Max Levchin - Biography

Max Rafael Levchin (Maksymilian R. Levčyn; born July 15, 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.

Originally from Kiev, Ukraine (then part of the Soviet Union), he moved to the United States with his family, under a political asylum, 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. In 1998, he 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. 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. He is primarily known for his contributions to PayPal's anti-fraud efforts and is also the co-creator of the Gausebeck-Levchin test, one of the first commercial implementations of a CAPTCHA.

In 2004, Levchin founded Slide, 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 and, on August 25, Levchin joined as Vice President of Engineering. On 26 August, 2011, Google announced it was shutting down Slide, and that Levchin was leaving the company.

He also helped start Yelp, an online social networking and review service.

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.

Levchin is currently collaborating with Garry Kasparov and Peter Thiel on The Blueprint, a book calling for a revival of world innovation, due out in February 2012 from W. W. Norton & Company.

Notes and references

External links

• 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
• Google acquires Slide
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