20VC: Max Levchin on What Makes A Truly Great CEO, Why Self-Awareness Is The Most Important Trait For Entrepreneurs & Why When There Is Doubt There Is No Doubt
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
The Twenty Minute VC
4.4 • 637 Ratings
🗓️ 14 July 2017
⏱️ 23 minutes
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Summary
Max Levchin is the Founder & CEO @ Affirm, the company that aims to remake consumer finance from the ground up. They have backing from some of the best in the business with over $400m in VC funding from the likes of Founders Fund, Lightspeed, Andreesen Horowitz, Khosla Ventures and Spark Capital just to name a few. Prior to Affirm, Max held numerous exec positions including Chairman of Yelp for 11 years and sitting on the board of directors @ Yahoo. Before that, Max founded Slide, subsequently bought by Google and was the Co-Founder & CTO @ Paypal.
In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:
1.) How did Max come to co-found Paypal and how did that serve as the foundations for his founding of Affirm today?
2.) Why does Max believe there is a crucial misalignment between service providers and consumers in financial services? Does Max agree with Bill Clerico that 'we are still in the very early days for Fintech?'
3.) Having co-founded Paypal, Slide and now Affirm, how has Max changed as a leader and CEO? What does Max believe makes the truly great CEOs? Are there commonalities in how they operate and their skills?
4.) What does Max look for in all new hires or when evaluating founders for potential investment? Why is self-awareness so important for entrepreneurs to have? Why does Max want to be slightly terrified by how smart an individual is?
5.) How has having Children changed Max's perception of what is important and what he chooses to spend his time on? How does that reflect in his actions and self-discipline?
Items Mentioned In Today’s Show:
Max’s Fave Book: The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Max on Twitter here!
Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC.
eShares is the No 1 Cap Table Management platform, allowing for equity management, 409A valuations, and liquidity, all in one place. eShares is made for companies of all sizes with over 5,000 trusted customers including the likes of Squarespace, Kickstarter, and DoorDash just to name a few. To try out the must have service of the industry, simply head over to esharesinc.com it is a must.
Fond is the employee engagement suite with 3 core products, rewards: a recognition platform for rewarding achievements and milestones, perks: a premium corporate discounts program to show employees you care about them and then finally engagement IQ, a free employee engagement survey that allows you to measure the health of your organization. To check it out head over to fond.co
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | We are back for another very special episode of Founders Friday here on the 20 minute VC with me, |
| 0:04.5 | your host, Harry Stebbings. You can add me on Snapchat at H. Stebbings with 2Bs, where you can send |
| 0:09.2 | suggestions for future guests for the show and suggest questions for future guests. But to the show |
| 0:13.6 | today, and my word do we have a very special founder for you. I'm very honored to welcome Max |
| 0:18.0 | Levchin to the hot seat today. Now, Max is the founder and CEO at Affirm, |
| 0:22.0 | the company that aims to remake consumer finance from the ground up, and they have backing from |
| 0:26.4 | some of the very best in the business, with over $400 million in VC funding from the likes of |
| 0:31.2 | Founders Fund, Lightspeed, Andresen, Kocler, and Spark Capital, just to name a few. Prior to |
| 0:36.5 | affirm, Max held numerous exact |
| 0:38.1 | positions, including chairman of Yelp for 11 years, and sitting on the board of directors at Yahoo. |
| 0:42.9 | Before that, Matt's founded Slide, subsequently bought by Google, and was the co-founder and |
| 0:47.1 | CTO at PayPal. Now, I do want to say a massive thank you to Brian Singerman at Founders Fund |
| 0:51.5 | for the intro to Matt's today, without which this episode would not have been possible, so a big thank you there. But before we dive into today's show, very few |
| 0:58.6 | pieces of software are a must for the majority of VCs I have on the show, but E-Shairs most certainly |
| 1:03.6 | is. E-Shairs is the number one cap table management platform, allowing for equity management, 409A valuations and liquidity all in one place. And eShairs is made for |
| 1:13.0 | companies of all sizes with over 5,000 trusted customers, including the lights of Squarespace, |
| 1:18.2 | Kickstarter and DoorDash, just to name a few. So try out the must-have service of the industry |
| 1:22.9 | and head over to eshairs inc.com. It really is a must. And once you have all the paperwork tied down with |
| 1:28.3 | eShares, you can now engage with your employees. And that's where Fond comes in. Fond is the |
| 1:33.1 | employee engagement suite with three core products. Rewards, a recognition platform for rewarding |
| 1:38.6 | achievements and milestones. Perks, a premium corporate discounts program to show employees you |
| 1:43.8 | care about them both in and outside of the office. |
... |
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