We realized that if PayPal failed, it would create a massive loss of over $200 million in venture capital, so we decided to pitch our best ideas to each other, including an early version of LinkedIn.

After selling PayPal to eBay in October 2002, I recognized that the consumer internet was just beginning, contrary to the belief that it was over, and I decided to pursue the LinkedIn idea.

In September 2000, we gathered at my grandparents' house to brainstorm how to save PayPal after burning $12 million in one month without any revenue.

I started my first company out of my dorm room at Stanford, aiming to help students get jobs at banks and consulting firms, but it ultimately didn't work out because no one was using LinkedIn at the time.

We raised money from Peter Thiel while explaining our plan, but he didn't believe we would actually go back to school after taking time off.

When I pitched the idea of building a Bloomberg for startup investors, it sounded ridiculous, but the investors ended up investing on the spot.

I tracked Facebook when it was in Boston, but I was busy with LinkedIn and didn't pursue it until Sean Parker reached out about an investment opportunity.

After leaving Scribd, I immediately discussed new ideas with Paul Graham, and we decided to apply to Y Combinator again, even though we didn't have a product yet. I co-founded a subscription billing service called PipePay, but we didn't want to compete directly with Stripe, which was doing really well at the time.

I pitched the spin-out of Expedia as an HR experiment to retain talent, as Microsoft was so large that many talented individuals could hide away and not contribute meaningfully.