My firstminute | David Sacks, PayPal, Yammer, Craft Ventures

What makes a great entrepreneur turn into a great investor? 

David Sacks started his career in the ‘PayPal Mafia’ as one of the company’s earliest members as COO and product lead. During his time as COO in 2001, payment volume grew from 0 to $3.5 billion per year and revenue saw equally tremendous growth from 0 to $100 million. 

After a stint as a film producer on Thank You For Smoking which was nominated for Best Picture at the 2006 Golden Globes, David founded and was CEO of Yammer, the first Enterprise Social Network. Yammer pioneered bottom-up SaaS by adapting consumer tactics for enterprise sales. In July 2012, it was acquired by Microsoft for $1.2 billion as a core part of its cloud/social strategy.

Throughout his career, he was always an avid angel investor. After leaving Yammer, he turned his investing into a new venture with the creation of Craft Ventures. The fund is an early-stage and growth fund based in San Francisco. 

This episode from 2020 follows David’s career and his journey from entrepreneur to investor. We cover the lessons he’s learned along the way and his advice to entrepreneurs and investors.