#869: Max Levchin, PayPal and Affirm — The Path from The Soviet Union to Building Multi-Billion Dollar Companies (Plus: Real-World Socialism vs. Capitalism)

Max Levchin (@mlevchin) is a serial entrepreneur and investor in 100+ startups. He's the founder and CEO of Affirm, the payment network powering consumer purchases and merchant growth. An original PayPal co-founder, Max served as CTO until its 2002 acquisition by eBay.

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• [00:00:00] Start. • [00:02:50] The Ronin • line that rewired how Max makes every decision. • [00:06:09] Paprika • -style brain-computer interfaces. • [00:09:09] PayPal's founders lived inside a Neal Stephenson novel. • [00:19:21] Transformation via Neuromancer • and Snow Crash • . • [00:23:40] The book that found Max his wife. • [00:29:24] The real secret to a great marriage. • [00:38:29] What's worth tracking, and what's not. • [00:44:13] A scrawny kid, a clarinet, and a Kyiv velodrome. • [00:46:55] What going all-out on a bike actually gives you. • [00:51:02] The mantra by which Max rides. • [00:53:02] A Soviet kid's fear of socialism. • [01:02:48] Making a profit without destroying society. • [01:04:31] What is Affirm, and why did every banker say it would fail? • [01:20:18] Why the best mathematicians eschew the lending industry. • [01:23:50] Does agentic commerce break Affirm, or supercharge it? • [01:28:01] A PhD-level financial advisor in everyone's pocket. • [01:29:58] How close are we to buying anything through one AI chat? • [01:36:32] Improving your coffee: cheap, intermediate, and Bugatti options. • [01:44:33] The books every first-time founder should actually read. • [01:48:08] Claude Shannon, Ed Thorp, and the joy of playful genius. • [01:51:00] Why physical books still beat every digital reading experience. • [01:51:44] Parting thoughts.

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