Peter Thiel Admits "The PayPal Mafia" Built Bombs In High School
Here's a big shocker: PayPal, the early online payment processing service that made a batch of Silicon Valley legends, was founded by a team of psychopaths. Peter Thiel, a PayPal co-founder and early Facebook backer, reveals in his new book that four of the six members of "The PayPal Mafia" built bombs for kicks in high school.
Normally manufacturing explosives would land you in prison, or at least get you sent to the principal's office. But for the tony playboys of Silicon Valley, it's just a quirky quality that comes stock with all tech founders.
"There's something very extreme about the people who tend to found businesses," Thiel explained to TechCrunch's Alexia Tsotsis, brushing off any notion that this behavior is weird. "It's a crazy thing in some ways to start a company."
Of course, Thiel was quick to deny that he ever fabricated explosives—he's not the crazy one. And he wouldn't name which of his four fellow founders in arms were. But we can always guess.
[There was a video here]
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