How to build a successful tech startup according to Paypal founder Max Levchin
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- čas přidán 4. 09. 2019
- The work of an influencer never stops. Max Levchin hit it rich at age 27, then he went right back to the office. In 1999, Levchin co-founded PayPal, which was sold to eBay three years later for $1.5 billion. Levchin gained a $100 million fortune from the deal.
Soon after, he launched Slide, a social networking business that he sold to Google for hundreds of millions. He now runs yet another company-- the digital loan business, Affirm-- and other endeavors as well. Levchin is here to talk about how to find and build successful tech startups over and over again.
Hello, everyone. Welcome to "Influencers." I'm Andy Serwer. And welcome to our guest, Max Levchin, CEO of Affirm, co-founder of PayPal-- part of the PayPal Mafia, and a million other endeavors-- maybe just a polymath. We can call you that. We'll get into all the things you've done.
MAX LEVCHIN: I like that. I like that.
ANDY SERWER: Anyway, welcome. Good to see you.
MAX LEVCHIN: Good to see you.
ANDY SERWER: So, Max, how would you describe what you do to, say, an 8-year-old nephew? What do you do for a living? What's your work?
MAX LEVCHIN: So I normally tell people I start and run companies-- that's kind of a one-- one-liner introduction. But, when pressed, I revert back to, I just write code. That's kind of how I think of myself.
ANDY SERWER: A coder.
MAX LEVCHIN: A coder, a hacker, a builder, a company starter. That's-- I haven't thought of this one--
ANDY SERWER: OK.
MAX LEVCHIN: --too carefully.
ANDY SERWER: All right. Well, maybe we can loop back to it. Why don't you tell me about Affirm, your latest company right now.
MAX LEVCHIN: It's been latest company for over seven years, so it's a bit of a-- bit of a long-in-the-tooth startup, but still very much a startup. The-- it's a bit of a throwback to my PayPal days. So PayPal was all about innovating above the credit card rails, where we took credit cards-- which, 20 years ago, were really hard to use online-- and built the user interface-- which turned out to be much more than a user interface-- to make it easy to use in a browser. And online commerce was never the same.
20 years later, it took me a long time to realize that, the underlying infrastructure-- the-- what's below the rails, below the ground-- isn't especially well-made. It's not transparent. It's not especially consumer-friendly. It has its own user interface problems-- makes money on people's mistakes, kind of, at a very fundamental level.
And so I wanted to go back in there and see if it can be remade better. So seven and a little bit years ago, we started a company with initially just a very narrow view of, let's do a better job scoring credit. So-- so the venerable credit score that everybody uses today is pretty opaque. It's not really clear.
There's plenty of information online, where this fraction is how much credit you have used, and this fraction is how much money you made. But there's not a whole lot more to it that's been well understood. And, as a result-- and, from personal experience, I came to the US as a teenager, had to have my PayPal co-founder sign for my first car loan, my first cell phone.
You know, this is after PayPal IPO, so your credit history is-- is not exactly well-utilized as your credit is being assessed. And so Affirm, initially, was this idea, let's build a better score-- let's build something that's transparent, that's inclusive, that brings people in where they're being excluded.
And then it expanded from there, where, at this point, we are embedded at the point of sale as a lender of records. So when someone wants to buy a thing, we will underwrite you-- tell you, hey, here's how much credit we can offer you. We'll actually pay the merchants, and we'll take the risk on you and finance your purchase. And then we'll bill you over time.
The cool thing about Affirm, sort of through this commitment to transparency, we price everything in dollars, as well as rates. So you know exactly how much you will pay all in. So your principal, your interest, we stop at that number. So once you've paid us the amount we promise that you will, you cannot pay us more, which means we don't compound interest into the principal, but, more importantly, we don't charge fees of any kind, including no late fees.
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Those guys watching these types of interview you are definitely built the great business.
i had a stroke reading that
@@itsamoghywogy3693 fax
Yes🤙🤙🤙
13:45 "We were surrounded by people telling us 'this will never work!'". Good to know. Don't let the naysayers get you down!
Those people also listen to themselves and that's why they never do anything important
That was incredible! My big cake away from your interview was access to a product at a point of sale. You can advertise all you want, but your timing has to be perfect.
This guy is just awesome! All high tech startup founders should watch this video end to end!
Paypal starts at 12:08, before is him plugging his new company
A1R 👍🏿👍🏿👍🏿
I will save you from any neighbour in your neighbourhood
thanks
ayeee🎯
Thank you so much
Not what I was looking for...but ended up being what I needed to hear.
This was very impactful.
Thank you.
Only 10 comments on this enlightening video. I hope others get to see it.
The keys are reinvention and forward thinking.
Respect!!
This guy is my hero.. Honestly what I aspire to be a company starter.
Are you still pursuing
Co-ask
@@Katlego10 still asking too.
@@thomasmaghanga2064 let’s execute. We’ll learn the answers later
@@thomasmaghanga2064 haha same here
It’s awesome when people have extraordinary success but still have compassion and recognize people who don’t have what he has. But much respect to what he’s accomplished!
Wow, the title of this video makes it seem like it's just for business people, but really everyone needs to watch this
He’s that guy!!! Super down to earth
Yes find Elon Musk and Peter Thiel. Got it.
This interview was soooo good!
Wow this guy will change the world as we know it
Amazing
This has literally nothing to do with how to build a successful tech startup.
Really ? 😉
It surely does.
@@therealOssie You Got It Lol 🤪
is your credit rating affected from using affirm?
I like him even though affirm denied me lol need to build my credit history
They own Klarna.
Russ Simmons was a business man his brother was the rapper
Amazing PayPal
Great interview with a very misleading title
Foreigners always make it.
Exact reason why Elon bought BTC. Finance changes First.
This sounds like afterpay the Australian app
Enjoyed the correlation he made of testing software and Universal Basic Income. UBI sounded ludicrous to me when I first heard of the idea, but perhaps I would've thought all of the innovative technology we have today would've sounded ridiculous
How does affirm make money? They charge the merchant to pay the interest for the customer?
Pretty much think about the merchant giving them a kickback
got unnecessarily political
👏👏
Is this the comment that changes our lives?
I have an idea...A HUGE game changing idea.
But I need help developing it. I started and have a solid foundation but at this point I am stuck.
Need a dreamer to help build the most transformative and amazing application you could imagine.
what is it??
Now there are many fintech startups, we cooperate with them as a software development vendor. Apart from high-quality service, well-thought-out interface and security guarantees, what else is important for users? What can be an advantage?
1. Trust
2. Readily available and helpful customer service
3. TRUST
Hire me.
Watching in 2024
17:00
BUY (AFRM) Stock now !!! It will explode 10 times more this year!!!
Max eh 30
Nice intrw
I'm infatuated with this. I had the pleasure of reading something similar, and I was completely infatuated. "The Hidden Empire: Inside the Private Worlds of Elite CEOs" by Adam Skylight
Everyone should pay the same Income tax percentage.
If it's 10% everyone should pay 10% period.
You make $10 you pay $1
You make $1 Million you pay $100K.
Islam actually has that rule. Everyone in a Muslim society has to pay a 2.5% Alms Tax which is pretty cool to reflect on.
Misguided headline, does not correlate with the interview
Agreed. It is a good interview, but the title has nothing to do with the content, almost like click bait.
Now i understand Elon musk, where he got his irony talking maner.
Isnt this what Klarna is today?
Title of the video is very not what content is inside this video 👀✅
To his 8 year old nephew: I sell loans at 28% or higher to poor people
I about to quit my job cuz I wanna to launch my startup
I'm there with you bro
@@tuneplan1392 thanks
I am tired to built software for company who make million of dollar.
What we get returned 'bshit $100000' per year
I rather quit and focus on my saas
I quit my job to start my company, don’t !
@@gmt8336 it didn't work out??
@@gabrielfono844 Saas ? 🤔
I don't think he knows a lot, just lucky
They're always portrayed as geniuses... privilege and luck are never mentioned.
At no point did he break it down to any steps
He's from Ukraine!
They still have a grug on Elon. He's the true hero and rockstar and they are salty that he is the better entrepreneur . The didn't even include him in their photo so sad
I thought PayPal was founded by Elon Must and Peter Thiel????
Where is Mr musk
Max Levchin said some great things and even ge sensed the politically loaded wuestions of the arrogant interviewer.
Anyone from tech who wants to build a tech startup , pls pin in below comments and we”ll use our resources & skills to build that or atleast give it a shot!!
Was this real? Like this isn’t like a parody or anything?
So whats in this video about how to build a successful tech startup??? I guess I missed it.
Other than you needed to be born in the right year and have a computer tech education with some ideas I didnt see anything of value.
Doesn't anyone wanna talk about how he's wearing his company's shirt. ??
Definitely an ad. I wasted so much time.
It's always a migrant !
What a waste of time. The title doesn’t reflect the content. Not relevant questions at allll!!
Just exploit the developers and put their money in your pocket...
But he writes code...
Tbh, if the developers could start such a business, they should have. It's not their money, it's the owner's/founder's. Their money is the money they're being paid to do the work, a sum that they agreed to when signing the contract.
Lumen Thank you!! It’s not exploitation, it’s a job. If you don’t get busy making your own dreams come true, you’ll work to make someone else’s come true.
How is employing someone exploitation??
Many devs use the money they earn from being 'exploited' to start their own companies.
What's with the BS politics in the middle of the video? Let's keep that crap out of informative videos.
Very boring
Okay so
1. This is too long
2. This guy is boring
UGH
Respect!!
Respect!!