Max Levchin

Early life and education

Born in Kiev, Ukrainian SSR to a Ukrainian Jewish family, Levchin moved to the United States under political asylum, and settled in Chicago in 1991. 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. He attended Mather High School and earned a bachelor's degree in computer science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1997.

PayPal

In the summer of 1995, Levchin and fellow University of Illinois students Luke Nosek and Scott Banister founded SponsorNet New Media. 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 in order for handheld devices to serve as "digital wallets." After changing the company name to Confinity, they developed a popular payment product known as PayPal and focused on digital transfers of funds by PDA. The company merged with X.com in 2000, and in 2001, the company adopted the name PayPal after its main product. PayPal, Inc. went public in February 2002, and was subsequently acquired by eBay. Levchin worked there with Peter Thiel, Roelof Botha, David Sacks, and many other members of the PayPal Mafia. Levchin's 2.3% stake in PayPal was worth approximately $34 million at the time of the acquisition. 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. He is primarily 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.

Slide, Yelp websites (2004)

In 2004, Levchin founded Slide, 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 and, on August 25, Levchin joined the company as vice president of engineering. On 26 August 2011, Google announced it was shutting down Slide, and that Levchin was leaving the company.

In 2004, Levchin helped start Yelp, an online social networking and review service. He is the company's largest shareholder, owning more than 7 million shares as of 2012. Levchin served as chairman of its board of directors from its founding until July 2015.

Board at Evernote (2006-2016)

On August 7, 2006, Levchin was appointed to the board of directors of Evernote, where he is also an investor where he served until 2016.

HVF

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. In early 2012, Affirm was spun out of HVF, with the goal of building the next generation credit network. In 2013, HVF launched Glow, a fertility app that helps couples conceive naturally.

Affirm

As of January 2016, Levchin serves as the CEO and co-founder of Affirm, a financial technologies company. Created in 2012 by Levchin, Palantir Technologies co-founder Nathan Gettings, and Jeff Kaditz of First Data, Affirm is based in San Francisco.

Board at Yahoo! (2012-2015)

In December 2012, Max joined Yahoo's Board of Directors, where he served until December 2015.

U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (2015-Present)

In 2015, Levchin was appointed to the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's Consumer Advisory Board for a three-year term making him the first executive from Silicon Valley to be appointed to the board.

Film and writing

Levchin was an executive producer for the movie Thank You for Smoking. Levchin was collaborating with Garry Kasparov and Peter Thiel on The Blueprint, a book calling for a revival of world innovation. Thiel and Levchin expounded on their thesis in an interview during TechCrunch Disrupt. The book, originally scheduled for a January 2012 release, has been postponed indefinitely.

In the media

Levchin has appeared as a speaker at the Startup School organized by Y Combinator, where he describes his own journey as an entrepreneur and the mistakes he made and lessons he learned. Levchin was also featured in "Brilliant Issue" of Portfolio by Condé Nast Publications. Levchin did a full-length interview with Charlie Rose in 2013.

Politics

Levchin was listed as one of the contributors to FWD.us, a Silicon Valley-based lobbying group spearheaded by Mark Zuckerberg and Joe Green. 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. Levchin also narrated his personal experience as an immigrant in a video released by the group.

Personal life

In 2008, Levchin married his longtime girlfriend, Nellie Minkova. He has two children.