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