PayPal's former president slams the company, says it's lost its 'mojo' and 'ability to compete'

Core Insights - David Marcus, former president of PayPal, expressed concerns that the company has "lost its mojo" and highlighted several flaws in its operations [1][7] - PayPal's recent earnings call revealed profit and sales misses, leading to the announcement of a new CEO, Enrique Lores, replacing Alex Chriss [1][8] Company Performance - PayPal reported fourth-quarter revenue of $8.68 billion, reflecting a 4% increase year-over-year [8] - The company's stock has dropped approximately 20% since the earnings report and CEO announcement, and it has decreased over 50% in the past year [8] Leadership and Strategy - Marcus criticized PayPal's leadership decisions, particularly the appointment of CEO Alex Chriss, who has a software background rather than a payments background, leading to a loss of knowledgeable leadership [6][7] - The new CEO, Enrique Lores, is also viewed skeptically by Marcus, who noted that he is primarily a hardware executive, raising concerns about his fit for a payments company [7] Competitive Positioning - Marcus compared PayPal unfavorably to competitors such as Apple Pay, Visa, Klarna, Affirm, and Afterpay, indicating that PayPal has lagged in adopting buy-now-pay-later features [6] - He pointed out that PayPal has overly relied on unbranded checkouts and has lost transaction volume on eBay [6]