Co-Founder & CEO at Affirm, Inc
San Francisco, California, United States 133K followers 500+ connections
About
I start, run, and invest in companies.
Articles by Max
- To build a meritocracyNov 1, 2024
To build a meritocracy
About a year ago, we at Affirm decided to add an OKR to our annual planning titled “High-Performance Culture”, to help…
68 Comments - Protect your SSN!Apr 2, 2024
Protect your SSN!
Quietly-explosive news last week for anyone who cares about consumer privacy in digital banking and access to credit…
24 Comments - CRO transition at AffirmFeb 23, 2023
CRO transition at Affirm
After a year and a half as our Chief Revenue Officer (and two and a half years as our first Chief Capital Officer…
8 Comments - First Anniversary of Affirm's IPOJan 18, 2022
First Anniversary of Affirm's IPO
Last week Affirm celebrated the first anniversary of our IPO. It took us almost a decade to be ready to list, and the…
37 Comments - A Note from our CEO: Affirm and Shopify Expand Shop Pay Installments across the U.S.Jun 10, 2021
A Note from our CEO: Affirm and Shopify Expand Shop Pay Installments across the U.S.
Since our founding, Affirm has been focused on delivering honest financial products that improve lives. Today, we are…
21 Comments - Affirm’s New Partnership with ShopifyJul 22, 2020
Affirm’s New Partnership with Shopify
I founded Affirm to bring people a better, more flexible, and transparent way to pay. A way that didn’t include…
42 Comments - It’s On Us, a note responding to current eventsJun 3, 2020
It’s On Us, a note responding to current events
Affirm was founded on the core values that People Come First, and It’s On Us. These values, and the importance of…
7 Comments - All hands on deckApr 3, 2020
All hands on deck
It's all hands on deck here at Affirm as we navigate new ways of working during this unprecedented time. I’ve been…
9 Comments - Let's all say no to late feesMar 18, 2020
Let's all say no to late fees
It is an unusual time for all of us—for Affirmers, for our merchant partners, and for our consumers—as we all deal with…
3 Comments - Finding HENRYs with AffirmSep 16, 2019
Finding HENRYs with Affirm
A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of co-hosting a breakfast event with The Business of Fashion. Our guests included…
8 Comments
Activity
- Enjoyed my interview with Gaurav Ahuja for the "100 Year Conversation”. We covered early failures, lessons learned, and what it takes to build…
Enjoyed my interview with Gaurav Ahuja for the "100 Year Conversation”. We covered early failures, lessons learned, and what it takes to build…
Shared byMax Levchin
- Today we continue the 100 Year Conversation with Max Levchin, co-founder of PayPal and CEO of Affirm.A project to capture timeless wisdom from…
Today we continue the 100 Year Conversation with Max Levchin, co-founder of PayPal and CEO of Affirm.A project to capture timeless wisdom from…
Liked byMax Levchin
- Thanks to Austin Hankwitz and Robert Croak for having me on the show. Always appreciate the chance to talk about the important work we’re doing at…
Thanks to Austin Hankwitz and Robert Croak for having me on the show. Always appreciate the chance to talk about the important work we’re doing at…
Shared byMax Levchin
Experience
Founder & CEO
Affirm, Inc.
- Present13 years 8 months
San Francisco, California
Our mission is simple: deliver honest financial products to improve lives.
At Affirm, we believe the financial industry desperately needs reinvention. Not only is the core infrastructure built with technology from the 1970s, but a dwindling number of people can say "I trust my bank to look out for me." It doesn’t have to be this way.
Affirm’s mission is to fix this problem. We are using modern technology to re-imagine and re-build core components of financial infrastructure from…Our mission is simple: deliver honest financial products to improve lives.
At Affirm, we believe the financial industry desperately needs reinvention. Not only is the core infrastructure built with technology from the 1970s, but a dwindling number of people can say "I trust my bank to look out for me." It doesn’t have to be this way.
Affirm’s mission is to fix this problem. We are using modern technology to re-imagine and re-build core components of financial infrastructure from the ground up. We’re focusing on improving the lives of everyday consumers with less expensive, more transparent financial products.Founder & General Partner
SciFi VC
- Present9 years 2 months
San Francisco Bay Area
Taking risks in the service of transforming science-fiction into reality.
Founder & President
HVF Labs
- Present14 years 2 months
San Francisco Bay Area
HVF Labs starts companies with the people that will operate them.
HARD /härd/. Harness an exceptional technology.
VALUABLE /ˈvaly(əw)əb(ə)l/. Solve significant problems.
FUN /fən/. Operate with passion to help build the world we want to live in.
Founders join us to play with, think deeply about, and work on hard problems. HVF creates companies, including Yelp, Affirm, and Glow.
HARD TECH THAT SOLVES HARD PROBLEMS. HVF focuses on technology and data advantages that can…HVF Labs starts companies with the people that will operate them.
HARD /härd/. Harness an exceptional technology.
VALUABLE /ˈvaly(əw)əb(ə)l/. Solve significant problems.
FUN /fən/. Operate with passion to help build the world we want to live in.
Founders join us to play with, think deeply about, and work on hard problems. HVF creates companies, including Yelp, Affirm, and Glow.
HARD TECH THAT SOLVES HARD PROBLEMS. HVF focuses on technology and data advantages that can solve substantial problems. We found a company after a compelling technology becomes broadly accessible.
WORK TOGETHER, ON WHAT CAPTIVATES YOU. Our Entrepreneurs in Residence and core team work on proto-ideas of their choosing. Founding teams are forged by searching and working together. We draw from HVF's community of founders, friends, and Levchin portfolio companies.
FOCUS ON 1-2 PROJECTS AT A TIME. Your ideas get our complete attention. Expect strategic advice, deep product and technical contributions, with a team of involved co-founders.
WITH OUR FOUNDERS FOR THE LONG HAUL. We work alongside our Companies in Residence for 12-24 months. HVF remains deeply involved in the companies we start, and in our alumni.Co-Founder & Chairman
Glow, Inc
- Present14 years
Shanghai & San Francisco
Glow is a data science company that empowers women and couples to take control of their sexual and reproductive health. We have already created the world's largest reproductive health data set, and our vision is to leverage this data to lower healthcare costs and improve health outcomes.
Advisory Board Member
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
-2 years 11 months
Washington D.C. Metro Area
The Consumer Advisory Board helps to strengthen the CFPB's charge to serve and protect consumers by ensuring that the Bureau receives a wide range of insight, expertise, analysis and information about consumer finance market trends and practices.
Chairman of the Board of Directors
Yelp
-11 years
San Francisco, CA
First Investor in and Chairman of Yelp -- started from within my first startup lab, MRL.
Founder & CEO
Slide, Inc
-5 years 8 months
Prior to acquisition by Google, Slide was a leading developer of social applications, primarily on the Facebook platform, spanning several diverse segments, such as photo and video self-expression and social games. At peak traffic, Slide's photo-sharing widgets alone reached over 150m monthly users worldwide.
As founder and CEO I created the vision for the company (and adjusted as the market rapidly evolved), recruited and managed the senior team, worked closely with the Product…Prior to acquisition by Google, Slide was a leading developer of social applications, primarily on the Facebook platform, spanning several diverse segments, such as photo and video self-expression and social games. At peak traffic, Slide's photo-sharing widgets alone reached over 150m monthly users worldwide.
As founder and CEO I created the vision for the company (and adjusted as the market rapidly evolved), recruited and managed the senior team, worked closely with the Product Management staff on our products and Engineering on the implementation, raised tens of millions of dollars from angels, venture and institutional investors, and ultimately negotiated the successful sale of the company to Google.Co-founder and Chief Technology Officer
PayPal
-4 years
Co-founded PayPal and was its Chief Technology Officer for four years, seeing the company through development, launch, merger with an arch-rival, two CEO removals, going public and being sold to eBay. Recruited the engineering team, designed and built the networks and software running PayPal site and back-end, designed and built PayPal's (somewhat notorious) security and fraud-prevention systems.
Education
University of lllinois in Urbana-Champaign
BSComputer Science
-
Activities and Societies: ACM
Skills
Languages
English
-
Recommendations received
6 people have recommended Max
Join now to viewMore activity by Max
- "You use Affirm when it matters to you. And of course, money matters all the time." – Max Levchin Our Founder and CEO recently sat down with Austin…
"You use Affirm when it matters to you. And of course, money matters all the time." – Max Levchin Our Founder and CEO recently sat down with Austin…
Liked byMax Levchin
- Thanks Tim Higgins for having me on the pod. Great to discuss the founding of Affirm and why our vision for a more honest, transparent financial…
Thanks Tim Higgins for having me on the pod. Great to discuss the founding of Affirm and why our vision for a more honest, transparent financial…
Shared byMax Levchin
- Affirm's Founder and CEO, Max Levchin, recently joined host Tim Higgins on The Wall Street Journal's Bold Names podcast. In a wide-ranging and candid…
Affirm's Founder and CEO, Max Levchin, recently joined host Tim Higgins on The Wall Street Journal's Bold Names podcast. In a wide-ranging and candid…
Liked byMax Levchin
- If you can’t price risk fairly, you probably shouldn’t lend money. That philosophy has guided Affirm from the start, and it’s why we sometimes…
If you can’t price risk fairly, you probably shouldn’t lend money. That philosophy has guided Affirm from the start, and it’s why we sometimes…
Shared byMax Levchin
- “We don’t have to overcharge our consumers. We’re not asking them to cover for the sins of other consumers that were underwritten poorly. We…
“We don’t have to overcharge our consumers. We’re not asking them to cover for the sins of other consumers that were underwritten poorly. We…
Liked byMax Levchin
- Really enjoyed this one. The hard part isn’t offering credit — it’s offering credit responsibly. When the terms are clear and the incentives are…
Really enjoyed this one. The hard part isn’t offering credit — it’s offering credit responsibly. When the terms are clear and the incentives are…
Shared byMax Levchin
- Affirm’s Founder and CEO, Max Levchin, recently joined Alex Johnson for the inaugural episode of Fintech Takes’ Diving Deep interview series. The…
Affirm’s Founder and CEO, Max Levchin, recently joined Alex Johnson for the inaugural episode of Fintech Takes’ Diving Deep interview series. The…
Liked byMax Levchin
- Affirm ML org is hiring a Senior Staff ML Engineer. This is an exciting opportunity to work with a talented team! And we are going to work on some…
Affirm ML org is hiring a Senior Staff ML Engineer. This is an exciting opportunity to work with a talented team! And we are going to work on some…
Liked byMax Levchin
- Thank you Jim Cramer for another great conversation about the important work we’re doing at Affirm. Building a new kind of payment network is…
Thank you Jim Cramer for another great conversation about the important work we’re doing at Affirm. Building a new kind of payment network is…
Shared byMax Levchin
- “If you get really good at underwriting, you don't have to charge late fees and hide your business model in fine print.”Our Founder and CEO, Max…
“If you get really good at underwriting, you don't have to charge late fees and hide your business model in fine print.”Our Founder and CEO, Max…
Liked byMax Levchin
- Big thank you to Joe Weisenthal, Tracy Alloway, and everyone at Bloomberg News Odd Lots for having me on the show. I always appreciate the…
Big thank you to Joe Weisenthal, Tracy Alloway, and everyone at Bloomberg News Odd Lots for having me on the show. I always appreciate the…
Shared byMax Levchin
- Our Founder & CEO, Max Levchin, recently went on Bloomberg News Odd Lots with Joe Weisenthal Tracy Alloway in one of the most insightful deep dives…
Our Founder & CEO, Max Levchin, recently went on Bloomberg News Odd Lots with Joe Weisenthal Tracy Alloway in one of the most insightful deep dives…
Liked byMax Levchin
- AI is reshaping commerce — and it’s raising the bar on transparency in consumer finance.With everyone having their own PhD-level advisor, no AI…
AI is reshaping commerce — and it’s raising the bar on transparency in consumer finance.With everyone having their own PhD-level advisor, no AI…
Shared byMax Levchin
- 🤖 Affirm’s Founder and CEO, Max Levchin was interviewed by Hannah Lang live at Reuters MOMENTUM AI Finance about how AI will change the way we shop…
🤖 Affirm’s Founder and CEO, Max Levchin was interviewed by Hannah Lang live at Reuters MOMENTUM AI Finance about how AI will change the way we shop…
Liked byMax Levchin
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Jason Shuman
Primary Venture Partners • 37K followers
I’ve spoken to over 2 dozen MDs at PE firmsI can confidently say that the arb of figuring out how to implement Vertical AI at portfolio companies is very real right nowIt will fundamentally change underwriting for those who can do it predictably and unlock generational returns.Most are aware they need to act. Very few have.
64 CommentsAstasia Myers
Felicis • 6K followers
Two trends in fundraising that I’m seeing on a daily basis:1/ The "we'll monetize later" era for infrastructure startups is dead"We'll figure out revenue once we have users" / "we're focused on adoption first"/ "monetization comes later"This worked in 2021. It doesn't work now.Today’s market won’t reward research organizations or companies that believe in perfection over getting it in users' hands.If you don't have a clear path to revenue… you won't get funded. period.VCs aren't writing checks hoping you'll figure it out later.2/ "Vibe ARR" is everywhereRemember Jasper? hyper growth, but the model companies ate them alive. We're seeing this again. Companies growing really quickly on point-in-time technology that isn't defensibleThese companies look amazing on paper. Growth charts going up and to the right. But if you think models are getting better and becoming platform companies, many solutions become obsolete.
19 CommentsReid Christian
CRV • 17K followers
Fullstack startups are the latest craze: Marc Andreessen talked about this phenomenon on Jack Altman's latest podcastToday Browserbase launched Director.ai for consumers to automate the webThis follows Vercel launching @v0 for consumers to build sites and appsBoth of these companies are infrastructure (picks and shovels) providers that have now moved "up the stack" to launch consumer applications on top of their infraThis is the latest in vogue playbook following:Compound startups (multi-product - i.e. Rippling)Layer cake vertical startups (SaaS+Payments+Lending - i.e. ServiceTitan)Links in comments:Jack altman Marc podcastDirector.ai launch videoPaul Klein IV, Guillermo Rauch, CRV
5 CommentsSomesh Dash
11K followers
The best founders don’t just build products; they reframe the problem.Ryan Alshak has done exactly that with Laurel - turning time from a background task into a source of insight, alignment, and leverage.IVP is leading Laurel's Series C to help build the system of record for how work actually happens.Read more from Allie Garfinkle: https://lnkd.in/gweNiwsc
Joanne Chen
Foundation Capital • 20K followers
One of the things I’m looking for most in founders is their ability to change & iterate, which I why I care so much about learning velocity.At seed, there isn’t much data. I’m backing someone who can learn faster than the problem changes.When we invest pre–PMF, we’re really backing people: their persistence, how quickly they learn, their ability to hire, and how they execute.A great example of this is Trey Holterman, the founder of Tennr. I met him 8 months before he launched the company. There was no revenue, no product. He didn’t know how to sell at all in the beginning. By the end of 8 months, he'd built software to reach these customers and convinced them to pay him $500 to give them a demo.His 8‑month journey was one of the best I’ve seen in terms of sheer ability to learn.I think this matters more than ever because of how quickly tech is changing. In AI, the ground moves weekly with new model capabilities and fast‑follow features from incumbents. Research labs can obsolete a startup's thought-through plan in a day.All of this means founders need to learn & change at an unprecedented rate. That pace is what I’m looking for.
2 CommentsMatt Rappaport
Future Frontier Capital • 8K followers
Don't Build a Better Wheat Farm" - Why Defensibility Stakes Are Higher in Deep TechJust published a new piece on my "Ignore the Confusion" blog, building on thoughtful insights from Eric Ver Ploeg at Tunitas Ventures about startup defensibility.Eric's core thesis: Too many startups pitch like wheat farmers - "huge TAM, slow incumbents, growing market, domain expertise" - but fail to think through long-term defensibility until it's too late.From a deep tech perspective, the stakes are even higher:** Unlike software, deep tech founders must commit to defensibility strategies from day one - their funding depends on it** Patent vs. trade secret decisions are often difficult to reverse and shape your entire competitive strategy** Even "picks and shovels" providers (the tools that make industries more efficient) become commodities without proper moatsThe key insight that resonates: Defensibility can't be retrofitted. Whether you're building software or deep tech, your moat must be architected into the business model from the start.Thanks to Eric Ver Ploeg for sharing these insights on startup strategy and letting me build on his framework from a deep tech lens.Read the full post: https://lnkd.in/dEj_iF-Q#DeepTech #StartupStrategy #Defensibility #VentureCapital #Innovation
2 CommentsAnish Acharya
Andreessen Horowitz • 13K followers
The big labs are expansive in their product ambition, especially since foundation models have largely improved in lockstep - in order to compete with them you have to do things they won’t which are:- building a very rich software ecosystem around a primitive- orchestration across multiple models- going insanely deep on product and growth for a narrow vertical domain
3 CommentsNeil Tewari
Conversion • 16K followers
PSA to seed and early-stage founders: stop worrying about competition.I’ve spoken to hundreds of late-stage founders, and they all say the same thing. The biggest mistake they see at the early stage is founders obsessing over who else is in their space.When you are pre-PMF, comparing yourself to other buzzy AI startups is a distraction. They already have a defined GTM motion, some level of product-market fit, and a playbook to execute. Their “big new feature” might just be about expanding revenue or building parity. You’re still trying to land your first 10 paying customers.Here’s the truth:1. Worry about competitors only when you actively lose a deal to them. THESE ARE THE COMPETITORS TO WORRY ABOUT.2. When a customer chooses someone else, they will usually tell you why. Nine times out of ten it’s not the reason you think. It’s rarely a missing feature. More often it’s pricing, brand trust, or timing.3. Competitors often move in completely different directions. OpenAI went after consumers, while Anthropic leaned into enterprise and APIs. Playbooks diverge fast.4. The only real roadmap at the early stage is customer pain. Every conversation, every demo, every user insight. Talk to as many customers as possible.If you spend your time trying to copy what competitors are doing, you will always be a step behind. If you spend your time talking to users, you’ll know exactly what to build next.The path to PMF isn’t found on Twitter threads about “AI competitors.” It’s found in the feedback from the 5 people actually using your product every single day.
10 CommentsJT Benton
9point8 Collective • 8K followers
Hot take: lot's of #LP's are growing underwhelmed with traditional venture investing.💰 Fees are high given the level of engagement with the company operators.❓ Access is opaque - LP's are unclear on the portco operations and outcomes.Outcomes are scattered - power law investing can certainly work, but many feel that venture capital investing is just a numbers game.There's another way. I'm biased, but I think it's better: #VentureStudios as an asset class. They blend:🤜 🤛 Control and ownership💡 Thematic focus👬 Partnership with operatorsStudios offer a fund-like structure — but with more alignment, higher value conversion and less noise.If you're interested in understanding more about the studio model, we have resources to share. Please reach out and let's connect!
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