The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch 20VC: Affirm Max Levchin on Why Grading Talent by Letter (A or B) is Total BS | How to Create a Culture of Post Mortems and Writing | Why You Should Only Study Failure Not Success & The Biggest Surprises Scaling to $18.7BN Market Cap
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Feb 5, 2025 
Max Levchin, the visionary behind Affirm and co-founder of PayPal, shares his insights on hiring top talent and managing extreme personalities. He challenges the traditional talent grading system, arguing it's outdated. Levchin also underscores the importance of learning from failure over success and advocates for a robust writing culture within companies. He discusses creating transparent post-mortems to foster continuous improvement and how to navigate the competitive landscape of the 'buy now, pay later' market.
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Hiring Brilliance
- Hire brilliant people, even with quirks, because they're worth it.
- Manage them effectively to bring out their best and mitigate potential downsides.
Balancing Directness and Empathy
- Direct feedback is crucial, even if it's negative.
- Combine directness with empathy and acknowledge effort, not just results.
Extreme to Toxic
- Extreme personalities can be valuable, but narcissism and selfishness make them toxic.
- Humility and team-orientation are key to preventing extreme personalities from becoming detrimental.