Max Levchin: The Interview

**Molly O'Shea** (0:00)
Have you ever thought about opening up a coffee shop?

**Max Levchin** (0:02)
Totally. If I didn't do what I do for a living, I would just open a coffee shop.

**Molly O'Shea** (0:07)
Enjoying my coffee. How did you get into this?

**Max Levchin** (0:09)
It's one of these self-fulfilling prophecies. So I grew up in Ukraine, and there's a culture of coffee drinking, and my dad was really into drinking espresso. So when I was five years old, he would buy a shot of espresso at a coffee shop. So I'd have this visual, like a bag and a shot of espresso. I'd be drinking it right alongside my dad.

**Molly O'Shea** (0:25)
For drinking espressos at five years old?

**Max Levchin** (0:28)
There's no prohibition on drinking espresso at 88

**Molly O'Shea** (0:30)
I recently had Keith Reboyan last fall, and he said that you were a first-rate technologist and also a first-rate business strategist. So how did that combo develop?

**Max Levchin** (0:41)
I sort of walked in thinking, I'm going to get a computer science PGD and just be a professor, and walked out thinking, can't wait to start more companies. Majority of American banks derive a disproportionate percentage of their income from late fees. Affirm was founded in many ways to fight all of that, and we are mysteriously precise about the cost of credit. We'll do north of $47 billion, $48 billion of loans this fiscal year alone, and yet that's a drop in the bucket. We've been public for five years, and every single letter has a big Lebowski quote.

**Molly O'Shea** (1:10)
Have people picked up on that?

**Max Levchin** (1:11)
Until very recently, no one caught it. Then finally, one of the analysts wrote a note on us saying, Q2 fiscal 25, a quarter that really-

**Molly O'Shea** (1:19)
Really tied the room together.

**Max Levchin** (1:23)
They finally got it.
Also, dude, having an amphibious rodent as a domestic, that ain't legal either. What, are you a fucking punk rager now? That's what I'm gonna say.

**Molly O'Shea** (1:48)
I'm gonna clip all of these into one.

**Max Levchin** (1:50)
You should, I can go on.

**Molly O'Shea** (1:53)
I'll do side by side with the actual movie.

**Max Levchin** (1:57)
Every bit of stupefying. Some great one-liners.
That's too good. Many learned men. But in 15th century Rombaum, a lot of Lebowski has these great sentence fragments where you have no idea where the character is coming or going to, which like cuts into this like, Yeah.

**Molly O'Shea** (2:19)
And you just naturally drop it throughout the day.

**Max Levchin** (2:22)
Yeah. You said it, man.
Nobody fucks with the Jesus.

**Molly O'Shea** (2:28)
So I recently had Keith Roy. Actually, it wasn't really recent at this point. The year is just flying by. But I had Keith Roy on last fall and he was stringing out this rare combination of talent that he's very, like obviously rarely, never seen before and has come across.
You were one of those people. He said that you are first rate technologist and also a first rate business strategist. So how did that combo develop? Where does that come from?

**Max Levchin** (2:59)
I mean, I grew up in Soviet Union. So obviously compensating for some lack of early business education right there. I don't keep this too kind. I think the, I love computer science. Like I was sort of smitten by some very early programming experiences as either a teen or maybe even a preteen. I was like, I was like 11 or 12 when I sort of first got access to some very basic programming tech. And it was like one of these things where I'm definitely going to do this for the rest of my life. And I was on track to do computer science as kind of the final destination. My plan was to get a doctorate and teach.
And a couple of kids at school recruited me to go start a company with them, which failed. But I got bitten by the startup bug. And as I kind of went through life starting more companies and failing at them, so I go, at some point you have to learn business. Otherwise, they're going to keep on failing. Because I was sure that they're obviously not failing for any software-related reasons. So it could only be the non-software reasons. And the internet businesses are basically some business strategy and some technology. And I was very confident in my ability to produce the latter. And so must have been the former. But I'm not sure where Keith got his assessment.
We have known each other a long, long time. It was at PayPal.