The whispers kept getting louder: PayPal Holdings Inc.’s chief executive officer might leave.
It was late last year, and shareholders were counting on Dan Schulman to pull the stock out of a slide that’s now erased $279 billion in market value since its high point in 2021. But after he flew to Italy for his four-day wedding celebration on the banks of Lake Como, Silicon Valley and Wall Street began buzzing with the notion that PayPal’s longtime leader was ready for a change.
At the end of October, Chairman John Donahoe felt compelled to bat back the speculation: “The board has never discussed replacing Dan,” he said in a statement to Bloomberg News. A few months later, Schulman himself announced his plans to leave.
So goes the humbling of PayPal—once worth more than Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Citigroup Inc. combined. After strategy missteps that risk squandering its leading position in the lucrative online payments business, the company is starting from scratch on a CEO search. And it faces a pivotal question: What kind of boss should take over—a cost-cutter or another manager with an ambitious vision for growth?
Schulman himself was a replacement for a group of legendary founders and early executives— the so-called PayPal mafia that included billionaires-to-be Elon Musk and Peter Thiel, as well as tech luminaries Reid Hoffman and David Sacks. He made his own mark building the company to a peak market value of $362 billion as he floated the possibility of more than doubling clients to 1 billion. In 2021 he signaled a slew of products challenging US banks. But PayPal’s share price melted amid a slowdown in growth, a bungled attempt to buy Pinterest Inc. and the abandonment of some key targets.
This story is from the {{IssueName}} edition of {{MagazineName}}.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the {{IssueName}} edition of {{MagazineName}}.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
Instagram's Founders Say It's Time for a New Social App
The rise of AI and the fall of Twitter could create opportunities for upstarts
Running in Circles
A subscription running shoe program aims to fight footwear waste
What I Learned Working at a Hawaiien Mega-Resort
Nine wild secrets from the staff at Turtle Bay, who have to manage everyone from haughty honeymooners to go-go-dancing golfers.
How Noma Will Blossom In Kyoto
The best restaurant in the world just began its second pop-up in Japan. Here's what's cooking
The Last-Mover Problem
A startup called Sennder is trying to bring an extremely tech-resistant industry into the age of apps
Tick Tock, TikTok
The US thinks the Chinese-owned social media app is a major national security risk. TikTok is running out of ways to avoid a ban
Cleaner Clothing Dye, Made From Bacteria
A UK company produces colors with less water than conventional methods and no toxic chemicals
Pumping Heat in Hamburg
The German port city plans to store hot water underground and bring it up to heat homes in the winter
Sustainability: Calamari's Climate Edge
Squid's ability to flourish in warmer waters makes it fitting for a diet for the changing environment
New Money, New Problems
In Naples, an influx of wealthy is displacing out-of-towners lower-income workers