Name Eric Jackson Education Stanford University | Books The PayPal Wars | |
Occupation CEO/co-founder of CapLinked Known for Former VP of marketing at PayPal | ||
Eric M. Jackson is the co-founder of CapLinked, focused on linking companies and investors. He was founder and former CEO of WND Books (formerly World Ahead Publishing) and a former vice president of marketing at PayPal. He is one of the PayPal Mafia, a growing number of PayPal alumni who have started new ventures after eBay bought the online payments firm.
In 1998, Jackson received a B.A. in Economics with honors from Stanford University. He served on the board of directors of The Stanford Review. Jackson maintains the book publishing industry blog called Conservative Publisher.
As a publisher, Jackson has been known to embrace controversial books and tactics. A bestselling children's book published by World Ahead, Help! Mom! There are Liberals Under my Bed penned by Katharine Debrecht, portrayed Hillary Clinton as a cartoon villain, prompting a verbal clash with Clinton's spokesman. He once accused Google of political bias for censoring online ads for a book critical of Bill Clinton, a charge Google denied, and he later paid to send Kathleen Willey and Juanita Broaddrick to the Bill Clinton Presidential Library along with the book's author. In October 2006, Jackson and Joseph Farah, the founder of WorldNetDaily, announced that World Ahead Publishing would be partnering on the influential WND Books imprint.
Jackson's own book The PayPal Wars (ISBN 0-9746701-0-3) chronicles PayPal's origins and discusses the legal, regulatory, and competitive threats entrepreneurs must overcome in today's business environment. It won the 2005 Writers Notes Book Award for best business book. It has been profiled by Reason Magazine, the Washington Times, the Mises Institute, Tech Central Station, and Tom Peters.
Jackson frequently appears as a conservative commentator on radio and television programs. In his public comments he is frequently critical of eBay, the company that purchased PayPal. He has been quoted in Forbes, BusinessWeek, TheStreet.com, US News & World Report, and Publishers Weekly, among other publications.