PayPal Dinner Networks

A story about how early internet pioneers in San Francisco created influential dinner groups that included future tech leaders.

"I was talking to one of those internet OGs and I asked him about his story. He mentioned starting a business back in the dot-com boom days. I asked what it was like doing a startup back then, and he said it was crazy - he knew every single person doing a startup.

They used to have these meetups in San Francisco once a month. It started with just him and this one guy, Nirav Tolia (who later started Nextdoor). They decided to get together anybody else interested in this tech internet thing - their fellow nerds.

The group became insane. It included the guy who created Zynga, the guy who created LinkedIn, the guy who created YouTube, the guy who created PayPal. They would just hang out. At that time, you didn't know who was special - you just knew everyone was super into the internet.

As the internet started growing in popularity, they had to manage the community carefully. It grew to multiple tables, and when it got too big for one table, they made two tables. Each had a host leading discussion. The key was that as the overall community got bigger, they made this group more exclusive. They only invited back people they thought were the most dynamic, the people who were going to do the most interesting things.

By the end, they had like 8-9 tables going. It would have been the best venture portfolio of all time - it was every internet company that's big now. Even people like Jack Dorsey were there as junior guys just hanging out."