What Is the PayPal Mafia?

Bay Curious

KQED

History, Society & Culture, Places & Travel

4.9 • 999 Ratings

🗓️ 29 May 2025

⏱️ 32 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Some of the biggest names in Silicon Valley have been popping up in political circles. Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, has been advising President Trump; billionaire Peter Thiel introduced JD Vance to the president; and many more less well known folks are poised to take on positions of power in the new administration. So who are all these people and how are they connected? Bay Curious listener Anna Mistele has heard they're all part of something called the PayPal Mafia. She wants to know what that is and the extent of their influence in Silicon Valley and beyond. Additional Resources: Read the transcript for this episode Check out part 2 of the Close All Tabs Broligarchy series Sign up for our newsletter Enter our Sierra Nevada Brewing Company monthly trivia contest Got a question you want answered? Ask! Your support makes KQED podcasts possible. You can show your love by going to https://kqed.org/donate/podcasts This story was reported by Morgan Sung and edited by Chris Egusa. Bay Curious is made by Katrina Schwartz, Gabriela Glueck and Christopher Beale. Additional support from Maya Cueva, Olivia Allen-Price, Jen Chien, Katie Sprenger, Maha Sanad, Alana Walker, Holly Kernan and everyone on Team KQED.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, it's Alexis Madrigal, co-host of KQED's flagship news talk show Forum.
0:05.7	While you can find us live on the air every weekday morning, and anytime on your podcast feed,
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0:31.1	Hi, it's Mina Kim, co-host of KQED's Forum.
0:34.5	You can tune in to KQED's flagship news talk show when it's live on the air or any time as a podcast, and now you can also find us on YouTube.
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1:02.1	From KQED.
1:04.6	Anna Mistily grew up in Florida, but moved to the Bay Area a few years ago for college.
1:09.7	In high school, my dream job was working for Google.
1:11.9	She majored in computer science at Stanford and stumbled across a book called Brotopia by
1:17.3	Emily Chang in one of her courses.
1:19.6	I'd never heard anything bad about big tech before I came to school.
1:23.4	And so it was sort of a wake-up call taking that class and also reading that book.
1:27.0	Brotopia details a deep-rooted sexism in the tech world and a toxic work-at-all-cost culture.
1:33.1	It's also where Anna first came across the term PayPal Mafia, which got her wondering.
	...

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