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.
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Timestamps:
(00:00) Intro
(00:38) Should You Hire Brilliant but Extreme Personalities?
(06:05) Balancing High Expectations vs. Realistic Effort in Teams
(09:17) When Do You Have to Hire B-Team Players?
(12:57) Biggest Calculated Risk – Success or Failure?
(17:43) How to Build a Postmortem-Centric Culture
(24:24) Reversible vs. Irreversible Decisions
(27:18) Why the Quality of Invisible Work Matters
(29:50) Lean Startup & MVP – Shortcut or Smart Strategy?
(32:09) What Makes a Strong Writing Culture
(34:42) Remote Work
(37:07) Lessons on Leadership
(41:59) Klarna’s the US Expansion
(44:34) Is Regulation Helping or Hindering Buy Now, Pay Later?
(45:36) Being the Public Company
(46:55) How to Detach Mentality from Market Cap
(50:03) Quick-Fire Round
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In Today’s Episode We Discuss:
– How to Hire the Best People in the World
– How to Manage Extreme Personalities
– Biggest Lessons on Trust and What Happens When Lost
– Is Grading Talent A and B Players Total BS?
– How to Think About Calculated vs Uncalculated Risk
– How to Create a Culture of Post Mortems: Step by Step
– Why Every Person Must Write and How to Create a Writing Culture
– Leadership Lessons from Layoffs
– Is Affirm Losing or Beating Klarna in the US?
– Peter Thiel or Elon Musk: Who Would Max Rather Start a New Company With?
– Quick-fire Round
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Subscribe on Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/show/3j2KMcZTtgTNBKwtZBMHvl?si=85bc9196860e4466
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https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-twenty-minute-vc-20vc-venture-capital-startup/id958230465
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