Joining the Mafia 102
company. He didn’t want to be the CEO himself because
he wanted to develop software and recruit programmers.
Thiel suggested he could be the CEO and Levchin could be
the CTO.186,260
The original idea behind Confinity was to develop
security software for the Palm Pilot, which was a popular
brand of smaller hand-held computers. Imagine an iPhone
with a black-and-white screen you can’t make a call from.
To interact with the screen, the user needed the same type
of stylus Steve Jobs made fun of when he presented the
first iPhone. “Who wants a stylus?” Jobs asked. “You have
to get them, put them away, you lose them. Yech! Nobody
wants a stylus. So let’s not use a stylus.” But it turned
out that Confinity’s idea couldn’t become profitable. “It’s
really cool, it’s mathematically complex, it’s very secure,
but no one really needed it,” Levchin said. So they decided
to change business idea.^186
Changing the business idea is common when building
a new company. It’s known as “to pivot.” You try a new
idea, you kill the idea quickly if it doesn’t work, and move
on to your next idea. The first Sony product was a rice
cooker – not a television. Nokia used to make boots and
other rubber products – not mobile phones. Toyota used to
manufacture automatic looms – not cars. “It’s Darwinian
there [in Silicon Valley] – you innovate or die.” Elon said.^50
Years before Bitcoin became a popular currency, the
Confinity team discussed an idea to create a web-based
currency that undermined government tax structures.^260
But they decided to develop a software where it would be