Sacks

"He soon discovered that product management was as much about avoiding distractions as producing breakthroughs. “As I took over product in the company,” Sacks remembered, “I kind of became, like, ‘Dr. No.’ Because I’d always have to say no to everyone’s stupid ideas... it was really important that we not squander our precious engineering bandwidth on ideas that didn’t make sense for the long-term strategy of the company.”"

"Sacks relented. But his resistance spoke to what would become a perennial balancing act at PayPal between the website’s security, its usability, and its coffers. “Peter called it ‘the dials,’ ” Sacks remembered. “It’s easy to stop fraud if you’re willing to kill usability. What’s hard is maintaining a sufficient level of usability without letting fraud get out of control. So Max controlled the fraud dial. I controlled the usability dial. And we’d come together to agree on a compromise.”"

"The big changes to team structure paired with smaller, atmospheric changes. For instance, the team opted to call the product role—whose work involved a mix of strategy, analytics, and operations—“ producers” instead of the more traditional “product managers.” “The word manager had acquired this negative connotation,” explained Sacks. “To call them ‘product managers’ would imply that their job was just to ‘manage things’ as opposed to ‘make things happen.’"

"“X-Finance” product portfolio, including its savings and brokerage accounts. To compel users to move money onto the platform, the company set a 5 percent interest rate on its savings accounts, among the highest in the nation. “We gave back one hundred percent [of our profits on savings accounts],” Sacks noted. “We weren’t trying to make money.... We were trying to incentivize people to keep money in their accounts.”"

"eBay now stood a real chance of reclaiming payments and each change it made sent executives—particularly Thiel and Sacks—into paroxysms of anger. “David and Peter would get totally hysterical and say things like They can’t do this! and How dare they?” an executive observed. “And we’re like, ‘It’s their platform. They can do whatever they damn well want.’"

"That criteria led to a culling of possible expansion targets—as when Sacks rejected one employee’s proposition that Pizza Hut or Amazon were ripe for the taking. For Sacks, offline retailers were “a revolutionary (rather than evolutionary) step from where [PayPal was] today, and it’s also not clear that PayPal adds much over existing options.” He also considered expansion to Amazon and similar sites a nonstarter: The team understood all too well the frustration and friction of burrowing into eBay’s payment process. Established sites, he wrote, “are loathe to outsource their checkout line to PayPal.”"

"In sharing eBay’s “declaration of war,” Sacks observed that these encroachments arrived at a precarious time. “Unfortunately because of the forced upgrade scheduled to begin on Monday,” he explained, “we are at our most vulnerable point. It is critical that we respond swiftly and creatively in the next week to give ourselves the maximum chance of success (survival?) over the next month.” Worryingly, this would be the first time in the Billpoint-PayPal saga in which Billpoint had undercut PayPal on price. “... this will be a critical test,” Sacks wrote in his email to the group, which he dubbed “the Ebay [sic] Response Team.” He included the company’s top performers across a range of functions: its entire executive team, the producers of auction products, its head of PR, the stewards of its Visa/ Mastercard relationships, its general counsel, data experts, and others he felt could help."

"“Immigrating is an entrepreneurial act,” Sacks explained. “You take an affirmative step to leave your country, and you frequently leave everything behind. That’s the ultimate entrepreneurial act. So it’s not surprising that when people get to the US, they continue to try to do entrepreneurial things, to mold their own environment.”"

"The bottom line: PayPal would choose its conquests selectively. “World domination,” Sacks concluded, “will not be achieved by indiscriminately parachuting into hostile lands.”"

"He soon discovered that product management was as much about avoiding distractions as producing breakthroughs. “As I took over product in the company,” Sacks remembered, “I kind of became, like, ‘Dr. No.’ Because I’d always have to say no to everyone’s stupid ideas… it was really important that we not squander our precious engineering bandwidth on ideas that didn’t make sense for the long-term strategy of the company.”"

"That criteria led to a culling of possible expansion targets—as when Sacks rejected one employee’s proposition that Pizza Hut or Amazon were ripe for the taking. For Sacks, offline retailers were “a revolutionary (rather than evolutionary) step from where [PayPal was] today, and it’s also not clear that PayPal adds much over existing options.” He also considered expansion to Amazon and similar sites a nonstarter: The team understood all too well the frustration and friction of burrowing into eBay’s payment process. Established sites, he wrote, “are loathe to outsource their checkout line to PayPal.”"

"The big changes to team structure paired with smaller, atmospheric changes. For instance, the team opted to call the product role—whose work involved a mix of strategy, analytics, and operations—“producers” instead of the more traditional “product managers.” “The word manager had acquired this negative connotation,” explained Sacks. “To call them ‘product managers’ would imply that their job was just to ‘manage things’ as opposed to ‘make things happen.’ ”"

"“X-Finance” product portfolio, including its savings and brokerage accounts. To compel users to move money onto the platform, the company set a 5 percent interest rate on its savings accounts, among the highest in the nation. “We gave back one hundred percent [of our profits on savings accounts],” Sacks noted. “We weren’t trying to make money.… We were trying to incentivize people to keep money in their accounts.”"

"In sharing eBay’s “declaration of war,” Sacks observed that these encroachments arrived at a precarious time. “Unfortunately because of the forced upgrade scheduled to begin on Monday,” he explained, “we are at our most vulnerable point. It is critical that we respond swiftly and creatively in the next week to give ourselves the maximum chance of success (survival?) over the next month.” Worryingly, this would be the first time in the Billpoint-PayPal saga in which Billpoint had undercut PayPal on price. “… this will be a critical test,” Sacks wrote in his email to the group, which he dubbed “the Ebay [sic] Response Team.” He included the company’s top performers across a range of functions: its entire executive team, the producers of auction products, its head of PR, the stewards of its Visa/Mastercard relationships, its general counsel, data experts, and others he felt could help."

"eBay now stood a real chance of reclaiming payments and each change it made sent executives—particularly Thiel and Sacks—into paroxysms of anger. “David and Peter would get totally hysterical and say things like They can’t do this! and How dare they?” an executive observed. “And we’re like, ‘It’s their platform. They can do whatever they damn well want.’ ”"

"The bottom line: PayPal would choose its conquests selectively. “World domination,” Sacks concluded, “will not be achieved by indiscriminately parachuting into hostile lands.”"

"“Immigrating is an entrepreneurial act,” Sacks explained. “You take an affirmative step to leave your country, and you frequently leave everything behind. That’s the ultimate entrepreneurial act. So it’s not surprising that when people get to the US, they continue…"

"Sacks observed that PayPal’s culture of tension was also a culture of truth. “It was ‘truth-seeking’… there was a lot of friction. We all respected each other and that’s why it worked. There was a lot of yelling, and we just cared about getting to the right answer,” he said."