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Max Levchin

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Max Levchin
Максиміліан Левчин
Levchin at TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2013 in San Francisco, California
Born
Maksymilian Rafailovych Levchyn

(1975-07-11) July 11, 1975 (age 51)
Kiev, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union (now Kyiv, Ukraine)
EducationUniversity of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (BS)
OccupationsCEO of Affirm
Co-founder and former CTO of PayPal
SpouseNellie Minkova (m. 2008)
Children2
Websitewww.levchin.com

Maksymilian Rafailovych "Max" Levchin[a] (born July 11, 1975) is a Ukrainian-American software engineer and entrepreneur who is the co-founder and CEO of Affirm, a buy now, pay later financial services company, and co-founded PayPal as Confinity in 1998, leading the company as chief technology officer before its acquisition by eBay in 2002.

At PayPal, Levchin made contributions to PayPal's anti-fraud efforts and was the co-creator of the Gausebeck-Levchin test, one of the first commercial implementations of a CAPTCHA challenge response human test.[1]

Levchin was a producer for the movie Thank You for Smoking.

Early life and education

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Born in Kyiv, then part of the Ukrainian SSR, to a Ukrainian-Jewish family,[2] Levchin moved to the United States and settled in Chicago in 1991.[3][4][5] In an interview with Emily Chang of Bloomberg, Levchin discussed his overcoming adversity as a child. He had respiratory problems and doctors doubted his chance of living. With guidance from his grandmother and his parents he took up the clarinet to expand his lung capacity.[6] He attended Mather High School, and then the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he earned a bachelor's degree in computer science in 1997.

Business career

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In the summer of 1995, Levchin and fellow University of Illinois students Luke Nosek and Scott Banister founded SponsorNet New Media.[7]

PayPal

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In 1998, Levchin and Peter Thiel founded Fieldlink, a security company that allowed users to store encrypted data on their PalmPilots and other PDA devices for handheld devices to serve as "digital wallets".[8] After changing the company name to Confinity, they developed a popular payment product, calling it PayPal and focusing on digital funds transfer by PDA.[7] The company merged with X.com in 2000, and in 2001, the company adopted the name PayPal after its main product.[8] PayPal, Inc. went public in February 2002, and in July 2002 was acquired by eBay. Levchin's 2.3% stake in PayPal was worth approximately $34 million at the time of the acquisition.

Levchin is widely known for his contributions to PayPal's anti-fraud efforts and is also the co-creator of the Gausebeck-Levchin test, one of the first commercial implementations of a CAPTCHA.[1][9]

In 2002, he was named to the MIT Technology Review TR100 as one of the top 100 innovators in the world under the age of 35, as well as Innovator of the Year.[10]

Levchin is one of a group of roughly twenty founders and former employees of PayPal who have become referred to as the "PayPal Mafia", due to their success in founding and investing in tech companies after leaving PayPal.[11][12] He is sometimes referred to as the consigliere of the PayPal Mafia.[13] When asked in 2020 whether the PayPal Mafia really existed, he said that, "'PayPal mafia' doesn’t bother me much because the original article that used it in 2007 described me as the consigliere, and I always thought the 'consigliere' was the coolest guy in a mafia." He recalled deliberately screening for entrepreneurial ambition during hiring at PayPal, favoring candidates whose goal was to eventually start their own companies. He hoped that the dynamic can be replicated at Affirm.[14]

Slide

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Max Levchin seen playing Guitar Hero at a conference

In 2004, Levchin founded Slide,[15] a personal media-sharing service for social networking sites such as Myspace and Facebook. Slide was sold to Google in August 2010 for $182 million[16] and, on August 25, Levchin joined the company as vice president of engineering.[17] On August 26, 2011, Google announced it was shutting down Slide, and that Levchin was leaving the company.[18]

HVF and Affirm

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In late 2011, Levchin started a company called HVF (standing for "Hard, Valuable, and Fun") that was intended to explore and fund projects and companies in the area of leveraging data, such as data from analog sensors.[19][20]

In early 2012, the financial technology company Affirm was spun out of HVF, with the goal of building the next-generation credit network. Affirm was created by Levchin, Palantir Technologies co-founder Nathan Gettings, and Jeff Kaditz of First Data. The company is based in San Francisco.[21] After Affirm had its initial public offering, Levchin's stake was estimated at $2.5 billion.[22]

In 2013, HVF launched Glow, a fertility app that helps couples conceive naturally.[23][24]

HVF also invests in Emerald Therapeutics, a company which applies cloud computing to drug discovery.[25]

Nyca Partners

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Levchin and the venture fund Nyca Partners have maintained a long-time relationship. Nyca was an early investor in his firm Affirm, and he once served as investment partner at Nyca.[26] He joined the firm since its launch in 2014.[27] He was still listed as an investment partner in January 2017.[28] In 2020, Affirm alumnus Jeremy Solomon joined Nyca through the connection with Levchin.[26] Nyca also backs identity verification startup SentiLink and debt-collection company TrueAccord together with Levchin.[29][30][31]

Scifi VC

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Scifi VC was founded in 2010.[32] Levchin's wife Nellie Levchin was his co-founder.[33] He credits her with many of the fund's most successful deals as well as angel investments.[33] The firm brands itself as a "early stage generalist firm", which focuses on fintech, science, and AI. Its portfolio companies include Anduril, Uber, Stripe,[33] [34], and Capchase (fintech)[35]

Recently it has invested in the ocean-based data center company Panthalassa together with Peter Thiel.[36]

Board memberships and other investments

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Levchin was a key early investor in Yelp, an online social networking and review service that started in 2004. He was the company's largest shareholder, owning more than 7 million shares as of 2012.[37] Levchin served as chairman of Yelp's board of directors from its founding,[38] until July 2015.[39] An angel investor in Mixpanel, its founder Suhail Doshi credits Levchin for Mixpanel's survival and subsequent success.[40] He is also a seed investors in companies like WePay, ClearTax, SmartThings, Vurb (now part of Snap Inc.), Zendrive.[41] He is an angel investor in AngelList alongside Chad Hurley and David Sacks.[42]

Other investments of Levchin include AdRoll, Square, TransferWise, Pinterest, Crunchyroll.[43] He also invests in companies associated with Affirm like SentiLink (founded by Affirm alumni Naftali Harris and Max Blumenfeld, and funded also by David Sacks's Craft Ventures) and Resolve (Affirm spinout founded by Chris Tsai).[29][44][45][46]

Levchin is an investor in Evernote. He served on the company's board of directors from August 7, 2006, to 2016.[47] He has also been on the boards of Kaggle, Quid, Yahoo, SF Symphony,[43] Unity Technologies.[48]

In December 2012, Levchin joined Yahoo's board of directors,[49] and remained until December 2015.[50]

In 2015, Levchin was appointed to the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) advisory board for a three-year term, making him the first executive from Silicon Valley to be appointed to the board.[51] In 2021, Levchin, after his experience on the advisory board at the CFPB, called for the necessity for the tech industry to engage more with regulators.[52]

As of 2021 Levchin had an estimated net worth of US$3 billion.[53]

In October 2025, Levchin was elected a director of The Coca-Cola Company.[54]

In the media

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Levchin appeared as a speaker at the 2007 Startup School organized by Y Combinator, where he described his own journey as an entrepreneur and the mistakes he made and lessons he learned.[55] Levchin was also featured in "Brilliant Issue" of Portfolio by Condé Nast Publications.[56] In 2022 Levchin was interviewed in an NPR podcast called "How I Built This" where he spoke about his early life and business endeavors including his role in PayPal.

Politics

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Levchin was listed as one of the contributors to FWD.us, a Silicon Valley–based lobbying group spearheaded by Mark Zuckerberg and Joe Green.[57] The group is intended to concentrate on immigration liberalization for high-skilled immigrants to the United States, improvements to education, and facilitating technological breakthroughs with broad public benefits.[58] Levchin also narrated his personal experience as an immigrant in a video released by the group.[59]

In 2013, amidst the controversy over mass surveillance and NSA espionage activities, Levchin defended the NSA in opposition to views of many other tech entrepreneurs. According to him, the agency was designed to protect the US from terrorism, so even if it oversteps its bounds, the public should support it.[60]

In a 2019 interview with Yahoo Finance, Levchin stated he agreed something needed to be done about income inequality in the United States, but disagreed that the solution should involve a form of democratic socialism, as suggested by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.[61] Even though her proposals did not include government ownership of "everything" as he implied, Levchin warned of the state of Ukraine's economy around the time of the Soviet Union's collapse, recounting, "there were tanks on the streets, because we couldn't — couldn't contain the populace from tearing the country apart."[61]

Other activity

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Levchin arranged and financed the Levchin Prize which since 2016 rewards advancements in cryptography with a real-world impact.[62][63][64][65]

In April 2026, he was ranked on the Forbes list, "Self-Made 250: The Greatest Living Self-Made Americans".[66]

Personal life

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In 2008, Levchin married his longtime girlfriend, Nellie Minkova.[5][67] He has two children. He lived in San Francisco from 2007 to 2019.[68] In 2019, he listed his home in San Francisco for $7.25 million, which he originally purchased in 2007 for $5.3 million.[68]

Notes

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  1. ↑ Ukrainian: Максиміліан Рафаїлович Левчин, romanized: Maksymilian Rafailovych Levchyn

References

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  1. 1 2 Black, Jane (September 30, 2002). "Max Levchin: Online Fraud-Buster". Bloomberg. Retrieved October 10, 2023.
  2. ↑ Cohan, Peter. "Yelp Chair Max Levchin's Trek from Kiev to San Francisco". Forbes. Retrieved March 1, 2025.
  3. ↑ "BBC News – Start-Up Stories: Max Levchin". BBC News. June 23, 2010. Retrieved May 29, 2016.
  4. ↑ Hareetz: "One day in Silicon Valley" by Guy Rolnick August 3, 2010 |"Levchin, 32, Jewish of course and born in Kyiv, refused to discuss money."
  5. 1 2 New York Times: "After Succeeding, Young Tycoons Try, Try Again" By GARY RIVLIN October 28, 2007
  6. ↑ "Max Levchin, how is he so successful". worldheadway.com. Archived from the original on June 18, 2018. Retrieved January 16, 2016.
  7. 1 2 Hal Plotkin (September 8, 1999). "Beam Me Up Some Cash". CNBC.com. Retrieved March 30, 2015.
  8. 1 2 "History". PayPal. Retrieved March 30, 2015.
  9. ↑ Brehse, Tami (November 24, 2019). "The 'PayPal Mafia' formed in the early 2000s, and includes everyone from Elon Musk to the Yelp founders. Here's where the original members have ended up". Business Insider. Retrieved October 10, 2023.
  10. ↑ "2002 Young Innovators Under 35: Max Levchin, 26". Technology Review. 2002. Retrieved August 14, 2011.
  11. ↑ Staff, Times of Startups (March 1, 2019). "Max Levchin, PayPal Cofounder and an Internet Entrepreneur". Retrieved March 2, 2024.
  12. ↑ "Russland stellt ukrainische Bank unter Zwangsverwaltung". Die Presse (in German). March 7, 2014. Retrieved October 14, 2024.
  13. ↑ Jackson, Tami Brehse, Kylie Kirschner, Jaures Yip, Sarah (December 7, 2024). "The PayPal Mafia includes tech titans like Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, and Reid Hoffman. Here's where its members are now". Business Insider.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  14. ↑ Lunden, Ingrid (August 19, 2020). "Max Levchin is looking ahead to fintech's next big opportunities". TechCrunch.
  15. ↑ Slide – slideshows, slide shows, photo sharing, image hosting, widgets, MySpace codes, web publishing, music – Slide Archived August 27, 2005, at the Wayback Machine
  16. ↑ Google Buys Slide for $182 Million, Getting More Serious about Social Games*. TechCrunch (August 4, 2010). Retrieved on January 14, 2014.
  17. ↑ PayPal and Slide Co-founder Becomes a Google VP of Engineering. Mashable.com (August 26, 2010). Retrieved on January 14, 2014.
  18. ↑ "Google to Shut Slide Apps as Slide Founder Departs". The New York Times. August 26, 2011.
  19. ↑ "HVF". Archived from the original on October 28, 2012. Retrieved May 13, 2013.
  20. ↑ Wauters, Robin (January 2, 2013). "Geeking out on data: Max Levchin talks about his HVF project at DLD13". The Next Web. Retrieved May 13, 2013.
  21. ↑ "Max Levchin: Young people 'dislike big banks'". Usatoday.com. December 1, 2014. Retrieved April 9, 2015.
  22. ↑ Jeff Kauflin (February 8, 2021). "Inside The Billion-Dollar Plan To Kill Credit Cards". Forbes. Retrieved August 4, 2021.
  23. ↑ "Glow – About". Glow. Retrieved August 3, 2013.
  24. ↑ Feltman, Rachel (August 2, 2013). "The co-founder of PayPal wants to put a baby in you". Quartz. Retrieved August 3, 2013.
  25. ↑ "Hard, Valuable, Fun - Carnegie Mellon University | CMU". www.cmu.edu. Retrieved August 29, 2026.
  26. 1 2 Crichton, Danny (April 21, 2020). "A major fintech startup exec is being minted into NYC's latest VC". TechCrunch.
  27. ↑ Massoudi, Arash; Alloway, Tracy (August 10, 2014). "US venture fund Nyca Partners seeks fintech edge".
  28. ↑ Irrera, Anna (January 27, 2017). "U.S. fintech venture firm Nyca raises $125 million for new fund".
  29. ↑ Boslet, Mark (March 26, 2019). "SentiLink raises $14 mln from Andreessen Horowitz, Nyca Partners, Felicis Ventures, Caffeinated Capital, others". Venture Capital Journal.
  30. ↑ "TrueAccord Adds $250K From Nyca Partners - WSJ". Wall Street Journal. October 15, 2014.
  31. ↑ "Max Levchin: Positions, Relations and Network - MarketScreener". www.marketscreener.com. Retrieved August 29, 2026.
  32. 1 2 3 Rollet, Melia Robinson, Leena Rao, Ben Bergman, Sydney Bradley, Tom Carter, Rosalie Chan, Shubhangi Goel, Robert Scammell, Geoff Weiss, Charles. "The Seed 100: The best early-stage investors of 2026". Business Insider.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  33. ↑ UK Private Capital Breakdown 2025 (PDF). Pitchbook. September 3, 2025. p. 11.
  34. ↑ Investment Trends in Spain Annual Report 2021 Conclusions Annual Report on Investment in Spain 2021 (PDF). Spanish Startup Ecosystem Observatory. January 2022. p. 11`.
  35. ↑ Segal, Mark (May 5, 2026). "Peter Thiel Leads $140 Million Capital Raise for Panthalassa to Power AI Computing Using Ocean Waves". ESG Today.
  36. ↑ Who Got Rich This Week: Chief Yelper Levchin, An Ohio Barrel Heiress And More. Forbes (March 30, 2012). Retrieved on January 14, 2014.
  37. ↑ Corporate Governance – Biography | Investor Relations | Yelp[link removed]. Yelp-ir.com. Retrieved on January 14, 2014.
  38. ↑ Somerville, Heather. "Max Levchin steps down from Yelp's board, a sign Affirm is taking off". Silicon Beat. Archived from the original on December 5, 2019. Retrieved January 18, 2016.
  39. ↑ Kim, Eugene (March 2015). "How a PayPal 'Mafia' member helped this 26-year-old build an $865 million startup". Business Insider.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: deprecated archival service (link)
  40. ↑ MacColl, Melia Robinson, Michael Haley, Candy Cheng, Margaux (April 2, 2021). "The Seed 100: The best early-stage investors of 2021". Business Insider.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  41. ↑ Cutler, Kim-Mai (September 23, 2013). "How AngelList Hacked Its $24M Round". TechCrunch.
  42. 1 2 Carr, Austin (October 16, 2014). "Unfinished business:Max Levchin's quest to build the next PayPal".
  43. ↑ Azevedo, Mary Ann (May 25, 2021). "Affirm spinout Resolve raises $60M for its B2B 'buy now, pay later' platform". TechCrunch.
  44. ↑ Gagliordi, Natalie (April 23, 2019). "Max Levchin's Affirm spins out independent B2B financing company Resolve". ZDNET.
  45. ↑ Chan, Rosalie (March 26, 2019). "This Andreessen Horowitz-backed startup is creating technology to bust fraudsters who make up completely fake identities". Business Insider.
  46. ↑ "Esther Dyson, Max Levchin Join EverNote Board of Directors". Business Wire. August 7, 2006.
  47. ↑ Takahashi, Dean (August 10, 2017). "Unity adds Max Levchin and Robynne Sisco to board as it readies for IPO". GamesBeat.
  48. ↑ "Yahoo! Appoints Entrepreneur Max Levchin to Board of Directors". Business Wire. December 13, 2012.
  49. ↑ "Max Levchin Resigns From Yahoo's Board Of Directors". ibtimes.com. December 9, 2015.
  50. ↑ "CFPB Announces New Members of the Consumer Advisory Board, Community Bank Advisory Council, and Credit Union Advisory Council". September 18, 2015.
  51. ↑ Detrixhe, John (April 17, 2021). "Max Levchin on how Affirm plans to survive the land grab in "buy now pay later"". Quartz.
  52. ↑ "#1444 Max Levchin". Forbes. September 25, 2021.
  53. ↑ "Max Levchin Elected to Board of Directors of The Coca‑Cola Company". The Coca-Cola Company. October 16, 2025. Retrieved December 12, 2025.
  54. ↑ "Start-up advice for entrepreneurs, from Y Combinator Startup School". March 26, 2007. Retrieved September 4, 2017.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: deprecated archival service (link)
  55. ↑ "Max Levchin Becomes the Internet's New Wacky Pix Guy!". allthingsd.com. April 2, 2008. Retrieved January 25, 2016.
  56. ↑ "Zuckerberg And A Team Of Tech All-Stars Launch Political Advocacy Group FWD.us". TechCrunch. April 11, 2013. Retrieved November 21, 2020.
  57. ↑ "Our Supporters". FWD.us. Archived from the original on April 13, 2013. Retrieved May 13, 2013.
  58. ↑ "Stories". FWD.us. Archived from the original on April 13, 2013. Retrieved May 13, 2013.
  59. ↑ The NSA Isn’t Evil, It’s Trying To Protect Us, Says PayPal’s Max Levchin. TechCrunch, September 10, 2013.
  60. 1 2 Fuchs, Erin (September 5, 2019). "Max Levchin on AOC's 'tax the wealthy' plan: 'Redistribution does not work'". Yahoo! Finance. Retrieved April 7, 2026.
  61. ↑ Levchin, Max (January 6, 2016). "Establishing the Levchin Prize for Real World Cryptography". Tumblr. Retrieved April 9, 2024.
  62. ↑ Chemparathy, Augustine (January 6, 2016). "Cryptographers honored with Levchin Prize at Real World Cryptography Conference". The Stanford Daily. Retrieved April 9, 2024.
  63. ↑ "Affirm CEO Max Levchin Awards First Annual Prize for Advancements in Real-World Cryptography". BusinessWire. January 6, 2016. Retrieved April 9, 2024.
  64. ↑ Etienne, Stefan (January 6, 2017). "A prize for "real-world cryptography" was given to programmers behind AES and the Signal app". TechCrunch. Retrieved April 9, 2024.
  65. ↑ Knapp, Alex. "Forbes Self-Made 250: The Greatest Living Self-Made Americans". Forbes. Retrieved April 23, 2026.
  66. ↑ Upstart Business Journal: "Mid-day Bytes: AOL, Max Levchin's Wedding, PacketVideo Triumphs" by Andrea Chalupa September 29, 2008
  67. 1 2 Im, Jimmy (April 15, 2019). "PayPal co-founder is selling his $7.25 million San Francisco home — take a look inside". CNBC. Retrieved February 12, 2024.

Further reading

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