Analysts across Wall Street saw rising competition and a declining take rate, or the percentage of revenue PayPal keeps from each transaction.
Fast forward to today, and the picture is dramatically brighter for the 26-year-old Silicon Valley company and its 47-year-old CEO.
Analysts are projecting roughly 6% revenue growth when PayPal reports third-quarter results in about a month, according to LSEG.
Venture capitalist Oren Zeev has seen Chriss work with small businesses in another capacity.
"He obviously brought a lot to the table with his vast experience with small businesses," Zeev said.
Persons:
Alex Chriss, CNBC's David Faber, hadn't, Chriss, downgrades, Dan Dolev, Dolev, Susquehanna's James Friedman, he's, Friedman, Dan Schulman, Dana Stalder, He's, PayPal didn't, Isabel Cruz, Michelle Gill, Diego Scotti, Jamie Miller, Stalder, we've, Faber, Susquehanna's Friedman, That's, Will Ferrell, Ferrell, Fleetwood, hasn't, Sanjay Sakhrani, Sakhrani, SMBs, Oren Zeev, Zeev
Organizations:
PayPal Inc, PayPal, New York Stock Exchange, Mizuho Securities, CNBC, Apple Pay, Nasdaq, Meta, Matrix Partners, Intuit, Walmart, Verizon, Starbucks, Ticketmaster, Apple, Google, Shopify, Venture
Locations:
Wall, Braintree, EY, Venmo, U.S