Peter Andreas Thiel is a German-American entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and conservative political activist. He co-founded PayPal in 1998, Palantir Technologies in 2003, and Founders Fund in 2005. He was the first outside investor in Facebook, purchasing a 10.2% stake for $500,000 in 2004. Born in Frankfurt, Germany on October 11, 1967.

Max Levchin is a Ukrainian-born American software engineer and serial entrepreneur best known as the co-founder and former Chief Technology Officer of PayPal and the founder and CEO of Affirm. Born in Kyiv, Ukraine, Levchin immigrated to the United States with his family in 1991, settling in Chicago. He earned a bachelor's degree in computer science from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 1997. In 1998, Levchin co-founded Confinity alongside Peter Thiel, developing the payment product PayPal and pioneering anti-fraud security mechanisms, including early commercial implementations of CAPTCHA technology. After PayPal's acquisition by eBay in 2002 for $1.5 billion, Levchin founded Slide, a personal media-sharing service acquired by Google in 2010. He also served as the founding Chairman of Yelp from 2005 to 2015 and sat on the board of directors of Yahoo! and The Coca-Cola Company. In 2012, Levchin created Affirm out of his San Francisco innovation lab HVF (Hard, Valuable, Fun), building a leading buy-now-pay-later fintech network that completed its initial public offering in 2021. Levchin is an active angel investor with investments in over 100 technology startups.

Luke Nosek is a Polish-American entrepreneur and venture capitalist, best known as a co-founder of PayPal and Founders Fund. Born in Tarnobrzeg, Poland, Nosek immigrated to the United States and earned a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. During his time at university, he met future PayPal co-founder Max Levchin. In 1998, Nosek co-founded Confinity, which later merged with X.com to become PayPal, alongside Peter Thiel, Max Levchin, Ken Howery, and Yu Pan. At PayPal, he served as the Vice President of Marketing and Strategy, helping steer the company through its early growth and subsequent acquisition by eBay for $1.5 billion in 2002. As a prominent member of the 'PayPal Mafia,' Nosek continued to shape the technology landscape. In 2005, Nosek reunited with Thiel and Howery to co-found Founders Fund, a prominent San Francisco-based venture capital firm. At Founders Fund, he led early-stage investments in groundbreaking companies, famously making the firm the first institutional investor in Elon Musk's SpaceX, where Nosek also joined the board of directors. He also led or participated in investments in Airbnb, Facebook, and Palantir. In 2017, Nosek left Founders Fund to co-found Gigafund with Stephen Oskoui. Gigafund was established to make large, long-term investments in exceptionally ambitious companies, with a primary focus on continuing to fund SpaceX's multi-planetary mission. Nosek is widely recognized for his visionary investment strategy, focusing on deep technology and transformative human endeavors.