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That’s not true. It was mostly over their servers. Elon Musk’s startup was running Windows while Peter Thiel and Max Levchin’s was running Linux. Musk wanted to
by AlchemistCamp 3y ago
That’s not true. It was mostly over their servers. Elon Musk’s startup was running Windows while Peter Thiel and Max Levchin’s was running Linux. Musk wanted to migrate everything to Windows due to the more mature (at the time) APIs and Levchin was adamant on staying with Linux. He was also busy trying to fight fraud, which was becoming an existential threat to the company, and had no time for migrating to a different platform.
Ultimately, Levchin gathered several other key people in the company, and went to the investors threatening to quit (and destroy the company) unless they brought back Thiel as CEO. The board sided with Levchin, Theil returned and Musk was out of day-to-day operations.
If you’re interested in the PayPal story, I highly recommend Jimmy Soni’s book, The Founders.
https://www.amazon.com/Founders-Paypal-Entrepreneurs-Shaped-Silicon/dp/1501197266 https://www.amazon.com/Founders-Paypal-Entrepreneurs-Shaped-...
- rsynnott 3y ago“More mature (at the time) APIs” I mean, while nothing about the web was particularly mature at the time, the idea that Windows was more mature than Linux for it is… peculiar, from the point of view of someone who was messing around with web programming at the time. Note how much difficulty Microsoft had migrating Hotmail to Windows.
- AlchemistCamp 3y agoWere you working in anything banking-related? AFIK, Microsoft was dominant in that sector.