INTELLIGENCE · PERSON DOSSIER
UPDATED 2026-08-13Max Levchin
Founders & CEOs
Affirm · United States
Net worth
$2.2bn (Forbes estimate)
Affirm voting control
44.41% of total voting power
Affirm shareholding
26,485,472 Class B shares (65.04% of the class) and 3,401,962 Class A shares (1.17%)
Holding vehicles
2012 MRL Investments LLC and the Levchin 2012 Irrevocable Trust
Base salary
$38,834 for fiscal 2025
Identity & Ownership
Current role
Founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Affirm Holdings
Affirm's 2025 proxy statement lists him as "Founder, CEO and Chairman of the Board of Directors" and records him as a director since 2012.
Born
11 July 1975, Kyiv, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union
Born to a Ukrainian-Jewish family in what is now Kyiv, Ukraine. Coca-Cola's October 2025 announcement gave his age as 50 and his birthplace as Kyiv.
Birth name
Maksymilian Rafailovych Levchyn
Ukrainian: Максиміліан Рафаїлович Левчин. He has used the anglicised "Max Levchin" throughout his business career.
Nationality
American (born in Ukraine)
Forbes records his citizenship as the United States. He entered the US as a political refugee in 1991.
Based
San Francisco, California
Forbes lists San Francisco as his residence. Affirm's registered principal executive offices are at 650 California Street, San Francisco.
Age
51
Forbes profile, retrieved 12 August 2026.
Education
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, BS computer science, 1997
He arrived on campus on Quad Day 1993 and graduated in 1997, describing himself in his 2018 commencement address as "CS Eng'97". He attended Mather High School in Chicago before that.
Company headquarters
650 California Street, San Francisco, California
Address given on Affirm's S-1 registration statement and its 2025 proxy statement.
Personal blog
max.levch.in — "too long to tweet"
His personal essay blog, running since 2012, carries his own writing on Affirm's operating principles, the Levchin Prize, immigration policy and company culture.
Personal Wealth & Holdings
Net worth
$2.2bn (Forbes estimate)
Forbes real-time estimate, retrieved 12 August 2026. Source of wealth listed as fintech, self-made. Forbes says he holds over 8% of Affirm.
Affirm voting control
44.41% of total voting power
Affirm's 2025 proxy statement, beneficial ownership as of 30 September 2025. Affirm's Class B shares carry 15 votes each.
Affirm shareholding
26,485,472 Class B shares (65.04% of the class) and 3,401,962 Class A shares (1.17%)
Proxy statement, as of 30 September 2025. The Class A figure includes 2,666,668 shares issuable on exercise of outstanding options.
Holding vehicles
2012 MRL Investments LLC and the Levchin 2012 Irrevocable Trust
2012 MRL Investments LLC (formerly HVF, LLC) held 10,352,528 Class B shares; the trust, settled jointly with his spouse, held 735,294 Class A and 735,294 Class B shares.
Base salary
$38,834 for fiscal 2025
The proxy notes his salary was "adjusted by our Board to comply with minimum wage requirements under applicable San Francisco laws". His total reported pay for the year was $58,252 in salary-equivalent terms; he takes no equity grants in the year and no cash bonus.
Cash incentive plan
Does not participate
"Mr. Levchin does not participate in the cash incentive plan" — Affirm 2025 proxy. His target and actual bonus for fiscal 2025 were both nil.
PayPal payout
Approximately $33m–$34m
Wikipedia puts his stake at 2.3% and the proceeds at about $34m; Forbes reported $33m on a 2.2% stake when eBay bought PayPal for $1.5bn. The two accounts differ slightly and neither is a filing.
Stake value after Affirm's IPO
About $2.5bn
Forbes valued his holding at roughly $2.5bn after Affirm's shares doubled to $96 on the first day of trading, valuing the company at about $24bn.
Background
Left the Soviet Union for Chicago in 1991 as a political refugee
In his own account: "Worried about political and economic instability and the rise of anti-Semitism, my family thought of immigrating. United States allowed us to enter as political refugees... We made it to the US in 1991, with about $600 between the five of us." Forbes puts the figure at $700.
The 1986 reactor disaster, 90 miles from Kyiv, pushed the family to leave
"Leaving everything behind and moving to America felt like a huge risk, but the nuclear disaster close by really motivated my family to get moving." Forbes reported his mother, a physicist, recognised the radiation risk.
Two years at Mather High School, Chicago Public Schools
He arrived aged 16. A run of science fair wins made him eligible for state scholarships and a subsidised student loan, and his guidance counsellor steered him to the University of Illinois.
Four companies founded and failed at university in three years
By his own account each lasted a year or less, and one was financed on student credit cards, wrecking his credit score — the experience he cites as the origin of Affirm.
SponsorNet New Media, founded summer 1995
Founded with fellow University of Illinois students Luke Nosek and Scott Banister — the network that later produced PayPal.
Co-creator of the Gausebeck-Levchin test, an early commercial CAPTCHA
As PayPal's chief technology officer he led the anti-fraud effort against organised fraud rings; the Gausebeck-Levchin test was one of the first commercial deployments of a challenge-response human test.
Six business model changes and three chief executives in four months
His own account of the early company: "We almost ran out of money, twice. We changed our business model six times, and replaced our Chief Executive Officers three times in four months. International organized crime tried to kill our company, and so did several giant Wall Street banks."
One of roughly twenty PayPal founders and alumni who went on to found or fund major technology companies
The group includes Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, Reid Hoffman, David Sacks, Luke Nosek and the Yelp founders.
MIT Technology Review TR100 and Innovator of the Year, 2002
Named at 26 as one of the top 100 innovators in the world under 35, and Innovator of the Year.
Forbes Self-Made 250, April 2026
Listed among "The Greatest Living Self-Made Americans".
Married Nellie Minkova in 2008; two children
His spouse is named in Affirm's dual-class share structure: the Class B shares convert automatically if neither Levchin nor Minkova serves the company, or on the death or incapacity of the last surviving of the two.
Long-distance amateur cyclist
Forbes describes an obsessive cycling and fitness regime, the subject of a 2014 Men's Fitness feature.
Established 2016 to reward real-world cryptography
Two awards a year, each carrying $10,000, presented at the Real World Cryptography conference for "major innovations in cryptography that have had a significant impact on the practice of cryptography and its use in real-world systems".
Notable Coverage
23 items
Levchin sets a $100bn annual GMV target at Affirm's Investor Forum
Affirm reports a tenth consecutive quarter of 30%-plus GMV growth
Levchin elected to the board of The Coca-Cola Company
Affirm posts its first full year of GAAP net income
Klarna replaces Affirm as Walmart's buy now, pay later provider
Affirm said its products remained available to Walmart shoppers through other routes, including the Affirm Card.
Affirm launches in the United Kingdom, its first market outside North America
Apple picks Affirm for instalment lending inside Apple Pay
CFPB interpretive rule treats buy now, pay later lenders as credit card providers
Affirm has consistently said it charges no late fees and no deferred interest, and its shareholder letters describe the product as fixed-term and closed-end rather than revolving.
Affirm cuts 19% of its workforce and closes its crypto unit
CFPB opens a market inquiry into buy now, pay later and orders Affirm to hand over data
Affirm was among the companies that said publicly it welcomed the inquiry.
Affirm lists on Nasdaq, and Levchin's stake is valued at about $2.5bn
Levchin publicly opposes the January 2017 US entry ban
First Levchin Prize awarded at the Real World Cryptography conference
Appointed to the CFPB's Consumer Advisory Board
Levchin breaks with Silicon Valley to defend the NSA
Levchin joins the Yahoo! board at Marissa Mayer's request
Affirm spun out of HVF with a mission to "deliver honest financial products"
Google shuts down Slide and Levchin leaves the company
Levchin addressed the episode publicly in his 2018 University of Illinois commencement address, saying the experience taught him to "go be a human, not a Chief Executive".