How to build a successful tech startup according to Paypal founder Max Levchin
Summary
TLDRマックス・レフチンは、PayPalの共同創業者であり、多くの成功したテクノロジースタートアップを創設した起業家です。このインタビューでは、彼が最新の会社であるAffirmについて語り、信用スコアの改善、消費者の透明性、そして金融業界における正直な取引の重要性を強調しています。また、彼の移民の背景が彼のビジネス哲学にどのように影響を与えているかについても触れています。さらに、彼は大企業如GoogleやFacebookの責任と、社会問題へのアプローチについても洞察を提供しています。
Takeaways
- 🚀 Max Levchinは、27歳で大成功を収め、その後も活発に起業家として活動を続けています。
- 💡 PayPalの創設後、eBayに売却され、その後もSNS事業のSlideを立ち上げ、Googleに売却しました。
- 🔄 現在はデジタルローンビジネスのAffirmを運営しており、これまでの経験を活かして様々な取り組みを進めています。
- 👦 Levchinは8歳の姪に自分の仕事を説明する際、「会社を立ち上げ、運営する」と言われています。
- 🛠️ Affirmは、信用情報の透明性と包括性を高め、信用不良者や新移民を支援することを目的としています。
- 💳 Affirmは、ポイントカードやクレジットカードとは異なり、支払い計画を提供し、消費者が正確な金額を知ることができます。
- 💰 Affirmは、利子や費用を一切追加せず、消費者が支払い金額を知り、安心して商品を購入できるようにしています。
- 📈 Affirmの成功は、ユーザー数と満足度で測られており、Net Promoter Scoreが非常に高く、ユーザーからの推薦度が高いことを示しています。
- 🌐 Levchinは、移民としてアメリカに来た経験が、彼のビジネス観や社会的問題に対する考え方に影響を与えています。
- 🤝 Levchinは、技術的な発展だけでなく、社会的な責任を重視し、企業の価値観を明確にすることが重要だと考えています。
- 🔄 彼は、社会問題に対する解決策を模索する際に、実験を通じて解決策を探ることが重要だと述べています。
Q & A
Max Levchinはどのような仕事をしていますか?
-Max Levchinは、会社を創立し、運営することを主な仕事としています。彼はコーダー、ハッカー、ビルダー、そして起業家と自称しています。
Maxは8歳の姪に自分の仕事をどのように説明しますか?
-Maxは、自分がコーディングすることを説明すると言っています。彼は、自分がどのように自分を捉えるかについて、コーダーであるという考え方を明確にしています。
Firmはどのような会社ですか?
-Firmは、信用スコアをより透明で包括的なものに改善することを目指したスタートアップです。現在は、販売時点での貸し出しや記録上の貸し出し者として組み込まれており、ユーザーに対しては費用や利子の詳細を明確に提示しています。
Maxは成功をどのように測定していますか?
-Maxは、ユーザー数とユーザー満足度を重要な成功の指標としています。特に、Net Promoter Score(NPS)が高いことを挙げて、ユーザーがFirmを友人に推薦する意欲が高いことを示しています。
Firmはどのようにして儲かっていますか?
-Firmは、商品やサービスを販売する際に提供するゼロパーセントローンを通じて儲かっています。このローンは、顧客が商品を購入する際にFirmが売主に対して支払いを行い、その後顧客に対して返済を求めます。
Maxは移民としてアメリカに来た経験は彼のビジネスにどのような影響を与えましたか?
-Maxは、移民としてアメリカに来た経験が、彼のビジネスに対するアプローチに影響を与えたと説明しています。彼は、移民が持つ無限の機会感や制限のない環境での成長を大切にしており、Firmの創立にもその経験が反映されています。
Maxは、技術的な教育に対するどのような考えを持っていますか?
-Maxは、教育に対する投資を重要視しており、特に未来の労働力市場に必要なスキルを備えるための教育に重点を置いていると述べています。彼は、教育を通じて社会の不利な立場にある人々を支援することが重要であると強調しています。
Maxは、アメリカの現在の移民政策についてどう考えていますか?
-Maxは、技術的な移民や外国留学生に対する現在の政策に対して批判的な立場をとっています。彼は、教育を受けた人々を送り返すという政策が誤りであると述べており、彼らにワークパーミットや恒久的なビザを提供することが理想的であると主張しています。
Maxは、FacebookやGoogleのような大規模なプラットフォーム企業にどのようなアドバイスをしますか?
-Maxは、これらの企業が、人々の生活や社会的な状況をより真剣に考慮する必要があるとアドバイスしています。彼は、これらの企業が持つ膨大なデータや影響力を扱う責任を認識し、適切な対応を行うことが重要だと考えています。
Maxは、貧困や所得格差の解決策として何を提案していますか?
-Maxは、より文明的で軽率でない議論を行い、実験的なアプローチを取ることを提案しています。彼は、教育への投資や、未来の労働市場に備えたスキルの習得を重視し、社会の不利な立場にある人々を支援するための具体的なアプローチを試行錯誤するべきだと述べています。
Outlines
🚀 Max Levchin's Journey and Philosophy
Max Levchin, co-founder of PayPal and CEO of Affirm, shares his experiences and insights on entrepreneurship, innovation, and the importance of transparency and inclusivity in the financial industry. He discusses his early success with PayPal, his subsequent ventures, and his commitment to building a better financial system through Affirm, which offers honest and transparent financial products.
🌟 The Power of Transparency in Finance
Levchin emphasizes the need for a transparent and consumer-friendly financial infrastructure, inspired by his own experiences as an immigrant. He explains how Affirm was created to provide a better credit scoring system and to offer a true zero-percent loan, eliminating hidden fees and promoting honest transactions. He also highlights the company's rapid growth and high user satisfaction.
🌐 The Global Impact of Immigration
Levchin reflects on his immigrant background and its influence on his business philosophy. He advocates for skilled immigration, arguing that educated immigrants should be encouraged to stay and contribute to the economy of their adopted country. He shares his thoughts on President Trump's immigration policies and the importance of recognizing the potential of immigrants.
💡 The PayPal Mafia and Silicon Valley Legacy
Levchin reminisces about the early days of PayPal and the group of people who went on to found influential tech companies, known as the 'PayPal Mafia.' He discusses the unique challenges and successes of starting a company during the dot-com crash and the lasting impact of PayPal on the payments industry.
📈 The Evolution of Payments and Financial Services
Levchin provides insights into the vast and growing market of payments and financial services, highlighting the opportunities for innovation and disruption. He discusses the evolution of PayPal, the rise of peer-to-peer payments, and the potential for multiple successful companies in the industry.
🤔 The Role and Responsibility of Tech Giants
Levchin addresses the challenges faced by large tech platforms like Google and Facebook, emphasizing the immense responsibility they hold due to their vast influence and data collection. He suggests that these companies need to prioritize people over profit and be prepared for increased regulatory scrutiny.
🌱 Addressing Inequality and the Future of Work
Levchin discusses the issue of wealth and income inequality, sharing his views on socialism and the importance of conscious capitalism. He advocates for practical solutions like universal basic income and investing in education to prepare the workforce for future changes. He emphasizes the need for experimentation and iteration in addressing social issues.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡インフルエンサー
💡PayPal
💡スタートアップ
💡信用スコア
💡金融サービス
💡移民
💡テクノロジー
💡社会問題
💡金融テクノロジー
💡ビジネスモデル
Highlights
Max Levchin's early success with PayPal and his transition back to entrepreneurship.
Levchin's vision for his current company, Affirm, and its focus on transparent financial products.
The importance of user experience and interface in the evolution of online commerce.
Affirm's approach to credit scoring and its aim to be more inclusive and transparent.
Levchin's personal experience with credit as an immigrant and how it influenced Affirm's mission.
Affirm's commitment to no hidden fees, late fees, or compound interest.
Levchin's views on the success of Affirm, measured by user satisfaction and Net Promoter Score.
The concept of 'true zero percent' loans and how Affirm differentiates itself from traditional financial institutions.
Levchin's thoughts on immigration policies and the benefits of skilled immigration.
The PayPal mafia and its lasting impact on the tech industry.
Levchin's perspective on the potential and challenges of the payments and financial services market.
The evolution of PayPal and its integration with eBay and Venmo.
Levchin's views on the role of big tech platforms like Google and Facebook in society.
The importance of core values in guiding a company's actions and decisions.
Levchin's experience on the board of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and his insights into financial inequality.
Levchin's thoughts on wealth and income inequality and the potential of universal basic income.
The need for a more experimental approach to solving societal issues, according to Levchin.
Transcripts
the work of an influencer never stops
Max Levchin hit it rich at age 27 then
he went right back to the office in 1999
leptin co-founded PayPal which was sold
to eBay three years later for 1.5
billion leptin gained 100 million dollar
fortune from the deal soon after he
launched slide a social networking
business that he sold to Google from
hundreds of millions he now runs yet
another company the digital loan
business affirm and other endeavors as
well legend is here to talk about how to
find and build successful tech startups
over and over again
[Music]
hello everyone welcome to influencers
I'm Andy serwer and welcome to our guest
Max Levchin CEO of a firm co-founder of
PayPal part of the PayPal mafia and a
million other endeavors maybe just a
polymath we can call you that we'll get
into all the things like that oh my god
anyway welcome good to see you good to
see you so max how would you describe
what you do to say an 8 year old nephew
what do you do for a living
what's your work so I normally tell
people I start and run companies that's
kind of a 1:1 liner introduction but
when pressed I revert back to I just
write code but that's kind of how I
think of myself a coder coder a hacker a
builder a company starter that I haven't
thought of this one okay careful all
right maybe we can loop back to it why
don't you tell me about a firm your
latest company right now it's been
latest company for over seven years so
it's a bit of a bit of a long in the
tooth startup but still very much a
start-up the it's a bit of a throwback
to my PayPal day so PayPal was all about
innovating above the credit card rails
where we took credit cards which 20
years ago were really hard to use online
and built user interface which turned
out to be much more than user interface
to make it easy to use in a browser and
online commerce
was never the same 20 years later took
me a long time to realize that the
underlying infrastructure the what's
below the rails below the ground isn't
especially well made it's not
transparent it's not especially consumer
friendly it has its own user interface
problems makes money on people's
mistakes
kind of at a very fundamental level and
so I wanted to go back in there and see
if it can be remade better so 7 and a
little bit years ago we started a
company with initially just a very
narrow view of let's do a better job
scoring credit so so the venerable
credit score that everybody uses today
is pretty opaque it's not really clear
there's plenty of information online
where
this fraction is how much credit you
have used in this fraction is how much
money you make but there's not a whole
lot more to it that's been well
understood and as a result for personal
experience I came to the US as a
teenager had to have my PayPal
co-founder sign for my first car loan my
first cell phone you know this is after
PayPal IPL so your credit history is is
not exactly well utilized as your credit
is being assessed and so firm initially
was this idea let's build a better score
let's build something that's transparent
let's that's inclusive that brings
people into where they're being excluded
and then it expanded from there where at
this point we are embedded at the
point-of-sale as a lender of record so
when someone wants to buy a thing we
will underwrite you tell you hey here's
how much credit we can offer you will
actually pay the merchant so we'll take
the risk on you and finance your
purchase and then we'll build you over
time the cool thing about a firm sort of
through this commitment to transparency
we price everything in dollars as well
as rates you know exactly how much you
will pay all in so your principal your
interest we stopped at that number
so once you've paid us the amount we
promised that you will you cannot pay us
more which means we don't compound
interest into the principal but more
portly we don't charge fees of any kind
including no late fees and so as a
result it's probably the most honest or
transparent financial product out of the
market and that was we did that five
years ago and been growing very very
quickly since serving the millions of
users and billions of dollars lent keep
expanding keep on adding new financial
products so how do you measure success I
mean in how many users do you have do
you have to get accepted by various
legacy systems like payment systems like
merchants etc we measure success by
number of users we have that that is the
most important what is that try not to
talk in precise numbers but it's in the
single-digit millions at this point so
I'll keep it at that the better measure
I think is that number in juxtaposition
with user satisfaction so you can have a
lot of users but if they hate you you
know
get very far kind of you know places
like the DB come to mind but our huge
satisfaction scores have been
extraordinary
the Net Promoter Score for the company
basically from inception and through
today has been north of 80 yeah last
week was 83 I think and so that that's a
pretty good sign that most of our users
would gladly recommend a firm to their
friends and we would I use it though max
in other words how would I win what I
want to use this and try it if you're
buying a peloton bike or a Castro
mattress both great companies right here
in New York City you would find us
offered add the point of sale and the
choice there is yours we can say hey I'm
just gonna buy it with my debit card
because I have the cash and I don't need
any help or you might use your credit
card especially if you're sort of
hunting for points and you want to
double down on those but if you're
younger or an immigrant or don't like
credit cards whatever whatever sort of a
stripe of society or you come from there
plenty of people that turns out that say
I just want a payment plan that tells me
exactly how much money I'm gonna owe and
what I'm gonna be done and I don't want
a card or an account or anything to
chase me down later and make me spend
more money or charge me peas I didn't
expect so that's what a firm will do for
you about a third of our transactions
and more than a third of our merchants
offer what's called a zero percent loan
so one of the things that you can you
can take this into the bank as they say
in our industry
if somebody's offering you a zero
percent rate it is not as you represent
rings yeah right was there catch in
other words yeah the catch is always
there it's always in a fine print
there's always the pay your loan down
during the promotional period and if you
don't there's $29.99 rates but the trick
typically is it compounds from time of
purchase all the way back it's called a
deferred interest with full recapture
it's the nastiest thing in the world
should have been banned it's been
attempted to get banned but you know
something somehow the industry manages
to weasel its way back into allowing it
in some form and so one of things that
we set out to do from the very beginning
was let's build a true zero percentage
but then what's your catch we don't have
one so these
percent that you would see at a firm is
the only true zero percent that means
that for example if you buy a pallet on
bike people see a zero percent loan how
do you make money then we have the
merchant P down the interest so what's
really going on is the merchant is
transferring some of their margin to the
consumer okay so it's an entirely honest
transaction what it does do though it
allows the merchant to preserve their
pricing integrity they're not
discounting they're helping you pay for
your bike or your mattress or your
whatever is you're buying overtime
without ever having to say the price is
not really the true price but there is
no catch there's no late fee there's no
flip to the different rates and god
forbid there's no deferred interest and
are you wearing a firm t-shirt by the
way always were in a firm t-shirt
Wow okay that's looking pretty good San
Francisco yeah we now have offices in
New York and Pittsburgh as well as San
Francisco so I rotate through my logo
and look how nicely done okay and you
mentioned that you came to this country
as an immigrant from the Ukraine right
and and it's shaped your thinking
obviously when it comes to this company
because you were talking about trying to
get credit and that being difficult how
else did it affect your thinking you
went to the University of Illinois there
being a kid from another country you
know it's the sort of thing that's
really hard to self-examine
so any form of well here's what I did to
the little max it's probably a little
Cesar exaggerated but I think I'm I'm
fairly well known for my outspoken this
in favor of certainly serve certain
types of immigration because I think
what it does to you as an immigrant is
the sense of unlimited opportunity that
just hits you in the face and you go
from hey I just escaped something that
was constraining my ability to be the
best I can be to complete lack of limits
and so I had a an extremely inspiring
teenage years in early 20s I was
surrounded by people that built the
modern Internet so I was at the U of I
as you mentioned on campus in 93 when
mosaic launched so
do you overlap with Marc Andreessen
where were a couple years overlapping
all of us kind of in the computer
science department worked at some time
or another the National Center for
supercomputing applications where mosaic
was developed and the web server was
developed so all the kind of the things
that we take for granted today weren't
around 25 years ago and they were built
by the hands of people that were in my
school kind of I had a front-row seat to
how the future would look like and so I
entered school thinking PGG in computer
science teach be a professor I come from
a long line of advanced degrees and
certainly my family expected me to do
just that and by the time I was wrapping
up junior year like one I'm gonna
hopefully I'm gonna graduate because I
know my parents are gonna murder me if I
don't but the second I'm done with that
I'm gonna just start companies and try
things and so in that sense I think
having an immigrant background gives you
a little bit of a leg up because you're
not afraid of anything we came to the US
with 600 ollars to a family of five and
the expectation was go figure it out
what do you think about President
Trump's policies on the immigration then
I think that policies on skilled
immigration and treatment of foreign
students I don't know if that policy
actually been enacted they've been
talked about a lot but I have a very
strong view on what I think is right I
think we should staple some form of work
permit and maybe a permanent visa to
every advanced degree that we give here
because what is the point of educating
people in fantastic schools from faraway
places if they're going to go back to
their faraway place and better their
country as opposed to the one that gave
them education so I think that's a very
very clear place where I have a strong
point of view I don't doubt that
immigration is extraordinary complex
issue and would certainly from my
faraway vantage point it looks like
people like to bundle skilled
immigration and various forms of refugee
and crises at border of various kinds
and I get it that I will never get it
that's why I'm not in politics right
right but in terms of putting up
impediments for skilled students I mean
happened them they're going to go back
anyway because they want to but to
actually force people to go back
doesn't see me seem to make sense yeah I
think that that's just extremely
extremely short are missed right let's
talk about PayPal because it really was
kind of a moment in time in the history
of Silicon Valley such as it is and it's
become sort of legendary
as I mentioned there's this PayPal mafia
and I want to know you know what is it
about that time and that story that
resonates to this day you know again if
you're in the soup it's hard to tell how
the cooking is being done but I think it
was just an extraordinary time
extraordinary group of people I was very
lucky to be to be at the the founding of
that the I remember the exact date but
shortly after we incorporated Yahoo's
stock price apropos the the chair in
which we said now went down something
like by 90 percent so there the crash of
the the early internet crash the world
was rioting internet business is off we
were sort of looking at ourselves in a
mirror going I did we take the worst
time in history to start a company
having to do with the Internet and so it
was a lot of we're coming in from an
extreme low before we shipped a product
before we did anything and so that was
kind of an interesting background noise
that shaped us we were all super young
and so was everyone around us but in
terms of people who are starting
companies in Silicon Valley at that time
and always really it's sort of the
domain of people have nothing to lose
young or old but just people that are
willing to go headfirst into a pool with
no water but we uh we were surrounded by
people telling us this will never work
I remember going to see someone about
understanding risk and credit card space
and this woman asked me something along
the lines of you know do you have this
in place you know what's your your
customer procedures and I generally held
the line though I was faking it to the
enth degree then at the end she says let
me know so what's your chargeback
management process and something in my
face betrayed the fact that I'm like
what are you talking about oh my god you
don't know what a chargeback is oh honey
you're done yeah I do they're going I
must be so so I think that the fact that
we're so unprepared and the early
success has just emboldened us to serve
you know we couldn't do wrong we we had
to keep on trying and there are plenty
of bombs plenty of things that we are
absolutely doing very bad things we
almost went out of business in numerous
times but the people that's what came
together we're ultimately really good
and who were some of those people who is
the PayPal mafia then I'd say you know
at this point I think by mutual
agreement there's about a hundred
twenty-five co-founders okay but so
obviously Peter and I started the
company up until very early on Reed
Hoffman was our first board member and
then eventually an executive vice
president so he sort of did all the
really kind of a super-advanced BD type
role and strategy people who've heard of
in other contexts people like Steve Chen
and Chad Hurley and Java creme so
eventually cofounders of YouTube of
course Russell Simmons not the rapper
but a slightly less snow and co-founder
of Yelp and Jeremy Stoppelman better
known co-founder of Yelp were both in my
organization on the technology side at
PayPal
started Yelp together a few years later
ken Howry Luke no sick all these guys
eventually wind up in founders fund Elon
Musk
obviously the merger between PayPal and
XCOM gave birth what PayPal really
became it's a long list
it's an amazing group and one of my
favorite things in my last job max was
commissioning that photograph okay I
think you had a little bit to do with
the pointage of them off exactly where
we got all of you guys to dress up a la
The Sopranos yep and took that picture
of you guys and you guys were so awesome
to cooperate and the photograph is just
to my mind epic it is an epic photo
although number of times it reappears in
the press at this point is sort of
borderline embarrassing right but it was
a figure
we were holed up in a real-life Italian
eatery in North Beach which is a
historically Italian neighborhood in San
Francisco and it was not air-conditioned
so the the giant globules of sweat on
all of our faces every L right just yeah
really really well that adds to it I
don't know if that was intentional at
the time Reid looked like he was not
enjoying really really looked I that was
pretty classic so as PayPal went forward
you know it became part of eBay and then
it came out and now it's attached with
venmo and so how has that evolution of
payments proceeded does it make sense to
you and is there still room I mean
you're actually you're of course you're
part of that world again today where
does that all stand so I think the thing
that is worth knowing or keeping in mind
about payments credit lending banking
it's either the largest - a second
largest market in the world there's
there's energy without which we're all
kind of you know I'm not gonna have
cameras to film us but other than that
payments is gargantuan there's no US
credit card outstanding balances right
now are about trillion dollars just give
you a sense for it that's just us it's
not even in the world so and then
volumes of payments going through the
world and now the internet are in many
trailers so there's always room and
every niche every little thing you find
in payments we kind of go wow let that
little thing is broken it could really
use some fixing is inevitably measured
in hundreds of millions of dollars like
the little stuff is hundreds of millions
the bigger opportunities of bigger sort
of ideas to revolutionize things are
always they quickly become trillions and
so I'm personally always very bullish on
any payments Financial Services idea
because the market is so massive because
the infrastructure is so old one of the
interesting things is actually kind of a
neat observation which I don't hear a
lot about but is absolutely true the
first industry to really embrace
computing after so the war machine was
finance so if you look at people like
Amex and people like Citibank like these
really giant of a financial industry you
in the 70s they were stocking up an IBM
system/360 s and asked for hundreds and
you know all these sort of classic big
iron biggish iron computing and that's
where they still have they haven't
really upgraded and so in many ways what
was the early adopter advantage now
became shackles that hold some of the
largest infrastructure players we have
down because they really don't have the
ability to say in a way where they're
all let's build it from scratch or
modern technology with better systems
and so that's why disruption has been so
plentiful in in the space and so yeah I
think the development of you know p2p
e-payments venmo is actually exactly how
PayPal started twenty years ago now and
there's plenty of other entrants and
they're all growing at some ridiculous
pace you know it's not very stripes yeah
they're all these players that when
stripe launched it was basically like
PayPal - the business model because
PayPal arbitrage card payments against
bank payments scribe said the car
payment is enough and everybody myself
included said how you gonna make any
money like the margin is this then and
you know it's okay Tennessee or later
years later it's uh I don't know
whatever it is now thirty billion dollar
company twenty five billion so all these
companies can succeed because the
marketplace if I mean no no guarantees
but there's room for a lot of them it's
just there's a lot of things that can be
done better the opportunities are
plentiful the market is enormous
financial services is generally a market
that naturally goes to multiple winners
there very very few national monopolies
because the markets are internationally
speaking for sure Orkut so large and
very diverse what's very successful here
could not work somewhere else so you
have to be willing to reinvent yourself
or let someone else take the market I
think the most interesting ideas also
emerge when generational divides take
place so Oh 8 was this watershed moment
where whole generation watched their
parents get cleaned or fleeced or
whatever you think they did and so a
whole bunch of young people said
whatever it is my parents I'm not doing
that mortgages that sounds terrifying
I'm not gonna use credit cards that's a
bad idea I'm gonna borrow no money and
use debit cards that's really great
until you've need
by our first car you need to put a
deposit in department so borrowing has
to be reinvented
maybe the origin of a firm is as much in
this idea of let's go clean up borrowing
as it is in answering the question how
will young people buy our money if they
are so actively saying I don't want a
credit card right so that that that's
where but these opportunities are
everywhere I want to ask you about
another group of tech companies one of
the other companies that you founded was
slide which was sold to Google and then
you ended up working at Google for a
while I want to ask you about those big
platform companies like Google like
Facebook and there are a lot of issues
these companies are facing right now
sort of for myriads facets and myriad
size and I'm wondering if you've given
thought to how they can rectify their
problems
should they be regulated should they be
broken up what is your thinking on that
those are hard questions to answer I
think the general the relative measures
of too powerful not powerful enough are
always very hard to maybe they're
certainly extremely powerful in the
absolute sense yes Facebook probably
knows far more about me than I think I
know about me and that I think anybody
should know about me really because
they're an amalgamation of all my
friends knowledge of me and even more so
true of Google Facebook at least there's
some amount of sharing that I do
proactively Google like I met during my
time at Google I met an executive who
likened Google search box to an ear
where's the world's giantest ear and
billions of people come in and whisper
in - it's here you know amazing things
like where do I buy an engagement ring
and also do I have cancer and will I die
and it's a massive responsibility to
hang on to that data and mine it for
signal and figure out how to give the
right answers and the responsibility
that's implicit in what do you show
someone that say do I have cancer you
may push them to a decision that if you
knew what they were gonna do next you
would regret and so in that sense I
think the responsibility on these
companies is enormous
and I'm not sure there's one thing they
can do or anybody outside of them can do
to say well here's how you fix the
problem
at that scale any company of any
industry you're playing with human
condition more than you're playing with
balance sheet so my guess is the first
thing they need to do is probably
recognize internally sort of take very
very seriously
that what they're playing with is a lot
more than their profit and loss and
features and I think that's a weighty
weighty set of responsibilities my guess
is they're gonna end up facing a lot of
regulatory scrutiny because our
lawmakers and and others are pretty good
at dealing with a human condition and
thinking in terms of the human condition
while tech companies are actually much
better thinking in terms of growth and
features and kind of detaching
themselves a little bit from what people
really really experience when the user
products actually not to shift to a firm
suddenly but one of the that I did very
early on influenced by this experience
of being inside the belly at one of the
largest companies that Silicon Valley
are produced I try to write down our
core values which I'd never done before
so this whole notion of core values and
what do we stand for you know at PayPal
if I'd said that I probably would have
been sort of chuckled at because we're
all super young and we just wanted to
grow it to build a great company and the
morality of it all was something that we
cared about but as a side effect to look
to go build a great business with a
formost kind of backwards or the other
way around where I said I'm gonna write
down our core values I'm not gonna write
a line of code until I know what it's
for and we sort of played with this in
that and with my co-founders and a bunch
of early people and ultimately wrote
down five things but the first one of
these is people come first mm-hmm and I
think you have to decide that you feel
that before you start writing code and
that's probably what's gonna have to
happen to a lot of these large platforms
that have not necessarily been living
new people come first value or their
version of the same idea but don't we're
live in extremely interesting times I
think the fact that these companies
wield an extraordinary out of power is
is starting to really reveal itself in
big ways you mentioned law makers you
were on the board of the CFPB and Mick
Mulvaney disband
that what was your never been fired
until until that time what was your take
I really enjoyed that process it was the
firing part yeah the firing part was
uneventful I called into a conference
line and they said hey the board's been
disbanded
thank you for a service yeah know what I
know it feels like it was my box you
know I need my but it was an unpaid
position so there was no no boxer
service but the process of hearing from
stakeholders from everywhere like really
really everywhere it was amazing so and
I live in my own little insular Silicon
Valley world they're people that I think
are doing a really great job sticking to
their moral principles and doing the
right thing and people I think are
probably walking the gray line and
people I think really should not be
building products that they're building
and you know I don't make any secrets of
who they are since I'm willing to put my
opinion out there in public but it's
very different when you sit down around
a table with people that represent or
advocate for people from truly
impoverished communities people that are
unable to make their mortgage payments
and are facing repossession of whatever
property that they have people that are
fighting with some local agency that was
supposed to stand behind a mortgage and
there's now bankrupt and all the sort of
like the reality of life in places that
are not like Silicon Valley where we all
get paid sick digit salaries or higher
and these problems don't really come up
and detail a conversation was a sort of
an amazing window into how this country
really works and so if you didn't have
this sense of you know people come first
you walked out of there every time
feeling like wow like the world is a
complicated place and not everybody
lives in San Francisco in New York City
what do you think about people like
Alexandria acasio Cortez who are looking
to address wealth and income inequality
by for instance raising taxes on rich
people I think in general what has
struck me as amusing and to some extent
tragic is that there's not a whole lot
of people that are pounding the table
for some form of socialism that lived in
a socialist setting having grown up tour
spending my first 16 years in a
socialist country from personal
experience the redistribution does not
work because people doing the
redistribution somehow always get a lot
more and that you know that's almost too
trite of a characterization but I'm not
a fan of significant march into
significant redistribution because I've
seen how it fails and it works for a
while because you're excited or that you
know people are were excited right after
the Soviet revolution in the teens of
last century but fast forward to the 50s
and the place was going downhill fast
and by the 90s there were tanks on the
streets because we couldn't couldn't
contain the populace from tearing the
country apart so I'm not a I'm not a fan
I'm not a fan of the blunt let's just
give the government all the power and
all the money and then everything's
gonna be okay
having said that I think you know a lot
of the folks in social democratic
movement and various forms of serve a
very progressive parties that or
movements that we have in the US are
kind of speaking to the same thing that
I observed at this apv board the
increment equality the desperate nature
of life and a lot of these communities
is very real
so I don't think it's a my point isn't
to ignore or to push it away just think
the conversation could be more civilized
and a little bit less flippant and I
remain a big believer in conscious
capitalism or more thoughtful capitalism
as way of figuring out how to contribute
to elevation of people who have been
left behind or who are being left behind
me not having short term goals I mean
just having broader goals than this
quarters Pinel for instance for
companies for sure yeah I think so as an
engineer any of them to go back full
circle I write code writing code is all
about
testing and iterating and I think one of
the things that we do a lot of is debate
and not enough of his experiment the
most exciting news I've ever heard
whether I believe in it or not on the
addressing poverty is the fact that
there's a bunch of places in the US now
try universal basic income I've no idea
a few bi is a solution or not in fact
there have been some reasons to believe
that it's not but we want to know if it
works here or not until we try it right
so just having you know let's ship a
bunch of features that try to make the
world a better place for folks that have
been left behind observe it for whatever
number of years months quarters that it
takes and then iterate on it and I think
to me the two big areas are figuring out
how to train people to prepare them for
the next iteration of what the workforce
will require I'm a big believer that
jobs are not disappearing but they're
being replaced and I think that's
something very important and for younger
version of our future workforce just
investing very heavily into education a
special education of people that without
some form of help will end up on the
disadvantaged side of society I think
that's really really important and my my
hope is that instead of spending too
many cycles debating what is the perfect
solution in creating what looks like
partisan gridlock
just iterating on good ideas that you
know there's no shortage of papers and
academics and sociologists and
economists that all have a really really
strong view usually backed up by good
data that we then don't even bother
testing we just sort of go right into
debate of why it couldn't work so try
more talk less okay on that note we're
gonna wrap things up Max Levchin CEO of
a firm thanks so much for joining us
today
thank you I'm Andy serwer you've been
watching influencers we'll see you next
time
you
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