Uploaded January 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Is "buy now, pay later" a debt trap or the future of finance? Affirm CEO Max Levchin says the real problem is the credit card in your wallet. On this week’s episode of Bold Names, Levchin joins WSJ’s Tim Higgins to discuss how his early days as a co-founder of PayPal led him to his latest venture: using “buy now, pay later” loans to reinvent how people buy things. We talk about why he thinks financing is more transparent than credit, the personal reason he hates late fees and how AI is changing shopping.
Chapters:
00:00 - Meet Max Levchin: PayPal & Affirm Origins
02:01 - The Problem with Traditional Credit
04:33 - How Affirm Works: Transparency & Simplicity
05:36 - What People Buy with Affirm
07:54 - How Affirm Makes Money
08:11 - Achieving Profitability
09:04 - The Walmart Partnership & Competition
10:12 - Affirm Debit Card: Competing with Credit Cards & Points
12:14 - Rethinking Credit Scores with AI
13:06 - Buy Now, Pay Later Criticisms
16:09 - The Future of Shopping with AI
17:34 - Entrepreneurship in the AI Era
WSJ’s Bold Names brings you conversations with the leaders of the bold-named companies featured in the pages of The Wall Street Journal. Hosts Tim Higgins and Christopher Mims speak to CEOs and business leaders in interviews that challenge conventional wisdom and take you inside the decisions being made in the C-suite and beyond.
Let us know what you think of the show. Email us at BoldNames@wsj.com
#Tech #Business #WSJ
Is "buy now, pay later" a debt trap or the future of finance? Affirm CEO Max Levchin says the real problem is the credit card in your wallet. On this week’s episode of Bold Names, Levchin joins WSJ’s Tim Higgins to discuss how his early days as a co-founder of PayPal led him to his latest venture: using “buy now, pay later” loans to reinvent how people buy things. We talk about why he thinks financing is more transparent than credit, the personal reason he hates late fees and how AI is changing shopping.
Chapters:
00:00 - Meet Max Levchin: PayPal & Affirm Origins
02:01 - The Problem with Traditional Credit
04:33 - How Affirm Works: Transparency & Simplicity
05:36 - What People Buy with Affirm
07:54 - How Affirm Makes Money
08:11 - Achieving Profitability
09:04 - The Walmart Partnership & Competition
10:12 - Affirm Debit Card: Competing with Credit Cards & Points
12:14 - Rethinking Credit Scores with AI
13:06 - Buy Now, Pay Later Criticisms
16:09 - The Future of Shopping with AI
17:34 - Entrepreneurship in the AI Era
WSJ’s Bold Names brings you conversations with the leaders of the bold-named companies featured in the pages of The Wall Street Journal. Hosts Tim Higgins and Christopher Mims speak to CEOs and business leaders in interviews that challenge conventional wisdom and take you inside the decisions being made in the C-suite and beyond.
Let us know what you think of the show. Email us at BoldNames@wsj.com
#Tech #Business #WSJ
