the hurdle or maneuver a way around it.

Covering the period from about 1999 to 2004, the PayPal Wars chronicle the challenges and characters surrounding the rise of one of the new economy superstars. Eric Jackson was a mid-level marketing executive at PayPal, but in the role during the early days, as well as in a small organization, he was privy to many of the decisions and challenges faced by the company. While the subtitle is a bit ambitious, and the book reads easily, but isn't quite the page turner implied by some of the other reviewers, the insights that Jackson provide are both educational and entertaining. Following near death experiences, battles with eBay, and the eventual acquisition by the auction giant, Jackson provides insight into a relatively unique experience. Worth the read - especially for tech entrepreneurs or PayPal team members or vendors.

I couldn't put this book down. The author gives a fascinating account of the disputes and politics behind the rise of PayPal and its eventual sale to eBay.com. It reminds me to be appreciative that some people in positions to tell great stories are naturally great writers. Highly recommend.

Reading this exciting account of a startup's life demonstrates the dynamism present in entrepreneurship. In many paths of life, discrete and known decision points appear in which people choose between several specific options- which college to attend, which major to choose, which company to intern with, which offer to accept. In running paypal, the degree of strategy the leaders show in making choices takes 'thinking outside the box' to a new level.Paypal started out as a Confinity, an idea of transmitting information privately between palm pilots. Then they realized the main thing people want to transmit is financial information, so they basically changed the business model to focus on financial transactions between individuals through the Internet. Then they realized eBay hosted a huge demand for this service, so they diverted all of their resources towards the auction site. The fact that they nimbly and dramatically changed their strategy several times in response to new developments shows how many hard, undefined decisions exist in business, especially in the early stages.In the Paypal saga, merging and buying companies takes on new drama and is as important to entrepreneurship as technological development. Like when wild beasts mate, X.com and eBay partnered with Paypal only after repeatedly mauling it. The companies battled for users, raced to add features, spied on each other, exhibiting a high rate of innovation in attempting to out-maneuver each other. Novel ideas to increase Paypal accounts included a bot that surfed eBay auctions and insisted on using paypal to pay.The author emphasizes the importance of Thiel's grand, world changing, world domination vision. This vision kept people motivated, despite ultimately not being achieved and falling away as the focus. What fraction of companies start out as planning to change the world but then end up selling out? Well, at least paypal tried, and they succeeded in certain ways.

An easy read that shares an insider perspective of the growth of PayPal from a PalmOS P2P payment system to a leading ecommerce payment system. With the stories on pandodaily and TechCrunch it is no surprise how hard it is to succeed an how important luck and individual contribution can change outcomes!

As someone who recently joined a startup, this is a great book for insights into everything that can work like magic as well as everything that can fall down. Easy read, informative, well written.

Written in a first person perspective, this book share so much insight behind its formative business model, competition against beat and entrepreneurial spirit. Impressive reading!

Thorough enjoyed this business read...I could apply the concept to my entrepreneurial activities but also visualise the scenes vividly.Big personalities in a book of character. The Paypal mafia will provide inspiration to generations of kids and this is the genesis of their story!

Se lit comme un roman. La saga époustouflante d'une entreprise remarquable, qui n'a finalement dû son salut et sa pérennité qu'au gros requin qui l'a mangée...