Max Levchin, PayPal and Affirm — The Path from The Soviet Union to Building Multi-Billion Dollar Companies
A Tim Ferriss Show conversation with Max Levchin, co-founder of PayPal and founder of Affirm, about marriage and co-founding, the movie line 'whenever there is any doubt, there is no doubt', his favourite novel The Master and Margarita, and cycling. PARTIAL COVERAGE: the episode runs about 118 minutes and the available caption text is cut off, so this summary covers only roughly the first 40 percent, up to his comments on growing up in the Soviet Union, and not the later business discussion. His views on politics and economic systems near the end of the captioned part are his own opinions, noted here without endorsement.
Executive Summary (TL;DR)
A Tim Ferriss Show conversation with Max Levchin, co-founder of PayPal and founder of Affirm, about marriage and co-founding, the movie line 'whenever there is any doubt, there is no doubt', his favourite novel The Master and Margarita, and cycling. PARTIAL COVERAGE: the episode runs about 118 minutes and the available caption text is cut off, so this summary covers only roughly the first 40 percent, up to his comments on growing up in the Soviet Union, and not the later business discussion. His views on politics and economic systems near the end of the captioned part are his own opinions, noted here without endorsement.
Key Takeaways
Marriage and co-founding
Levchin says the secret to his marriage is that he is still trying to impress his wife every day, and he asks what co-founders can learn from that.