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@zwol tbh the opposite was more likely.

PayPal had better market share at the time in the email payment market, but Thiel knew that X had more financial runway (i.e. investor funding).

So both he and Levkin knew that X could burn cash longer than they could.

And Thiel was worried because he'd realised the dot com crash was coming and that would limit future funding options.

Hence whyt when Harris tentatively pitched the merger at him, he seized the chance.