Max Levchin

Max Levchin

Co-founder and CEO of Affirm

🌍 American · Born July 11, 1975

2 Connections
1 Organizations
51 Age
2 Sources
Person
Business
Tech
Political
Family

About

Max Levchin is a Ukrainian-born American software engineer and serial entrepreneur best known as the co-founder and former Chief Technology Officer of PayPal and the founder and CEO of Affirm. Born in Kyiv, Ukraine, Levchin immigrated to the United States with his family in 1991, settling in Chicago. He earned a bachelor's degree in computer science from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 1997. In 1998, Levchin co-founded Confinity alongside Peter Thiel, developing the payment product PayPal and pioneering anti-fraud security mechanisms, including early commercial implementations of CAPTCHA technology. After PayPal's acquisition by eBay in 2002 for $1.5 billion, Levchin founded Slide, a personal media-sharing service acquired by Google in 2010. He also served as the founding Chairman of Yelp from 2005 to 2015 and sat on the board of directors of Yahoo! and The Coca-Cola Company. In 2012, Levchin created Affirm out of his San Francisco innovation lab HVF (Hard, Valuable, Fun), building a leading buy-now-pay-later fintech network that completed its initial public offering in 2021. Levchin is an active angel investor with investments in over 100 technology startups.

Intelligence Summary

Category Technology
Type Person
Nationality American
Born July 11, 1975
Total Connections 2
Verified ✓ Yes

Top Connections

Jeremy Stoppelman
Steve Chen
1998

Co-founded PayPal

Co-founded Confinity (later PayPal) and served as Chief Technology Officer, leading anti-fraud efforts.

2002

PayPal Acquired by eBay

PayPal went public and was subsequently acquired by eBay for $1.5 billion.

2004

Founded Slide

Launched Slide, a digital media-sharing platform for social networks.

2005

Became Chairman of Yelp

Helped incubate Yelp and served as Chairman of the Board until 2015.

2010

Slide Acquired by Google

Google acquired Slide for $182 million, and Levchin joined Google as Vice President of Engineering.

2012

Founded Affirm

Spun out financial technology platform Affirm from his startup incubator HVF.

2021

Affirm Initial Public Offering

Affirm completed its public debut on the NASDAQ exchange.