Agent Palmer

I’ve never met Tom Adelman, but I feel as though we just had a wonderful conversation. Black and Blue: The Golden Arm, the Robinson Boys, and the 1966 World Series That Stunned America was the conversation we shared.

This book is fantastic, and that’s coming from an Orioles fan who has also enjoyed Dodger baseball for the past decade plus. Through telecasts I’ve absorbed the history of both clubs, but this book does something else.

They’re back with a new season or series (depending on who you ask) on Amazon Prime. Along with their long-overdue revival comes The Kids in the Hall: Comedy Punks, a two-part documentary about their decades-long journey from origins to success, failure, and everything else in between.

I have yet to watch the new material, and I will, but a few months ago, I started rewatching the old stuff.

I haven’t done a Geek Space post in a while, and while the “Two Bakshi Walls” post is in this house and this office, to be specific, the last time I wrote about a shelf, it was back in my previous living space.

So I decided that I would focus on the shelf that is literally behind me when I sit at my desk to write, podcast, edit, work, all of the things. This shelf is pretty cool, though I’m in front of it and it isn’t seen much. This post will change all of that.

How did the PayPal service that we take for granted today come to pass? How close did it come to going under more than once? Just how precarious was its position in the fintech field?

These questions are answered in The Founders: The Story of PayPal and The Entrepreneurs who Shaped Silicon Valley by Jimmy Soni. This book is more than just a story about the supposed PayPal Mafia; it’s the story of Silicon Valley success.