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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

And so the more you sort of convince yourself that in the end, there's a great, I think it's attributed to Warren Buffett, but it's actually from Graham, his mentor. In the short term, the market is a voting machine. In the long term, it's a weighing machine. I take great comfort in saying this to myself whenever the market, I think, misjudges me.

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

But I've gone through some great lengths, by the way, to make sure I don't accidentally stumble on my ticker. So my Apple desktop, if I click in the top right corner and stocks drops down, I cannot see my stock ticker. So I don't accidentally discover that today's a red day or a green day just to make sure I stay focused. You have to think long term.

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

But I've gone through some great lengths, by the way, to make sure I don't accidentally stumble on my ticker. So my Apple desktop, if I click in the top right corner and stocks drops down, I cannot see my stock ticker. So I don't accidentally discover that today's a red day or a green day just to make sure I stay focused. You have to think long term.

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

But I've gone through some great lengths, by the way, to make sure I don't accidentally stumble on my ticker. So my Apple desktop, if I click in the top right corner and stocks drops down, I cannot see my stock ticker. So I don't accidentally discover that today's a red day or a green day just to make sure I stay focused. You have to think long term.

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

If you are catching yourself thinking short term, and by short term, I mean, let's have an amazing quarter and like you're in trouble. Do you see a dip in employee morale though when stock go down? I don't, but I think I make it my business. Every time I talk to our outcomes as a company, I take great pains not to talk about the price of the 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

If you are catching yourself thinking short term, and by short term, I mean, let's have an amazing quarter and like you're in trouble. Do you see a dip in employee morale though when stock go down? I don't, but I think I make it my business. Every time I talk to our outcomes as a company, I take great pains not to talk about the price of the 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

If you are catching yourself thinking short term, and by short term, I mean, let's have an amazing quarter and like you're in trouble. Do you see a dip in employee morale though when stock go down? I don't, but I think I make it my business. Every time I talk to our outcomes as a company, I take great pains not to talk about the price of the 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

The only time I talked about the price of our stock to our employees at length when it was flying very high after the IPO and it's really the heady days of 21, I'd actually repeatedly said, look, do not get accustomed to whatever numbers you're reading on the screen today. Like we will not know what this company's worth for years. Just like if you think it's too low, good for you.

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

The only time I talked about the price of our stock to our employees at length when it was flying very high after the IPO and it's really the heady days of 21, I'd actually repeatedly said, look, do not get accustomed to whatever numbers you're reading on the screen today. Like we will not know what this company's worth for years. Just like if you think it's too low, good for you.

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

The only time I talked about the price of our stock to our employees at length when it was flying very high after the IPO and it's really the heady days of 21, I'd actually repeatedly said, look, do not get accustomed to whatever numbers you're reading on the screen today. Like we will not know what this company's worth for years. Just like if you think it's too low, good for you.

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

If you think it's too high, it may well be like, just do not look, do not get conviction that this is actually correlated to some tangible metric. Like first we have to get profitable, then we have to show revenue growth rates, then we have to show net income growth. And that's what, you know, long-term the weighing machine, that's what that weighs. It's not weighing sentiment.

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

If you think it's too high, it may well be like, just do not look, do not get conviction that this is actually correlated to some tangible metric. Like first we have to get profitable, then we have to show revenue growth rates, then we have to show net income growth. And that's what, you know, long-term the weighing machine, that's what that weighs. It's not weighing sentiment.

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

If you think it's too high, it may well be like, just do not look, do not get conviction that this is actually correlated to some tangible metric. Like first we have to get profitable, then we have to show revenue growth rates, then we have to show net income growth. And that's what, you know, long-term the weighing machine, that's what that weighs. It's not weighing sentiment.

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

It should not be weighing sentiment.

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

It should not be weighing sentiment.

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

It should not be weighing sentiment.

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

Sure, but sometimes I will take a very long time. You'll have to edit out the awkward silences. It's the choice of podcasting. What do you believe that most around you disbelieve? conviction that I can learn anything very, very quickly. And eight out of 10 times I'm right. And two out of 10 times I'm completely wrong.

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

Sure, but sometimes I will take a very long time. You'll have to edit out the awkward silences. It's the choice of podcasting. What do you believe that most around you disbelieve? conviction that I can learn anything very, very quickly. And eight out of 10 times I'm right. And two out of 10 times I'm completely wrong.

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

Sure, but sometimes I will take a very long time. You'll have to edit out the awkward silences. It's the choice of podcasting. What do you believe that most around you disbelieve? conviction that I can learn anything very, very quickly. And eight out of 10 times I'm right. And two out of 10 times I'm completely wrong.

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 decided two years ago that I was just going to read the attention paper and become an expert in LLMs, you know, just read all the papers after that. And I'm still in the process of getting anywhere near expertly status. I try to keep up. It's a lot of really interesting stuff happening in the AI.