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The PayPal Wars: Battles with eBay, the Media, the Mafia, and the Rest of Planet Earth
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Product Description
When PayPal launched its online payment service and set out to overhaul global currency markets it successfully weathered the dot-com bust and a fierce competitive struggle with the auction giant eBay. But hordes of government regulators, trial lawyers, and organized crime rings soon targeted PayPal for destruction, turning its quest to make Internet history into a desperate struggle for survival.
Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #611764 in Books
- Published on: 2004-09-21
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Binding: Hardcover
- 360 pages
Editorial Reviews
From the Publisher
Congratulations to "The PayPal Wars" by Eric M. Jackson, winner of the 2005 Writers Notes Book Award for best business book, winner of the 2005 DIY Book Award for non-fiction, and runner-up in the 2004 USA Book News' Best Book Award for business.
"The PayPal Wars" is not your ordinary business book! Tom Peters -- management guru and author of the classic "In Search of Excellence" -- said this book "kept me up all night reading" and declared it "the best description of 'business strategy' unfolding in a world changing at warp speed." It's been called "an absorbing insider's story" by the Washington Times and hailed for its "engaging narrative [that] reads like a spy novel" by Reason Magazine. With its fast-paced story and an unabashedly pro-capitalist message, "The PayPal Wars" is a gripping and intelligent read from cover to cover.
This candid insider's account shows firsthand how PayPal launched its online payment service and set out to revolutionize the world's currency markets. But when the startup's plucky entrepreneurs found themselves confronting eBay (their #1 source of customers!) as well as organized crime rings, money-grubbing lawyers, and even regulation-happy NY Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, the entire venture takes a turn for the worse.
Order "The PayPal Wars" today and learn how PayPal overcame these daunting obstacles to become the world's leading online payment service and eBay's fastest-growing business division.
From the Inside Flap
When Peter Thiel, a California hedge fund manager, and Max Levchin, a Ukrainian engineer, launched an online payment Web site in 1999, they hoped their service could improve the lives of millions of people around the globe. But after their startup, PayPal, survived the dot-com crash only to find itself besieged by an unimaginable series of challenges, that dream threatened to become a nightmare.
Chronicled here for the first time, PayPal's history—as told by former insider Eric Jackson—is an engrossing story of human struggle and perseverance against overwhelming odds. PayPal went from unknown startup to online powerhouse in just two years, but for the company's employees it was not an easy journey. The entrepreneurs that Thiel and Levchin recruited to overhaul world currency markets first had to face one of the greatest series of trials ever thrown at a Silicon Valley company before becoming part of Internet lore.
Jackson's lively, blow-by-blow account of PayPal's death-defying beginnings and ferocious battles offers a detailed perspective that only an insider could provide. Read The PayPal Wars and you'll learn how:
• EBay unleashed a no-holds-barred effort to dislodge an unwelcome PayPal from its site.
• Organized crime attempted to ransack PayPal—but the company fought back.
• Turmoil pushed PayPal to the brink of insolvency before it turned its business around.
Faced with these daunting challenges, PayPal survived thanks to a unique corporate culture that empowered its talented employees to push the envelope. But an entrepreneurial environment and gifted people weren't enough to ward off every threat. "Our clashes with the credit card associations, the banking lobby, state regulators, foreign Mafioso, and litigation-happy lawyers significantly increased after our IPO," writes Jackson, adding that the public offering that was meant to strengthen PayPal with an infusion of cash ironically attracted a rogue's gallery of foes instead.
"The modern business environment," Jackson concludes, "turned out to be more hostile than even our fiercest competitor." This somber warning—that regulators, lawyers, and lobbyists threaten to undermine American entrepreneurship—makes The PayPal Wars a timely read for every businessman, investor, and concerned citizen.
About the Author
Eric M. Jackson directed PayPal's marketing operations and played an instrumental role in guiding the company to profitability. An accomplished writer, businessman, and co-winner of eBay's "Jeff Skoll Community Award," Jackson holds an economics degree from Stanford University and currently serves on the boards of several organizations. He lives in California with his wife.
Customer Reviews
The best book I have ever read.
A must read for anybody interested in business or strategy, or just a really cool story.
It was witty, entertaining and extremely smart.
Gave me an excellent perspective of starting and running a start-up.
From the frontlines of startups
Eric Jackson's Paypal Wars reads like a novel and offers an insightful look into the early days of Confinity. Brought in as an early impromptu marketing employee, he stuck with company until its final sale to eBay. As part of this process, he describes the early struggles of the company, the continuous fight against Billpoint, the enormous problem of fraud, and even some corporate politics.
PayPal is an interesting company even if just for the fact that it survived the dot com crash. But they also managed to raise hundreds of millions in venture capital, fought off eBay on their on turf, and managed to go through an IPO and several mergers. As you can tell, the storyline is exciting, and Eric Jackson does a great job of documenting it in this book. For a technology entrepreneur, this should prove to be a captivating read.
The successful rise of the company against overwhelming odds.
THE PAYPAL WARS appeared as a limited-release hardcover in 2004 and received acclaim as one of the best business books of the decade: its wider release as a trade paperback with new, expanded material included is a 'must' not just for libraries strong in business, but for those with healthy computer sections - thus it's reviewed here, so computer holdings don't miss it. It recreates the launch of an online payment service in 1999 which was the first to allow money transfers via the Internet - and it covers the successful rise of the company against overwhelming odds. Of particular note here is the first-person insights into how companies create and hone successful business strategies and compete in the face of overwhelming obstacles.
Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch
