Max Levchin | |
|---|---|
Максиміліан Левчин | |
.jpg) Levchin atTechCrunch Disrupt SF 2013 in San Francisco, California | |
| Born | Maksymilian Rafailovych Levchyn (1975-07-11)July 11, 1975 (age 50) |
| Education | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (BS) |
| Occupations | CEO ofAffirm Co-founder and former CTO ofPayPal |
| Spouse | Nellie Minkova (m. 2008) |
| Children | 2 |
| Website | www |
Maksymilian Rafailovych "Max"Levchin[a] (born July 11, 1975) is a Ukrainian-American software engineer and businessman. In 1998, he co-founded the company that eventually becamePayPal. Levchin made contributions to PayPal's anti-fraud efforts[1] and was the co-creator of the Gausebeck-Levchin test, one of the first commercial implementations of aCAPTCHA challenge response human test.
He founded or co-founded the companies Slide.com, HVF, andAffirm. He was an early investor inYelp and was their largest shareholder in 2012. He left a leadership role in Yelp in 2015.[2]
Levchin was a producer for the movieThank You for Smoking.
Born inKyiv, then part of theUkrainian SSR, to aUkrainian-Jewish family,[3] Levchin moved to the United States and settled in Chicago in 1991.[4][5][6] In an interview with Emily Chang ofBloomberg, Levchin discussed his overcoming adversity as a child. He had respiratory problems and doctors doubted his chance of living. With guidance from his grandmother and his parents he took up the clarinet to expand his lung capacity.[7] He attendedMather High School, and then theUniversity of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he earned abachelor's degree in computer science in 1997.
In the summer of 1995, Levchin and fellow University of Illinois studentsLuke Nosek andScott Banister founded SponsorNet New Media.[8]
In 1998, Levchin andPeter Thiel foundedFieldlink, a security company that allowed users to store encrypted data on theirPalmPilots and otherPDA devices for handheld devices to serve as "digital wallets".[9] After changing the company name toConfinity, they developed a popular payment product, calling itPayPal and focusing on digital funds transfer by PDA.[8] The company merged withX.com in 2000, and in 2001, the company adopted the namePayPal after its main product.[9] PayPal, Inc. went public in February 2002, and in July 2002 was acquired byeBay. Levchin's 2.3% stake in PayPal was worth approximately $34 million at the time of the acquisition.
Levchin is widely known for his contributions to PayPal's anti-fraud efforts and is also the co-creator of the Gausebeck-Levchin test, one of the first commercial implementations of aCAPTCHA.[1][10]
In 2002, he was named to theMIT Technology ReviewTR100 as one of the top 100 innovators in the world under the age of 35, as well as Innovator of the Year.[11]
Levchin is one of a group of roughly twenty founders and former employees of PayPal who have become referred to as the "PayPal Mafia", due to their success in founding and investing in tech companies after leaving PayPal.[12][13]
In 2004, Levchin founded Slide,[14] a personal media-sharing service for social networking sites such asMyspace and Facebook. Slide was sold to Google in August 2010 for $182 million[15] and, on August 25, Levchin joined the company as vice president of engineering.[16] On August 26, 2011, Google announced it was shutting down Slide, and that Levchin was leaving the company.[17]
In late 2011, Levchin started a company called HVF (standing for "Hard, Valuable, and Fun") that was intended to explore and fund projects and companies in the area of leveraging data, such as data from analog sensors.[18][19]
In early 2012, thefinancial technology companyAffirm was spun out of HVF, with the goal of building the next-generation credit network. Affirm was created by Levchin,Palantir Technologies co-founder Nathan Gettings, and Jeff Kaditz ofFirst Data. The company is based in San Francisco.[20]
In 2013, HVF launchedGlow, a fertility app that helps couples conceive naturally.[21][22]After Affirm had its initial public offering, Levchin's stake was estimated at about $2.5 billion.[23]
Levchin was a key early investor inYelp, an onlinesocial networking and review service that started in 2004. He was the company's largest shareholder, owning more than 7 million shares as of 2012.[2] Levchin served as chairman of Yelp's board of directors from its founding,[24] until July 2015.[25] An angel investor inMixpanel, its founder Suhail Doshi credits Levchin for Mixpanel's survival and subsequent success.[26]
Levchin is an investor inEvernote. He served on the company's board of directors from August 7, 2006, to 2016.[27]
In December 2012, Levchin joinedYahoo's board of directors,[28] and remained until December 2015.[29]
In 2015, Levchin was appointed to the U.S.Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) advisory board for a three-year term, making him the first executive from Silicon Valley to be appointed to the board.[30] In 2021, Levchin, after his experience on the advisory board at the CFPB, called for the necessity for the tech industry to engage more with regulators.[31]
As of 2021 Levchin had an estimated net worth of US$3 billion.[32]
In October 2025, Levchin was elected a director ofThe Coca-Cola Company.[33]
Levchin appeared as a speaker at the 2007 Startup School organized byY Combinator, where he described his own journey as an entrepreneur and the mistakes he made and lessons he learned.[34] Levchin was also featured in "Brilliant Issue" ofPortfolio byCondé Nast Publications.[35] In 2022 Levchin was interviewed in anNPR podcast called "How I Built This" where he spoke about his early life and business endeavors including his role in PayPal.
Levchin was listed as one of the contributors toFWD.us, a Silicon Valley–based lobbying group spearheaded byMark Zuckerberg andJoe Green.[36] The group is intended to concentrate on immigration liberalization for high-skilled immigrants to the United States, improvements to education, and facilitating technological breakthroughs with broad public benefits.[37] Levchin also narrated his personal experience as an immigrant in a video released by the group.[38]
In 2013, amidst the controversy overmass surveillance andNSAespionage activities, Levchin defended the NSA in opposition to views of many other tech entrepreneurs. According to him, the agency was designed to protect the US fromterrorism, so even if it oversteps its bounds, the public should support it.[39]
Levchin arranged and financed theLevchin Prize which since 2016 rewards advancements incryptography with a real-world impact.[40][41][42][43]
In 2008, Levchin married his longtime girlfriend, Nellie Minkova.[6][44] He has two children. He lived in San Francisco from 2007 to 2019.[45] In 2019, he listed his home in San Francisco for $7.25 million, which he originally purchased in 2007 for $5.3 million.[46]
| Current services | |
|---|---|
| Defunct services | |
| Corporate | |
| Related people | |
| Localized versions | |
| Related | |
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Other | |
