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Mar 28, 2024 · In the early 2000s, a group of ambitious young technologists came together to build a company that would transform money forever. At the vanguard of that effort was a soft-spoken financial whiz named Ken Howery.
Kenneth Alan Howery (/ ˈhaʊəri /; born November 4, 1975) is an American entrepreneur and diplomat. He is a co-founder of PayPal [1] and Founders Fund. [2] . He served as the U.S. Ambassador to Sweden from 2019 to 2021 under President Donald Trump. [3] Early life and education.
- First Steps
- ‘Trial by Fire’
- Silicon Valley Misfits
- Learning The Right Lessons
In late 1998, Max Levchin, Peter Thiel, and Luke Nosek founded Confinity (formerly FieldLink, Inc.). Thiel and Levchin met at Stanford University after Thiel gave a guest lecture and the two began to work together on the concept of a digital wallet. The company initially focused on mobile payments sent from PalmPilots and other PDAs, but a Confinit...
“I remember sitting in the integration meeting with eBay,” Rabois said. “So, this is as we are figuring out how to align the teams and prioritize roadmaps. And the eBay team arrived with a 137-page PowerPoint. And, they proceeded to try to walk David Sacks, and me, and a couple of my colleagues through this PowerPoint slide by slide. “As soon as th...
The Silicon Valley misfits had cracked the code. They had built, iterated, and scaled a product to a $1.5 billion acquisition, but it wasn’t enough. “There’s always a degree to which a lot of very successful entrepreneurs both think they can do great things, but also have a sense that people don’t think they can and that they have to prove it. You ...
When it comes down to it, there were too many factors that went into PayPal’s success for any one piece to be pulled out and held accountable. “The motivation question is always important,” Thiel said. “I think [with] the great companies there’s always this mission part where there’s always a sense that if you didn’t do it, no one else would. If yo...
Sep 24, 2023 · Ken’s journey began at Stanford University, where his encounters with Peter Thiel would forever change the course of his life. It was there, amidst the academic hustle, that the seeds of a ...
Feb 5, 2018 · Founders (ages at the time): Max Levchin (23), Peter Thiel (30), Ken Howery (19) and Luke Nosek (22) Founded: In September 1998 Levchin and Thiel come up with the idea for FieldLink. Levchin becomes CTO, Howry becomes CFO, Nosek is made VP of Marketing and Thiel is named CEO.
He was chosen as a keynote speaker at the Harvard Business School Entrepreneurship Conference. In 2010, Venture Capital Journal named him one of the Top 10 VCs under 35; and in March 2012, the World Economic Forum named him a Young Global Leader. He currently lives in San Francisco, CA.
Ken served as the U.S. Ambassador to Sweden from 2019 – 2021. During his tenure, Ken promoted joint U.S. and Swedish interests across a variety of policy areas.
