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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Science
Alex Bellos

Can you solve it? Interview questions for aspiring billionaires

Peter Thiel and a barely recognisable Elon Musk when they were CEO and founder of PayPal, at the Paypal corporate headquarters in Palo Alto in 2000.
Peter Thiel and a barely recognisable Elon Musk when they were CEO and founder of PayPal, at the Paypal corporate headquarters in Palo Alto in 2000. Photograph: Paul Sakuma/ASSOCIATED PRESS

The book The Founders by Jimmy Soni tells the story of the Paypal Mafia – the tech bros who founded and ran the online payments company.

The most famous of this troupe - Elon Musk, Peter Thiel and David Sacks – are now as well known for their Trumpist politics as their entrepreneurial ingenuity. Back in the day, however, what really got their blood pumping was mathematical puzzles.

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