One of the key ways to assess whether you’re being an ethical pirate or a sociopath is to ask, “Am I trying to change the rules for everyone, or just trying to get away with a personal exemption?” At PayPal, we broke the rules, but we did so because we were working toward a better set of rules for everyone. We felt that our actions were ethical because while we could technically have been in violation of the letter of certain banking regulations (we consistently argued that we weren’t a bank, but not everyone agreed!), we believed that in the long run we would be in compliance once we convinced the world to change the rules, and that the world would be better off as a result. History demonstrates that we were right. The various parties that were upset by our so-called pirate mentality—eBay, banks, regulators—all see the value of PayPal today. By changing the rules for everyone, we helped pave the way for other payment companies like Square and Stripe, which have improved the world of mobile payment even further.