The Facebook Keiretsu is the newest in a strong tradition of techies still working together once they hit it rich. Going way back, Intel was founded by refugees from Fairchild Semiconductor, who earlier left Shockley Semiconductor. Former employees of Microsoft have backed startups in everything from office productivity to biotech. After Paypal was acquired by eBay for $1.5 billion in 2002, former employees stayed in touch as what became known as “The Paypal Mafia,” investing in each other’s projects and credited for starting the Web 2.0 boom with companies like LinkedIn, YouTube, and Yelp. Paypal founder Peter Theil was also the first big investor in Facebook.
Google may have today’s most active group of alums. About 100 ex-Googlers (“Xooglers”) meet once a quarter in San Francisco to talk about companies and investing. The rules are that you must have been a full-time employee, and today are either a full-time investor or a full-time entrepreneur with a company. They swap deal ideas, and have panels on topics like investing in the New York City area, or the outlook for social gaming. “It’s probably ten times bigger than PayPal, but we don’t talk about it a lot,” says one of the group’s members. “Bigger than Microsoft.” In the past two years, all of Silicon Valley’s big venture capital firms have hired former Google stars, usually product managers who have a good eye on current deals.
To read the full, original article click on this link: Names You Need To Know In 2011: The Facebook Keiretsu - Oliver Chiang - SelectStart - Forbes
Author: Oliver Chiang
