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Reading is tech: He quickly left to start a string of his own businesses, in sectors from coal to mobile phones.

• goodJobWalrus 11y ago
  Yeah, but that doesn't explain that much. What kind of coal / mobile phone business? Where did he get financing? If the business is buying a truckful of coal / handful of phones and going around the village selling retail, he could have gotten finances by himself. But many people do that, and never manage to become billionaires. Or he had access to some serious capital, usually not available to ordinary people. Either way, there is more to explain, how exactly do you go from the tax office to billionaire status.
  • boyaka 11y ago
    I think the fact that he started businesses in those fields is somewhat self explanatory. What's so special about paypal, other than it was there for the rise of Internet 2.0 / ebay or whatever? Getting into coal and mobile phones before the past decade when both of these have exploded in growth is the same kind of thing.
    • Jtsummers 11y ago
      Coal, at least, sounds like something that requires a great deal of upfront capital to establish. A business like Paypal, less so. The hard part for that is tying into payment systems, but that doesn't require a lot of upfront money, more a network effect. So the question remains, where did this initial capital come from?