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0Max 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:
- 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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