The co-founder and CTO of PayPal along with Peter Thiel. Musk joined later. Not sure how you're in the industry without knowing who this guy is. He wrote all of PayPal's fraud algorithms and built the entire platform.
Edit: Thiel
Edit: Thiel
Please edit dismissive personal swipes out of your comments here.
Also, not everyone here is "in the industry".
Not sure whether intentional or not
Jokes aside, seems his popularity on HN did drop with his endorsement of Trump.
Max is one of a handful of people who had successful startups of varying long-term influence ten years ago. Knowing his name is hardly a prerequisite for working in this industry, unless this guy happens to work at Paypal, in which case yeah it'd be weird not to know.
Myself, I use Paypal maybe a couple of times a year.
Honestly I'm kinda envious of folks who have been able to stay out of the startup celebrity culture and the glorification of founders at the expense of the thousands of employees and innovators who create value.
I'd venture to guess that employees at any of the PayPal Mafia[1] companies are reasonably likely to recognize the names of most PPM folks.
I caution against such assumptions that every one on HN is privy to SV mythology.
And that's pretty difficult for a giant lumberjack!