People

Early Life Childhood Bobby Murphy was born on July 19, 1988, in Berkeley, California. His mother was born and raised in the Philippines and emigrated to the United States. His father is of Irish, Scottish, and English descent. While his mother emigrated, Bobby was born and raised as an American. He spent his childhood in […]

Inventors are a lot like songwriters if you think about it: You have your one-hit wonders, and then you have your global superstars. The ones who score a single chart-topper, and the ones who completely redefine the sound of a generation and continue to be prominent for generations to come. When looking at it through […]

Who was Katherine Johnson? Katherine Johnson was an American mathematician known for her work in orbital mechanics at NASA. Her work was essential for the success of several NASA missions. She spent over thirty years working on the space program, and she was intimately involved with every important mission during that time. She was there […]

Who is Mike Krieger? Mike Krieger is a Brazilian-American entrepreneur and software engineer. He was born in São Paulo, Brazil, and attended college at Stanford University. Mike began his career as a Program Intern Manager at Microsoft, working on the PowerPoint team, later serving as a User Experience Designer & Engineer at Meebo, Inc. Mike […]

Kevin Systrom is an American computer programmer and entrepreneur. He was born in Holliston, Massachusetts, and attended college at Stanford University. Kevin first interned at Odeo and then went on to work at Google for a couple of years. The extremely well-known and popular photo-sharing application Instagram is what Kevin is most known for. It […]

Who Is Adi Shamir? Adi Shamir is an Israeli computer scientist and cryptographer known around the world for his groundbreaking contributions to modern cryptography theory and its practical implementation. His most important contribution to the field of cryptology was the co-creation of the RSA public-key cryptography algorithm that uses a public key for encoding messages […]

Who is Thomas Knoll? Thomas Knoll is an American software engineer who was born and raised in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Together with his brother, John Knoll, he created image processing subroutines that became software known as Display, ImagePro, and finally Photoshop. Thomas uses his early life experience of photography and the expertise of his father, […]

Who is Jimmy Wales? Jimmy Wales is an American-British internet entrepreneur who is a Wikipedia co-founder. He has a chair position on the boards of several foundations and organizations. He was also a founder of Bomis and Nupedia. He graduated from school at a young age and has dedicated his time and effort to the […]

Who is Larry Sanger? Lawrence Mark “Larry” Sanger is an American philosopher and internet project developer. He is most well known for being a co-founder of Wikipedia along with Jimmy Wales, but he is also responsible for several other internet projects and worked as an American college professor. Early Life Sanger was born in Bellevue, […]

Who was Charles Ranlett Flint? Charles Ranlett Flint was an American businessman and industrialist active in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In the early 1900s, he was labeled the “Father of Trusts” by the New York Times. Flint saw corporate expansion through combination and corporate trusts as the evolutionary future of American industry. […]

Who is Ron Rivest? Ron Rivest is a professor at MIT and a well-known cryptographer, computer scientist, writer, lecturer, and mathematician. He is a member of MIT’s Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) and a member of MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL). He was part of the team that developed […]

Who Was Jon Postel? Jon Postel was a computer scientist who had a major impact on the development of the Internet. He was involved in many of the early innovations that led to the massive development of the Internet, including numerous influential boards and technologies. He is also the creator of Postel’s Law, an influential […]

Who is Russel Simmons? Russel Simmons is a businessperson and entrepreneur. He has been involved in some of the biggest internet companies of the past twenty years, including serving as an engineer with PayPal during the company’s early days. He would eventually go on to found additional companies, including Yelp and Learnirvana. Yelp, in particular, […]

Who is Premal Shah? Premal Shah is an Indian-American businessman. An experienced tech entrepreneur and non-profit leader, Shah first cut his teeth at PayPal and eBay, where he started his career. He then transitioned to the non-profit sector, where he founded Kiva, one of the most successful micro-lending institutions in the world. Shah is also […]

Who is Yishan Wong? Yishan Wong is an entrepreneur, engineer, and manager known primarily as a member of the PayPal Mafia and for quitting his job as CEO of Reddit in 2014. Wong founded Terraformation, a company dedicated to reforesting man-made deserts, in 2017 and is currently its CEO. Early Life Not much is known […]

Who is Jack Selby? Jack Selby is a member of the affectionately named “PayPal Mafia” who has since become a film producer and venture capitalist. As one of the original members of the PayPal crew, Selby gained fortune overnight after selling PayPal to eBay in 2002. Selby paired with Peter Thiel to co-found Clarium Capital […]

Who is Jeremy Stoppelman? Jeremy Stoppelman is an American computer engineer and member of the PayPal Mafia. While employed at PayPal, he acted as the Vice President of Engineering. Stoppelman went on to create Yelp, Inc, which he still operates to this day. His work with Yelp has caused him to enter a battle with […]

Who is Keith Rabois? Keith Rabois is an American businessman and entrepreneur. A member of the so-called PayPal mafia, Rabois worked at PayPal before moving onto a series of other businesses. This has included Square, LinkedIn, and more. Like many other members of the PayPal Mafia, Rabois’s career is extensively tied to PayPal co-founder Peter […]

Who is Dave McClure? Dave McClure is an entrepreneur and angel investor known for being a member of the PayPal mafia and for starting several investment firms. McClure also drew attention in 2010 as a participant in AngelGate, a scandal involving a number of angel investors who were accused of attempting to collude in price […]

Who is David O. Sacks? David O. Sacks is a businessman and venture capitalist who has been involved in some of the more successful American businesses in the past decade. He first rose to prominence when he joined PayPal in 1999. During this time, he formed a relationship with the company’s co-founder, Peter Thiel, and […]

Who is Jared Kopf? Jared Kopf is an American businessman, investor, and entrepreneur. Kopf is part of the so-called PayPal Mafia, the group of men who first worked at PayPal and used the business experience to positively influence much of their career. Despite the fact that his time at PayPal was relatively brief, Kopf turned […]

Who Is Ken Howery? Ken Howery is an American businessman. He has been involved in some of the country’s most successful business stories, including serving as a co-founding member of PayPal. During this time, Howery became a member of the PayPal mafia, the name given to the group of men who started successful business careers […]

Who is Luke Nosek? Luke Nosek is a Polish-American entrepeneur and venture capitalist, known primarily for being one of the co-founders of PayPal. After graduating from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Nosek worked briefly for Netscape before starting PayPal with Peter Thiel and Max Levchin. Nosek was PayPal’s vice president of marketing and strategy […]

Who is Jawed Karim? Cliched though it may now be to say so, an idea truly can change the world. Even a social media behemoth like YouTube, internationally recognized and used regularly by billions of people all across the world to post video content about almost every conceivable subject, was at one time just an […]