A gripping account of PayPal’s origins and a vivid portrait of the geeks and contrarians who made its meteoric rise possible. His richly reported narrative includes corporate intrigue, workplace hijinks, breakthrough innovation and first-class nerdiness ... Conflict and turmoil permeate The Founders ... Mr. Soni...keeps the story moving at a brisk pace and captures the quirks and whims of the people involved ... Anyone looking for yet more tales about Mr. Musk won’t be disappointed ... Captivating.
The development of online “wallets” might seem particularly bloodless...and yet The Founders is an intensely magnetic chronicle in which ambitions and emotions run as red-hot as they did in the Facebook movie written by Aaron Sorkin, The Social Network. It helps that PayPal’s origin story...features two of the more complicated antiheroes of our time: Peter Thiel...and Elon Musk ... Soni...is balanced and fluid in this solo outing, making mundane projects like the creation of an online 'button,' or the dawn of CAPTCHA, somehow literary ... Soni does intermittently fall under the sway of business jargon ... But Soni also has a knack for the wry or lovely phrase ... Lest you believe the problems of a few future billionaires doesn’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world, Soni appends a coda about the power of PayPal’s 'mafia' to inspire that left this reader, at least, in sobs. No finance bro has accomplished that.
Well-researched ... The story of [PayPal's] rise is gripping ... Mr Soni’s text is peppered with colourful quotations from Mr Thiel...and Mr Musk ... All this gives a taste of the chaos of startup life ... What the book lacks is a clinching answer as to why the PayPal gang have been so successful. Lots of theories are offered ... None of these explanations is convincing; most apply to other tech startups ... Even so, this is an engrossing glimpse of the PayPal mafia’s riotous early days.
Elon Musk can be a vulnerable person. That’s one of the surprising insights from a new book about the founding of PayPal ... It’s a dramatic business story about the payments company’s rise. But it’s also a human tale about Musk, Peter Thiel, and Max Levchin ... Soni captures the heady days of the dot-com bubble in 1999 ... The Founders also gives due recognition to Levchin, who is often overshadowed by his more controversial colleagues ... The author had impressive access to the key players, including Musk, Thiel and Levchin, along with those who were closest to them in those early years. It would’ve been enlightening to hear more from them about how they applied their PayPal experiences. Still, the book is rich enough that readers can infer the lessons the founders learned in a more innocent time.
This deep dive into PayPal’s history will intrigue readers from the beginning ... Readers will be surprised by how much personalities, company culture, and people shape revolutionary innovation. The book will appeal to all audiences, especially young adults and others who are sparked by technological advances. Those with entrepreneurial spirits will want to add this to their reading list.
Soni excels at weaving together the nitty-gritty details of PayPal’s early days, as told by the people who were directly involved. He allows readers to feel like they are caught up in the action ... More than a history of PayPal. Soni’s book is a must-read for anyone who wants an insider’s perspective on the demands of tech startups or who wants to better understand how Silicon Valley’s culture became what it is today.
[A] punchy origin story full of wheeling, dealing, and political machinations ... Soni tells the story with novelistic verve as he tracks Paypal’s growing pains ... Fans of Margaret O’Mara’s The Code are in for a treat.
Combining historical detail with biographical perspective, Soni sifts through PayPal alumni to reveal the company’s origins and the risks it took to surpass both its predecessors and contemporary competition. He seamlessly chronicles the early years of driven entrepreneurs like Peter Thiel, Max Levchin, Reid Hoffman, and Elon Musk ... The author entertainingly elaborates on all the high drama, as interviews with former employees paint a vivid portrait of the early working environment at PayPal: cutthroat, chaotic, and mercilessly backbiting. Soni puts a positive, conclusive spin on the machinations of this select group of enterprising internet innovators ... Soni effectively captures both sides ... A captivating examination of a significant consortium of tech pioneers.
