20VC: Affirm Max Levchin on Why Grading Talent by Letter (A or B) is Total BS | How to Create a Culture of Post Mortems and Writing | Why You Should Only Study Failure Not Success & The Biggest Surprises Scaling to $18.7BN Market Cap
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
The Twenty Minute VC
4.4 • 693 Ratings
🗓️ 5 February 2025
⏱️ 62 minutes
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Summary
Max Levchin is one of the great founders and technologists of our time. As the Founder and CEO of Affirm, he has built am $18.7BN monster in the buy no pay later space. Prior to Affirm he was one of the original co-founders of PayPal. Max is also the co-founder and Chairman of Glow, a data-driven fertility company. Max is also an immensely successful angel investor with a portfolio including the likes of Yelp, Pinterest and Evernote.
In Today's Episode We Discuss:
04:19 How to Hire the Best People in the World
05:05 How to Manage Extreme Personalities
08:18 Biggest Lessons on Trust and What Happens When Lost
12:05 Is Grading Talent A and B Players Total BS?
15:31 How to Think About Calculated vs Uncalculated Risk
27:18 How to Create a Culture of Post Mortems: Step by Step
32:08 Why Every Person Must Write and How to Create a Writing Culture
36:01 Leadership Lessons from Layoffs
38:38 Is Affirm Losing or Beating Klarna in the US?
47:03 Peter Thiel or Elon Musk: Who Would Max Rather Start a New Company With?
48:37 Quickfire Round
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I think opinionate is exceptionally valuable. The hard red line for me is always, once I can't trust you, |
| 0:07.5 | the story about knowing the letter grade of every person you hire in your company, whether it's |
| 0:13.4 | 2,000 people like a farm, but it's just silly. This is 20 VC with me, Harry Stebbings, and today |
| 0:18.5 | we have an incredible guest. Simply put, Max Levchin is one of the great technologists of our time. |
| 0:24.0 | As the founder and CEO of a firm, today he's built an $18.7 billion monster in the buy now pay later space. |
| 0:32.3 | Prior to a firm, he was one of the original co-founders of PayPal. |
| 0:36.0 | Max is also the co-founder and chairman of Glow, a data-driven fertility company. |
| 0:40.3 | He's also an extremely successful angel, with a portfolio including the likes of Yelp, |
| 0:45.1 | Pinterest and Evernote. |
| 0:46.6 | Before we dive in today, here are two fun facts about our newest brand sponsor, Kajabi. |
| 0:51.4 | First, their customers just crossed a collective $8 billion in total |
| 0:56.1 | revenue. Wow. Second, Kajabi's users keep 100% of their earnings, with the average Kajabi |
| 1:02.2 | creator bringing in over $30,000 per year. In case you didn't know, Kajabi is the leading |
| 1:07.7 | creator commerce platform with an all-in-one suite of tools, including |
| 1:11.5 | websites, email marketing, digital products, payment processing, and analytics for as low as $69 |
| 1:17.5 | per month. Whether you are looking to build a private community, write a paid newsletter, |
| 1:22.0 | or launch a course. Kajabi is the only platform that will enable you to build and grow your |
| 1:26.9 | online business without taking a cut of your revenue. 20 VC listeners can try Kajabi is the only platform that will enable you to build and grow your online business without taking a cut of your revenue. |
| 1:29.9 | 20 VC listeners can try Kajabi for free for 30 days by going to kajabi.com forward slash 20VC. |
| 1:37.1 | That's Kajabai.com K-A-J-A-B-I dot com forward slash 20VC. |
| 1:43.4 | And after building your online empire with Kajabi, it's time to scale your |
| 1:47.7 | global team with remote seamless hiring solutions. So every business is a global business in |
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