Jimmy Soni is the author of The Founders: The Story of Paypal and the Entrepreneurs Who Shaped Silicon Valley.Watch on YouTube. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any other podcast platform.Episode website here.Follow Jimmy on Twitter. Follow me on Twitter for updates on future episodes! Timestamps:(0:00:00) - Bell Labs vs PayPal(0:05:12) - Scenius in Ancient Rome and America's Founding(0:07:02) - Girard at PayPal(0:15:17) - Thiel almost shorts the Dot com bubble(0:19:49) - Does Zero to One contradict PayPal's story?(0:27:57) - Hilarious Russian hacker story(0:29:06) - Why is Thiel so good at spotting talent?(0:34:50) - Did PayPal make talent or discover it?(0:40:40) - Japanese mafia invests in PayPal?!(0:44:42) - Upcoming TV show on PayPal(0:48:11) - Musk in ancient Rome(0:52:12) - Why didn't Musk keep pursuing finance?(0:56:32) - Why didn't the mafia get back together?(1:00:06) - Jimmy's writing process Get full access to Dwarkesh Podcast at www.dwarkesh.com/subscribe
No persons identified in this episode.
This episode hasn't been transcribed yet
Help us prioritize this episode for transcription by upvoting it.
Popular episodes get transcribed faster
Other episodes from Dwarkesh Podcast
Transcribed and ready to explore now
Ilya Sutskever ā We're moving from the age of scaling to the age of research
25 Nov 2025
Dwarkesh Podcast
Satya Nadella ā How Microsoft is preparing for AGI
12 Nov 2025
Dwarkesh Podcast
Sarah Paine ā How Russia sabotaged China's rise
31 Oct 2025
Dwarkesh Podcast
Andrej Karpathy ā AGI is still a decade away
17 Oct 2025
Dwarkesh Podcast
Nick Lane ā Life as we know it is chemically inevitable
10 Oct 2025
Dwarkesh Podcast
Some thoughts on the Sutton interview
04 Oct 2025
Dwarkesh Podcast