PayPal was first founded in 1998; it was called Confinity (among its founders was Peter Thiel); later, it merged with X.com, its major competitor, founded by Elon Musk (which would become known for other companies like Tesla and SpaceX). From this merger, PayPal was born. In 2002, PayPal was bought by eBay for $1.5 billion. eBay spun off PayPal in 2015, which would be listed as an independent entity. Today PayPal owns brands like Braintree, Venmo, Xoom, and iZettle.


The spin-off from eBay

As announced at the time:
In the distribution, eBay Inc. stockholders will receive one share of PayPal common stock for each share of eBay Inc. common stock held as of the close of business on July 8, 2015, the record date for the distribution. Subject to the satisfaction of the conditions to the distribution, the distribution of PayPal common stock is expected to occur on July 17, 2015. PayPal will not issue fractional shares of its common stock in the distribution. Immediately following the distribution, PayPal will be an independent, publicly traded company and will be listed on the NASDAQ Stock Market under the ticker “PYPL.” eBay will continue to trade on the NASDAQ Stock Market under the ticker “EBAY.”


Interestingly, over time, PayPal was born as a side feature within eBay, and after it, that was purchased by eBay, PayPal became more valuable than eBay.
In September 2022, PayPal had a market cap of over $100 billion, whereas eBay had a market cap of over $20 billion.
This is the PayPal’s board of directors in 2022:


Below, is the compensation mix as per PayPal’s financials:



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