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PayPal- Max Levchin

How I Built This with Guy Raz

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  • Family History
    • Max Levchin’s grandparents, both physicists, survived WWII due to their defense work, sending them to Siberia.
    • His grandmother, a renowned astrophysicist, orchestrated the family’s emigration from Ukraine while battling cancer. Transcript: Guy Raz Max Levchin was born in the mid-1970s in Ukraine when it was still under Soviet rule. As a Jewish family, the older generation of the Levchin clan faced a lot of hardship. Max Levchin Both my grandmother and grandfather come from fairly large Jewish families. My grandfather came from a family that was largely incarcerated by the Soviet state during the 1930s persecution of Jews and other intellectuals. All throughout the sort of first half of 20th century, my grandfather’s family found its various members in the gulags. And so by the time I met my grandfather, he had already lost most of his brothers and sisters. And the reason he and my grandmother survived, they were both physicists, they were both involved in some defense related work for the state. So as the Germans approached Kiev, they were both sent very far off into Siberia to help the war effort from far away from the front lines. Guy Raz And from what I understand, when you were growing up, your mom was also a physicist, right? Yeah. Max Levchin She was employed at the Food Sciences Research Institute, which sounds very boring, but she had a really cool job. She was measuring foods for radioactive contamination. And before Chernobyl, that was the very boring job. And then after Chernobyl, it became a very exciting job. Not in a good way. Guy Raz So your mom worked for the state and was a scientist and your dad was a… Max Levchin He was a writer, although he too had a chemistry degree, as a matter of fact, but his calling was fine arts. Guy Raz And did you speak Russian at home or did you speak a Ukrainian dialect? Max Levchin We spoke Russian and my grandparents who lived with us spoke Yiddish to have an encrypted channel from the young ones. Guy Raz Was your family at all religious? Did you have (Time 0:06:41)
  • Early Programming
    • Levchin learned programming early on, helping his mom with a state-mandated coding project.
    • He quickly surpassed her skills, using translated computer science books to advance. Transcript: Guy Raz Any Jewish identity or did they sort of stay away from it because you could be persecuted in the Soviet Union if you practiced religion or Judaism, right? Max Levchin I definitely identified as Jewish, but had zero understanding of the religious identity or really the historic identity. So I knew nothing of Jewish holidays, but amusingly enough, one of the things that happened, so first of all, I guess I was in the tracked program most of my life. So I would get into this math and science special track. And inevitably, because at least Soviet Jews were so obsessed with education, I would get to this new class and it would be like half Jewish. And one time a teacher made a joke and it was very much an anti-Semitic slur. And all of us kind of were a little stunned because normally it came from other kids, didn’t come from teachers, but it also just happened all around us. So it wasn’t like that huge of a deal. And then after class, some kind of a spontaneous movement began where we’re like, you know what, we shouldn’t put up with this. Like, this isn’t okay. And so we somehow talked ourselves into submitting a formal complaint to the school about antisemitism. At the time, it seems just completely misguided because maybe we’d still get kicked out of school. But I think both the school and the teacher were so shocked by all these preteen, early teen Jewish kids getting worked up about being called, you know, the equivalent of a, you know, Unprintable word in class, that they ultimately censured the teacher. And we’re like, yeah, you can’t really teach this class anymore. Which, in retrospect, I think my parents were like, what are you doing? You’re gonna get kicked out. Like, this is gonna jeopardize your chance of getting into a good university. And in retrospect, like he ate me. That was cool. (Time 0:08:50)
  • Immigrating to the US
    • Levchin’s family emigrated to the US after the collapse of the Soviet Union, landing in Chicago in 1991.
    • His parents initially worked odd jobs – his father painted signs, and his mother babysat. Transcript: Guy Raz Okay. So I’ve read that as a kid in Ukraine, you were, you were already getting into computers, right? Like you were already learning about, about programming, right? Max Levchin Yeah. It looks like a whole collection of really lucky coincidences. So as my mom joined this food science research institute, the state gave her an order to learn how to program. And she wrote me into it and basically said, look, you know, I’m not really sure I understand how this stuff works. Help me out. Into programming. And within a few months, I was a better programmer than my mom and then better programmer than her colleagues. And I was just gorging myself on all the knowledge that I could get from bootleg translations of various computer science books. And so by the time I got to the US, I was completely hooked on the idea of writing software. And I knew that I wanted to be a software engineer. I knew I wanted to go somewhere, sort of beg, borrow, and steal, get my way to a keyboard and a monitor. Guy Raz Soviet Union collapses in 1991 officially, and Ukraine would become an independent state. And today we’re seeing the long tail of that story. Your parents decide to emigrate to the United States. (Time 0:10:40)
  • College Path
    • Levchin aimed for MIT, but a miscommunication with his counselor led him to the University of Illinois.
    • There, he was inspired by the burgeoning tech scene and the success of companies like Netscape. Transcript: Max Levchin So academically, it was not. I definitely had my fair share of you’re not from around here type conversations. But I was fortunate in the sense that I went to a very normal inner city public high school in Chicago. It was something like 30% black, 30% Asian, 30% everything else, 10% people you didn’t know exist there. Just some sort of a very, very, very integrated mix of anyone and everyone. And so this was not a, oh, wow, you’re not from around here. It was more of a, oh, you’re one more of these people who speaks with a funny accent and does math really well and plays clarinet. Okay, you know, we have three of you over there in the corner. Yeah. I fit every stereotype. Guy Raz So I read a story that you knew about MIT, and that was your dream, to go to MIT. And you talked to your school counselor about it, but you were steered in a different direction, not to MIT. Max Levchin Yes, this is one of these, you laugh, you cry, you end up in a different university stories. So I don’t remember actually whether this was the way it was formally translated or the way I translated it. But in my from English to Russian back to English translation of MIT, it became MTI. So you talked to your counselor and said you wanted to go to MTI? Guy Raz Yes. I was very insistent. I really wanted to go to MTI. And she said, well, I just don’t think I know the school. Who’s heard of MTI? The Montana Technical Institute. Max Levchin I think my counselor may not have heard of that one either. But she basically said, like, you’ve never taken an ACT, you’ve taken an SAT. You’re as fresh of the boat as they come, just like, you know, get your bearings and then you’ll, you know, you’ll, you’ll, you’ll get to the right university. And so I was quite discouraged. But fortunately, I met this great guy named Eric, who is still one of my very closest friends. And I said, all right, I’m, I really want to go do computer stuff. Where do I go? And he said, you know, the brightest kids from this school get into University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. And that’s where I’m going to try to get into. You know, if you want, I’ll show you how to get the paperwork. And that’s how I ended up at U of I. (Time 0:14:37)
  • Early Startup Attempts
    • Inspired by Netscape’s success, Levchin co-founded several web-focused startups during college.
    • These ventures, including a web advertising company and an online classifieds platform, ultimately failed. Transcript: Guy Raz You, by the way, do you remember getting on that browser for the first time? And it’s just, cause I remember it just seemed like something totally like, what is this? Max Levchin Pennsylvania Avenue Residences Hall Computer Lab downstairs to the left, second computer from first row. That’s where I was when I saw my first copy of Mosaic. And I actually remember thinking, well, this isn’t that big of a deal, except the embedded images are crazy cool. Like this is just like all these other text sort of hyperlink navigating things that I’ve seen before. But the images right alongside the text is just like a complete different experience. It’s like reading a book. And that was pretty amazing. Guy Raz While you were in college, you already started to connect with other students to start businesses, right? Max Levchin So I think a lot of the immediate reaction to two things, the launch of Mosaic and kind of the like, oh my God, this is different and important and everything will change now. Plus, wow, Mark and five other people just upped and left campus and went to Palo Alto, California, which seemed like, you know, going to the Mars to start a company. And that construct was so cool and so inexplicably desirable. I ran into these people who were kind of hanging around the same computer science circles and they’re like, hey, we’re going to go start a company. You should join us because you’re one of these guys who doesn’t sleep, doesn’t need to write code. And I was like, that sounds great. I don’t really know what we’re going to do. And again, we don’t know it either, but we’re just going to go start a company. It doesn’t matter what it’s going to do. And what we kept on trying to do is answer the question, okay, so the world today looks like this. Now add web. So advertising exists on TV. It exists when you drive highway 57 from Chicago to Champaign. What happens to advertising when everyone has a web browser? We should build a company around that. Guy Raz And I know you started a number of companies around this period, which didn’t quite work. But what were some of the ideas that you came up with? Max Levchin So the first one was, in fact, a web advertising, I think may have been the very first web advertising company, failed miserably for lack of funding and lack of understanding of how advertising Industry really worked. Next one was an attempt to reimagine classifieds. So I looked at a back of a newspaper, I was like, oh, classifieds in a newspaper. How about classifieds plus the web? That was actually kind of vaguely successful. Guy Raz It’s a great idea. Max Levchin I thought so. Guy Raz And successful in which way? Like, like people paying money for it? Max Levchin Yeah. My friend and I started that and he would literally call small regional newspapers, like an Upper Peninsula, Michigan newspaper with circulation of 200 and would say, do you guys have A website? And they’d say, yeah, we just got on the web ourselves. We have a website. It’s like, great. You need a classifieds package because right now you make money by selling classifieds space in the back of the newspaper. Surely you will want to sell some classified space on your website. And so we would actually charge them SaaS fees, like $1,200 a year, I think. Guy Raz But none of these companies that you started really went anywhere though, right? Like you didn’t walk out of college with a big chunk of cash in your wallet. Max Levchin No, I walked out with student loans. Right. Got it. Okay. But (Time 0:19:06)
  • Silicon Valley Move
    • Levchin moved to Silicon Valley, crashing at his friend’s apartment and brainstorming product ideas.
    • He aimed to improve his product design skills after previous ventures failed due to poor usability. Transcript: Guy Raz We come back in just a moment, how Max moves out to Silicon Valley, meets an up and coming small time investor named Peter Thiel and starts a brand new business that initially goes absolutely Nowhere. Stay with us. I’m Guy Raz and you’re listening to How I Built This. I’ve stayed in Airbnbs that are mind-blowing, including a beautiful old stone barn in Italy surrounded by olive trees and vineyards where our whole family could gather and cook and Just spend time together. Maybe there’s a big tournament in your city and lots of fans will be visiting. You could actually Airbnb your spare room and make some extra money while people are in town. Maybe you’re planning a ski getaway this winter. While you’re away, you could Airbnb your entire home and make some extra money toward the trip. Whether you could use a little extra money to cover some bills or for something a little more fun, your home or spare room might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at Airbnb.com/host. We’ve all got our own professional goals, maybe to impress an investor or show off your next big creative idea. Well, Canva can help achieve your goals with the power of visual communication. We spend a lot of our lives at work, so it’s time to find ways to enjoy it. Canva lets you jazz up your documents with images and charts from their massive media library or add animations to make your presentations pop. And I just love how easy it is to make designs. Big company and a team of two or 2,000, Canva empowers workplaces everywhere to design compelling content, save time, and be more productive together. Love your work at canva.com. And now a message from our sponsor, Vital Proteins. As we age, sometimes we can start to produce less collagen, which is the most abundant protein in our bodies. That can lead to fine lines, saggy skin, and your bones and joints not moving like they used to. That’s where Vital Proteins comes in. Their collagen peptides are a supplement that helps support healthy hair, skin, nails, bones, and joints. Vital Proteins is the number one brand of collagen peptides in the U.S. They’re the experts. In fact, as I get older, I know it’s so much more important to take care of my body, and I’ve been using Vital Proteins collagen peptides because I want to look, feel, and move my best. Try Vital Proteins. Get 20% off by going to www.vitalproteins and entering promo code BUILT at checkout. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Hey, welcome back to How I Built This. I’m Guy Raz. So it’s 1997, and Max Levchin has just graduated from the University of Illinois with a bachelor’s degree in computer science. He’s already walked away from a few businesses that he couldn’t raise money for. And now his former co-founders are telling him to go west. Max Levchin My co-founders, number one and two, and left for Palo Alto because they knew you had to go there because that’s where the action was. We failed to raise money. Silicon Valley was chock full of venture capitalists that were interested in giving money to people like us. They said, you know what? This college thing is overrated. We can drop out and go. Because these two guys, Scott and Luke, moved to Palo Alto, I knew we all kept in touch. And I had gotten nonstop stream of, oh, my God, it’s Mecca for startups here. And you’re rotting away in Champaign-Urbana. Get out here as soon as you can. Guy Raz This is Luke Nosek and Scott Bannister, right? Yep. They’d come back into your life, well, in 1998, because you move out there to kind of hang out with them. Yep, exactly. Max Levchin 469 Grant Avenue, Apartment Q. I was crashing on Scott’s floor and Luke was in Apartment P across the hallway. Guy Raz And when you got there, what did you do? Max Levchin I sort of, because I was hanging out with Scott, I promptly became his brainstorming partner. I knew programming and I thought myself a pretty great software engineer, but I knew that most of my failures as a startup CEO, CTO, whatever I thought I was, were because I would build Things that I thought were good and easy to use. And then I would show them to someone like the classified software and people were like, this is really great, but I have no idea how to make it work. It’s so complicated. So I decided that my next sort of a development phase in life would go hang out with people who are really good at product design. And Scott happens to be just a genius product designer type thinker. And so I sort of attached myself to him and would just roam around wherever he would go and say, all right, I have a product idea. And he would tell me, all right, you know, tell me your product idea. And I’d tell him and he’d rip it apart and show me why it’s a stupid idea and all the things that are wrong with it. And it was my crash course education in product design. (Time 0:23:35)
  • Meeting Peter Thiel
    • Levchin met Peter Thiel at a Stanford lecture on currency trading, finding him brilliant.
    • He offered Thiel his cryptography software idea, ‘Secure Pilot’, and Thiel immediately offered to invest. Transcript: Guy Raz So you were kind of trying to come up with different ideas. And I guess in August of 98, a fateful and certainly fortunate encounter, we went to a lecture at Stanford by Peter Thiel. We know who Peter Thiel is today. He was at the time presumably just a kid. I think he went to Stanford and law school and worked in finance and left finance. And at that point, he had raised some money to start a hedge fund. I don’t think it was a huge hedge fund. I think it was relatively small. I think it was $10 million. It was very small. Yeah, compared to what it would be today. Why did you go to that lecture? What was the lecture? And you were not a student at Stanford, but I think it took place on the campus. Max Levchin It’s a funny story. So Scott’s apartment had no air conditioning, as many apartments in Palo Alto do not. But it had a heater, which would turn on based on some magic incantations and rules that I couldn’t understand. But that it was mostly on somehow. And 98 summer was unbelievably hot. And so as much as I could, I would go find an air conditioned room to just like not be drenched in my own sweat. And Stanford has all these wonderful classes during the summer and they don’t really check IDs. You just kind of roam, at least back in the 1998 timeframe. Yeah. At the time I would just kind of wander into a room, any room and sleep in the back. If the lecture was big enough, nobody cared. I was sort of half conscious of this guy named Peter Thiel because Luke told me that this young hedge funder, Peter Thiel, he thought was really brilliant because among other things, He was this super crazy libertarian, quote unquote. And so as I was roaming Stanford looking for a lecture to crash and sleep, I saw Peter’s name. I was like, oh, all right, well, if the lecture is boring, I can sleep. And if the lecture is interesting, I could listen and see who this Peter Thiel person is. What did he talk about? He talked about currency trading, which was fascinating because I’d never even knew that whole genre of business existed. And more than anything, I just thought he was really bright. He was obviously a very, very smart person. Did you, I mean, from everything I’ve read about you, you were a little bit awkward. Guy Raz Maybe you still are today a little bit, which is okay. I suspect that hasn’t changed. No shame there. But you did have the sum and the courage to go talk to him. By the way, was it a packed lecture hall? Was it like hundreds of people? Max Levchin No, actually, the reason I didn’t sleep was because it was literally six people in a tiny little room. It was about as big as a broom closet. I was like, my first reaction, I remember very vividly going like, oh my God, I can’t walk out. I can’t even sleep because the lecturer, this Peter guy will see me and probably mock me or something. So I just got to sit there and listen. Had another person who came up to him afterwards. And you could tell from the look on his face that he was not enjoying the conversation. He just looked absolutely miserable while he was being sort of interrogated slash talked at by some random person. And so I sort of decided that my move would be to free him from the grasp of this person who was interrogating him. So I sort of came up and said, hi, Peter, I’m Max. I’m Luke’s friend. And I think he probably didn’t necessarily know which Luke I’m talking about. But he was like, oh, Max, yes, great, great. I’m so sorry. I have to talk to this person. And so he just kind of abandoned the guy who was torturing him and started talking to me. Guy Raz And what did you talk to him about? Do you remember? Did you say, I liked your lecture? Max Levchin I became my awkward self and basically said, well, I’m, I’m Max. I just moved here from Champaign. And so it was like a weird kind of a zero content conversation. And then he asked me what I’m up to. And I said, I’m definitely going to start a company again. And he said, oh, that’s cool. We should definitely talk about that. Let’s meet for breakfast. He said, okay. And he said, how about tomorrow? Which is very indicative of how Peter Thiel generally does things that Peter Thiel does. (Time 0:28:53)
  • Fundraising Challenges
    • Thiel offered Levchin $300,000 for Secure Pilot but subsequent fundraising efforts proved difficult.
    • Levchin’s initial pitches were unsuccessful, leading Thiel to join him, improving their fundraising success. Transcript: Guy Raz I’m going to give you $100,000? Like how much money was he willing to give you? Max Levchin He asked me how much money I thought I needed to get this off the ground. And I said, I think I need about a half a million dollars. I said, great. I’ll invest 300,000. Guy Raz Okay. Exactly. So it’s pretty great. And a fortuitous meeting for Peter Thiel as well because he had a $10 million fund at that point. I mean, not bad, but it’s not great. Not necessarily guaranteed to make money. What was it about – I don’t know Peter Thiel. I’ve only read a lot about him and obviously his reputation precedes him. And some of that may be caricature and some might not. But even as a student at Stanford, he was a bit of a lightning rod. Why did you trust him? Because it could have gone really badly. You had no experience dealing with venture capital investments. You didn’t probably know how to structure the terms or your equity. What was it about him that connected with you? Max Levchin I think the sort of the pragmatic answer, I had absolutely nothing to lose. There was nothing to take from me. And so in terms of risk reward, it was sort of like the worst that can possibly happen is I’ll go from nothing to nothing. So there’s just very little downside. The thing about Peter that I think most people who don’t know him just can’t fully relate to, he has this amazing ability to see what you are great at. And he gets so excited on your behalf to be your best self, as the kids will call it these days, that you can’t just not get infected. You become this ball of energy because this guy, Peter Thiel, you barely met, is just so excited about how talented you are in this one area and you will change the world. And he wants to be a part of it. He wants to be an investor in it. He wants to be a partner and your friend. And he’s clearly genuine in it. And kind of like, I didn’t even know I am that good. And this guy is telling me he can see it and he’s doing it with his entire body. He’s that excited. And I was still knee deep in my various imposter complexes at the time. I was this immigrant kid. I wasn’t quite sure if I dropped my accent fully and was supposed to be a PhD in computer science, but I just got a bachelor’s and ran away. And, and he was just so genuinely excited to build this thing and to help me build it. And, and, uh, I think that it’s the, his is that he enables you to be your very best self. Wow. (Time 0:36:30)
  • Thiel as CEO
    • Levchin convinced Thiel to become Confinity’s CEO, recognizing Thiel’s strategic vision.
    • Levchin preferred focusing on coding and building the product rather than leading the company. Transcript: Max Levchin The grid office. You want to be on university Avenue because that signals that you’re important. You’re, you’re in the mix. So we got that, uh, 394 university, uh, suite two, and we had a bunch of Ikea furniture that we self-assembled and we started typing. Guy Raz And at some point, I think pretty soon after, Peter Thiel, he became the CEO of this company that you started. Did you ask him to be the CEO or did he sort of say, you know, I should probably be the face of this thing because I’m a little bit better at presenting? Max Levchin It was very much my effort. I remember talking to him towards the end of night eight. I think I was paying off a parking ticket. He made me get a car because he was tired of driving me around. So I had to buy a car and Luke had to be my co-signer because I had no credit. And so I promptly got my first parking ticket and I I had to go to the courthouse in Palo Alto, I think, or City Hall or something like that to pay off my ticket. I was standing on the steps of City Hall, basically telling him about yet another failed attempt at fundraising and the fact that I really should just be writing code. And he was telling me like, no, no, no, you really should be recruiting your friends from college. Like this will not work out if it’s just you writing code all the time. You must know some smart engineers, go get some. As we talked, I was sort of like, you clearly know what we should be doing as a company. And I just want to build this thing. Like maybe you should be the CEO. And I sort of said it out loud. And he was like, oh, no, it’s a terrible idea. Like, I don’t want to do this. I have this fund that’s doing really well. And I sort of like, no, no, no, that’s exactly what you need to start wanting to do. And so I went into this mode of must persuade Peter Thiel to be the CEO of this company. So (Time 0:44:28)
  • Why Digital Cash Failed
    • Previous digital money transfer attempts failed due to poor user experience.
    • Money transactions need to be easier and faster than existing methods (cash and cards) to gain adoption. Transcript: Guy Raz Okay. But at that time, there were other products out there. There was something called DigiCash, I think, right? Oh, yeah. So there were companies that were focused on ways to transact send money back and forth in an encrypted way. So didn’t they already solve the problem that you were trying to solve? Max Levchin I think they thought they did. But actually, funny enough, one of my more memorable Silicon Valley inaugural moments, I went to the DigiCash shutdown party. They started this company. It was really well fundedfunded. It was supposed to be the digital currency and it just completely died and it didn’t succeed in the market. So I actually went to the party where they wound it down. It was on Stanford campus. It was kind of outdoors around this picnic table. And they asked me like, who are you and what are you doing here? And I was like, oh yeah, this idea of like moving money through ether with digital signatures sounds so cool. And they’re like, oh, it’s a terrible idea. We just failed at a company doing this. But the reason all the prior experiments failed is really easy to summarize. They were just entirely user-friendly. They were awfully difficult to use as a consumer. And if it’s not easy, it’s just not going to work with money. Money works pretty well when it’s in paper form, and it works really well when it’s a card form. So if you’re trying to push it into an application or into a mobile device, it better be easier and quicker than the existing systems. (Time 0:51:53)
  • eBay Adoption
    • PayPal’s initial growth was driven by eBay users who needed a way to accept credit card payments online.
    • This organic adoption within the eBay community proved crucial for early traction. Transcript: Guy Raz Hey, welcome back to How I Built This. I’m Guy Raz. So it’s 1999, and Max and his partners have built a new peer-to payment system, soon to be called PayPal. And almost right away, the service starts to attract one very important user group, people who use eBay. Max Levchin Back in 99, there really isn’t a way to take a credit card payment online if you were trying to sell things. For a business, there were a couple of companies that kind of provided that service. But if you were a normal person just trying to sell something on eBay, it was not a thing. You could not sign up for a business account and process credit cards. And PayPal was this peer-to system that had a web-only interface, which we made as a demo. And you could just tell someone, hey, type in your credit card number and I will charge your card as many dollars as we agreed. And it was like, had an effect of a minor explosion in the eBay community. Guy Raz And I think we should be clear here, which is you, you’d mostly created this thing to be used on Palm Pilots, right? I mean, but where the explosion was happening was on the web, right? So I mean, so the web version that you’d originally launched almost as an afterthought. I mean, I think that ended up being like adopted by like 100 users in January of 2000. Yeah, that’s right. And I think by March of that year, something like a million people were using PayPal. So how did it grow so quickly? I mean, this is not a time where there’s social media marketing, right? Were you advertising or was it just people discovering it? (Time 0:58:22)
  • PayPal and X.com Rivalry
    • PayPal and X.com, direct competitors, were located in the same building and constantly copied each other’s features.
    • X.com’s CEO, Bill Harris, recognizing the irrationality of their competition, pushed for a merger. Transcript: Guy Raz Quarter. Wow. All right. So as you start to see more and more people adopt this thing, and I don’t quite understand this part of the story and what was going on. But there was another, I guess, competing company that was founded around the same time called X.com by Elon Musk. We all know who he is. And he was trying to do, I guess, a similar kind of thing. And I know this because Jeremy Stoppelman, who went on to found Yelp, and we’ll get to that later. Jeremy’s been on the show in the past. He was working with Elon. And to him, PayPal, you guys were like the enemy. It was a battle to the death. But the two companies merged in March of 2000. How did that marriage happen? What do you remember about that? Max Levchin It’s definitely a long and winding story. So the very short version is not only is x.com extremely concurrent to PayPal, it’s also literally in the same exact building. We were 394 University, suite two, they were suite one, which we did not know about. And we realized that our number one competitor was literally our next door neighbor. And it had this super charismatic guy, Elon Musk, running it. He had already sold Zip2. And so he was both successful and wealthy. And he had succeeded in pitching Sequoia Capital. And they came at payments a little bit after we did. But they had some really good ideas that we didn’t have. So very quickly, we start just looking at each other and going, oh, that’s a good idea. We’ll copy that and vice versa. And we were in the market just beating each other up as hard as we could, primarily by way of offering more aggressive incentives to eBay sellers and buyers to join. That’s when the intensity really goes up in late April, early May 2000. And as this happens, Elon hires this guy, Bill Harris to run X. And he was one of these guys who could sort of see one plus one equals three. Obviously, these companies need to merge instead of beating the crap out of each other in the market. And so he was kind of the primary (Time 1:03:10)