Thiel and Levchin Found Confinity, Precursor to PayPal

Peter Thiel and Max Levchin co-founded Confinity in December 1998 with Luke Nosek, initially building security software for handheld devices before pivoting to digital payments. The company launched its PayPal product in late 1999 and merged with Elon Musk's X.com in March 2000. The founding team would later be called the PayPal Mafia and seed Silicon Valley's most influential investor and founder network.