Fintech Trailblazer: Max Levchin, CEO and founder of Affirm

Max Levchin is a serial entrepreneur, a former founder of PayPal, and CEO and co-founder of Affirm – one of the world’s most successful BNPL fintech companies. A well-known figure among Silicon Valley’s financial and technology elite, you’d be forgiven for thinking that Max Levchin’s background must have aided in his meteoric rise to wealth and fame.

But rather than coming from a privileged upbringing, Levchin is a prime example of how hard work and ability results in success.

Born in Kiev, Ukraine in 1975 to Ukrainian-Jewish parents, he was a sickly child who suffered from severe breathing problems as an infant which continued to affect him throughout his childhood. His parents and grandmother encouraged him to take up the clarinet as a way to increase his beleaguered lung capacity, and there were times when the family feared young Max would not make it to adulthood due to health issues.

Despite the challenges, he was still a good and hard-working student. In 1991, when his family emigrated to the United States, with very little money left over to start a new life in their chosen home of Chicago, he entered Mather High School and excelled academically.

A passion for informatics and innovation

In 1997, Levchin graduated from the University of Illinois with a degree in computer science. But during his time as a student, he had shown a knack for entrepreneurship, founding not just one, but four startups alongside his studies.

They were all technology companies focused on online banner ads and white-label classified ads, marketing networks and newspaper sites.

While three of his early attempts failed early on, one scored and was quickly acquired by advertising company LinkExchange in the late 90s.

The sale of this first startup allowed Levchin to move to California – which was already flourishing as America’s hub for technological innovation. Despite having created and sold a company, Levchin was far from financially flush, and when he arrived in Palo Alto, he slept on the floor of a friend, who happened to be a student at Stanford University.

The story goes that Levchin found the lure of elite education a big draw and spent a lot of time sneaking into lectures to listen to the professors and enjoy the free air conditioning. One day, however, he attended a lecture by a young entrepreneur named Peter Thiel and realized that the pair shared a common vision.

In 1998, Levchin and Thiel were business partners in their first venture – a security company called FieldLink. The startup provided a data encryption service for PDAs and Palm Pilot devices, allowing them to act as digital wallets. It was a disruptive idea and soon caught the attention of the wider fintech community.

Levchin and Thiel later renamed the company Confinity – and developed the Paypal product, which in its early days enabled the digital transfer of funds via PDA devices.

Confinity merged with X.com in 2000, an online bank co-founded by Elon Musk, Harris Fricker, Christopher Payne and Ed Ho, and by 2001 had rebranded as its flagship product, PayPal.

PayPal went public shortly thereafter and was later acquired by eBay in July 2002. Levchin had hit the big time, with his 2.3% stake in the business worth an estimated $34 million at the time of the sale.

The capital to explore new innovations

Not only had Levchin secured his financial future, but his innovation and brilliance now had the attention of Silicon Valley’s most influential people. With his newfound wealth, he was able to indulge and experiment with his love of entrepreneurship and was even named MIT Technology Review’s Innovator of the Year—and one of the top 100 innovators in the world under the age of 35.

In 2004, he launched Slide – a precursor to the social media platform that enabled users to log in and network socially. Slide was bought by Google in 2010 for $182 million, and for a year Levchin stayed with the company as head of engineering.

In 2012, a year after leaving Slide, he launched his next startup – a technology finance company called HVF. The idea was that HVF should seek out innovative startups that utilized data. But, as usual, the idea developed, and within months Levchin concentrated again on fintech, founding Affirm – a company that he saw could create a next-generation credit network for users.

The team behind Affirm also included Palantir Technologies co-founder Nathan Gettings and Jeff Kaditz of First Data.

Branching out and courting controversy

Not content to stay within the confines of fintech, Levchin now sought further afield. He could see how technologies and analysis of data could be used to help people not only with transactions, but even with their personal lives. In 2013, he launched Glow, a data-driven fertility and health tracking app for women that has been instrumental in transforming fertility management for users.

He also dabbled in political affairs and was listed as a contributor to a Silicon Valley lobby group led by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. The group seeks action to help skilled immigrants on their journey into the U.S. tech industry.

He also became embroiled in debates about terrorism when he supported the NSA’s surveillance actions during the Edward Snowdon revelations, which saw other tech industry leaders criticize the NSA’s heavy-handed approach.

Confirm today, and family life

Today, Affirm is one of the world’s leading BNPL operators. In January 2021, the company went public, doubling its valuation from $12 billion to $24 billion. Today, in the current economic climate, stocks have taken a significant hit. But it remains an established and well-used lender, with its customer-friendly, flexible services that continue to attract user interest.

As for his personal life, Levchin is intensely private. According to reports, he married his longtime girlfriend in 2008 and has two children.