PayPal公司崛起的传奇故事 _小知识

《经济学人》双语：PayPal公司崛起的传奇故事？原文标题：
The story of PayPal
Making the mafia
“The Founders” examines the rise and legend of PayPal
贝宝（PayPal）公司的故事
制造黑手党
《创始人》一书探讨了PayPal公司的崛起和传奇

Its top brass, recounts Jimmy Soni, became one of tech’s most influential networks
吉米·索尼称，该公司的高层人员已成为科技界最具影响力的社交圈人物一员

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IT IS HARDLY a tech giant. PayPal, a digital-payments firm, has a market capitalisation of $135bn, compared with Amazon’s $1.6trn and Apple’s $2.8trn.
相比于亚马逊1.6万亿美元市值和苹果的2.8万亿美元市值，数字支付PayPal公司的市值才1350亿美元，它算不上一个科技巨头。

Yet it holds a unique position in Silicon Valley mythology.
然而，它在硅谷传奇中却占有独特的地位。

A startling number of PayPal’s co-founders and honchos have gone on to corporate greatness, earning themselves the nickname the “PayPal mafia”.
PayPal的联合创始人和老板中，有相当多的人已经拥有了宏大的企业，为自己赢得了“PayPal 黑手党”的绰号。

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The top job at the firm was held by both Elon Musk, boss of Tesla and one of the world’s richest men, and Peter Thiel, a veteran venture capitalist and co-founder of Palantir Technologies, a data-analytics firm.
该公司的最高职位由埃隆·马斯克(特斯拉的老板、世界上最富有的人之一)和彼得·蒂尔(资深风险投资家、数据分析公司帕兰提尔科技公司的联合创始人)担任。

Reid Hoffman, co-founder of Linked In, held various senior roles.
领英的联合创始人雷德?霍夫曼担任过各种高级职位。

Three PayPal alumni later created YouTube; others co-founded Yelp, a popular review website, and Yammer, a social network.
三名曾经的PayPal员工在后来创立了油管；还有人联合创办了广受好评的Yelp（一个点评网站）和Yammer（一个社交网站）。

Former employees landed senior jobs at Google, Apple and Facebook, as well as at some of the valley’s biggest venture-capital firms.
有的前员工来到谷歌，苹果和脸书就职，还有员工在硅谷最大的一些风险投资公司担任高级职位。

Together they form “one of the most powerful and successful networks ever created”, argues Jimmy Soni in “The Founders”.
吉米?索尼在《创始人》一书中指出，他们共同组成了“有史以来最强大、最成功的社交网络之一” 。

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His well-researched book chronicles PayPal’s birth and transformation from a scrappy startup to a profitable business which, in 2002, was bought by eBay for $1.5bn.
他的书内容详实，记录了PayPal的诞生，以及它从一家混乱的初创企业转型为一家盈利企业的过程。2002年，PayPal被易贝公司以15亿美元收购。

The origin story starts with two other companies: Confinity, co-founded by Mr Thiel, which planned to build software to beam money between PalmPilots, then must-have devices for businessfolk;
故事的起源始于另外两家公司：由蒂尔共同创立的Confinity公司，计划开发一款软件，用于在当时的商务人士必备设PalmPilots之间转移资金；

and X.com, co-founded by Mr Musk, which was meant, as he put it, to be “the Amazon of financial services”, offering internet users everything from mortgages to credit cards to insurance.
及由马斯克共同创立的X.com公司，用他的话说，是“金融服务业里的亚马逊公司”，该公司为网络用户提供从抵押贷款、信用卡到保险的一条龙服务。

Both found success with features that let customers transfer money using email.
这两家公司都通过让客户使用电子邮件转账的功能获得了成功。

Initially rivals, the firms merged. PayPal was the result.
最初两家相互竞争的公司合并成了PayPal公司。

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The story of its rise is gripping. PayPal was born during the internet boom of the late 1990s, when money poured into Silicon Valley.
这家公司崛起的故事振奋人心。PayPal诞生于互联网爆发的20世纪90年代末期，那时候大量资金涌入硅谷。

The fierce competition fomented by the investment in turn generated intense pressure; all-nighters were common.