Podcast appearances and mentions of Eric M Jackson

GUEST 1 OVERVIEW: Eric M. Jackson is a technology executive who played a critical role in building PayPal and subsequently created multiple technology businesses. Early in his career, Jackson was recruited by Peter Thiel to join the startup team at PayPal, where he oversaw product marketing and designed its revenue model. During Jackson's time at PayPal, the company grew to 25 million users, went public, and was acquired by eBay. He's currently CEO of TransitNet, a fintech company he co-founded in 2020. X: @ericmjackson GUEST 2 OVERVIEW: Prof. Edward J. (Ted) Steele is a molecular and cellular immunologist, geneticist and microbiologist and the author of six books and over 100 scientific research papers. He conducted research and taught at the Australian National University's John Curtin School of Medical Research and worked at The University of Toronto's Ontario Cancer Institute, The Welcome Trust in the UK and The University of Wollongong. Professor Steele is a C.Y. O'Connor Foundation Life Fellow.

GUEST OVERVIEW: Eric M. Jackson is a technology executive who played a critical role in building PayPal and subsequently created multiple technology businesses. Early in his career, Jackson was recruited by Peter Thiel to join the startup team at PayPal, where he oversaw product marketing and designed its revenue model. During Jackson's time at PayPal, the company grew to 25 million users, went public, and was acquired by eBay. Currently, Jackson is the CEO of TransitNet, a fintech company that provides tools to assist with title verification for cryptocurrencies. Jackson previously served as the CEO of CapLinked, a venture-backed technology company that was dubbed the "go-to place for setting up and closing deals" by the Wall Street Journal. He also founded World Ahead Media, an independent media firm that he grew to profitability before it was acquired.

Show Notes Author Jimmy Soni kicks off the conversation by explaining why the PayPal mafia is more noteworthy than other large startups. Soni explains that he wrote the book to document not only the business successes, but also the personal stories of the founders. He explains that the market has been good and that people can learn a lot of new things from the book. Soni reveals that his favorite thing about the book is learning about the inventiveness and innovation PayPal had. The Birth and Growth of the PayPal Mafia Jimmy  and Will discuss the phenomenon of the PayPal Mafia, the group of entrepreneurs who emerged from PayPal's success and went on to found some of the most successful companies in Silicon Valley. Soni explains that the PayPal Mafia is a unique phenomenon because the founders were relatively young when PayPal was successful, they had faith that businesses on the internet could be successful,  and they supported each other's ventures. PayPal alumni invested in and supported each other's companies, and they hired alumni as their first employees. This mutual support and collaboration was key to the success of the PayPal Mafia, and their success has been a major factor in the success of Silicon Valley. He shares how PayPal was able to succeed in the early 2000s due to their right timing and how important that was, the selection of very talented people, and the nurturing of their employees. They were able to take advantage of the increasing ubiquity of email addresses and the platform of eBay, which hadn't yet sorted out its payment infrastructure. They also managed to survive the .com burst and make a successful IPO. This was due to their selection of very smart and entrepreneurial people, and their experiences of putting a company together from scratch and having it be a success. He mentions how the book The PayPal Wars by Eric M. Jackson shows how messy real companies can be and how PayPal started out as two companies, Con Finiti and X.com, that merged and began toying around with the idea of beaming money from one palm pilot to another. Building a Startup Jimmy  reflects on his experience of studying the formation of PayPal and how it taught him about Silicon Valley strategy and the messiness of how companies actually grow. He emphasizes that building a company from scratch is much harder than most people think and that things that seem inevitable can often look ridiculous at the start. He demonstrates this by using the example of the Palm Pilot that was labeled one of the 10 worst business ideas of the 1990s but that company became PayPal. He emphasizes that researching the book has made him more aware of the difficulty of creating something and has taught him to not to dismiss ideas that seem silly or take for granted the companies that occupy our lives. The creation of PayPal was a “dogfight” that required a lot of hard work and effort. The biggest challenges in making it successful were to convince people to use the payment system and make sure that people were not taking advantage of it.  Jimmy talks about the uncertainty and anxiety that comes with being involved in a startup and the do or die moments that can arise and that there are often one or two decisions that are crucial to survival. He noted that CEOs usually only make six important decisions per year, so it's important to go into a startup with eyes wide open and know that these moments will arise and that the company could go under at any point. He also talked about how chaos can be beneficial for a startup, as it can bring about new ideas, but also can just be chaos. His insight from the story of PayPal is that a lot of what appeared to be chaos from the outside was actually a controlled chaos that was directed towards the right problems and issues.  The Elon Musk's Pressure Cooker Leadership Style Will and Jimmy discuss Elon Musk's recent acquisition of Twitter and his ability to lead a tech company. Jimmy explains that he and Musk never spoke about social networks, and that they only discussed payment networks. He noticed that Musk's management style and that Musk used the term ‘maniacal urgency' to describe it, and believes that Musk's intense approach is necessary for the success of a startup. Jimmy goes on to explain that this style of management has been consistent from Musk's first venture, Zip Two, to his current companies Tesla and SpaceX. Elon Musk's leadership style is one of prioritizing urgency and setting unreasonable demands for his employees. This was the case in his experience with PayPal, and is now being seen at Twitter. An engineer from X.Com shared that during this period, Elon worked longer hours than anyone else and that it was an energizing environment for engineers who wanted to build something quickly, get rapid feedback, and keep moving towards a big goal. This style is not for everyone and can be difficult to understand, but it has been successful for Musk in the past. Through his research, it became clear to Jimmy that startups need to be maniacally urgent and dedicated in order to succeed.  He discusses the market for books about companies, including his own book The Founders: The Story of PayPal and the Entrepreneurs Who Shaped Silicon Valley The book has done well, both domestically and abroad, and Jimmy  believes that people are drawn to the book because of the famous and controversial players involved. Feedback received from professionals  in the startup world have told him that the book captures the energy and feeling of what it is like to be in a startup. Soni shares that the market for books about companies is big and that the Silicon Valley halo has not diminished abroad; all of these factors have contributed to the popularity of the book. His book has international appeal and what differentiates his book from others in the same genre is the inclusion of personal stories.  Researching the Book  He talks about the importance of invention and how startups are allowed to look at a problem and create something new to solve it. He shares how many inventions were developed by PayPal.  When it came to gathering information, he struck gold when he was interviewing someone who offered him access to the company's early records. The person sent Jimmy several gigabytes worth of emails from the time. Jimmy was able to access emails sent and received by key players in the company, giving him a better understanding of the story he was researching. To capture the widest possible story, he started with any emails sent to the company and printed them all out. He then read through every page, looking for any interesting gems that could be included in the book. He found a motivating note from Elon Musk outlining the company's struggles and signed off with Work like hell, Elon. This note was unexpected and captured the character of Musk that is still seen today.  When writing his book, Jimmy explained that he took a methodical approach to email research, using folders, binders, and highlighting to identify key points. He used Google Drive to store PDFs of her citations for fact-checking. This email archive was instrumental in making the book more accurate, rather than relying on hazy memories.  Jimmy talks about the secret sauce of recruiting talent. He specifically mentions Peter Thiel's superpower. Jimmy believes that it is talent identification. Thiel has an uncanny ability to identify people who have potential and to offer them help in the form of introductions, investments or by sketching out a vision of their career that is bigger than they thought possible.  Jimmy shares what he learned about his time working at McKinsey and how that helped him as a writer, and what he is working on now, which is a co-writing project on tech history.  Timestamps 07:41 "The Evolution of PayPal: A Story of Near-Failure and Success"  09:57 Exploring Contingency in the Story of PayPal's Success  13:33 Managing Uncertainty in a Startup Environment  14:15 Analysis of Elon Musk's Management Style at Twitter  18:42 Recruiting Strategies at X.com and Confinity  24:34 The Market for Books About Companies  27:59 On PayPal's Inventiveness and Innovation + Exploring the Origin Story of PayPal's CAPTCHA Technology  38:10 Analysis of Peter Thiel's Superpower: Talent Identification  41:23 Peter Thiel's Approach to Hiring and Recruiting  44:42 Writing Books, Consulting, and Professional Development  Links: The Everything Store, Brad Stone The Founders: The Story of PayPal and the Entrepreneurs Who Shaped Silicon Valley,  A Mind at Play, Jimmy Soni https://jimmysoni.com/ CONTACT INFO: LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/jimmysoni/ Twitter @jimmyasoni https://jimmysoni.com/ Unleashed is produced by Umbrex, which has a mission of connecting independent management consultants with one another, creating opportunities for members to meet, build relationships, and share lessons learned. Learn more at www.umbrex.com.

Leveraging Virtual Data Rooms and Title Registry for Crypto Adoption, and Accounts from the PayPal Wars with Eric Jackson at TransitNet Eric M. Jackson Early-PayPal. Technology Executive and Serial Entrepreneur. Author of “The PayPal Wars.” Eric M. Jackson is a technology executive who played a critical role in building PayPal and subsequently created multiple successful businesses. An award-winning author and sought-after speaker, Jackson is part of the so-called PayPal Mafia that went on to found and develop some of the world's top technology companies. Early in his career, after a brief stint as a financial consultant, Jackson was recruited by Peter Thiel to join the startup team at PayPal. There he served as PayPal's first head of U.S. marketing and oversaw its initial product marketing efforts. At a critical moment when the young company was bleeding millions of dollars each month, Jackson was placed in charge of developing and implementing PayPal's transaction-based revenue model, which helped turn around its fortunes and lead it to profitability. During Jackson's time at PayPal, the company grew from 2,500 users to 25 million, went public, and was acquired by eBay. Currently, Jackson is the CEO and co-founder of CapLinked, a venture-backed technology company that develops cloud-based information control software. Dubbed the “go-to place for setting up and closing deals” by the Wall Street Journal, CapLinked's diverse list of global clients include Amazon, Ernst & Young, FTI Consulting, Roche, Founders Fund, Hess, KPMG, Takeda, and many others. Jackson is also the co-founder of TransitNet, a fintech company that provides tools to assist with title verification for cryptocurrencies. The company's title registry service allows parties to generate a trusted third-party record of ownership for crypto wallets. Additionally, following his time at PayPal, Jackson founded a venture called World Ahead Media, which he grew to profitability before it was acquired. He also served on the boards of a number of organizations and technology startups, including CritiqueIt, Inc., a collaboration software company that was acquired in 2018 by 2U, Inc. (Nasdaq: TWOU). His book, The PayPal Wars, which chronicles the tumultuous origins of PayPal, won the Writers Notes Book Award and was hailed by Tom Peters as “the best description of business strategy unfolding in a world changing at warp speed.” A frequent commentator on technology and policy, Jackson has appeared on Bloomberg, CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC, and he has been quoted in publications ranging from The Economist to the New York Times. Jackson has spoken at conferences around the world, including the World Knowledge Forum in Seoul, the Lang Di Fintech Conference in Shanghai, and the inaugural Reboot Conference in San Francisco. He also served as the keynote speaker at events hosted by the Cato Institute, the Reason Foundation, and the National Federation of Republican Assemblies. Jackson graduated with honors from Stanford University, where he was editor-in-chief of The Stanford Review, studied overseas in Moscow, and served as a student representative on the university's Board of Trustees. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife and daughter. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/crypto-hipster-podcast/support

Today Fabian Klauder welcomes Eric M. Jackson to the show. He's a member of the famous PayPal Mafia (former vice president of marketing at PayPal) and recently started a new crypto company - called TransitNet. Follow Eric! TransitNet: https://transitnet.io/ Eric Twitter: https://twitter.com/ericmjackson ------ FOLLOW NFT GENIUS TWITTER: https://twitter.com/GeniusNft WEBSITE: https://nftgenius.com/ COSMOVERSE 2021  NEWSLETTER: https://www.cosmoverse.org/pages/newsletter ATTEND AS A SPEAKER: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScg6GBPRp3iAU5y0KdBCkcMFfEY994_XaXpIDuShrnD1yFFkA/viewform TWITTER: https://twitter.com/ccclisbon?s=11 TELEGRAM: https://t.me/joinchat/MZRLJjZngShlZGQ6 DEFITIMES

Leveraging Virtual Data Rooms and Title Registry for Crypto Adoption, and Accounts from the PayPal Wars with Eric Jackson at TransitNet Eric M. Jackson Early-PayPal. Technology Executive and Serial Entrepreneur. Author of “The PayPal Wars.” Eric M. Jackson is a technology executive who played a critical role in building PayPal and subsequently created multiple successful businesses. An award-winning author and sought-after speaker, Jackson is part of the so-called PayPal Mafia that went on to found and develop some of the world's top technology companies. Early in his career, after a brief stint as a financial consultant, Jackson was recruited by Peter Thiel to join the startup team at PayPal. There he served as PayPal's first head of U.S. marketing and oversaw its initial product marketing efforts. At a critical moment when the young company was bleeding millions of dollars each month, Jackson was placed in charge of developing and implementing PayPal's transaction-based revenue model, which helped turn around its fortunes and lead it to profitability. During Jackson's time at PayPal, the company grew from 2,500 users to 25 million, went public, and was acquired by eBay. Currently, Jackson is the CEO and co-founder of CapLinked, a venture-backed technology company that develops cloud-based information control software. Dubbed the “go-to place for setting up and closing deals” by the Wall Street Journal, CapLinked's diverse list of global clients include Amazon, Ernst & Young, FTI Consulting, Roche, Founders Fund, Hess, KPMG, Takeda, and many others. Jackson is also the co-founder of TransitNet, a fintech company that provides tools to assist with title verification for cryptocurrencies. The company's title registry service allows parties to generate a trusted third-party record of ownership for crypto wallets. Additionally, following his time at PayPal, Jackson founded a venture called World Ahead Media, which he grew to profitability before it was acquired. He also served on the boards of a number of organizations and technology startups, including CritiqueIt, Inc., a collaboration software company that was acquired in 2018 by 2U, Inc. (Nasdaq: TWOU). His book, The PayPal Wars, which chronicles the tumultuous origins of PayPal, won the Writers Notes Book Award and was hailed by Tom Peters as “the best description of business strategy unfolding in a world changing at warp speed.” A frequent commentator on technology and policy, Jackson has appeared on Bloomberg, CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC, and he has been quoted in publications ranging from The Economist to the New York Times. Jackson has spoken at conferences around the world, including the World Knowledge Forum in Seoul, the Lang Di Fintech Conference in Shanghai, and the inaugural Reboot Conference in San Francisco. He also served as the keynote speaker at events hosted by the Cato Institute, the Reason Foundation, and the National Federation of Republican Assemblies. Jackson graduated with honors from Stanford University, where he was editor-in-chief of The Stanford Review, studied overseas in Moscow, and served as a student representative on the university's Board of Trustees. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife and daughter.

Weird Things podcast is about ten years old. How were things different back then and what’s changed in how we work? Send your project questions/ideas to neshcom@gmail.com, subject line “After Things.” After Things will be off next week! Picks: Andrew: The PayPal Wars from Eric M. Jackson Justin: Rick and Morty Brian: The Righteous Mind […]

On today's episode of Gritty Founder, I talk with Steli Efti about his journey as an entrepreneur. Steli talks about the importance of persistence, being able to pivot, and taking small steps consistently when building a product. Steli Efti is the co-founder and CEO of Close. He's Silicon Valley's most prominent sales hustler, a YC alumni, advisor to several startups and entrepreneurs and the author of "The Ultimate Startup Guide To Outbound Sales". Some Questions I Ask Steli: - How did you learn about entrepreneurship? (5:21)- At what point did you decide you had an idea you wanted to pursue? (14:07)- What was the most important lesson you learned from building a product? (26:14)- How many companies did you call before deciding this was something you were definitely going to pursue? (42:57)- How did you guys decide you were going to build software to enable everything that you wanted to do? (50:37) In This Episode, You Will Learn: - About Steli's childhood and how he became an entrepreneur (1:52)- How Steli started his first business (14:16)- When Steli learned money wasn't as important or fulfilling as he thought (18:47)- About the second business Steli started, which was a dvd rental chain similar to Redbox (19:53)- About Steli's third company which was an online educational platform (23:50)- Why Steli's third company failed and the importance of taking small steps consistently when building a product (26:25)- How Steli founded the company Close.io (35:28)- How Close.io pivoted multiple times to become the company it is today (37:06)- The importance of choosing how you react to the cards you're drawn in life (1:04:14) Connect with Steli Efti: TwitterClose Also Mentioned on This Show… Steli's favorite quote: "The problem is you think you have time." Steli's book recommendations: Wherever You Go, There You Are by Jon Kabat-ZinnThe PayPal Wars by Eric M. Jackson