PayPal chief reams employees: Use our app or quit

The president of PayPal has had it with employees who don’t enthusiastically use the company’s products.

David Marcus sent a memo to employees working at PayPal’s San Jose, Calif., headquarters yesterday, scolding them for not installing the company’s app and forgetting their PayPal passwords.

“It’s been brought to my attention that when testing paying with mobile at Cafe 17 last week, some of you refused to install the PayPal app (!!?!?!!), and others didn’t even remember their PayPal password. That’s unacceptable to me, and the rest of my team, everyone at PayPal should use our products where available. That’s the only way we can make them better, and better,” he wrote in the email.

Update: Read the full memo from David Marcus to PayPal employees, along with Silicon Valley’s reaction.

In the email, Marcus also berated the San Jose PayPal employees for not keeping up with other PayPal offices with the volume of leads they submit for businesses that don’t support PayPal as a form of payment.

“PayPal It, our program enabling you to refer businesses that don’t accept PayPal has seen the least amount of leads in *absolute* and relative terms vis-a-vis ALL other locations. Offices with under 100 employees beat us by an order of magnitude (total PayPal it leads to date: 126,862, San Jose leads: 984…),” Marcus wrote.

Oh, and the San Jose PayPal employees aren’t hacking enough for Marcus.

“Employees in other offices hack into Coke machines to make them accept PayPal because they feel passionately about using PayPal everywhere. I don’t see these behaviors here in San Jose,” he wrote.

It’s a bit ironic considering that yesterday Marcus took to Twitter to say his credit card was hacked. So clearly not all hacking is acceptable in Marcus’ book — only hacking that supports the company’s business objectives.

When VentureBeat reached out to PayPal for comment, a spokesman said Marcus has been saying some of these things for a while. Marcus has been trying to make PayPal go in a totally different direction since he became president almost two years ago, the spokesman said, citing a shared office environment and faster product development.

“We’re getting back to our technology and innovation roots, and we really want to be driving the best customer experiences that are possible,” the spokesman told VentureBeat. “And part of that is having every employee be the customer and utilize our services wherever you can, and if you see a problem, highlight it and tell people to get it fixed. And that’s something we do a lot.”

Perhaps Marcus is getting a tad frustrated that his message isn’t getting across. His email ends with a stark choice: Get with the program or get out.

“In closing, if you are one of the folks who refused to install the PayPal app or if you can’t remember your PayPal password, do yourself a favor, go find something that will connect with your heart and mind elsewhere,” he wrote.