He's not a particularly eloquent speaker.Last week saw the completion of Elon Musk’s much anticipated $44 billion deal to acquire Twitter. To me, for better or worse, he's a marketer. It was a cool party, and I was curious to meet Elon and see the man behind the myth. One side of a deck said "K3g" and another said "parking lot." That would then lead guests to the parking lot to do a keg stand - a drinking game where people do a handstand on a keg of beer and drink it - because on the date of the IPO, some people did keg stands. In the early days of PayPal, the company introduced CAPTCHA to crack down on automation bots. Max couldn't do it, so I split the deck for him to help.Īnother puzzle involved lining a deck of cards up in a particular order to reveal words written as CAPTCHA codes, which formed clues. One of the games involved having to do the "Faro shuffle," a method for shuffling cards in a way where they are interwoven one by one. They have created puzzles for PayPal in the past because Max Levchin is a big fan of puzzles. But at the anniversary party, nobody ended up playing.Ī puzzle company called Shinteki designed a range of puzzles with PayPal's history in mind for guests to play. Maybe it was a reference to the fact that on the day of the PayPal IPO in 2002, Peter Thiel reportedly played chess with team members, but only lost to his cofounder Reid Hoffman, who went on to be a cofounder of LinkedIn. In the outdoor area of the party, there were ten chess boards lined up. Ten chessboards were laid out on a table. I tried to handle that delicately, as some people don't handle being fooled well. He kept guessing, but couldn't work it out. I challenged him to figure another trick out. I later sold the signed playing card in an auction for $4,950.Įlon agreed to take a photo with me as I made it a part of another trick. Elon freaked out and was speechless - he didn't understand how the trick worked. I used a card trick where the card he chose, which he also signed, appeared in different places. It was almost like there was an invisible barrier around him and people felt they shouldn't bother him because he's a celebrity. I performed for Elon for around 12 minutes, and at the time, no one came toward him. Most of the PayPal founders, known as the "PayPal Mafia," were there, including Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, David Sacks, and Max Levchin.Įarly employees, staff who worked on the IPO, and investors who were instrumental in making the company successful all came along. Staff gave partygoers T-shirts embellished with the logos of Confinity or X.com, the two companies that merged to form PayPal, as gifts.Įlon Musk signed a playing card used in the magic trick. There was even a decoration resembling the first-ever PayPal terminal that let people beam money to each other. The party was lavishly decorated with items like an ice sculpture of the PayPal logo, which later had lobsters served below it. When guests arrived at the venue, a red carpet immediately greeted them and staff handed each of them a deck of playing cards.Ī large stage and slideshows displaying photos from PayPal's early days decorated the outdoor area. The invitation said it would be a "tricked-out PayPal reunion party" and I was very excited in the build-up. I jumped at the chance - I would have done it for free. Two decades later, I had the opportunity of a lifetime to perform magic tricks for my old company at PayPal's 20th IPO anniversary party in August. I'm glad I got laid off, because I got to pursue my passion for performing magic. I ended up getting laid off after 13 months when the dot-com bubble burst. I worked at PayPal back in 19 as a financial operator. The following has been edited for length and clarity. This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Daniel Chan, a magician who has been hired to perform for companies including Google, Apple, and Airbnb. Account icon An icon in the shape of a person's head and shoulders.
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