Max Levchin

Max Levchin is a Ukrainian-American software engineer and entrepreneur best known for co-founding PayPal and serving as its chief technology officer, where he developed pioneering anti-fraud systems that enabled secure online payments. Born in Kyiv, Ukraine, Levchin immigrated to the United States in 1991 at age 16, settling in Chicago, and later earned a Bachelor of Science degree in computer science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. In 1998, he co-founded Confinity, which merged to form PayPal, leading the company through its growth and eventual acquisition by eBay in 2002 for $1.5 billion. Following PayPal, Levchin founded Slide, a social media platform acquired by Google in 2010, and in 2012 established Affirm Holdings, Inc., a financial technology firm offering buy-now-pay-later services with transparent terms, where he remains CEO. He also co-founded Glow, a data-driven fertility and family planning company, and has been an early investor in Yelp, becoming its largest shareholder by 2012.

Max Levchin was born on July 11, 1975, in Kyiv, then part of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic within the Soviet Union, to a Jewish family of scientists facing systemic antisemitism and discrimination under the regime. As a member of a Jewish minority, his family encountered restrictions on education, employment, and social mobility, contributing to the decision to seek political asylum later in life amid rising anti-Semitism. During his early childhood, Levchin also battled severe respiratory illnesses that doctors deemed potentially fatal, with his survival attributed to family support and medical intervention despite resource shortages in the Soviet healthcare system.