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Branded Checkout's 1% Stall

Marcus says the decisive mistake was optimizing for total payment volume rather than leverage.

When eBay volumes later rolled off, the cracks widened, and the company's crown jewel — branded checkout — slowed to a trickle.

From Product-Led To Finance-Led

After the eBay spinoff, momentum persisted under Bill Ready, but leadership shifted from product builders to financial engineers. Marcus argues this cultural turn — prioritizing near-term predictability over platform risk — explains why PayPal treated BNPL as a feature, never a consumer relationship, and why lending never became programmable, identity-driven, or a reason to choose PayPal over anyone else.

Rails, PYUSD, And The Missed Platform

Acquisitions like Honey and Xoom added activity, not strategic leverage, sitting outside the checkout moment that mattered most.

Investor takeaway: With Alex Chriss now out and a hardware veteran tapped as CEO, the question isn't leadership — it's incentives. Unless the board rewrites them, PayPal risks being a great business that never became the network it was meant to be.