The Manhattan Associates Mafia

Most likely you have used Paypal at some point to send money to a friend, make a payment online, or pay for an Ebay auction. PayPal operates in 202 markets and has 254 million active, registered accounts worldwide. In addition, you have probably heard of the "PayPal Mafia" which is the name given to the former PayPal alumni who have since founded and developed additional technology companies such as Tesla Motors, LinkedIn, Palantir Technologies, SpaceX, YouTube, Yelp, and Yammer, to name a few. Most of these elite members attended Stanford University or University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign at some point in their studies. Six members, Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, Reid Hoffman, Luke Nosek, Ken Howery, and Keith Rabois, have since become billionaires.

What is it about companies like Paypal that attract employees that have this entrepreneurial spirit and drive? Is there something about the way the company culture operates that helps these entrepreneurs further develop and hone their craft and skills? Or, is it the combination of a specific study program (Computer Science or Engineering Programs) from the likes of Stanford and Illinois (or perhaps Georgia Tech, hint foreshadowing here :) with the proper company culture that challenges the employees and allows these entrepreneur types to flourish.

I have no concrete answers here, but I do believe Atlanta’s version of Paypal is Manhattan Associates. Manhattan, although very far from Silicon Valley, has spawned so many small to medium size successful companies, I could not fit there founders all on one graphic. In addition, I did not include all of the incredible leaders and executives that now hold leadership positions at other companies including: Andrew McGrath (KeHE), Jeff Cashman (Ally Commerce), Pervinder Johar (Blume Global), Andrew Kirkwood (Blujay Solutions), and Richard Haddrill (Bally), just to name a few. As you can see the list goes on and on.

The average company in this short study has been in existence for 6.6 years after the person left Manhattan. Considering more than half of businesses fail within the first 5 years and only 30% make it past year 7, that is not to shabby. Interesting more still, is I would have thought most employees would have had a very short stint at Manhattan before starting their own company. However, the data did not reflect that at all. It turns out that the average tenure for our founders at Manhattan was over 7 years! Similarly, "The Paypal Mafia" stayed about the same amount of time, although they did not mesh well with the Ebay executives and left within 4 years after acquisition.

Similar to Paypal, a large percentage of these Manhattan Associates alumni studied an engineering and/or computer science discipline at the same school. In this case, it was Georgia Tech instead of Stanford or Illinois. In addition, both Paypal and Manhattan had environments that inspired a solid balance between challenging tasks and required skills which allowed employees to maximize their potential against their goals. Due to an extremely competitive marketplace, and shared struggle, the Paypal employees were able to challenge each other and foster an environment of common purpose and accountability. From the late 90's through early 2000's, I believe Manhattan was able to achieve the same.

What do you believe some of the unique elements were at Manhattan and Paypal that spawned so many successful startups? Was it a mix of a growing technology startup culture in Atlanta (Silicon Valley 40-50 years ago), innovative technology/service culture, collegiate study program combined with interview process focused on grit/problem solving? I would love to hear what you think.

Lastly, many of the bonds formed in "The Paypal Mafia" have continued on to this day and they continue to help each other post Paypal. Therefore, it is with great hope that "The Manhattan Associates Mafia" continue to form those tight bonds and help each other on a similar journey. Any Manhattan Mafia founder (I know I missed a lot), Georgia Tech alumni founder, or Atlanta based CEO/founder, let's plan on grabbing lunch in 2019. I know many of you but would like to get to know many more! I wish all of you the best success for your companies and your careers!

Finally, a special call out to Alan Dabbiere, who arguably would be considered the Peter Thiel or "Don" of the MA Mafia. Thank you.

Tim Judge is President & CEO of Agillitics, a supply chain planning, optimization, and analytics firm based in Atlanta, GA. Tim frequently writes on the topics of leadership, management, and trends in supply chain and analytics.