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It’s remarkable to me that this would not only lead to competition with PayPal (founded by Musk) but also with Cash App, founded by Dorsey. The article does not

It’s remarkable to me that this would not only lead to competition with PayPal (founded by Musk) but also with Cash App, founded by Dorsey. The article does not even mention this second point, which in my opinion represents a huge lost opportunity for Square and Twitter, who could have had the same partnership when they were both doing well and run by the same CEO.

FireBeyond 3y ago
> with PayPal (founded by Musk) Sigh. PayPal was not founded by Musk. PayPal was a Confinity product, and had an MVP, and trademarks, before Musk entered the picture, was CEO for four months before the Board fired him on his honeymoon. Musk's primary "contribution" to PayPal has been collecting dividend checks.
- jacobsimon 3y ago
  Hah actually yeah didn’t realize the full history here, it’s actually tied back to x.com in a full circle way: > In March 2000, Confinity merged with x.com, an online financial services company founded in March 1999 by Elon Musk, Harris Fricker, Christopher Payne, and Ed Ho. Musk was optimistic about the future success of the money transfer business Confinity was developing. Musk and Bill Harris, then-president and CEO of X.com, disagreed about the potential future success of the money transfer business and Harris left the company in May 2000. In October of that year, Musk decided that X.com would terminate its other internet banking operations and focus on payments. That same month, Elon Musk was replaced by Peter Thiel as CEO of X.com, which was renamed PayPal in June 2001 and went public in 2002. Anyway, my comment was more about Square and Twitter and how I wish they’d formed a partnership of some sort.
est31 3y ago
It does happen that tech CEOs found companies that compete partially or completely with their prior creations. Usually at that point the founder CEO only owns a small portion of the company, and the new company might give them the opportunity to capture a larger fraction of the market. They already know it well, having participated in it a few years ago, and there might be structures in the prior company that might prevent them from pulling off their success in that one.

FireBeyond 3y ago

> with PayPal (founded by Musk) Sigh. PayPal was not founded by Musk. PayPal was a Confinity product, and had an MVP, and trademarks, before Musk entered the picture, was CEO for four months before the Board fired him on his honeymoon. Musk's primary "contribution" to PayPal has been collecting dividend checks.

jacobsimon 3y ago
Hah actually yeah didn’t realize the full history here, it’s actually tied back to x.com in a full circle way: > In March 2000, Confinity merged with x.com, an online financial services company founded in March 1999 by Elon Musk, Harris Fricker, Christopher Payne, and Ed Ho. Musk was optimistic about the future success of the money transfer business Confinity was developing. Musk and Bill Harris, then-president and CEO of X.com, disagreed about the potential future success of the money transfer business and Harris left the company in May 2000. In October of that year, Musk decided that X.com would terminate its other internet banking operations and focus on payments. That same month, Elon Musk was replaced by Peter Thiel as CEO of X.com, which was renamed PayPal in June 2001 and went public in 2002. Anyway, my comment was more about Square and Twitter and how I wish they’d formed a partnership of some sort.

est31 3y ago

It does happen that tech CEOs found companies that compete partially or completely with their prior creations. Usually at that point the founder CEO only owns a small portion of the company, and the new company might give them the opportunity to capture a larger fraction of the market. They already know it well, having participated in it a few years ago, and there might be structures in the prior company that might prevent them from pulling off their success in that one.