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Max Levchin

👤 Person
513 total appearances

Appearances Over Time

Podcast Appearances

The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
20VC: Affirm Max Levchin on Why Grading Talent by Letter (A or B) is Total BS | How to Create a Culture of Post Mortems and Writing | Why You Should Only Study Failure Not Success & The Biggest Surprises Scaling to $18.7BN Market Cap

Majority of our competitors specialize in paying for or something very, very specific. We made the decision from day one to provide every possible service from the 45 day super short term loan all the way out to four years. Very, very few people do everything. And so it should be a natural consequence of our ability to serve all that we would take this proportion to share.

The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
20VC: Affirm Max Levchin on Why Grading Talent by Letter (A or B) is Total BS | How to Create a Culture of Post Mortems and Writing | Why You Should Only Study Failure Not Success & The Biggest Surprises Scaling to $18.7BN Market Cap

Majority of our competitors specialize in paying for or something very, very specific. We made the decision from day one to provide every possible service from the 45 day super short term loan all the way out to four years. Very, very few people do everything. And so it should be a natural consequence of our ability to serve all that we would take this proportion to share.

The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
20VC: Affirm Max Levchin on Why Grading Talent by Letter (A or B) is Total BS | How to Create a Culture of Post Mortems and Writing | Why You Should Only Study Failure Not Success & The Biggest Surprises Scaling to $18.7BN Market Cap

Are you asking me to analyze their strategy? That's a postmortem they will have to write for themselves. I'm not sure I'm qualified. I don't have all the information. Also, I think it's very healthy, incidentally, for CEOs of startups to spend very, very little time on other people's strategy. The competitive analysis is valuable at the product level and sales strategy level.

The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
20VC: Affirm Max Levchin on Why Grading Talent by Letter (A or B) is Total BS | How to Create a Culture of Post Mortems and Writing | Why You Should Only Study Failure Not Success & The Biggest Surprises Scaling to $18.7BN Market Cap

Are you asking me to analyze their strategy? That's a postmortem they will have to write for themselves. I'm not sure I'm qualified. I don't have all the information. Also, I think it's very healthy, incidentally, for CEOs of startups to spend very, very little time on other people's strategy. The competitive analysis is valuable at the product level and sales strategy level.

The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
20VC: Affirm Max Levchin on Why Grading Talent by Letter (A or B) is Total BS | How to Create a Culture of Post Mortems and Writing | Why You Should Only Study Failure Not Success & The Biggest Surprises Scaling to $18.7BN Market Cap

Are you asking me to analyze their strategy? That's a postmortem they will have to write for themselves. I'm not sure I'm qualified. I don't have all the information. Also, I think it's very healthy, incidentally, for CEOs of startups to spend very, very little time on other people's strategy. The competitive analysis is valuable at the product level and sales strategy level.

The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
20VC: Affirm Max Levchin on Why Grading Talent by Letter (A or B) is Total BS | How to Create a Culture of Post Mortems and Writing | Why You Should Only Study Failure Not Success & The Biggest Surprises Scaling to $18.7BN Market Cap

And what do they do that we could do better is a really good question to ask. What is their strategy is like asking what weather will be 12

The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
20VC: Affirm Max Levchin on Why Grading Talent by Letter (A or B) is Total BS | How to Create a Culture of Post Mortems and Writing | Why You Should Only Study Failure Not Success & The Biggest Surprises Scaling to $18.7BN Market Cap

And what do they do that we could do better is a really good question to ask. What is their strategy is like asking what weather will be 12

The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
20VC: Affirm Max Levchin on Why Grading Talent by Letter (A or B) is Total BS | How to Create a Culture of Post Mortems and Writing | Why You Should Only Study Failure Not Success & The Biggest Surprises Scaling to $18.7BN Market Cap

And what do they do that we could do better is a really good question to ask. What is their strategy is like asking what weather will be 12

The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
20VC: Affirm Max Levchin on Why Grading Talent by Letter (A or B) is Total BS | How to Create a Culture of Post Mortems and Writing | Why You Should Only Study Failure Not Success & The Biggest Surprises Scaling to $18.7BN Market Cap

Yeah, we do lots of that. Like we tear down all competitor products, all their sales products, sales efforts, like everything we can get our hands on, we learn from because it's free. Like someone is making mistakes for us. We should learn on those too. Is regulation a friend of buy now, pay later, or an inhibitor to growth? I think we're always on the record as pro-thoughtful regulation.

The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
20VC: Affirm Max Levchin on Why Grading Talent by Letter (A or B) is Total BS | How to Create a Culture of Post Mortems and Writing | Why You Should Only Study Failure Not Success & The Biggest Surprises Scaling to $18.7BN Market Cap

Yeah, we do lots of that. Like we tear down all competitor products, all their sales products, sales efforts, like everything we can get our hands on, we learn from because it's free. Like someone is making mistakes for us. We should learn on those too. Is regulation a friend of buy now, pay later, or an inhibitor to growth? I think we're always on the record as pro-thoughtful regulation.

The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
20VC: Affirm Max Levchin on Why Grading Talent by Letter (A or B) is Total BS | How to Create a Culture of Post Mortems and Writing | Why You Should Only Study Failure Not Success & The Biggest Surprises Scaling to $18.7BN Market Cap

Yeah, we do lots of that. Like we tear down all competitor products, all their sales products, sales efforts, like everything we can get our hands on, we learn from because it's free. Like someone is making mistakes for us. We should learn on those too. Is regulation a friend of buy now, pay later, or an inhibitor to growth? I think we're always on the record as pro-thoughtful regulation.

The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
20VC: Affirm Max Levchin on Why Grading Talent by Letter (A or B) is Total BS | How to Create a Culture of Post Mortems and Writing | Why You Should Only Study Failure Not Success & The Biggest Surprises Scaling to $18.7BN Market Cap

I think you shouldn't be paying any late fees, but late fee cap I was very happy about because I think that's a good development. People should not be building their profit models based on, I'll just raise the amount of late fee. Do you like being a public company CEO? Some days, yes. Other days, no. One of the days where you're like, yes, and one of the days you're like, no.

The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
20VC: Affirm Max Levchin on Why Grading Talent by Letter (A or B) is Total BS | How to Create a Culture of Post Mortems and Writing | Why You Should Only Study Failure Not Success & The Biggest Surprises Scaling to $18.7BN Market Cap

I think you shouldn't be paying any late fees, but late fee cap I was very happy about because I think that's a good development. People should not be building their profit models based on, I'll just raise the amount of late fee. Do you like being a public company CEO? Some days, yes. Other days, no. One of the days where you're like, yes, and one of the days you're like, no.

The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
20VC: Affirm Max Levchin on Why Grading Talent by Letter (A or B) is Total BS | How to Create a Culture of Post Mortems and Writing | Why You Should Only Study Failure Not Success & The Biggest Surprises Scaling to $18.7BN Market Cap

I think you shouldn't be paying any late fees, but late fee cap I was very happy about because I think that's a good development. People should not be building their profit models based on, I'll just raise the amount of late fee. Do you like being a public company CEO? Some days, yes. Other days, no. One of the days where you're like, yes, and one of the days you're like, no.

The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
20VC: Affirm Max Levchin on Why Grading Talent by Letter (A or B) is Total BS | How to Create a Culture of Post Mortems and Writing | Why You Should Only Study Failure Not Success & The Biggest Surprises Scaling to $18.7BN Market Cap

Days when it's yes is when it's not very different from being a private company CEO. Being a public company, generally speaking, gives you access to more capital, exposes you to really smart investors you can engage with. So there's lots of things to like. There's some investors out there that will only invest in public equities and capital. They are brilliant people.

The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
20VC: Affirm Max Levchin on Why Grading Talent by Letter (A or B) is Total BS | How to Create a Culture of Post Mortems and Writing | Why You Should Only Study Failure Not Success & The Biggest Surprises Scaling to $18.7BN Market Cap

Days when it's yes is when it's not very different from being a private company CEO. Being a public company, generally speaking, gives you access to more capital, exposes you to really smart investors you can engage with. So there's lots of things to like. There's some investors out there that will only invest in public equities and capital. They are brilliant people.

The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
20VC: Affirm Max Levchin on Why Grading Talent by Letter (A or B) is Total BS | How to Create a Culture of Post Mortems and Writing | Why You Should Only Study Failure Not Success & The Biggest Surprises Scaling to $18.7BN Market Cap

Days when it's yes is when it's not very different from being a private company CEO. Being a public company, generally speaking, gives you access to more capital, exposes you to really smart investors you can engage with. So there's lots of things to like. There's some investors out there that will only invest in public equities and capital. They are brilliant people.

The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
20VC: Affirm Max Levchin on Why Grading Talent by Letter (A or B) is Total BS | How to Create a Culture of Post Mortems and Writing | Why You Should Only Study Failure Not Success & The Biggest Surprises Scaling to $18.7BN Market Cap

Like they've seen it all before. They could write books about what a great public CEO looks like. And you want to go spend a half an hour with them and ask them, teach me how to be as good as blank. If you're a private company CEO, they might take your meeting, but they're probably busy. If you're a public company CEO, they might own your stock.

The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
20VC: Affirm Max Levchin on Why Grading Talent by Letter (A or B) is Total BS | How to Create a Culture of Post Mortems and Writing | Why You Should Only Study Failure Not Success & The Biggest Surprises Scaling to $18.7BN Market Cap

Like they've seen it all before. They could write books about what a great public CEO looks like. And you want to go spend a half an hour with them and ask them, teach me how to be as good as blank. If you're a private company CEO, they might take your meeting, but they're probably busy. If you're a public company CEO, they might own your stock.

The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
20VC: Affirm Max Levchin on Why Grading Talent by Letter (A or B) is Total BS | How to Create a Culture of Post Mortems and Writing | Why You Should Only Study Failure Not Success & The Biggest Surprises Scaling to $18.7BN Market Cap

Like they've seen it all before. They could write books about what a great public CEO looks like. And you want to go spend a half an hour with them and ask them, teach me how to be as good as blank. If you're a private company CEO, they might take your meeting, but they're probably busy. If you're a public company CEO, they might own your stock.