Max Levchin
| Max R Levchin | |
|---|---|
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| Born | July 11, 1975 [1] Kyiv, Ukraine |
| Ethnicity | Ashkenazi Jewish |
| Alma mater | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign |
| Occupation |
Corporate director at Yahoo![2]
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| Net worth |  US$ 1 billionmillion (2012) (citation needed: if his payPal stake was $34M and the TOTAL slide acquisition price was $182M, how does the math add up?) |
Max Rafael Levchin (Ukrainian: Максиміліан Левчин Maksymilian R. Levčyn) (born July 11, 1975) is a Ukrainian-born American computer scientist and internet entrepreneur widely known as one of the co-founders (along with Peter Thiel and Elon Musk) and for his role as the former chief technology officer of PayPal. Levchin is considered a member of the PayPal Mafia.
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Life and career [edit]
Early life [edit]
Born in Kyiv, Ukraine (then part of the Soviet Union) to a Jewish family he moved to the United States under political asylum,[3][4][5] and settled in Chicago in 1991. He attended Mather High School and then earned his bachelor in Computer Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1997 and co-founded two companies that made Internet-tools, NetMeridian Software and SponsorNet New Media.[5]
PayPal [edit]
In 1998, Levchin founded Fieldlink with John Bernard Powers (who left the company shortly thereafter) and Peter Thiel. After changing the company name to Confinity, they developed a popular payment product known as PayPal. After a merger with X.com, the combined entity was renamed PayPal Inc.
PayPal Inc. went public in February 2002, and was subsequently acquired by eBay. Levchin worked there with Peter Thiel, Roelof Botha, and David Sacks. Levchin's 2.3% stake in PayPal was worth approximately $34 million at the time of the acquisition.[6] 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.[7] He is primarily known for his contributions to PayPal's anti-fraud efforts[8] and is also the co-creator of the Gausebeck-Levchin test, one of the first commercial implementations of a CAPTCHA.
Slide [edit]
In 2004, Levchin founded Slide,[9] 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[10] and, on August 25, Levchin joined as Vice President of Engineering.[11] On 26 August 2011, Google announced it was shutting down Slide, and that Levchin was leaving the company.[12]
He also helped start Yelp, an online social networking and review service.
HVF [edit]
In late 2012 or early 2013, Max 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.[13][14]
Other pursuits [edit]
Advising startup founders [edit]
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.[15]
Thank You for Smoking [edit]
Levchin was an executive producer for the movie Thank You for Smoking. Levchin was also featured in "Brilliant Issue" of Portfolio by Condé Nast Publications.
Revival of world innovation [edit]
Levchin is 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.[16] The book, originally scheduled for a January 2012 release, has been postponed.
Politics [edit]
Max Levchin was listed as one of the contributors to FWD.us, a Silicon Valley-based lobbying group spearheaded by Mark Zuckerberg and Joe Green that 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.[17] Levchin also narrated his personal experience as an immigrant in a video released by the group.[18]
Personal life [edit]
In 2008 he married his longtime girlfriend, Nellie Minkova.[5][19]
Notes and references [edit]
- ^ http://www.peekyou.com/Max_Levchin/44559156
- ^ http://investor.yahoo.net/directors.cfm
- ^ BBC News Video Interview in Start-Up Stories
- ^ Hareetz: "One day in Silicon Valley" by Guy Rolnick August 3, 2010
- ^ a b c New York Times: "After Succeeding, Young Tycoons Try, Try Again" By GARY RIVLIN October 28, 2007
- ^ SEC Info - Ebay Inc - S-4 - On 8/6/02
- ^ "2002 Young Innovators Under 35: Max Levchin, 26". Technology Review. 2002. Retrieved August 14, 2011.
- ^ Max Levchin: Online Fraud-Buster, Business Week Online, October 1, 2002
- ^ Slide - slideshows, slide shows, photo sharing, image hosting, widgets, MySpace codes, web publishing, music - Slide
- ^ http://techcrunch.com/2010/08/04/google-buys-slide-for-182-million-getting-more-serious-about-social-games/
- ^ http://mashable.com/2010/08/26/max-levchin-google/
- ^ "Google to Shut Slide Apps as Slide Founder Departs". The New York Times. August 26, 2011.
- ^ "HVF". Retrieved 2013-05-13.
- ^ Wauters, Robin (2013-01-21). "Geeking out on data: Max Levchin talks about his HVF project at DLD13". The Next Web. Retrieved 2013-05-13.
- ^ "Start-up advice for entrepreneurs, from Y Combinator Startup School".
- ^ Rip Empson (2011-09-12). "Max Levchin and Peter Thiel: Innovation In The World Today Is Between Dire Straits And Dead". TechCrunch.
- ^ " "Our Supporters". FWD.us. Retrieved 2013-05-13.
- ^ "Stories". FWD.us. Retrieved 2013-05-13.
- ^ Upstart Business Journal: "Mid-day Bytes: AOL, Max Levchin's Wedding, PacketVideo Triumphs" by Andrea Chalupa September 29, 2008
External links [edit]
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Max Levchin |
- Golub`atna about Levchin
- Translated version of Golub`atna by Google
- http://www.levchin.com/ Personal website, includes photos from PayPal IPO.
- Max Levchin has a professional profile on the web.
- NerdTV Interview (video, audio, and transcript available) - 30 June 2005
- iinnovate interview Two Stanford business school students interview Max
- New York Times: After Succeeding, Young Tycoons Try, Try Again Max Levchin profile
- An alternate history of PayPal according to X.com CEO Elon Musk
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- 1975 births
- Living people
- American computer businesspeople
- American computer scientists
- American investors
- American people of Ukrainian-Jewish descent
- American technology chief executives
- American technology company founders
- Businesspeople from Illinois
- Businesspeople in information technology
- Jewish American scientists
- Naturalized citizens of the United States
- PayPal people
- People from Kiev
- People from Chicago, Illinois
- Soviet emigrants to the United States
- TR35 winners
- Ukrainian emigrants to the United States
- Ukrainian Jews
- University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign alumni
- Directors of Yahoo!
- American chief executives
