Łukasz 'Luke' Nosek is a Polish-American entrepreneur and venture capitalist, best known as a co-founder of the online payment company PayPal. Born in Tarnów, Poland, he emigrated to the United States and earned a B.S. in Computer Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. While still a student in 1995, he co-founded his first company, SponsorNet New Media, Inc., with fellow students Max Levchin and Scott Banister. After a stint at Netscape, he co-founded Confinity in 1998 with Levchin, Peter Thiel, and Ken Howery, which later became PayPal. As PayPal's Vice President of Marketing and Strategy, he was instrumental in its early growth and created the profitable 'Instant Transfer' product. Following PayPal's $1.5 billion acquisition by eBay in 2002, Nosek co-founded the venture capital firm Founders Fund with Thiel and Howery in 2005, becoming a key figure in Silicon Valley. In a significant career shift in 2017, he left Founders Fund to launch Gigafund, an investment firm initially focused on raising capital for SpaceX, where he was the first institutional investor. Nosek is a central figure in the 'PayPal Mafia' network and continues to invest in transformative, long-term technological ventures through Gigafund, residing in San Francisco.