#233 Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, Max Levchin (PayPal)

**David Senra** (0:00)
I want to tell you about a one-time only limited event that I don't think you're going to want to miss. I am doing a live show with Patrick O'Shaughnessy from the Invest Like the Best podcast in New York City on October 19th. Patrick has interviewed over 300 of the world's best investors and founders for his podcast. I've read over 300 biographies of history's greatest entrepreneurs for my podcast. We'll be talking about what we learned from seven years of podcasting, sharing our favorite ideas and stories and doing a live Q&A. There will also be special event-only swag. If you live in New York City, I think it's a no-brainer. But if not, I think it's a great excuse to fly in. I've already heard from a bunch of people that bought tickets. They're flying in from other cities. Some people are flying in from other countries. That's setting the bar really high. So I will have at least four shots of espresso or four energy drinks before or during the show. So we can make it a night that you'll never forget. If you're interested in attending this unique live event, I will leave a link down below. I highly recommend you get your tickets today. And I hope I get to see you in New York on October 19th. And finally, to Venice, to whom this book is dedicated. The idea for this project started when you were a one-year-old and it was completed when you were six.
The intervening five years have been among the happiest of my life, in large measure because you made them so. You too indulged my stories about Max Levchin and Elon Musk, and you offered wisdom of your own kind in my moments of doubt about the project.
You were unlikely to remember most of what happened these last five years.
I will never forget them.
Authors of books like this should usually refrain from burdening readers with lessons. The reader is smart enough to figure those out for themselves, but there's a special acknowledgments only exception to that rule for author dads. And I'm gonna take advantage of it to offer you a message in a bottle for whenever you get around to reading these words.
Here goes.
Your life will be shaped by the things that you create and the people you make them with. We tend to sweat the former. We don't worry enough about the latter.
The story of PayPal isn't just people banning together to shape a product. It's about how banning together shape the people themselves.
The founders and earliest employees of the company pushed and prodded and demanded better of one another.
I hope you find people like that too and that you make things with them.
That sounds simple, but it's awfully hard. I've been fortunate. I have a sequence of those people in my life, many of whom have been named in the previous pages. You know them as Auntie Lauren and Auntie Grace and Uncle Justin and so on.
They are the people who hold me to account.
We don't just enjoy one another's company. We make each other better.
Our friendship rests on productive discomfort and we love each other enough to say what needs to be said.
In a funny way, I'm not sure I can play that role for you. There are lessons I love you too much to teach you. So you'll need to go out and learn them for yourself.
Fellow travelers will help.
Books need editors. Lives do too.
As with all my advice, take it with a very hungry, caterpillar size grain of salt. Besides, I may not have to worry. If you cracked this book open at all, sat with it this long and made it this far, maybe you'll be just fine.
That is an excerpt from the book that I'm gonna talk to you about today, which is The Founders, the story of PayPal and the entrepreneurs who shaped Silicon Valley, and it was written by Jimmy Soni. And that dedication to his young daughter comes at the very end of this incredible, incredible book that I'm holding in my hand. I was able to talk to Jimmy and he sent me an early copy of this book.
He's, if you're a long time listener of the podcast, you'll recognize his name. He wrote one of the best biographies I've ever read. I think it's Founders number 93 It's the biography of Claude Shannon. And so once this book arrived in the mail, it reorganized my plans for my entire week. I've spent most of the last several days completely engrossed in the book. And normally when I sit down to talk to you, I'm excited. Today, I'm a little nervous. I do not think I'm going to be able to do justice to just how great this book is for entrepreneurs, for founders, for anybody trying to start a company and do something really, anybody trying to do something really difficult in their lives. So all I can do is just jump right into it and we'll see how this goes. So I'm gonna jump right into the introduction. The very first word in the book is a quote from Elon Musk. And if you've read Ashley Vance's biography of Elon, you know this is his favorite word. And it says, fuck, you're making me rummage around the attic, said Elon Musk. We sat in his living room, but the metaphor still fit. Musk was about to tell me the story of PayPal. As he spoke about the internet's development and PayPal's origins, the story spilled out. About his first internship at a Canadian bank, about building his first startup, then his second. About what it felt like to be overthrown as CEO. By the end of the afternoon, nearly three hours later, I suggested we pause. We had only scheduled an hour together and though Musk had been generous with his time, I didn't want to wear out my welcome. But even as he stood to show me out, he launched into another PayPal story.