Giacomo DiGrigoli

"Within the company, Sacks earned a reputation for being tough and tough-minded, and many in the company credited him with focusing the team and sharpening the product. “For as much as people gave [David Sacks] shit for arguing, it was always good arguing. It was good trouble,” recalled Giacomo DiGrigoli. “It was never ad hominem or shitty or entitled. It was always about the idea. It was always about, Look, what are we trying to do? What does the customer need? Why are we even here?”"

"Giacomo DiGrigoli never forgot David Sacks’s stark response. “David took one look at it and was like, ‘No. It needs to be this simple. Like, a human being is trying to buy something on eBay. And they need to send that person eighty euros. You should have a drop down that says eighty and the number of the currency. And then on the permission screen, you can put all this other bullshit that needs to be here... Make it this simple, please.’"

"As eBay expanded abroad, PayPal saw an opening for itself—auction sellers abroad needed payment services, too. “If you were a collector,” noted Bora Chung, “you would not just look at the US. You would look at the UK, you would look at Germany, for collectors’ items.” The company began to see users sending money to foreign IP addresses. “David [Sacks] had sort of suspected and... was looking at the data and was like, ‘People are hacking our system, because they just need to send money to Canada, or to the UK, or in English-speaking languages. We’ve just got to figure out how to make this happen,’ ” Giacomo DiGrigoli recalled."

"Within the company, Sacks earned a reputation for being tough and tough-minded, and many in the company credited him with focusing the team and sharpening the product. “For as much as people gave [David Sacks] shit for arguing, it was always good arguing. It was good trouble,” recalled Giacomo DiGrigoli. “It was never ad hominem or shitty or entitled. It was always about the idea. It was always about, Look, what are we trying to do? What does the customer need? Why are we even here?”"

"As eBay expanded abroad, PayPal saw an opening for itself—auction sellers abroad needed payment services, too. “If you were a collector,” noted Bora Chung, “you would not just look at the US. You would look at the UK, you would look at Germany, for collectors’ items.” The company began to see users sending money to foreign IP addresses. “David [Sacks] had sort of suspected and… was looking at the data and was like, ‘People are hacking our system, because they just need to send money to Canada, or to the UK, or in English-speaking languages. We’ve just got to figure out how to make this happen,’ ” Giacomo DiGrigoli recalled."

"Giacomo DiGrigoli never forgot David Sacks’s stark response. “David took one look at it and was like, ‘No. It needs to be this simple. Like, a human being is trying to buy something on eBay. And they need to send that person eighty euros. You should have a drop down that says eighty and the number of the currency. And then on the permission screen, you can put all this other bullshit that needs to be here… Make it this simple, please.’ ”"