PayPal: Max Levchin (June 2022)
How I Built This with Guy Raz
Guy Raz | Wondery
4.8 • 31.1K Ratings
🗓️ 3 March 2025
⏱️ 92 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
During its formative years in the late 1990's, Paypal attracted an extraordinary group of young entrepreneurs, who then went on to build some of the best known companies in tech. They became known as The PayPal Mafia—and Max Levchin was one of the leaders. A computer genius from Soviet Ukraine, Max joined Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, Reid Hoffman and others as they grew PayPal into a massively successful online payment service. Along the way, they encountered almost every start-up challenge imaginable, including the emotional ouster of Elon Musk as CEO. After PayPal was acquired by eBay in 2002, Max couldn't sit still, so he launched a startup lab that eventually led to another successful fintech company: Affirm.
This episode was produced by Alex Cheng with music by Ramtin Arablouei. Edited by Neva Grant, with research from Claire Murashima.
You can follow HIBT on X & Instagram, and email us at [email protected]. Sign up for Guy’s free newsletter at guyraz.com
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Wonderie Plus subscribers can listen to how I built this early and ad-free right now. |
| 0:05.7 | Join Wonderie Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. |
| 0:10.6 | I feel like I'm missing out because everyone is either starting a side hustle or becoming their own boss. |
| 0:16.2 | And you know what they're hearing a lot? |
| 0:19.1 | It's the sound of another sale on Shopify, the all-in-one commerce platform |
| 0:22.9 | to start, run and grow your business. Shopify is the commerce platform revolutionising millions |
| 0:28.1 | of businesses worldwide. Whether you're selling flaky salt or fine art prints, Shopify simplifies |
| 0:33.7 | selling online and in person so you can successfully grow your business, |
| 0:38.1 | covering all your sales channels from a shopfront ready point of sales system to its all-in-one |
| 0:42.6 | e-commerce platform. Shopify even gets you selling across social media marketplaces like Facebook, |
| 0:48.0 | Instagram and TikTok. And thanks to award-winning help and with an extensive business course library, |
| 0:53.3 | Shopify is ready to support |
| 0:54.6 | your success every step of the way. Sign up for a one pound per month trial period at Shopify.com. |
| 1:00.5 | UK slash build or lowercase. Go to Shopify.com.uk.uk slash built to take your business to the next level today. |
| 1:09.5 | Shopify.com.ukuk slash build. |
| 1:13.5 | Trust isn't just earned, it's demanded. Whether you're a startup founder navigating your first audit |
| 1:20.0 | or a seasoned security professional scaling your GRC program, proving your commitment to security |
| 1:26.5 | has never been more critical or more complex. |
| 1:30.1 | That's where Vanta comes in. |
| 1:32.5 | Businesses use Vanta to establish trust by automating compliance needs across over 35 frameworks like SOC2 and ISO-27001, |
| 1:42.4 | centralized security workflows, complete questionnaires up to five times faster, |
| 1:47.8 | and proactively manage vendor risk. Vanta not only saves you time, it can also save you money. |
... |
Transcript will be available on the free plan in -24 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Guy Raz | Wondery, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Guy Raz | Wondery and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.