Company profile
SEC EDGAR ↗- Industry
- Services-Business Services, NEC
- Listed
- Nasdaq: PYPL
- Headquarters
- San Jose, CA
- Fiscal year end
- Dec 31
Financials
FY2025- Revenue
- $33.2B
- Net income
- $5.23B
- Total assets
- $80.2B
| Fiscal year | Revenue | Net income | Total assets |
|---|---|---|---|
| FY2025 | $33.2B | $5.23B | $80.2B |
| FY2024 | $31.8B | $4.15B | $78.7B |
| FY2023 | $29.8B | $4.25B | $82.2B |
| FY2022 | $27.5B | $2.42B | $78.6B |
| FY2021 | $25.4B | $4.17B | $75.8B |
| FY2020 | $21.5B | $4.20B | $70.4B |
Reported fiscal years from SEC filings (10-K) — SEC EDGAR ↗. Stratrix is a strategy publication, not a real-time financial data service.
Decisions on record
4 verified Decision Records on PayPal, and the casebook each one belongs to.
| Fork date | Decision type | The story | Casebook |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2002 | Distribution Rebellion | Read the story → | Distribution Rebellion Casebook → |
| 2015 | The Flywheel | Read the story → | The Flywheel Casebook → |
| 2015 | The Counterfactual | Read the story → | The Counterfactual Casebook → |
| 2022 | The Fall | Read the story → | The Fall Casebook → |
Run one of these yourself
The decisions PayPal faced, as kits you can run.
Each pack takes one of these decisions and gives you the framework, a deck for the room, a model that resolves to one number, and the sourced cases behind it. $499, one-time.
Decision ForksThe Road Not TakenWhat did the decision you did not take actually cost?See the pack →Growth & PortfolioThe Distribution RebellionHow much of the channel's margin do you actually keep?See the pack →Growth & PortfolioThe FlywheelWhat does your loop actually return, and how much of it is left?See the pack →
The analyses
The Counterfactual · Decision Forks
PayPal Was Set Free From eBay. Two Years Later, eBay Walked.
The split is told as a liberation. But eBay still supplied 26% of PayPal's net revenue the year they parted - and 2.5 years later, eBay replaced PayPal with Adyen. Freedom cost PayPal its biggest customer.
7 min
The Distribution Rebellion · Boundaries of the Firm
PayPal Paid $20 a Signup to Grow Inside eBay — Until eBay Paid $1.5 Billion to Own It
PayPal built its payment button inside eBay without permission, then paid $20 per new signup and $20 per referral to grow too fast to stop. By 2002 eBay surrendered, paying $1.5 billion in stock to own the layer it couldn't shake off.
7 min
The Flywheel · Moat & Competition
For Five Years After the Split, eBay Still Routed 80% of Its Sales Through PayPal
The story goes that the 2015 spinoff liberated PayPal's flywheel. But eBay agreed to keep routing ~80% of its sales through PayPal for five years, with penalties for breaking ranks. The 'clean break' was a leash.
8 min
The Fall · Crisis & Reinvention
PayPal's Stock Fell 86% While Revenue Climbed to $31.8B — the Growth Story Died First
PayPal's stock fell ~86% from its July 2021 peak while net revenue rose every year to $31.8B. The crash wasn't an operating collapse - it was the death of a growth narrative, and Venmo can't yet revive it.
7 min