Affirm

19 statements across 5 episodes · 7 bullish · 2 bearish · 4 people on the record · first statement Jun 5, 2017 by Brian Singerman · said 100 times in 42 episodes since 2017 · across every show →

Mentions by year

brought up most by Harry Stebbings (52), Max Levchin (23), Keith Rabois (4), Hans Tung (4), Kaz Nejatian (3), Brian Singerman (3), Angela Strange (3), Vinod Khosla (1)

tap a year for its mentions
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08152017201820192020202120222023202420252026episodes it came up in
007.57.515152017201820192020202120222023202420252026episodesmentions per episode
2026 1 mention in 1 episode
2025 36 mentions in 3 episodes 12 per episode
2024 7 mentions in 5 episodes 1 per episode
2022 5 mentions in 4 episodes 1 per episode
2021 29 mentions in 11 episodes 3 per episode
2020 11 mentions in 8 episodes 1 per episode
2019 5 mentions in 4 episodes 1 per episode
2018 3 mentions in 3 episodes 1 per episode
2017 3 mentions in 3 episodes 1 per episode

every mention, scene by scene, with the transcript →

Everything said about Affirm, oldest first

Jun 5, 2017 bullish
Opinion
Singerman Considers Affirm's Max Levchin One of History's Best Founders
“Affirm, because it's a ridiculously hard one run by one of the best founders in history with Max Levchin.”
Brian Singerman Jun 5, 2017 ▶ 21:40 20VC: Founders Fund's Brian Singerman on Why VC Is About Upside Maximisation Not Downside Minimisation, Why There Is No Right Way To Do Venture and Why They Do Not Have Monday Morning Partner Meetings At Founders Fund
Sep 20, 2021
Assertion Contradicted
GGV Capital and Wellington were the only firms in both Peloton and Affirm
“And I think the only other firm that did that was Matt at Wellington. So both of us only went and invested in both companies.”
Hans Tung Sep 20, 2021 ▶ 14:14 20VC: Investing Lessons From Rounds In Peloton and Square, Why Great Investing is Stock-Picking and Sector Penetration & The Next Decade in Venture, Is Tiger's The Right Model with Hans Tung, Managing Partner @ GGV Capital
Sep 20, 2021 positive
Disclosure
Hans Tung: GGV invested in Affirm after analyzing its Peloton partnership
“In fact, we end up investing both Peloton and Affirm because of that. When we are talking to Peloton, we know of Affirm, and we were interested to see who Peloton works with in order to have that payment plan, because we know that will make it more affordable.…”
Hans Tung Sep 20, 2021 ▶ 13:54 20VC: Investing Lessons From Rounds In Peloton and Square, Why Great Investing is Stock-Picking and Sector Penetration & The Next Decade in Venture, Is Tiger's The Right Model with Hans Tung, Managing Partner @ GGV Capital
Sep 30, 2021 bullish
Insight
Rabois: Debt capital is the operational oxygen for Affirm and Opendoor
“In addition, we do use debt and debt is the oxygen for businesses like Affirm. It's the oxygen for companies like Opendoor.”
Keith Rabois Sep 30, 2021 ▶ 5:57 20VC: The Opendoor Memo: Keith Rabois on The Origins of Opendoor from a Conversation with Peter Thiel, Why Cash is Not a Competitive Moat for Startups Today and What People Misunderstand About Black Swan Events in Real Estate and How it Impacts Opendoor
May 30, 2022 neutral
Assertion Supported
Rabois: VC investments take 10 to 20 years to reach profitability
“Actually some have, you know, like I'm sure Opendoor actually is profitable, a firm will be profitable, but usually it's a 10 to 15, 20 year journey by the time that happens.”
Keith Rabois May 30, 2022 ▶ 3:16 Keith Rabois: The End of Woke Capitalism; Time Allocation Tips; Silicon Valley vs Miami | 20VC #891 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Feb 5, 2025 positive
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Levchin: Affirm records every decision in a post-mortem culture
“We have a whole culture of postmortems at a firm where we record every decision we make”
Max Levchin Feb 5, 2025 ▶ 15:47 Max Levchin, Founder & CEO @ Affirm:The Biggest Surprise Scaling to $18.7BN Market Cap · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Feb 5, 2025 neutral
Disclosure
Levchin removed Affirm's stock ticker from his computer to maintain focus
“I've gone through some great lengths, by the way, to make sure I don't accidentally stumble on my ticker. So, you know, my Apple desktop, if I click in the top right corner and stocks drops down, I cannot see my stock ticker. So I don't accidentally discover t…”
Max Levchin Feb 5, 2025 ▶ 48:25 Max Levchin, Founder & CEO @ Affirm:The Biggest Surprise Scaling to $18.7BN Market Cap · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Feb 5, 2025 bullish
Disclosure
Levchin: I focus on building business fundamentals over public market AI storytelling
“The storytelling hour of like, oh, by the way, we have this shiny item that we're so excited about, that feeds the voting machine. And I'm sure some of it is important, but I spent a lot more time feeding the weighing machine.”
Max Levchin Feb 5, 2025 ▶ 52:19 Max Levchin, Founder & CEO @ Affirm:The Biggest Surprise Scaling to $18.7BN Market Cap · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Feb 5, 2025 positive
Assertion Supported
Levchin: Affirm grew 35% last quarter, outpacing Klarna's 32%
“I think they announced that they grew 32% last quarter. I think we announced that we grew 35%.”
Max Levchin Feb 5, 2025 ▶ 42:11 Max Levchin, Founder & CEO @ Affirm:The Biggest Surprise Scaling to $18.7BN Market Cap · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Feb 5, 2025
Disclosure
Affirm maintains a postmortem repository covering all incidents since founding
“We literally have a postmortem depot where people can go and review every major or minor Nothing we did going back to the beginning of a firm time and learn from it.”
Max Levchin Feb 5, 2025 ▶ 32:32 Max Levchin, Founder & CEO @ Affirm:The Biggest Surprise Scaling to $18.7BN Market Cap · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Feb 5, 2025
Insight
Levchin: Demanding perfection on 98% wins is a great corporate strategy
“I have a friend who grew up in a very managed parenting environment where his parents would ask him when he showed up home from school with a 98% result in a test, like, what happened to the other two percent? And you know, I'm not sure it's a great way to hav…”
Max Levchin Feb 5, 2025 ▶ 19:34 Max Levchin, Founder & CEO @ Affirm:The Biggest Surprise Scaling to $18.7BN Market Cap · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Feb 5, 2025 neutral
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Levchin: Every laid-off Affirm employee acknowledged the company had overhired
“Every single person I talked to had said, hey, I get it. This happened. We grew too fast. We overhired. I understand.”
Max Levchin Feb 5, 2025 ▶ 40:02 Max Levchin, Founder & CEO @ Affirm:The Biggest Surprise Scaling to $18.7BN Market Cap · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Feb 5, 2025
Assertion Supported
Max Levchin includes a Big Lebowski quote in every Affirm shareholder letter
“If you are a careful student of my shareholder letters, of which I have now written on the order of, it cannot possibly be 16, but I think it's 16 or 15 you will see that every single one of them contains a reference to the movie Big Lebowski.”
Max Levchin Feb 5, 2025 ▶ 58:26 Max Levchin, Founder & CEO @ Affirm:The Biggest Surprise Scaling to $18.7BN Market Cap · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Feb 5, 2025
Insight
Levchin: Fire employees who hit their limit instead of coaching them
“Sometimes you look at work and you say, wow, like this person cannot do better. Full stop. Don't worry about being direct. The conversation you're going to have with them at some point very soon is, I don't think you have a place on this team anymore. And that…”
Max Levchin Feb 5, 2025 ▶ 3:07 Max Levchin, Founder & CEO @ Affirm:The Biggest Surprise Scaling to $18.7BN Market Cap · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Feb 5, 2025
Insight
Levchin: Evaluating decisions is harder during successes than failures
“The problem is that with successes, the texture of each individual decision is much harder to detect.”
Max Levchin Feb 5, 2025 ▶ 18:19 Max Levchin, Founder & CEO @ Affirm:The Biggest Surprise Scaling to $18.7BN Market Cap · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Feb 5, 2025 negative
Opinion
Levchin: Grading every worker in a 2,000-person firm is silly
“The story about knowing the letter grade of every person you hire in your company, whether it's 2000 people like a firm, but that's just silly.”
Max Levchin Feb 5, 2025 ▶ 0:08 Max Levchin, Founder & CEO @ Affirm:The Biggest Surprise Scaling to $18.7BN Market Cap · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Feb 5, 2025 positive
Assertion Partly supported
Levchin: Affirm has gained market share against all BNPL competitors
“For the last several quarters, from estimates, so we have been taking share in the market against all competitors, not, not just them.”
Max Levchin Feb 5, 2025 ▶ 42:34 Max Levchin, Founder & CEO @ Affirm:The Biggest Surprise Scaling to $18.7BN Market Cap · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Feb 5, 2025 negative
Assertion Supported
Levchin: Affirm's 2023 layoff was company's lowest morale point
“We had to do a layoff in about two years ago and that was morale lowest point for me and I think everyone around me”
Max Levchin Feb 5, 2025 ▶ 37:13 Max Levchin, Founder & CEO @ Affirm:The Biggest Surprise Scaling to $18.7BN Market Cap · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Feb 5, 2025 neutral
Insight
Levchin: Overhiring during good fundraising environments is a calculated risk
“Yes, it certainly is. Actually, and maybe that's a good answer in retrospect to your question about Calculated risks that did not pan out. You decide that you want every incremental engineer to build more features while the fundraising is good. And then sudden…”
Max Levchin Feb 5, 2025 ▶ 40:28 Max Levchin, Founder & CEO @ Affirm:The Biggest Surprise Scaling to $18.7BN Market Cap · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
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