Affirm's Levchin Bets AI Agents Upend Payment Rails Before Shopping

Affirm创始人Levchin认为AI智能体将在颠覆购物前先颠覆支付网络 自主运行的软件将通过在后台优化融资与结算，瓦解有着六十年历史的银行卡接口；但智能体电商将在选品环节受阻，因为消费者不愿放弃购物带来的情感体验与心理摩擦。 Max Levchin与Alex Rampell深入剖析了支付行业的架构演进机制与发展历史，阐明了为何即便极小的支付细分领域，也能在2.5秒POS超时限制等遗留规则的制约下膨胀为数千亿美元的市场。他们回顾了Affirm的创立历程——从最初为解决移动端结账“睡衣问题”而构建的“凭身份支付”原型，到发现漏斗前端分期融资如何为消费者创造弹性预算。对话探讨了Affirm负获客成本的优势、Levchin抵制掠夺性延期利息联名卡的行动，以及早期PayPal黑手党的内部文化。最后，他们分析了人工智能在商业中的应用，将购物的情感探索与支付路由、风险评估及履约自动化的巨大机遇进行了对比。 移动非接触式支付的普及在很大程度上是偶发事件：在EMV责任转移规则迫使商户升级至芯片刷卡终端后，这些终端恰好内置了休眠的NFC硬件，随后在COVID-19卫生习惯的推动下被彻底激活。 (0:00) 支付领域的每个微小细分市场往往都价值至少1000亿美元，但随着交易额规模扩大至批发或B2B领域，交易抽成率会急剧趋向于零。 (5:00) Affirm通过将分期付款服务前移至漏斗上游的商品详情页，实现了产品与市场的契合，将看似支付阻力的地方转化为预算弹性，从而为DTC商户带来了30%至35%的转化率提升。 (32:44) Affirm以负获客成本模式运营，因为商户为了获取买家并剥离客户服务而主动向其付费，这与那些将利润耗费在Meta和Google广告上的典型面向消费者的创业公司形成鲜明对比。 (43:08) Max Levchin认为智能体支付的前景远胜于智能体购物，他指出消费者喜欢发现个性化商品的乐趣，但会非常乐意将结账路由、积分优化和融资方案的决策交由AI处理。 (52:41)

Reflecting on decades in fintech, Affirm CEO Max Levchin and Andreessen Horowitz General Partner Alex Rampell argue that payments remain governed by rigid latency constraints and entrenched card interfaces, where breakout models succeed not by replacing existing rails, but by solving merchant budget elasticity and automating checkout friction. The Durability of Card Rails and Contactless Accidents (0:00) Levchin and Rampell note that despite decades of attempted disruption—ranging from early RFID keychain wands to Amazon’s palm scanners—the physical payment card remains the most resilient transaction interface ever created. When mobile tap-to-pay finally reached mass adoption, Rampell explains it was not an engineered masterstroke but an industry accident: card networks mandated the EMV standard to shift fraud liability to merchants, prompting retailers to install terminals that serendipitously housed dormant Near Field Communication (NFC) antennas. The hygiene pressures of the COVID-19 pandemic later activated these sensors at scale. Underpinning in-person commerce is a strict 2.5-second communication mandate across issuing banks, acquiring banks, merchants, and card networks, with a hard 10-second timeout. Because in-store checkout cannot accommodate asynchronous fraud scoring, Apple Pay and Google Pay bypassed latency by using on-device Secure Enclaves to authenticate consumers before network timers begin. Economically, payments display an inverse relationship between volume and rake: while multi-trillion-dollar institutional transfers collapse toward zero basis points, high-frequency micro-transactions yield the richest profit pools, motivating closed-loop models like Starbucks preloading balances to circumvent repetitive interchange fees. Affirm and the Shift to Up-Funnel Budget Elasticity (20:00) Affirm originated from what Levchin and Rampell termed the "pajama problem"—the checkout drop-off that occurs when shoppers lounging at home refuse to retrieve a physical card downstairs. Early iterations, including a prototype pitched to 1-800-Flowers relying on Facebook social-graph data for underwriting, stalled because presenting credit options at final checkout merely cannibalized card transactions while imposing an unacceptable 7% Merchant Discount Rate (MDR). The model broke out after cosmetics retailer Beautylish exposed installment pricing directly on product pages, generating an immediate 30% conversion lift. Levchin realized Affirm’s core utility was expanding budget elasticity rather than merely providing payment rails. High-margin direct-to-consumer sectors like mattresses (with 80% gross margins and seven-year replacement cycles) eagerly absorbed financing costs to capture customers. Unlike traditional store cards that Levchin criticizes for retroactive interest traps on late payments, Affirm established a negative customer acquisition cost (CAC) model: merchants pay Affirm to acquire buyers, providing Affirm 12 to 39 subsequent loan servicing interactions over multi-year terms. Founder Selection and Demystification at PayPal (50:00) Addressing why the early PayPal team produced an unprecedented density of tech founders, Levchin credits deliberate hiring criteria and shared vulnerability. PayPal intentionally practiced selection bias by prioritizing candidates who viewed the company as their final stop before launching their own ventures, creating a dense alumni network that later founded LinkedIn, Yelp, and YouTube. Equally important was the psychological demystification of visionary leadership. Levchin recalls watching peers like Peter Thiel and Elon Musk grapple with extreme fatigue, high-stakes fundraising panic, and doubt in crowded conference rooms. Witnessing peers face existential crises as ordinary humans stripped away the myth of founder infallibility, giving early employees the confidence to tackle high-risk, audacious enterprises. Separating Agentic Shopping from Agentic Payments (52:41) Looking toward artificial intelligence, Levchin distinguishes agentic shopping from agentic payments. While venture investors anticipate autonomous agents buying consumer goods, Levchin argues humans actively enjoy the emotional research and friction of selecting expressive purchases like fashion or specialty hobby equipment. However, Levchin and Rampell agree that the execution layer—agentic payments—is ripe for automation. Once a specific stock-keeping unit (SKU) is selected, software agents can optimize cashback rewards, select favorable financing terms, and execute checkout seamlessly. Rampell emphasizes that SKU price-tracking tools prove demand for automated optimization, though Levchin cautions that algorithmic buying faces trust bottlenecks: consumers routinely reject the cheapest available price if merchant delivery reliability, counterfeit risks, or return policies remain unvetted. While commodity delegation has already been normalized in grocery substitutions like Instacart, Levchin and Rampell emphasize that extending agentic commerce across discretionary retail will hinge on modeling merchant trust and fulfillment risks rather than simple price matching.

在《The $100B Niches Hiding Inside Payments》对谈中，a16z普通合伙人Alex Rampell与Affirm首席执行官Max Levchin指出，支付领域不存在小于千亿美元的利基市场，但其演进长期受制于严苛的交易延迟与网络效应；无论是无接触支付的意外普及、先买后付对预算弹性的重塑，还是未来AI在结算层的渗透，核心均在于平衡便利性、履约信任与商户的获客诉求。 物理卡界面的韧性与无接触支付意外普及 (0:00) Max Levchin指出，标准塑料实体卡是有史以来最出色的用户交互界面。Visa和Mastercard要求各方在2.5秒内完成端到端通信（超时上限为10秒），线下极低的延迟容忍度使早期加油手杖、掌纹识别等生物支付尝试均因未能突破临界规模而失败。早期DigiCash因执着于密码学纯粹性与完全匿名性而在缺乏市场契合度中破产，而PayPal通过舍弃匿名、专注便捷获得成功；Levchin指出，加密货币至今仍未通过微额零售的“买咖啡测试”，因为小额支付中界面的极致便利压倒一切成本考量。 Alex Rampell补充指出，Apple Pay等移动轻触支付的普及源于一系列行业偶发事件。为防范磁条卡盗刷，EMV标准推行了商户欺诈责任转移，迫使全美零售商采购带插卡芯片的新POS机。这批终端普遍静默预装了NFC感应线圈。当COVID-19疫情带来对卫生的迫切需求，配合手机硬件安全区（Secure Enclave）前置身份认证绕过交易计时，原本闲置的NFC硬件才意外触发了大众行为的集体转向。 支付规模的收益悖论与供应链信用套利 (5:00) 对谈揭示了支付经济学中的规模悖论：交易总额越大，中间环节的抽成率越趋近于零。即便清算数十万亿美元的国家债务，也无法获取可观费率；最丰厚的利润池反而集中在高频小额的快餐零售领域。例如星巴克推出星巴克支付（Starbucks Pay），促使消费者单次预充值50美元，有效将几十次4美元小额购买的高频刷卡费压缩为单笔交换费，达成了封闭网络内的费率套利。 在B2B领域，营运资金存在着巨大的账期套利空间。Levchin与Rampell曾在2011年构思“Pay Me Sooner”，注意到通用电气等跨国巨头凭借SOFR加10个基点左右的极低借贷成本，对下游供应商强制推行Net 60或Net 90的漫长账期。急需发放薪资的供应商被迫承受高达15%的银行贷款利息。利用大企业信用背书开展应付与应收账款保理，由此孕育出千亿美元级别的供应链金融赛道。 从睡衣难题到预算弹性：Affirm演进 (20:00) Affirm最初旨在解决移动电商结账摩擦的“睡衣难题”——消费者躺在床上想购物，却因信用卡在楼下而放弃下单。Levchin和Rampell最初尝试调用Facebook社交关系链验证真实身份并由平台承担违约，但向1-800-Flowers收取7%商户折扣率（MDR）的结账端分期方案因直接蚕食传统信用卡交易而遇阻。 真正的转机来自美妆平台Beautylish：当分期提示被提前展示至商品浏览页时，结账转化率大幅提升了30%。Affirm认识到，其本质价值在于扩张消费者的预算弹性。这一机制在DTC床垫大战中得到验证：Casper和Purple等品牌毛利率高达80%，但顾客更换周期长达7年，激烈的抢客竞争促使商家极度愿意全额补贴MDR，以提供真正的0%免息分期。这打破了传统百货卡利用小字条款追溯收取逾期利息的陷阱，也使Affirm借助商户补贴实现了独特的“负获客成本”（Negative CAC）竞争壁垒。 PayPal黑手党的人才筛选与神话祛魅 (50:00) 针对早期PayPal团队接连创立YouTube、Yelp、LinkedIn等明星企业的现象，Levchin指出，公司在招聘时就存在主动的逆向筛选偏好，最受重视的候选人特质往往是“把PayPal当作自己创业前的最后一站”。这种机制使早期团队高度聚集了极具创业野心的人才。 更重要的心理支撑在于同侪间的脆弱性暴露。在危机四伏的创业初期，创始团队在逼仄的会议室中激烈碰撞，目睹过埃隆·马斯克疲惫暴躁的真实状态，也经历过彼得·蒂尔在艰难融资旅程中对公司可能倒闭的坦诚恐惧。Levchin强调，当亲眼见证未来的商业偶像同样饱受压力、焦虑与困惑折磨时，创业巨头身上的神秘光环便被打破。意识到他们只是普通人，反倒给予了整个团队放手追求宏大愿景的决心。 AI代理商务：支付自动化与选品探索壁垒 (52:41) 面对AI智能体在零售中的渗透，Levchin严格区分了“代理购物”（Agentic Shopping）与“代理支付”（Agentic Payments）。他质疑机器人代选个性化商品（如礼服或自行车配件）的前景，认为人类天然享受消费挑选中的自我表达与探索摩擦；但在结算端，软件代理比物理芯片更加高效，能自动挑选最优扣款渠道、最大化信用卡积分返现并匹配分期方案，支付交互层将被深度重组。 针对Rampell提出的标准SKU自动化比价，Levchin指出算法难以准确量化商户声誉、履约速度、假货概率及退货摩擦。消费者往往宁愿放弃最廉价的渠道，选择可信商家。尽管Instacart已经证明用户乐于在标准化杂货中授权算法代选替代品，但要将代理结算扩展至重度依赖售后信任的高单价长尾商品，仍需要漫长的时间来跨越信任鸿沟。 对谈总结表明，支付行业的创新既受制于2.5秒通信与实体卡网络等既有基建的惊人韧性，也取决于底层商业信用与承销能力的真实深度。无论是先买后付对商户获客链条的改造，还是AI对未来结账路由的接管，决定胜负的始终是交易场景中的便利程度与用户对履约风险的信任分配，而非单纯的技术激进主义。

## Background 本期节目由 Erik Torenberg 主持，对话嘉宾为 a16z 普通合伙人 Alex Rampell 与 Affirm 联合创始人兼 CEO Max Levchin，于 2026 年 9 月 3 日在播客平台发布。节目回顾了两人在金融科技（Fintech）领域 25 年的创业与投资沉淀，探讨了支付演进背后的意外推手、Affirm 穿越“想法迷宫”的诞生始末，以及下一代智能体商业（Agentic Commerce）与智能体支付的未来图景。 ## TL;DR Max Levchin 与 Alex Rampell 深入复盘了现代支付体系的发展脉络，指出从 EMV 芯片责任转移到疫情无接触需求如何意外促成了 Apple Pay 的爆发，并强调支付赛道不存在小于 1000 亿美元的小众市场。对谈详细拆解了 Affirm 的创办全过程，从最初试图用 Facebook 社交信用解决“睡衣难题”，到在漏斗上游展示分期、打入高毛利床垫 D2C 市场，最终开创无隐藏罚息的“真 0% 利率”以及负获客成本（Negative CAC）商业闭环。最后，嘉宾们还祛魅了 PayPal 黑手党的人才筛选机制与高压脆弱性，并深入辩论了 AI 智能体在自动比价、多卡权益结算与履约不确定性中的真实落地边界。 ## Atmosphere & style 整场对话充满老友重聚般的松弛感与顶级智识碰撞的张力，叙事风格平实且毫不避讳当年的误判与尴尬。两位 Fintech 传奇将残酷的商业博弈、荒谬的早年试错（如手写 PHP 伪造结账页面、DigiCash 破产草坪派对）娓娓道来，既有风控极客对 2.5 秒硬性网络延迟的专业严谨，也有对人性弱点与金融把戏的辛辣讽刺。听感沉浸而生动，仿佛让读者置身于当年硅谷高压密室的白板前，亲历商业神话背后的真实与迷茫。 ## Bulletin - `00:00` Apple Pay 与 Google Pay 的全民普及并非精心规划的结果，而是 EMV 芯片责任转移、刷卡终端被迫预装非接触感应模块以及新冠疫情催化共同作用的巧合。 - `05:00` Max Levchin 提出支付赛道不存在小于 1000 亿美元的小众市场，但存在大额交易抽成微薄、高利润集中在小额高频日常消费的收益悖论。 - `33:04` Affirm 的爆发式拐点始于将分期提示前置到商品浏览页（提升转化率 30%）以及捕捉盒装床垫等高毛利 D2C 品牌的商户补贴，从而彻底打破传统零售信用卡的延期利息陷阱。 - `52:45` 面对 AI 浪潮，Max Levchin 更看好以最优卡片路由为核心的“智能体支付”，而非由机器全权代劳选品的“智能体购物”，因为人类仍极其享受消费决策的主观乐趣。 ## Key takeaways - `00:00` Apple Pay 的崛起建立在商户被动升级 EMV 芯片终端的巧合之上，硬件自带的 NFC 模块配合疫情催化改变了消费者的刷卡惯性。 - `05:00` 传统卡网络遵循严苛的 2.5 秒单次交互与 10 秒端到端硬限制，实体信用卡凭借极高的确定性成为人类有史以来最难被替代的用户界面。 - `10:00` 支付领域的规模效应呈现极端的“全有或全无”特性，任何新型生物识别方案若未跨越临界规模，即便体验微幅提升也终将被淘汰。 - `13:00` PayPal 早期的成功源于彻底打破赛博朋克对绝对匿名的执念，证明普通大众更在乎便捷购买咖啡而非高深底层密码学。 - `15:00` 比特币已被验证为出色的价值存储工具，但因极小额高频场景下的交互摩擦过大，始终未能通过成为日常主流支付手段的终极考验。 - `20:00` Affirm 的初期构想始于“睡衣难题”，试图依靠社交网络好友图谱等弱特征替代传统征信体系来承保信用。 - `33:04` 将分期信息从支付漏斗末端迁移至上游商品详情页（Up-funnel）是 Affirm 的关键拐点，这重塑了消费者的心理预算边界并带来 30% 以上的转化率暴涨。 - `35:10` 以 Casper 为代表的盒装床垫行业因 80% 以上的高毛利和长达数年的更换周期，愿以极高的商户折扣率（MDR）全额补贴消费者端的分期成本。 - `40:00` Affirm 确立以“真 0% 利率”为核心理念，坚决摒弃百货商场联名信用卡通过隐藏星号与微小逾期追溯全部利息的恶性延期利息陷阱。 - `42:47` 通过让商户出资补贴以换取高转化率，Affirm 拥有了极为罕见的“负获客成本”（Negative CAC），突破了传统 D2C 品牌沦为流量广告巨头附庸的宿命。 - `45:00` 品牌商户出于声誉考虑不愿亲自扮演催收角色，主动将长达 1 年至 3.5 年的客户还款触点让渡给 Affirm，形成了竞品难以企及的长期风控壁垒。 - `50:00` “PayPal 黑手党”的繁茂源于团队在早期面试中刻意筛选以“自主创业”为终极目标的人才，并让员工将公司视为高压下的创业研究生训练营。 - `50:00` 在朝夕相处的高压环境下目睹马斯克与泰尔等人性层面的焦虑与脆弱，打破了偶像神话，反向赋予了早期团队未来去 challenge 宏大命题的底气。 - `52:45` 智能体难以完全替代人类网购的主观审美与决策享受，但在多卡复杂返现权益计算以及 SKU 比价下单上展现出颠覆实体信用卡的潜力。 - `56:45` 跨渠道比价代购的最大阻碍在于 AI 难以对老旧网站的履约不确定性与正品信誉进行精准概率折价，而 Instacart 模式已率先在生鲜代购上跑通了智能体商业雏形。 ## Detailed walkthrough ### `00:00` 支付界最耐用的交互界面与移动支付的意外崛起 对谈伊始，主持人和嘉宾们回顾了数字支付二十余年的发展历程。主持人指出，Max Levchin 与 Alex Rampell 作为金融科技（Fintech）领域的先驱，早在 20 多年前（甚至更早）就开始思考货币与交易的未来形态。主持人询问他们：在过去二十多年中，究竟有哪些事情的发展超出了当年的预期，又有哪些本以为会发生的事情至今仍未成真？ Alex Rampell 率先指出，最令他感到意外的是 Apple Pay 和 Google Pay 的极高渗透率，因为改变消费者的日常行为通常极其困难。他回顾道，移动支付的普及实际上源于一系列“离奇的巧合与意外”： 1. **EMV 芯片转换与商户责任转移（Liability Shift）**：以前卡片使用的是磁条，极易被伪造。如果发生欺诈，比如有人在百思买（Best Buy）刷磁条卡买了一台电视，回家使用后直接向发卡行声明“我根本没买过”，百思买就必须自行承担货物损失。为了避免承担欺诈赔偿责任，所有商户被迫采购并更换支持芯片（EMV，即 Europay、MasterCard 和 Visa）的新款刷卡终端。 2. **近场通信（NFC）硬件的附带普及**：商户购买这些新终端本意是为了让顾客“插卡读芯片”（还伴随着机器发出“请勿拔卡、请勿拔卡、请拔卡”的提示音），但这些机器恰好都顺带内置了非接触式感应模块。终端刚推向市场时，根本没有人使用“碰一碰”（Tap）来付款。 3. **外部环境与硬件成熟的完美共振**：随后，COVID-19 疫情对无接触交互的需求爆发，加上全美商户终端被动完成的硬件升级，以及智能手机（如具备安全模块的 iPhone 和 Android 设备）的彻底普及，三者偶然交汇，最终引发了消费者支付行为的巨变。 ```mermaid flowchart LR accTitle: 移动非接触支付普及的三重催化动力 accDescr: 展示责任转移、硬件换代以及外部催化如何共同推动 Apple Pay 和 Google Pay 的普及 subgraph Catalyst ["底层驱动力"] A["磁条欺诈泛滥与责任转移"] --> B["商户被迫全面升级 EMV 终端"] C["智能手机全面普及<br/>(内置 NFC 与安全芯片)"] end subgraph Shift ["硬件就绪与外部事件"] B --> D["刷卡机预装 NFC 感应模块<br/>(初期极少人使用)"] D --> E["COVID-19 催化无接触需求"] C --> E end E --> F["Apple Pay / Google Pay<br/>实现全民普及"] ``` 关于卡片本身的生命力，对谈中强调了实体卡界面的极致统治力。Alex Rampell 在讨论中坚定地评价道：“The best user interface ever created is the credit card.”（有史以来创造出的最佳用户界面就是信用卡。） --- ### `05:00` 2.5 秒规则、无小众市场的支付赛道与 B2B 借贷的早期构想 Max Levchin 顺着 Alex 的观点进一步拆解了底层网络与 Apple Pay / Google Pay 的精妙互动。他揭示了 Visa 和 MasterCard 庞大体系中一个深藏的底层硬性约束： * **严苛的 2.5 秒交互窗口**：在传统线下刷卡时，从发卡行、网络到收单机构之间的单次交互有严格的 2.5 秒限制，整个端到端处理必须在约 10 秒内完成，否则交易就会超时重试或直接取消。线上电商可以通过前置欺诈检测、风险排查等手段拉长时间，但线下交易无法这么做。 * **时间平移与安全岛机制**：Apple Pay 和 Google Pay 之所以能突破这种限制，是因为它们利用设备内部的安全芯片（Secure Enclave）在本地将卡信息准备完毕，“时间平移”了处理流程，在真正调用网络前就已经完成了关键校验。 * **巨头规则的超长生命力**：Max 感叹，从迪·霍克（Dee Hock，Visa 创始人）时代定下的底层硬规则至今已经运行了约 60 年，甚至从未改写过规则去允许长达 15 秒、让多家发卡机构实时竞价以给予用户更优信贷条件的创新。 谈到整个支付生态的商业体量，Max Levchin 给出了一个极具冲击力的洞察：“There are no niches in payments that are smaller than $100 billion.”（在支付领域，不存在规模小于 1000 亿美元的小众市场。）无论你从哪一个看似狭窄的小角落切入去解构支付，最后都会发现它是一个千亿美元级的庞然大物。 但 Alex Rampell 指出，支付领域存在一个奇特的“曲线下面积”悖论：**交易金额越庞大，抽成比例（Rake）反而越微薄**。 - 如果发一笔高达数万亿美元的电汇，虽然交易总额（Volume）极其惊人，但提供电汇服务的费率几乎可以忽略不计； - 真正的利润和高营收机会反而集中在单笔金额小、频次极高的场景，例如快餐店（QSR）。星巴克之所以开发星巴克 App 钱包（Starbucks Pay），正是为了让顾客一次性预充值 50 美元，从而避免每次买咖啡都要被卡网络反复收取刷卡手续费。 随后，两人翻开了 Affirm 诞生前夕的邮件往事： - 2011 年 4 月，Max Levchin 给 Alex 写信，询问当年 PayPal 收购 Bill Me Later 的内幕与商业逻辑。 - 两人在来回邮件探讨中曾探讨过“面向企业的后付产品”（Bill Me Later for Business），但随即一致认为这是个糟糕的生意； - Alex 甚至因此注册了 `PayMeSooner` 的域名。他解释其中的痛点：在现实商业世界中，大公司（如通用电气 GE）经常依仗强势地位向小供应商提出 90 天甚至更长的账期（Net 90）；小公司为了给员工发工资，只能去银行以 15% 的高昂利息借款，而实际上这笔借款的底层信用风险完全背靠信用评级极佳、发债成本仅 SOFR + 10 个基点（约 5%）的通用电气。 - 尽管他们当时没有推进“PayMeSooner”，但这种逻辑正是当今体量庞大的应付账款融资（AP financing）和应收账款融资（AR financing）的核心逻辑。 - **核心数据与事实补充**： - Visa 和 MasterCard 针对单节点交互的超时硬限制为 **2.5 秒**。 - 传统发卡与收单全链路通常必须在 **10 秒** 内决断，否则即告中断或重试。 - Affirm 早期探讨的信件往来始于 **2011 年 4 月**。 ### `10:00` 生物识别支付与实体卡片界面的长期霸权 谈及支付创新中令人费解的未解之谜，主持人提问：究竟有什么点子是 Max Levchin 过去认为“世界理应如此运转、机会显而易见”，但由于种种交织的原因至今仍未实现的？Max Levchin 直言，人们一直在苦苦寻觅一种绝佳的生物识别支付方式。这种场景多半只存在于好莱坞科幻电影中——主角必须割下手指或眼球才能完成认证——但在现实世界里，大众至今依然在使用带有芯片的实体银行卡。 ```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: 支付创新中的临界规模瓶颈 accDescr: 对比传统卡片交互与新型生物识别支付由于临界规模缺失导致的失败路径 subgraph Traditional["传统卡片支付（极高壁垒）"] A["卡片界面: 史上最佳UI"] --> B["从口袋掏出卡片秒级刷卡"] B --> C["拥有无可匹敌的双边临界规模"] end subgraph NewForm["新型支付尝试（如加油魔杖/掌纹）"] D["物理魔杖 / 掌纹识别"] --> E["相比刷卡仅快一点点或更好玩"] E --> F["未能跨越 a posteriori 临界规模"] F --> G["彻底沦为历史遗迹 (如 Amazon One 掌纹下架)"] end ``` Max Levchin 旗帜鲜明地指出，实体卡片的交互界面堪称人类有史以来创造的最伟大的用户界面（UI）： > “顺便提一句，卡片支付界面是有史以来被创造出的唯一最好的用户界面。” 这绝非因为缺少挑战者。早在 PayPal 创立之前，万事达卡（MasterCard）与加油站网络就曾推出过一种感应“魔杖”（Wand）。司机只需拿着挂在车钥匙上的小棒在加油机前挥动，支付就能立刻完成并开始加油。Max Levchin 当时看到后心想这显然会颠覆信用卡，然而它很快销声匿迹。他由此总结出支付领域最严酷的规律：“支付创新中存在某种先验并不明显、但事后看来清晰无比的‘临界规模’（critical mass）。如果你达不到它，就注定失败。支付领域根本没有‘还算可以’（okay）的折中结局；要么你成功建立网络让每个人都必须拥有你的小工具，要么你直接被扫入历史的尘埃。” 尽管钥匙链上的魔杖听起来合情合理，但它只比从兜里掏出一张一直好用的信用卡“快了一点点，而不是快很多”。Alex Rampell 和 Max Levchin 还调侃了亚马逊最近在 Whole Foods 撤下掌纹支付（Amazon One）的例子。Alex Rampell 坦言自己住酒店附近有 Whole Foods 时很喜欢用掌纹付款，Max Levchin 则笑称扫描手掌不仅没有更快，甚至更慢，“那感觉就像：‘来，给我看看手相，顺便把这串葡萄结了’”，而机器给出的唯一算命谶语只有：“你欠我钱”。 --- ### `13:00` 从 DigiCash 破产派对到 PayPal 对匿名性的颠覆 当主持人问及当加密货币（Crypto）崛起时，Max Levchin 是否将其视作自己多年理想的实现，Max Levchin 坦言自己往往是浪潮的“迟到者”，并非多数新事物的尝鲜者。即使对于被外界视为先驱的 PayPal，他的切入点也纯属意外。早年他一心想在超低功耗芯片上实现密码学底层算法（Cryptographic primitives），做成之后却发现这种芯片除了极小量数据的快速加密和解密之外什么也干不了——而需要极小量高频加密解密的数据，自然而然导向了支付。 在 PayPal 成立之前，Max Levchin 参加了数字货币鼻祖 DigiCash 的清算破产聚会。那是一场凄凉的聚会，在斯坦福大学的校园草坪上，一群神情落魄的赛博朋克（Cypherpunks）喝着便宜啤酒，互诉数字货币时代并未到来的绝望。密码学大师 David Chaum（盲签名发明的提出者）当时甚至没有在场，独自一人心灰意冷地漫游在帕洛阿尔托的街头，因为他无比天才的想法最终被现实证明毫无 PMF（产品市场契合度）： > “在那种语境下，我们其实非常后知后觉；当我听着那些人争论谁的点子被扼杀时，盲签名技术以及 David Chaum 本人……都在被证明根本没有产品市场契合度。” 不久之后 PayPal 成立。当 Max Levchin 在一场密码学学术会议上登台推介这种新的数字支付构想时，他被台下的专家们全场喝倒彩并轰下了台，因为 PayPal 既不具备极高强度的安全性，更毫无匿名性可言。然而，PayPal 真正的商业洞见恰恰在于抛弃了赛博朋克的执念：普通消费者根本不在乎绝对匿名，他们只想方便地买一杯咖啡或在网上买东西。 --- ### `15:00` 比特币的价值存储属性与“买咖啡”终极考验 针对加密货币与区块链，Max Levchin 明确将“加密货币”（Cryptocurrency）与“密码学”（Cryptography）区分开来。他回忆自己读到中本聪的比特币白皮书时，作为一名数学与密码学极客，他为用工作量证明巧妙解决拜占庭将军问题拍案叫绝。但他从一开始就怀疑它能否成为日常流通货币或主流支付方式： > “但我压根儿没相信过哪怕一秒钟它会成为一种货币或支付方式，而且过了这么久，我到现在也不认为它是一种支付手段。” Max Levchin 强调，比特币作为商品、价值存储手段（Store of Value）已经证明了无与伦比的成功；如今稳定币（Stablecoins）也开辟了一系列极其清晰的应用场景。但他衡量所有支付形式的基准始终是那个最经典、最重要的指标：“我能否用它在街角买一杯咖啡？” 日常微额消费之所以是支付体系的核心试金石，是因为其极其庞大的交易频次与强烈的现实实用主义： - **大额资金流转**：如果是 40 万亿美元级别的跨国转账，机构和个人会投入巨大精力去研究安全、通道成本与清算速度。 - **小额高频消费**：如果路过百吉饼店买咖啡，只要加密钱包的密码太长、签名稍有延迟，顾客就会立刻翻口袋找零钱；没有零钱就会抽出借记卡或信用卡。 - **用户体验定生死**：随着交易金额变小，交互界面的摩擦力（User Interface）压倒一切，便利性将彻底战胜手续费与底层意识形态。 --- ### `17:00` TrialPay 往事与一封俄语邮件开启的创投羁绊 话题随后转回 Affirm 的创业起点，主持人让两人回顾当年是如何穿过“想法迷宫”（Idea Maze）最终创立这家分期巨头的。Alex Rampell 与 Max Levchin 幽默地把对质各自的回忆比喻为“囚徒困境”（Prisoner's Dilemma）——如果两人的版本能对得上，大家就能录完离开，否则就得整天关在录音棚里。 Alex Rampell 率先回忆起 2009 年前后的交集。当时他创办并掌舵 TrialPay，业务核心是虚拟数字商品的替代性支付系统。当时社交游戏极度狂热，玩家不愿花真钱在 Zynga 的《FarmVille》（开心农场）里买虚拟金币、在社交德州扑克里买虚拟筹码，或在社交网络应用里花钱给朋友“扔一只虚拟羊”。TrialPay 的模式是通过商业引导让玩家免费获取虚拟币：比如只要注册 Geico 车险、订阅 Netflix 或开一张信用卡，商家就会支付丰厚的获客佣金，这笔经济价值足以补贴玩家的虚拟道具。 ```mermaid flowchart LR accTitle: TrialPay 替代支付与获客逻辑 accDescr: 用户通过完成高价值商户的签约行为免费换取社交游戏内的虚拟货币 User["社交游戏玩家"] -->|"不愿掏真钱买虚拟金币"| Game["社交游戏平台 (如 FarmVille)"] Game -->|"展示 TrialPay 任务通道"| TrialPay["TrialPay 结算中介"] User -->|"签约办理高 LTV 服务"| Merchant["赞助商户 (Geico 车险 / Netflix)"] Merchant -->|"支付高额获客 CAC 佣金"| TrialPay TrialPay -->|"分账兑换虚拟道具金币"| Game ``` Alex Rampell 极富说服力（自嘲是“令人烦躁多于令人信服”），横扫签约了市面上所有的社交游戏开发商，唯独攻克不下一家名为 Slide 的头部公司——而 Slide 的创始人和掌舵者正是 Max Levchin。 两人的初次接触充满戏剧性： - 2009 年 3 月第一周，Alex Rampell 受邀参加著名的投资银行 Allen & Company 行业峰会。 - 当时他妻子已怀胎十月，预产期是 3 月 16 日（儿子最终于 3 月 28 日出生），Alex 本打算放弃参会留在家里陪产。 - 主办方再三劝说会议极其重要，并许诺：“只要你太太开始分娩，我们立刻派专机把你送回家。”Alex 于是动身赴会。 - 在峰会现场，Alex Rampell 找到了 Max Levchin 并试图推销合作，但再次被 Max 果断拒绝。 - 会后，Alex Rampell 灵机一动，用俄语给 Max Levchin 写了一封跟进邮件（Alex 在高中和大学学过俄语并在俄罗斯生活工作过）。 - 这种在如今用 ChatGPT 无法复制的个性化举动（当时邮件里夹杂着微小的语法错误，恰恰证明是人工手写）震惊了 Max Levchin，他的第一反应是回信质问：“你怎么会说俄语？”两人由此打破坚冰，逐步建立了深厚的私人友谊。 ### `20:00` “睡衣难题”与重塑杂货铺的信任模式 Alex Rampell 与 Max Levchin 的创业碰撞始于 Max 刚把 Slide 出售给 Google 之后。当时 Alex 经营着 TrialPay，一直试图签下 Slide 却未能如愿；直到看到 Max 发推文表示正在物色新方向，两人便相约在 Google 一栋禁止访客进入的神秘大楼里喝咖啡。彼时智能手机正迅速普及，但在移动端完成支付体验极其糟糕。Alex 提出了著名的“睡衣难题”（the pajama problem）：当你晚上穿着睡衣躺在楼上的床上想买东西，却发现信用卡落在楼下客厅，该怎么结账？ ```mermaid flowchart LR accTitle: "睡衣难题与社交信用承保" accDescr: "展示用户因无法触及实体信用卡而流失，以及通过社交图谱替代传统信用的逻辑。" subgraph friction["支付摩擦痛点"] A["躺在床上想购物"] --> B["信用卡落在楼下"] B --> C["放弃交易 / 转化率流失"] end subgraph solution["最初的解决假说"] D["抓取社交图谱数据"] --> E["推导信用低风险画像"] E --> F["凭身份完成即时结账"] end C -.->|"激发尝试"| solution ``` 在思考如何消除这种摩擦时，两人想到了传统乡镇“杂货铺”（general store）式的赊账模式——店主认识每一个人，哪怕你兜里没带钱、家里也没存款，店主也会挥挥手说“Max，算我的，下次再给”。而现代电商环境把人降维成了 Cookie 和 IP 地址，线下大型商超如 Walmart 也不可能认出每个进门的人，因此毫无信任积累。但社交网络的繁荣带来了一种全新构想：如果一个人在 Facebook 上拥有 500 个真实好友、上传了 1,000 张生活照片，而且他并不是在主动到处借钱（主动在搜索框搜“没钱了、借钱”的用户通常是极高风险人群），那他大概率是个信用良好的违约低风险用户。尽管事后证明这个假设存在偏差，但它构成了最初“社交版 Bill Me Later”（Social BML）的理论雏形。 - 银行信贷策略是向高 FICO 分用户主动寄送重组贷款信件，而主动搜索急用钱的往往是高违约风险群体。 - 当时的核心设想：依靠社交网络画像还原熟人信任，而非依赖冷冰冰的征信分数。 ### `22:30` 创业者的反思与各国“赊账文化”的启示 Max Levchin 回忆起在 Google 的那一年充满了迷茫与灵魂拷问。他花了五年多时间打理一家自己并不真正擅长且无感的热门社交媒体公司（Slide），尽管取得了财务上的成功，却未能带来真正的创业满足感。最终点醒他的是他的妻子：“你工作最拼、但最快乐的时候，就是当年在 PayPal 做反欺诈系统的日子。我知道你发誓再也不碰金融服务和支付，但就破例再试一次吧。”这番劝导让原本对支付唯恐避之不及的 Max 重新向 Alex 敞开了心扉。 在探讨“凭信任延后付款”的过程中，两人注意到了不同文化中自然生长的赊账机制： 1. **以色列杂货店**：在小城镇里，顾客结账时如果忘带钱包，只需向收银员亮一下购物袋，收银员点点头记住，下次来再一并补齐。 2. **日本名片账单**：直到不久之前，在日本很多商铺里，即使店主不认识你，只要你递出一张印有职位的个人名片，店主就会在名片背面记下你购买的物品和总额，直接挂在账上。 此时行业内也开始出现尝试构建“社交信用评分”（借鉴某些社会信用模型）的初创企业。Max 表示，对于那些躺在床上看电视广告、被瞬间打动却懒得起身的消费者来说，如果能缩短交易链路，就能吃下曲线下方的潜在转化空间（area under the curve）。 Alex Rampell 评价道：“‘如果你的 Facebook 上有 500 个好友，并且上传了 1000 张照片——顺便说一句，这个想法其实是错的——但你很可能就是一个低信用风险的人。’” Max Levchin 则由衷感慨： > “我妻子几乎永远是对的，她说：‘你这辈子工作最拼、但也最快乐的时光，就是在 PayPal 做反欺诈系统的日子。’” ### `25:00` 动机分歧与用 PHP 伪造的鲜花演示原型 虽然共同看到了机会，但两人最初的技术执念与商业诉求各不相同： - **Max 的切入点**：他厌倦了为了社交娱乐做机器学习，渴望重回“用数据和模型与坏人搏斗”的轨道。他只想打造一套极其精密的信用评分系统，甚至想找 Mark Zuckerberg 合作获取社交数据，而把借贷、通道与收单等脏活累活丢给别人。 - **Alex 的切入点**：当时 TrialPay 差点被 PayPal 收购却惨遭爽约（“被晾在了婚礼祭坛上”），他只专注于如何通过落地真实的商户来促成交易转化。 转折点发生在 2012 年的艾伦公司太阳谷峰会（Allen & Company Conference）。在 Max 当时的幕僚长 Son 的帮助下，他们约到了鲜花零售巨头 1-800-Flowers 的创始人 Jim McCann 共进早餐。为了这场会议，Alex 用 PHP 极其粗糙地完整复刻（克隆）了 1-800-Flowers 的在线商城，并植入了一个“用你的身份买单”（Pay with your identity）的结账按钮。用户选好一打用于向妻子道歉的红玫瑰后，点击付款时如果没带信用卡，可以点击“Facebook 登录”；系统会校验用户是否有 500 个以上好友以及账号是否属于真人。 ```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: "1-800-Flowers 会议演示流程" accDescr: "展示通过克隆网站、Facebook鉴权以及风险自担方案说服商户负责人的过程。" subgraph Demo["Alex 编写的 PHP 演示原型"] Step1["选购红玫瑰"] --> Step2["点击结账：无信用卡"] Step2 --> Step3["调用 Facebook Connect 鉴权"] Step3 --> Step4["校验好友数与真实账户标记"] end subgraph Pitch["早餐会议提案"] Demo --> Pitch1["向 Jim McCann 现场展示流程"] Pitch1 --> Pitch2["承诺：如果买家违约不付款，风险由我们全额兜底"] Pitch2 --> Pitch3["商户当场拍板合作"] end ``` 在早餐会上，Jim McCann 听完瞬间心领神会。他兴奋地回忆说，当年电台打广告时，驻扎在外的现役军人经常打电话进来说想给妻子订花但手头没有信用卡，客服都会说：“没关系，感谢您的服役，我们先发货，下次您再付。”当听到 Max 和 Alex 明确承诺“如果买家赖账，坏账由我们全部自掏腰包兜底”时，Jim 彻底被说服，当场敲定了合作，并把后续对接交给了他当时的得力干将 Amit Shah（日后也成为一名成功的创业者）。 Max Levchin 总结两人的初期心态道： > “我的运作方式是，我只想建立一个非常酷的信用评分，然后让别人去处理具体的支付和借贷业务。” Alex Rampell 谈及当时的演示与商户反馈时说道： > “他凭借直觉就彻底理解了这个概念：只要你有足够的信任，你完全可以做后付费。” ### `30:00` Expedite 早期探索与商户折让率定价 在最初实现这一套支付系统时，Max Levchin 还处于摸索阶段。他回忆自己在 Microsoft Word 或 Excel 里草拟了一份最初的定价单，拍脑袋定下了一个数字：“我们要不就收 7% 吧？”在消费金融领域，这一费用通常被称为商户折让率（Merchant Discount Rate, MDR）和年化利率（Annual Percentage Rate, APR）。因为平台直接向商户垫付现金，商户端承担折让扣点，随后平台再去向消费者收款。但当时产品连真正的 APR 概念都还没建立，单纯只收商户的 MDR。 在正式招聘第一批真正的财务员工前，Max 曾把这个设计拿给 Rob Pfeiffer（后来加入公司的财务核心骨干，此前其姐姐曾为 Alex Rampell 工作）过目。Rob 看到这种“无需任何利息、甚至缺乏明确还款约束”的模型后，极为讽刺地调侃了一句：“噢，免费送花是吧？”言下之意是消费者买了花根本不会还钱，违约风险极高，回款回报率堪忧。彼时公司甚至还没定名为 Affirm，而是以 Expedite Software Inc. 的名义四处摸索。 > “我从来没见过哪家公司是一创办就立刻找到 Product-Market Fit，24 小时后产品大卖、一切顺风顺水的；你总会经历这样一段时期：去上班依然合情合理，但你根本不知道这到底会以一无所获告终，还是迎来转机。” —— Max Levchin 随后公司在 1-800-Flowers 上线测试，却陷入了漫长的“荒漠徘徊期”。商户负责人 Amit 对转化率和 UI 极度不满，整天提出苛刻要求。更关键的问题在于产品逻辑：当时的“延后付款（Pay later）”选项只出现在结账漏斗的最后一步，也就是用户已经选好了花、准备付钱的时刻。Amit 愤怒地指责道：你们这纯粹是在蚕食我原本的信用卡交易量；信用卡收费远比你们便宜，而你们居然要收 7%，如果我要用你们，除非你们分文不取，否则你们应该为做这种垃圾产品感到羞耻。早期唯一的商户几乎全盘否定了这套模式，Affirm 的推进举步维艰。 ### `33:04` Beautylish 与“漏斗上游”展示引发的转化率革命 真正的转机来自于 Max 的另一位朋友 Nils，后者经营着一家在线美妆护肤品电商 Beautylish。Beutylish 在接入系统时做了一处关键改动：他们没有把支付方式藏在结算页面的最后，而是直接在漏斗上游（Up-funnel）——即消费者在商品页面浏览洗发水、香水时——就明确标注：“支持分 3 期付款”或“支持 30 天后付款”。 ```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: Up-funnel BNPL Conversion Impact accDescr: Comparison between late checkout placement and early upstream product page messaging. subgraph Failure["旧模式：结账底端弹出（1-800-Flowers）"] A["用户挑好鲜花进入收银台"] --> B["最后一步展示：延后付款"] B --> C["蚕食信用卡流量 / 商户拒绝支付高额 MDR"] end subgraph Success["新模式：漏斗上游前置（Beautylish）"] D["商品浏览页（洗发水/香水）"] --> E["直接展示分期金额：支持分 3 期付款"] E --> F["即时拉升 30% 转化率 / 突破消费者单次预算心理"] end ``` 这一细微改动带来了戏剧性的结果：Beautylish 的购买转化率瞬间暴涨了 30%。团队这才恍然大悟：Affirm 根本不是为了解决“忘带信用卡、穿着睡衣懒得掏卡”的所谓“睡衣问题（Pajama Problem）”，也不是单纯的信用卡替代品，而是在重塑消费者的心理预算边界——当几百美元的支出被切碎成多次支付时，消费者的预算空间被实质性放大了。 意识到这一点后，团队立即掉头，将其包装为核心销售卖点去开拓新兴的 D2C（Direct-to-Consumer）品牌。这些品牌极度渴望拉动营收增长，根本不在乎 Affirm 收取 1%、5% 还是 12% 的手续费，只要能带来销售增长即可。二手奢侈品电商平台 Tradezy 的创始人 Tracy 成了 Affirm 最忠实的早期拥趸之一。 > “她会把后台仪表盘的截图发邮件给我，兴奋地说：‘这就是 Affirm 效应（Affirm Effect）！你们帮我把转化率直接拉升了 35%！’” —— Max Levchin ### `35:10` 高毛利黑洞：营利性教育机构的教训与床垫行业的爆发 在探讨高商户折让率（MDR）时，Alex Rampell 指出，市场上能够承受极高 MDR 的行业往往具备极其畸形的毛利结构，其中最典型的就是营利性教育机构（For-profit education）。例如 Apollo 集团旗下的凤凰城大学（University of Phoenix），以及早期教人写代码的各种六周速成编程训练营（如 General Assembly 类机构）。这类机构的在线课程边际成本近乎为零，违约率极高，商户甚至愿意让出高达 50% 的 MDR 给金融机构，只要能把人忽悠进来。Affirm 早期曾短暂涉足这一领域，甚至天真地以为这是在“补贴教育、践行社会使命”，但不到半年就狼狈撤出。因为这些课程质量极其低劣，消费者毕业后发现文凭一文不值，因极度不满而导致的坏账和违约率高得惊人。 真正让 Affirm 迎来爆炸式增长的，是随之而来的 D2C 盒装床垫浪潮（如 Purple、Casper 等）： * **革命性的压缩包装与极高毛利**：记忆海绵床垫通过机器强力压缩后卷入圆柱形包装盒中，运输成本极低，本质上是将石油聚氨酯原料转化为海绵，毛利率高达 80% 以上。 * **漫长的更换周期压力**：当时《哈佛商业评论》（HBR）刊登了一篇关于床垫消费的研究，所有 D2C 创业者几乎都在拜读同一篇理论：消费者每 7 年才会更换一次床垫。 * **不计代价的转化诉求**：如果品牌错过了消费者这辈子仅有的这一次决策，下一次机会就要等到 7 年之后；因此，面对 1,200 美元的床垫单价，消费者穿着睡衣躺在破床垫上犹豫不决时，只要能通过 Affirm 拆解为每月数十美元的支出，转化率就会瞬间飙升，床垫厂商因而极其乐意向 Affirm 支付高额抽成。 ### `40:00` 床垫大战、商户补贴与“真 0% 利率”的诞生 在掀起直接面向消费者（D2C）热潮的一篇标志性报道出炉后，整个床垫行业掀起了创业狂潮。创业者们意识到：只要能通过营销说服消费者把更换床垫的周期从七年缩短到六年，或者让人相信“装在盒子里寄来的床垫”才是最酷的选择，里面就蕴藏着惊人的暴利。但这随即导致了市场的高度饱和，所有商家都迫切需要不惜一切手段促成交易。此时，向顾客提供一份“由 Affirm 提供支持、为期三年、完全零利息的贷款”，对床垫品牌而言不过是一笔极划算的获客营销成本。在这个阶段，Affirm 找到了爆发式的增长契机：商户极度愿意承担高额的商户费率（MDR），从而让消费者端的年化利率（APR）直接降为零，诞生了真正的 0% 利率贷款。 ```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: 真正 0 利率与延期利息陷阱的机制对比 accDescr: 对比百货商店联名卡的延期利息陷阱与 Affirm 的真 0 利率机制 subgraph Bad["传统百货商店联名卡（延期利息陷阱）"] A1["宣称 '0% APR'* 附带小字星号"] --> B1["欠款哪怕逾期 1 天或少还 1 分钱"] B1 --> C1["全额利息追溯至交易第一天"] C1 --> D1["1000 美元本金在 2 年后暴涨至 3000 美元"] end subgraph Good["Affirm 透明信贷模式（真 0% 利率）"] A2["商户补贴 MDR 成本"] --> B2["消费者享受真实 0% 利率"] B2 --> C2["即便逾期也绝无罚金或追溯利息"] C2 --> D2["总还款金额固定，终生绝无负面意外"] end ``` Max Levchin 回顾称，这一商业模式背后的核心动力，是他长期以来对传统金融业“伪 0% 利率（fake 0% loan）”的极度愤怒。很多传统百货商店会摆出“申请联名信用卡享受 0% APR”的招牌，但在数字旁边却打上极其微小的星号：条款规定只要在 12 到 24 个月内少还了一分钱或逾期了一天，高额利息就会从刷卡消费的第一天起追溯全额计算——两年前刷了 1000 美元买东西，一觉醒来可能背上了 3000 美元的巨额债务，这种产品在业内被称为“延期利息信用卡（deferred interest credit card）”。Affirm 决定彻底消灭这种行业恶疾： > “There will never be an asterisk on Affirm zero. That is the origin story of why we don't charge late fees, we don't do deferred interest, all the sort of gimmicks and gotchas that the industry loves to throw at people.” —— Max Levchin - 传统零售信用卡的陷阱被称为延期利息（Deferred Interest），用隐藏条款将违约成本转嫁给最脆弱的消费者。 - Affirm 确立了其品牌基石：不收滞纳金（no late fees）、绝无延期利息追溯、无任何隐性陷阱。 - 盒装床垫的 0% 利率大获成功后，全美床垫品牌迅速跟进，推动了这一模式的全面普及。 --- ### `42:47` 超越 BNPL：支付与广告的合流，以及“负获客成本”的威力 随着 Affirm 的发展，大众普遍将其简单标签化为先买后付（BNPL），但这远远没有概括公司的本质。Alex Rampell 指出，Max 很久以前就提出过“广告与支付必将融合”的预见：从早期的 TrialPay，到 Max Levchin 在 PayPal 时期亲自主导但因太超前而夭折的项目“PayPal Shops”（试图利用刚刚完成的交易数据反推并再营销下一次购买）。如今在 Affirm，这一预言彻底落地：Affirm 不仅在用户预算不足时提供透明分期（其中约三分之一的交易实现完全零利率）以满足现有消费需求，它更演变成了一个帮助商家发现、保证并制造新增需求的商业推广平台。目前，仅在全美就有超过 5000 万消费者使用 Affirm 完成交易，并已向全球四个国家扩张。 ```mermaid flowchart LR accTitle: Affirm 负获客成本双向飞轮机制 accDescr: 展示 Affirm 如何通过商户端获取用户并实现长周期货币化 M["零售商户"] -->|"为了转化率补贴手续费 (MDR)"| A["Affirm 平台"] A -->|"以 0 利率/透明信贷吸引"| C["5000 万+ 注册消费者"] A -->|"向商户收取费用 (获客成本为负)"| REV["负获客成本 (Negative CAC)"] C -->|"12 到 39 期还款沟通触点"| UP["复购推荐与新产品增销"] UP -->|"反哺新增交易额"| M ``` 围绕商业壁垒，Alex 抛出了风险投资界一个残酷的行业现状：90% 的消费类（D2C）公司的商业价值最终都被侵蚀殆尽，因为它们没有护城河，所有钱最终都被 Google 和 Facebook 通过高昂的获客成本（CAC）抽走，VC 买它们还不如直接买科技巨头的股票。而 Affirm 最罕见的核心优势，在于它拥有“负获客成本（Negative CAC）”： > “And I distinctly remember many, many conversations around how do we have negative CAC. And I think, to me, one of the coolest things about Affirm to this day is it has negative customer acquisition cost. I mean, it is paid to acquire a customer.” —— Alex Rampell - 支付与广告融合：从早期的“满足需求（satisfy demand）”跃迁为利用 5000 万规模的购买人群帮商户“创造需求（create demand）”。 - 绝大多数 D2C 品牌（如 Casper）虽然做到了庞大规模，但因为必须不断给广告平台交买量费，经济模型随着时间推移不断恶化。 - Affirm 在获取终端消费者时不仅不花钱，还能从商户端赚取 MDR 手续费，实现了天然的负 CAC。 --- ### `45:00` B2B2C 关系的重构：长周期风控与终身沟通触点 Alex 和 Max 深入剖析了 B2B2C 模式中谁真正“拥有客户”的难题。Alex 举例说，在自己创立 TrialPay 时，用户在 Zynga 游戏里通过注册 Geico 保险换取免费金币，但根本没人记得 TrialPay 是谁；后来尝试给用户发邮件，甚至直接被邮件服务商判定为垃圾邮件给封掉了，因为商户（如 Zynga、Netflix）绝不允许第三方截留自己的用户。然而在 Affirm 的模式下，商户反而巴不得让 Affirm 牢牢掌握客户关系——因为没有哪个品牌（比如 Casper 床垫）希望亲自扮演催债鬼，在用户逾期时寄出“快从我的床垫上滚下来，你还没付钱”的催缴信。售后沟通、还款提醒这类长达数年的繁重负担，品牌非常乐意全权交给 Affirm。 ```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: 短期 BNPL 与 Affirm 长期限信贷的竞争维度对比 accDescr: 对比传统短期小额 BNPL 与 Affirm 长期复杂信贷在风控和运营维度的差异 subgraph ShortTerm["普通 BNPL 平台"] S1["期限极短：通常为 6 周"] S2["粗放风控：依赖基础 FICO 分或轻量审核"] S3["触点有限：仅数次基础交互"] end subgraph AffirmModel["Affirm 长周期信贷"] A1["期限较长：达 1 年至 3.5 年 (39 个月)"] A2["复杂机器学习风控：精细化单笔承保"] A3["高频触点：12 至 39 次主动通知与增销机会"] end ``` 这种长久的关系沉淀构成了 Affirm 极难被复制的技术壁垒。业内绝大部分 BNPL 竞品只能处理 6 周左右的超短期消费分期，因为一旦把周期拉长到 1 年至 3.5 年（42 个月），粗糙的风控手段——比如看一眼 FICO 信用分或查阅 Facebook 好友关系——就会彻底失效，必须依赖极高精度的机器学习进行底层精准核保（underwriting）。Max 指出，虽然长周期信贷违约与逾期风险的管控极其困难，但它换来了难以估量的商业价值： > “The price you pay as a provider of financing to upsell consumers on more and more services. And so our growth has really been fueled by these long-term products, even though they are probably the most challenging part of payments.” —— Max Levchin - 品牌商户不愿承担长周期催收带来的品牌损伤，主动将客户的金融账户生命周期让渡给 Affirm。 - 普通 BNPL 业务多为 6 周分期；Affirm 则深耕长达 3.5 年的信贷，在此期间拥有多达 12 到 39 次合法的账单与服务沟通机会（shots on goal），用以增销（upsell）新产品和服务。 - 在此周期内控制坏账率和违约率，构成了支付领域最高维的竞争壁垒之一。 --- ### `48:04` 追溯 PayPal 黑手党：传奇神话背后的真实一面 访谈的最后，主持人 Erik Torenberg 将话题引向金融科技领域的源头——PayPal 的早期历史。随着 Jimmy Soni 的新书《创始人》（*The Founders*）出版，外界对 PayPal 早期岁月的兴趣再次被点燃。PayPal 孕育了后来的“PayPal 黑手党（PayPal Mafia）”，被公认为商业史上顶尖人才密度最高、创业成功率最不可思议的摇篮。Erik 感慨道，当今商业世界里甚至很难再找到任何一家公司能与当时的 PayPal 相提并论，其人才聚集效应可能只有彼得·蒂尔创办的“蒂尔奖学金（Thiel Fellowship）”勉强能与之类比。 面对外界对这帮极具天赋、个性鲜明但同时身上也带有严重缺点与偏执的创始团队的种种传奇演绎，Erik 追问 Max Levchin：随着时光流逝，在当今人们对 PayPal 的历史叙事中，是否存在被外界误解、低估或者尚未真正理解的关键真相？对此，Max 表示自己对这段历史有一个历久弥新的“旧答案”，也有一个随着时间推移才逐渐看清的“新答案”。 - 《创始人》（*The Founders*）等书籍的出版重新引发了对 PayPal 影响力的广泛反思。 - 早期 PayPal 团队展现出了极端的长处，但也伴随着极强的个性冲突与明显的弱点。 - Max 准备从全新视角剖析外界对 PayPal 黄金一代认知存在的偏差。 ### `50:00` PayPal 黑手党的起源：筛选创业者与祛魅神话 Max Levchin 回顾了外界常讨论的“PayPal 黑手党”（PayPal Mafia）现象。他提到 Jimmy Soni 所写的《The Founders》一书，称赞该书极为扎实，因为作者深入采访了当年的每一个人。关于为何 PayPal 早期团队在日后创办了如此多知名企业（如 YouTube、Yelp、LinkedIn 以及 Peter Thiel 创立的基金等），Levchin 指出这绝非偶然，而是团队从一开始就“蓄意筛选创业者”的结果。在面试早期及后期员工时，他常问的一个标准问题是：“离开 PayPal 后你打算做什么？” ```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: PayPal Mafia Success Engine accDescr: A diagram showing how recruiting aspiring entrepreneurs and shared vulnerability created enduring entrepreneurial drive. subgraph Selection ["人才筛选机制"] A["面试核心提问:<br/>'离开 PayPal 后打算做什么？'"] --> B["理想回答:<br/>'这是我最后一份工作，之后我要自己创业'"] B --> C["吸纳极度聪明、有野心、把 PayPal 当作创业研究生的顶尖人才"] end subgraph Environment ["真实脱敏与共情"] C --> D["高压密室碰撞:<br/>白板前争吵、互斥想法愚蠢、共享焦虑"] D --> E["亲见神级人物的脆弱:<br/>马斯克筋疲力竭、泰尔担忧资金断流"] end subgraph Outcome ["脱敏驱动与扩散"] E --> F["祛魅产生无畏信心:<br/>'如果这个普通人能做成宏大构想，我也能'"] F --> G["黑手党开枝散叶:<br/>YouTube / Yelp / LinkedIn / Founders Fund"] end ``` Levchin 表示，他们最欢迎的回答就是将 PayPal 视为最后一份打工经历、当作攻读创业研究生的跳板。除了招募机制，Levchin 还分享了一个较少被提及的深层原因：早年团队成员在密闭、充满汗水的小房间里推演白板、激烈争吵，彼此见过最真实甚至不堪的一面。当外界把 Elon Musk 视为带领人类登陆火星的无所不能的偶像时，Levchin 记得在公司茶水间里那个疲惫、焦躁、满腹牢骚的普通人；当 Peter Thiel 在募资途中打电话焦虑地怀疑“公司可能要没钱了”时，他们看到了这些领袖身上的恐惧与不确定性。正是因为对这些伙伴进行了彻底的“祛魅”，才赋予了所有人巨大的勇气。 > “You know they're not gods, you know they're humans. And that inspires you to actually, like, you know what, if that guy who's just a normal dude, I spent a lot of time with him, he's normal. And he's going for this big of an idea? I should do the same. I should strive too.” —— Max Levchin - Jimmy Soni 撰写的《The Founders》因对全员深度采访而成为记录 PayPal 历史最权威、基于事实的著作。 - 早期团队被鼓励把 PayPal 当成终极创业训练营，从机制上吸引了高野心人才。 - 目睹同伴在高压下真实的人性脆弱，打破了对商业巨头的神话崇拜，促使员工相信自己同样能去挑战宏大难题。 --- ### `52:45` 智能体商业 vs. 智能体支付：决策权与交互界面的博弈 谈及尚未深入探讨的未来前沿趋势，Max Levchin 明确表示，自己对“智能体购物”（Agentic Shopping）持相对谨慎的态度，但对“智能体支付”（Agentic Payments）抱有极其乐观的预期。很多人热衷于构想由 AI 代替用户挑选周五聚会穿搭的场景，但在 Levchin 看来这完全误解了消费体验：人类在网购某些商品时本身就享受决策过程，希望在包裹送到前就确切知道自己穿上会是什么样子。例如作为一个自行车爱好者，他会花大量时间比对两个极其相似的自行车零件，因为“参与购买过程”本身就是一种乐趣。 真正存在痛点并亟待重构的，是挑选完毕后“掏出钱包并选择付款方式”的环节。长期以来，塑料信用卡凭借极高的确定性成为了人类历史上最优秀的用户交互界面（UI），但随着具备推理能力的软件智能体出现，这个传统界面终于迎来了被重新谈判的契机。 > “I think the notion of robots will buy our Friday night outfits is misguided. We want to know what we look like long before the robot delivers it to your door. But I think the friction, this notion of the best user interface ever created is the credit card. This may actually be finally up for renegotiation because agents are, in fact, smarter than pieces of plastic and even pieces of plastic with rewritable chips.” —— Max Levchin Alex Rampell 随后介入讨论，提出了不同维度的视角。Rampell 认为，人类在消费市场中通常被划分为两类：一类是“在乎时间多于在乎金钱”的人，另一类是“在乎金钱多于在乎时间”的人。智能体购物并不一定要代替用户选品，而是在用户确定了精确的商品型号（SKU/UPC）之后代劳寻找最优解。 --- ### `55:00` SKU 套利与支付权益优化：智能体在多卡环境下的价值 Alex Rampell 举出价格跟踪网站 CamelCamelCamel 作为典型案例：该网站虽然全美排名前 100，但年收入超过 10 万美元的高薪人群几乎闻所未闻，因为它的核心用户是那些愿意投入大量时间比对历史价格、挖掘全网最低价的消费者。在智能体时代，AI 完全可以把这种“耗时省钱”的能力平移给所有用户——当用户通过朋友推荐或自身研究锁定了某款具体配件后，AI 只需自动在全网数十个渠道中搜寻最低售价并下单。 同时，Rampell 指出这与智能体支付天然绑定。普通人钱包里可能同时拥有八九张信用卡，面对一笔在非餐饮场景、金额低于 500 美元的交易，没有人能记住手头的大通亚马逊联名卡（Chase Amazon）或其它卡片当前的复杂返现条款与积分倍率。在多卡权益优化方面，AI 能够以毫秒级速度计算出理论最优方案，省去极大的认知负担。 | 消费场景维度 | 人工传统模式 | 智能体（Agent）接入模式 | |:--- |:--- |:--- | | **选品偏好与决策** | 用户自主研究、询问朋友、浏览比对（享受挑选手感） | 作为辅助研究工具，难以完全取代主观审美与信任判断 | | **SKU 比价与代购** | 极度耗时，需手动监控如 CamelCamelCamel 等比价网站 | 锁定唯一 SKU/UPC 后，全自动跨全网比对最优折扣渠道下单 | | **多卡支付权益匹配** | 难以记忆 8-9 张卡在特定品类、额度下的细微返现条款 | 智能体在支付时自动调用最优卡片或分期渠道以榨取最高价值 | | **履约与商户信任度** | 依赖对网站 UI 现代度、发货地、退换货条款的综合直觉 | 需在“价格极低”与“履约确定性/正品保障”间进行复杂的概率权衡 | --- ### `56:45` 履约不确定性与 Instacart 隐喻：从生鲜代购到商业未来 针对 Rampell 的比价设想，Max Levchin 提出了现实层面的挑战：绝大多数人处于“有时缺钱，有时缺时间”的中间状态，而跨渠道比价的核心阻碍是“履约概率的权衡”（Handicapping Probability）。即便某个网站给出了全网最低价，用户也会因为其网站界面看起来像 1990 年代的老旧页面（例如专门销售低价自行车飞轮的 Bike Closet）而心生疑虑，担心买到磨损的二手货或者遭遇物流无限延期。因此，消费者宁愿在信誉良好的大型零售商处多花钱，也不愿为了低价承担履约风险。当前的 AI 尚不具备代人类做出这种微妙“信誉风险折价”的能力。 不过，Levchin 在播客结尾给出了一个积极的反例：即时生鲜配送平台 Instacart 事实上早已实现了 100% 的智能体商业代行体验。 > “The thing that's really true that no one seems to be celebrating just yet is grocery shopping is 100% agentic for anyone who uses Instacart.” —— Max Levchin 当用户让 Instacart 的代购员买牛奶时，代购员说有机山谷（Organic Valley）全脂奶缺货并替换为另一品牌，用户几乎不会产生疑虑就接受了。这种买手大脑中的即时替代决策与信任机制，证明了人类社会在部分标准化品类上已经具备了完全委托代购和支付的心理基础。只要逐步解决退换货繁琐与物流信息不透明等摩擦点，智能体支付和自主电商的全面普及只是时间问题。播客在对未来商业变革的展望中正式收尾。 ## Notable quotes > `05:00` There are no niches in payments that are smaller than $100 billion. — Max Levchin > `00:00` The best user interface ever created is the credit card. — Alex Rampell > `10:00` 支付领域根本没有‘还算可以’（okay）的折中结局；要么你成功建立网络让每个人都必须拥有你的小工具，要么你直接被扫入历史的尘埃。 — Max Levchin ## Mentioned Max Levchin, Alex Rampell, Erik Torenberg, Affirm, PayPal, Visa, MasterCard, Apple Pay, Google Pay, Dee Hock, David Chaum, DigiCash, TrialPay, Slide, 1-800-Flowers, Jim McCann, Amit Shah, Nils, Beautylish, Tradezy, Casper, Purple, Jimmy Soni, The Founders, Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, Instacart, CamelCamelCamel ## Video description Erik Torenberg is joined by a16z General Partner Alex Rampell and Affirm Co-Founder and CEO Max Levchin for a conversation on 25 years of fintech, from the early days of digital payments to the origins of Affirm and the next generation of agentic commerce. Max and Alex revisit what surprised them most about how payments evolved, why the card interface has been so difficult to displace, and why even the smallest corners of payments can become enormous markets. They also trace the early idea maze behind Affirm, from "pay with your identity" and the pajama problem to the realization that installment financing could dramatically increase merchant conversion. The conversation also gets into real versus "fake" 0% financing, what people misunderstand about Affirm today, why negative customer acquisition cost can be such a powerful business model advantage, and why Max is more bullish on agentic payments than on agents choosing what people buy. [Source](https://mgln.ai/e/1344/afp-848985-injected.calisto.simplecastaudio.com/3f86df7b-51c6-4101-88a2-550dba782de8/episodes/a13b21a1-e71b-428e-969a-c4fe80db9f9c/audio/128/default.mp3?aid=rss_feed&awCollectionId=3f86df7b-51c6-4101-88a2-550dba782de8&awEpisodeId=a13b21a1-e71b-428e-969a-c4fe80db9f9c&feed=JGE3yC0V)

[5:00] Max Levchin: There are no niches in payments that are smaller than $100 billion. [0:00] Alex Rampell: The best user interface ever created is the credit card. [10:00] Max Levchin: 支付领域根本没有‘还算可以’（okay）的折中结局；要么你成功建立网络让每个人都必须拥有你的小工具，要么你直接被扫入历史的尘埃。

[5:00] Max Levchin: There are no niches in payments that are smaller than $100 billion. [10:00] Max Levchin: The card payment interface is the singular best user interface ever created. [52:41] Max Levchin: I'm probably less optimistic about agentic shopping and I'm very optimistic about agentic payments. I think the notion of robots will buy our Friday night outfits is misguided. [13:30] Max Levchin: Convenience just trumps everything else as the total amount you're trying to send goes down.

[0:00] The card payment interface is the singular best user interface ever created. It is the world's largest market by any stretch of imagination, and there are no niches in payments that are smaller than $100 billion. Once you go really big, the numbers get small, which is strange. There's a lot of volume, but the large volume revenue opportunities in payments tend to be the smaller dollar amounts. There's always an opportunity to use another form of payment delivery device Convenience just trumps as the total amount you're trying to send goes down. The best user interface ever created is the credit card. This may actually be finally up for renegotiation because AI is already there. It's just that you haven't yet trusted your agent to do as good a job as you would. Something else to your surprise has not happened yet. I went to some cryptography-related conference and presented a new idea in digital payments and was literally booed off stage because it was certainly not anonymous. about anonymity at all. And in that sense, Payments may be one of the oldest categories in tech, but Max Levchin argues there are still no small markets inside it. In this episode, I sit down with A16Z general partner Alex Rampell and Affirm co-founder and CEO Max Levchin to look back at how payments evolved over the last 25 years and where the next major shifts may come from. team realized financing wasn't just another checkout option, but a way to materially change conversion. They also discuss why their credit card remains such a durable interface, how 0% financing can have very different economics, and what happens when AI agents begin participating in commerce. Max is skeptical that we'll hand over every shopping decision to AI anytime soon, but he thinks the payment itself may finally be ready for reinvention. a firm well before then. You guys are pioneers in fintech. You've been thinking about the space, trying to make sense of the present, think about where the future is going for 20 plus years, 25 years, maybe even more. And I'm curious, given so much time has passed since you first got into the space, what has most surprised you about what has happened, what hasn't happened? What did you expect to happen in the early 2000s of how this space would play out? Alex, why don't you start? I think the rise of Apple Pay and Google Pay and the extent to which they've really penetrated, because it's very hard to change consumer behavior in general. And it was a bizarre set of accidents, if you will, where there is this merchant liability shift because mag stripes were so easy to replicate that you probably noticed a while ago, your new cards had a little chip on them and you had to dip the chip and then the machine would be like, don't remove, don't remove, remove, remove, right? That's because the chip was being rewritten. It was much more secure than a mag stripe. in MasterCard and then the EuroPay, that's what the E is for. What is ECM for in EMV? - Eurocard? - Eurocard? - Eurocard? - I don't know, the Europeans somehow got their savings, they always do. They insert their cookies-- - Definitely not electronic. - Yeah, it's Euro something MasterCard Visa. So it was called the EMV switch, so all of these machines, if you did not want to be liable, like I could go to Best Buy, buy a TV. and then get home, use my TV, and say, "Nope, never bought the TV." And if I was using my MagStripe and Best Buy didn't have the machine switch over, then Best Buy would be like, oh, shoot, we lost all the money on that TV. And Alex gets the free TV. I'm exaggerating slightly for effect. So everybody had to get a new machine. And then it turned out that those new machines had a little contactless thing where you didn't have to dip the chip or swipe the card. You could just tap. Nobody was using taps when those machines came out. And now it's ubiquitous. behavior, but I feel like between COVID and the fact that all these merchants independently had to switch over their machines and the fact that, I mean, I wouldn't have guessed in, I mean, you obviously did because the Confinity was Palm Pilot sending money, so you're ahead of the whole PDA wave, but I wouldn't have guessed that those three things would have come behavior. It's like change of consumer behavior, ubiquitous new merchant payment terminal, plus ubiquitous mobile telephony. And that's certainly one thing that has changed the world a lot. How about you, Max? You were dreaming about what the future of money would look like a long time ago. but it would have surprised you about what has happened or what hasn't happened. It's very hard to step back from the soup if you're cooking in it for the last... plus or minus 30 odd years. I think to sort of further illustrate Alex's point, one of the things that's really amazing and subtle about... Apple Pay slash Google Pay. and its interaction with the Visa MasterCard networks is, Visa and MasterCard have a hard two and a half second limit on... [5:00] interaction between the network, the issuing bank, and the merchant and the acquiring bank. And so the whole thing has to happen in 10 seconds where the transaction gets retried or maybe just canceled out. And really leaves very little room for any kind of clever innovation. And online, you can play games. If you're doing e-commerce, you're like, well, yes, we're going to submit your card to Visa. But first we're gonna run some anti-fraud checks, and we're gonna do some other things to reduce flatability. But offline, like once your card is presented, two and a half seconds, that's all you got. And Google and Apple Pay have singularly time shifted the whole thing by creating secure enclaves inside their chips and saying, I already know your card. I can do all kinds of things before I actually have to start to Visa and MasterCard. And maybe the shocking thing is that Visa and MasterCard have not yet introduced some new standards saying, actually, there's not going to be two and a half seconds at all. It could be 15 seconds while we go and get a bunch of issuers to bid on a better credit quality terms for you or any other type of innovation. But... the sort of hard written rules of D Hawk era, are more or less intact. And that's not 30 years. That's like more, you know, 60 years. And so I think that's probably... a critical or more criticizing take on what happened. But the shocking thing about payments is that, it is the world's largest market by any stretch of imagination. And, Anything and everything you could have possibly thought of being sort of deconstructed and being the nichiest little thing to poke around and innovate in always turned out to be $100 billion. There are no niches and payments that are smaller than $100 billion. And so that's probably the most surprising thing I've seen. Although it's interesting, like once you go really big, the numbers get small, which is strange. If I send a $1 trillion wire. The United States just announced we are $40 trillion in debt. Let's just say that Elon's Mars colony is worth $40 trillion and Ro Khanna decides to tax him $40 trillion and he needs to send a wire. That wire... is not going to be very probably there's a lot of volume, but the large volume revenue opportunities and payments tend to be the smaller dollar amounts, which is surprising, right? Because it turns out, I mean, like all of the QSR, the quick serve restaurant, the payment opportunity there, that's massive. That's why Starbucks invented Starbucks pay because they wanted to stop having to pay. It's like these prepaid, they only have to pay one time. You put $50 on your as opposed to every successive time. So what's surprising about payment area under the curve, if you will, is that the bigger the dollar is, the smaller the rake, which I guess makes sense, because you're not going to get 2% of that $40 trillion payment. But everybody goes after B2B payments. Everybody has a clever idea for B2B payments. And that's the only one that is probably the exception of the rule. I was trying to find, so it's lost in time, the originally milled between the two of us, which I think we have slightly different origin stories of how we actually met. the original email between the two of us where we start mentioning what becomes a firm eventually. And it's dated April 2011. And in it, I think I ask you, tell me more about this Build Me Later thing, because I was working on something else while you were watching PayPal buying Build Me Later. And you sent me this really long, elaborate sort of shares exactly what it is and all these ideas around it. And we then veer off into this ping pong of emails around, bill me later for business, and conclude that it's actually a dumb business. There isn't an opportunity. It's funny, you mentioned that. I bought the domain PayMeSooner as a result. So it's like, ah, bill me later was a good idea. PayMeSooner would be an even better idea. Actually, the idea there, it's not terrible because it's not payments, it's lending. So think of it this way. Imagine that big companies beat up small companies all the time to get better payment terms. Better payment terms for them, right? and you're a little guy, I'm big GE. I'm like, I'm going to pay you net 90. So you invoice me and I pay you 90 days later. Now, you have to pay your employees. So you go to a bank, you go to somebody else, you're like, hey, I'm Eric, I run this business, most of my money comes from GE, they're an awesome company, they're going to pay me in 90 days. Bank doesn't care. They're just like, yeah, we're going to charge you 15%. Meanwhile, GE can issue bonds at whatever SOFR plus 10 basis points or something. GE is paying 5% for credit. You're paying 15% for credit. But it kind of doesn't make sense because your credit is GE's credit, if that makes sense. I always thought that Pay Me Sooner was an interesting idea, because the whole economy runs in the fact that my business is waiting on payments from you. The reason why I have to borrow money is because I don't pay you sooner. And yeah, we didn't pursue that. There's some healthy businesses these days in both accounts, payable financing and accounts receivable financing. So it's not a bad idea. [10:00] but the revenue opportunity, despite being an unregulated lending space, is seemingly lower than the one in consumer, because the convenience factor is is something that every participant understands and there are plenty of players that will offer you a slightly cheaper chart, which is also the root origin of why a $40 trillion wire to Ro Khanna is going to be not a very problem. Yes, it's whoever processes it. Yes. What's another idea that you're surprised does not exist yet, that you were thinking at some point, hey, the world obviously should work this way. There's an obvious opportunity here and for whatever conflation of reasons just hasn't happened yet. Or to use Mark's quote, bad ideas, only early ideas. Is there something else that you're surprised has not happened yet? Thank you. - You know, we're forever in search of the great way to pay biometrically, and it manifests itself more in movies, where people's thumbs and eyeballs get removed for authentication purposes. and yet we're still paying with chips. By the way, the card payment interface is the singular best user interface ever created. And it's not something that people haven't tried to do better. Remember... even before PayPal, there was this wand that I think MasterCard and one of the gas, um, refueling station networks produced this thing where you could wave this wand next to a gas station, and payment is secured and you can fuel your car. And when I saw it, I'm like, "Oh my God, this is obviously going to take over credit cards." And it didn't. And therein lies a really interesting lesson in payment innovation in general. There's some... unobvious a priori, but clear, obfusoriori version of critical mass. And if you don't reach it, you're going to fail. There's not really a okay outcomes in payments. You either get there and everyone needs to have your widget or your network or your whatever, or it's just going to go into the, uh, the annul of time. And, This is a fine example of a thing that actually made a lot of sense. Like, of course, you want to have a little wand on your car keys to just sort of wave and get refueled. But it's just a little bit faster, not a lot faster than the credit card you have in your pocket. And that just works. And so I keep on waiting for some completely different way of authenticating the payer to the device. And like other than the mobile phone, we haven't done better. Amazon actually just discontinued the whole thumb payment at Whole Foods. It's not a thumb payment. It's a thumb scanner. Yeah, the palm. I loved it. I would literally go to Whole Foods next to whatever hotel I'd be staying in. I was sad that they got rid of it. I know. I used to use it too. Actually, it's not even faster. It's just fun. I know. It's probably slower, actually. It is slower. It's like, tell me my fortune and these grapes. The fortune is you owe me money. Yes. That is the only fortune that you ever get. Well, that was, I mean, I think I called it thumb by accident, just given the almost name of a firm. I'm sorry. That's right. When sort of the crypto industry was becoming popular or when some of the major projects were starting in the space, did that... Were there parts of that that seemed exciting to you or a realization of a long-held sort of dream? Or did it feel, hey, orthogonal or... It's not really... So I've, I'm frequently late to trends. I'm not the world's earliest adopter of majority of things I encounter. I feel like PayPal is pretty early, right? Well, I don't. Sort of. to give you full context for PayPal, I really wanted to build... something very specific and quite different from PayPal, that operated on very low power chips. And to do that, I needed to... work out how to make cryptographic primitives work on a very, very low, power chip. And we did. And then we promptly realized I really couldn't do very much other than encrypt some very, very small amounts of data and small amounts of data that need to be encrypted and decrypted quickly that kind of lead you to payments, which is how PayPal came about. But right before all of that began, I was like, I don't know what I'm going to do. I'm going to I went to the wind down slash bankruptcy party for Digicash. which was the original granddaddy of all digital payments and it was sort of a somber affair. I was on Stanford University grounds and it was like, you know, pouring out of the 40s and a bunch of very sad looking cyberpunks telling each other how the age of digital payments is not upon us. And so in that sense, we were very late when I was listening to these people talk about whose idea was crushed. It was blind signatures and David Chom was somewhere. He was actually not present, but he was roaming the, uh, Streets of Palo Alto despondent because his brilliant idea, and a truly brilliant one, was basically being proven to be not having a product market fit. And then we promptly, soon thereafter, started PayPal, and I went to some cryptography related conference and present it [15:00] a new idea in digital payments and was literally booed off stage because it was not nearly as secure. It was certainly not anonymous. And the big innovation of PayPal was, what if we don't care about anonymity at all? In fact, people don't. They just need to pay for their coffees or their online purchases. And in that sense, I feel like we were, again, very late to that game. The game had played out like all the enthusiasts had left the building. And so cryptocurrency, not to be confused with cryptography. So I read the original Bitcoin paper and thought, wow, that's a really clever way of solving the Byzantine general problem as all the math slash cryptography nerds was impressed with the approach. But I don't think for a second it would become a currency or a payment method, etc. And I'm not convinced it's a payment method now, and it's been quite some time. But as currency and commodity and a star of value goes, it's certainly proven to be extraordinarily successful. And so I think the, as I watched cryptocurrencies expand and become a thing and more and more of a thing, the use cases are coming out now where stable coins are upon us and that certainly a collection of very clear uses But none have in my opinion come close to breaching the I going to use this to buy a cup of coffee, which is kind of, that's the canonical and most important, I would argue, use case for old forms of payments. So as currencies go, as store value goes, fascinating. what was the last time you spent a Bitcoin or a Satoshi on anything actually important? Putting aside people who make it a point of spending and just to sort of prove the point wrong. And it's the most important, that buying coffee is the most important metric because of just the volume of it, because the frequency, the practicalism. There's always an opportunity to use another form of payment delivery device to satisfy basic need. So if you're sort of contemplating a $40 trillion transfer, you'll spend a lot of time figuring out the secure way, the fast way, the cheap way, et cetera. If you're passing through your nearby bagel shop and you need a cup of coffee, if your cryptocurrency wallet passphrase is too long, you're going to look for change in your pocket. And if you don't have it, you'll pull out a debit card or credit card. And so user interface as the payment amount diminishes it takes over costs takes over everything Basically convenience just trumps everything else as the total amount you're trying to send goes down. Yeah. I want you to take us both back to memory lane as to the beginning of a firm and how you guys navigated the idea maze of what would eventually become a firm. You go over here. Well, hopefully our stories match. Yeah. We should put us in separate rooms. This is like the prisoner's dilemma, right? It's just like asking if our stories match, we get to leave. If they don't match, then we have to stay here all day. So my recollection was I ran this company, TrialPay, which did alternative payments for digital goods. So you don't want to pay for throwing a sheep or doing something on some silly social game, something that was not hard, valuable, or fun. Who would do such a thing? Who would do such a thing? But you're buying coins in Farmville, you're doing something, you're buying poker chips, virtual poker chips, of course. You don't want to pay, get it for free if you sign up for Geico. There's a lot of economic value to Geico, you don't really care if you use Progressive or Geico ooh I can get Farmville coins if I switch to Geico or get a credit card or sign up for Netflix So that what we did And I was somewhat persuasive and annoying probably more annoying than persuasive So signed up every other social gaming company except for this one called Slide And Max ran proudly or unproudly ran Slide And I went to the Allen & Company conference, which I almost didn't go to because my wife was very, very pregnant. So this was in March of 2009. It's like the first week of March. my son was born March 28th, 2009, but her due date was March 16th. So I'm like, I'm not going to go to this conference. And then the Allen guys were like, this is a very good conference. You should really go. I was like, my wife's very pregnant. It's like, you should go to the conference. If she goes into labor, we'll fly you back. It's like, all right, that sounds good. I'm going. So I went to the conference. I think we met there briefly. Successfully did not persuade you. But then I think I followed up with a note in Russian. Yes, exactly. And this wouldn't have worked today because now obviously I would have used Gemini or you know you know ChatGPT to write this probably somewhat riddled with grammatical flaws Russian note actually that that probably would have given it away of not being ChatGPT it wouldn't have passed it would have passed PanGrant but I took Russian in high school and college worked there lived there for a while and I think you were like why do you speak Russian I think that was the response but then we just became friendly I think I you [20:00] You sold to Google so I could not ever convince Slide to become a client of trial pay, sadly. But I seem to recall you had a tweet, like I'm looking for something to do, any idea. And that was my reason to reach out. And I think we had coffee at the forbidden building at Google, remember how there was one Google building that no guests were allowed at, but you just didn't care. Statute of limitations were obviously. - You're really all my secret. - Yes, exactly, because I know how much you love Vic. So we had coffee there. And then that's where this, yeah, we were talking about Bill later, but it was like, you know, my recollection was it's really hard to pay for something on a mobile phone. Mobile phones are becoming more ubiquitous. We should have a way of solving the pajama problem of you're upstairs in your pajamas. You want to buy something. Your credit card is downstairs. How do you pay? Meanwhile, not just are mobile phones ubiquitous, but social networks are ubiquitous. And maybe there's a new underwriting mechanism of kind of going back to the old general store general store, you don't have cash, like both literally and figuratively. You don't have it on you, but you don't even have it, you know, back home. But you run the general store and you're like, OK, Max, I got you. Don't worry about it. But Today, you're just like a cookie in an IP address, so I don't really know who you are. Or if you go to Walmart offline, it's like, you know, you get greeted by the very nice greeter. I don't think they have them anymore, but like, you get greeted by the nice greeter, they have no idea who you are. You can't do the general store thing. But if you have 500 friends on Facebook, this was wrong, by the way, but if you have 500 friends on Facebook and you have a thousand pictures that you've uploaded, you're probably a low credit risk. And if you're not looking for credit, this is the key thing. It's like a lot of credit offers are sent out proactively. So you have an 800 FICO. I know that you have $14,000 that's revolving for some reason on your Capital One card. I'm going to send you a customized mailer saying, why don't you go refinance with me, Bank of America? But if you go on Google and you say, like, I'm out of money, need money, need money, credit, credit, credit, like you're probably a bad credit risk. I remembered it. Yeah, I think that that matches. The... to add a little bit more color to it. So the year Google was definitely... a challenge in a sense that I was still coming to terms that I ran for like over five years, a company in social media that I had no business running. Like I, I worked very hard with, headache financially, very positive outcome for a lot of people. But ultimately, it never sort of scratched the sort of entrepreneurial itch that I thought I was scratching. And so one of the things that happened during that year was, I spent a lot of time soul searching, like, what am I supposed to do next with my life? I was going to start a company, but maybe I should be more thoughtful about what company I'm going to start next. And my wife, who's Pretty much always, right? I said, you know, Mm-hmm. the hardest you've ever worked, and the happiest you were. was during the anti-fraud days at PayPal. We nearly died, or we nearly died, she was there as well. Those were the days when you... look exhausted, but you actually were obviously very happy. And she was telling me, I know you swore off doing financial services. I know you're never going to touch payments again, but just this once, give it a chance. And that actually had some influence as to my response in this too, because you're working at a payments company. And part of my reluctance to deal with trial pay was like, I can't handle another near payments company. I went into social media for a reason. I don't want anything to do with this stuff. And so as I was slowly getting reeled back into working on payments, I was we started talking about this, the sort of a social BML was one of the sort of shorthands we used discussing what it would be. The general store, was interesting because at the same time, I don't actually remember which one of us knew this because you also speak Japanese, and this could have been the thing you told me, but I remember reading about social credit in different economies. There's a notion of... just pay me later or pay me next time in Israeli grocery stores, which is still common today. If you're checking out in Israel, apparently in a small enough town, you can just show your bag to the cashier and they'll remember and then they'll get you next time if you forgot your money. This is even more formalized in Japan, where until very recently, you would give your business card to the storekeeper, even if they didn't know you. If you had a business card, they would write what you bought on the back of it. And that was your total. And the notion of just put it on my tab Thank you. And so we were converging on this. I was talking to a startup at the time as kind of just learning about the industry that was trying to build a social credit score, kind of modeling it on the Chinese social score, which is used for a lot more than credit, obviously. And so we were swirling around this idea of, [25:00] payments and solving the, I don't have my credentials with me, but I still need to get through this, like another... sort of metaphorical version of this was I'm watching TV. There's just really cool ad. Back in the day when people had advertisements in between things in TV. And I really won the thing that was promised to me at the price that was promised to me But... I could do it on my phone, but I'm definitely not gonna get off my bed. And so like, what if there's some area under the curve that you can capture by bringing these, um, transactions closer in time and improving conversion, obviously. And so that, that's the kind of the, the, the swirly origin story, um, A lot of it, I think the two of us had a slightly different version of what would be fun. So I think as a payments guy, you were mostly thinking like, let's go do some payment stuff. As a person recovering from doing lots of machine learning in the service of social media, I'm Which... was. good and well, but wasn't really what I was meant to do. And lusting for the days of doing machine learning, to fight fraud. My MO was, I just want to build a really cool credit score. And then someone else will take care of payments, like lending payments. I don't really know anything about it. And I've done payments, don't need to do lending. But building a really cool score, that would be amazing. Because I remember just the reams of data we had access to at PayPal. We could maybe get some data. Maybe we could buy some data. We could mine Facebook for data. I'm trying to get in touch with Mark Zuckerberg to see if he might give me some of his data. And so a lot of that was sort of in my head while you were like, I just want to close some transactions. I think that maybe if there's any difference between the motivations, you were much more motivated by, let's go find a merchant. Well, but the similar motivation was like, you know. Trial pay. I think we were in the throes of selling to PayPal, but then they left me at the altar. Not your PayPal, but many generations later PayPal. And I was like, I never want to start a company again. This is so painful. And you had been in the throes of that as well. So it was also like, let's get this thing going. and you remember this in a very negative light because it's PHP, but we had a meeting. I kind of think of the origin of being the Allen & Company Conference in 2012. - Oh yeah, I don't find a negative thing. - No, no, I know, but it's funny. So we have this meeting, so we're going through the list with Son, remember your old chief of staff, right? So we're going through the list and it's like, oh, we both know Jim McCann, who's this very friendly guy who used to be on all the commercials for 1-800-Flowers. Remember, 1-800-Flowers, you can order flowers, order it right now for me, or whatever the commercial was. So we ping him to get a breakfast meeting. It was like 200 person conference, anybody can be with anybody, but it's like, hey, why don't we have breakfast? making this demo in PHP. I basically cloned, it's just funny, I could do this in five seconds now, but I cloned 1-800-Flowers site and then made a whole pay with your identity. So you do a checkout, add the dozen roses to make up for the bad stuff that I did, sending it to my wife, click pay, oh, she don't have my payment card with me. Ooh, I can pay with Facebook. What does that do? It does Facebook connect and make sure that I have over 500 friends. And actually, Facebook had, they had a lot of interesting data. They had their own internal flags around, did they think this account was fraudulent or not? And fraudulent, back then, was more of like, it was just created not as a real account. It wasn't a real person. Because an account is not a person. Hopefully they're the same thing, but not necessarily, because one person can have multiple accounts. But if there's one to one. So that was our fun demo. And then I remember Jim McCann was like, this is great. Let's do it. two other colorful points from that. So, It was a good breakfast, and then... In the middle of it, he goes, oh, yeah, we used to do exactly this thing back in the day when the service members would call us and say, send me my wife some flowers. And no, I don't have my credit card with me. And like, oh, that's fine. You know, thank you for your service. We'll just get you on the next one. And he intuitively grok this idea that like you can absolutely post pay a thing if you have enough trust. And we were basically there raising our hands saying, we'll take the responsibility for, you know, they don't pay you. It's OK. We're going to eat it. And so he was like instantly smitten. He had been a... great proponent of the product and like a supportive product. person slash presence in my professional life ever since that breakfast. And he had absolutely no reason to trust us other than he has some degree of sense who we were. And it was like, you guys are great. You seem like you're real. You know what you're doing? He was so excited. We have no idea. Well, then we got handed to this, what was his name? He actually now runs a successful startup. The guy that was his, Amit. Yes, Amit Shah. - Yes. - Yeah, so Amit took over [30:00] Sure. We implemented it. He was very, very excited. And I remember I came up in Microsoft. I think I did this in Microsoft Word or Excel. Like, here's our pricing sheet. We needed a pricing sheet. And I was like, why don't we charge 7%? So in consumer finance for these things, there's a concept of an MDR and an APR. So merchant discount rate, because you're discounting what you pay the merchant, because you're advancing in the cash right now. You're not collecting it until later. So call it a 7% merchant discount rate. But I think there was like some table. this up. And then there was an APR. But the APR here, there was no APR. It was just MDR. But then nobody, like I showed this to somebody. I think it was Rob Pfeiffer, actually, before we hired him. I had like a real finance employee. Yeah, but I showed him this. He was like, ooh, free flowers, right? Because he's like, you just didn't have to pay us back. So the returns were not fantastic on that. So cynical. But yeah, I think he literally said free flowers. It's like, So we were not going to be perturbed by some cynicism. I love Rob. His sister used to work for me. So I remember interviewing him in the context of a firm, although I think at the time he was still expedite. Yeah, it briefly bumped around as Expedite. Yeah. And then we finally renamed it. What was it? It was incorporated as Expedite Software Inc., Yeah. I think that's right. And so how did the idea evolve as you went from there? When did it start to really get product market fit or how did the space play out in the way that every sort of has the 40 years in the desert. It's just a given. If it's worth talking about, X-Post. Some subscribers, people just quit too early or... Something happens to destroy it, but I've never run into a company that's, where people start a company and they just like hit product market fit and 24 hours later they're just selling and you know everything's going swimmingly so you always have this period where like kind of still makes sense to show up to work but you don't really know if it's gonna end in like a great, nothing. And, We were definitely meandering through the grade-nothing period for a while. After 100 Flowers, we had a sort of non-stop interactions with said Amit, who was never happy with the conversion rates, with the user interface. And he was mostly right. He was kind of a grumpy, demanding guy, but he knew what he was talking about from the product. financialist perspective, and he was definitely not going to pay 7%. And so, I don't know, We were sort of limping through that. We're generating a little bit of volume, but among other things. the notion of, "Hey, you can pay us later." showed up. after you selected the flowers. And so he would say, look, you guys are cannibalizing my credit card volume. If I charged, if I were charging nothing for it, of course I'd send you more transactors, but you're charging me more than credit cards. So it's a dumb idea. I don't want to pay anything for it at all. You guys ought to be ashamed of yourself, basically. We were sort of trying to convince other merchants, but we had one merchant that was essentially saying, yeah, I mean, these guys are nice guys, but it's kind of worthless. And so it was going over fast. And then... We had another friend, somebody named Nils, who ran a company called Beautylish, which is kind of still around. but they were selling... online. cosmetics and beauty products. And the only difference that Beautylish products, did as they implemented Expedite, I think by then it was named the firm by then, was that They told their shoppers. up funnel basically as they were selecting their shampoos and perfumes that you could pay in. three installments or 30 days later or whatever it is we were trying to sort of do then. And that had an instant 30% increase in conversion. And that was the Oh. we know what this is. This isn't an alternative. This isn't actually solving the pajama problem. It is solving my budget is this. But if I could pay over multiple periods of time, it would expand a lot. And so the second we sort of understood the very beginnings of that notion, we turn it right around into a sales campaign and very quickly found a bunch of small-ish brands that primarily direct to consumers who could not care whether we charge them 1%, 5% or 12% because they were trying to grow their top line and telling their shoppers that, hey, you could pay for this over time instead of having to cough up the cash right now. It was transformative. And so I would literally get these love letters from merchant CEOs saying, and I'm still friends with a lot of them, like early adopters. Most of these people have now either sold their businesses or their businesses failed, or they've gone on to do something else. But I still run into people who were, like there's this woman named Tracy from Tradezy. Tradezy.com was a-- Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I just saw Tracy. I remember her, yes. She's wonderful, and she was an early advocate for us because her business literally, I [35:00] She would email me screenshots of her dashboards and say, this is the Affirm Effect. Here's a 35% pop you guys caused for me. Like, please do. Well, there was a solution to the pajama problem. And then it was also all the mattress companies. Oh, yes. That was another. That was the big one. I just remember it's like, you know, wait, there's a company called Purple and there's a company called Casper. It's just like they just kept coming out of the woodwork. And that was transformative. it, that sounds bad, not get away with it, but like actually show sufficient value to the merchant, the highest MDRs are actually for-profit education institutions. So some of them are like 50, I mean, I don't like these guys in particular, but like University of Phoenix. So there's the private equity from Apollo, but there's also like this holding company of all these for-profit institutions called Apollo Group or Apollo something. And University of Phoenix, I think, is the biggest one. And they just assume that most people aren't going to pay. And the gross margins are so high because it's an online course. They're like, OK, you could take 50 percent. that Max was talking about before, because the gross margins of the mattress, like these mattresses, I don't know if you ever bought one. It's pretty cool because they didn't actually ship you a mattress that looks like this. It rolls out. So you get this like cylinder. It's pretty small. Some of them are boxes. Some of them are boxes, but some of them, it's like you just open it and then it just like, it's like one of those old like toys that you'd put in like your bath and then it would expand or something. That was like the mattress. So they had very, very high gross more flexible on the MDR and more importantly, Nobody wants, like you're in your pajamas on your uncomfortable mattress. You don't want to spend $1,200 on a mattress. But if it's like 30, like once you subdivided, it just has a massive increase of conversion rate. Yeah, there's a couple of other sort of technical things that are probably worth spending. tapping into in that story. But that was the next big leap. So the mattresses... was the precursor to the great expansion into DGC brands, which I'm sure we'll touch on. But Before we get there, Affirm briefly flirted with... being a payment provider to the online platform. educational facilities, which we ran out of kicking and screaming because the reason they're willing to pay these enormous MDRs is because the quality of education is largely terrible. So the reason people don't pay most of the time isn't because they're like, oh, I thought about it now that I have a master's degree in basket weaving. I just don't want to pay for it. It turns out my degree is worth nothing. Why did I sign up for this ridiculous thing? And so we were. to go back to things like... what is it called? General Assembly? Is that their? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. There's a whole sort of class of these. Like, we will teach you how to code. Another pre-EI thing, like, learn how to code, just ask chat GPT to code for you. But, uh, back in the day when it was still important to learn how to code, but you didn't really want to go to college for it. You just want to take a six week course. There were plenty of the sort of university of Phoenix clones. Yeah. There's all the, all these guys. And, uh, Weep. saw that trend and thought, oh my god, these people are willing to subsidize education, which is cool and on mission for us. And, uh, Yet the... loss rates to consumer dissatisfaction were so high, we lasted like a half a year in that space. But back to mattresses. So, The thing that's really powerful about direct-to-consumer, or you can think of them as vertically integrated businesses. So there's some factory in Brooklyn, presumably, or who knows where. China. China. I thought... The mattress guys manufactured locally because... I don't know. But they were all in Utah. Remember that? Yeah. I feel like it was like there was like a Utah mattress town or something, but I think they just all originated there. Casper is in New York, or was it? No, but Purple, I think, was in. Purple. And then there were like other Purples that were. I think one of the weirder things. The diaspora. The manufacturing was actually all consolidated, so they ultimately sort of paid very little for these mattresses that were kind of all the same. I mean, don't want to reveal any industry secrets, but memory phone is memory phone. Anyway, and so their primary value was, or their value equation. was really interesting. So first of all, they bought this memory foam in a box and sort of compressed and shipped it to you with a cool effect. the margin there was. gargantuan because you are in fact just sort of taking petroleum and turning it into foam. But the other thing is the replacement cycle. And this actually goes to a, I think a Harvard Business Review article that came out right before Casper was founded. And all these guys, all these really entrepreneurial people read the same article, which essentially said this, people replace mattresses once every seven years. If you were the company that sells that mattress, It is the most important thing in the world. And if you miss it, the next opportunity is seven years from now. But the margins on mattresses, even before the sort of the foam and the everything else, are like, 80% or some eye popping number. And so suddenly four or five [40:00] Companies were born from that article, basically saying like, oh my god, so if we just figure out how to market a mattress, that you will either shorten your replacement cycle, so you buy the next mattress six years instead of seven years from the last one, or you just decide this mattress is the best mattress or the coolest one or the one that pops out of a box. That is like, oh, there's so much money in it. and, One, it resulted in a saturation of mattress industry, obviously, but more to the point, it... created this enormous premium on, I will just compel you to buy a mattress by any means necessary. So telling you, I will give you a three-year loan at no interest at all, Powered by a farm, of course. is like a small price to pay and a cool marketing campaign. And, and so that was, there were multiple events like this in a firm's history where, uh, We saw... an opportunity for The Merchant. to significantly contribute to the MDR, which allowed us to eliminate the APR. In other words, consumer got a true 0% load. The backdrop to this is actually really, really important to understand. And one of my sort of things that I rage against have and will continue to until it's made illegal or eliminated by other means, is the fake 0% look. So if you ever have gone to a Fill in your favorite department store. There is a sign somewhere. These days somewhat less prominent that says, get a branded credit card from fill in the blank. 0% APR. There's an asterisk next to the zero, which says something along the lines of, Assuming you make a purchase for the next, 12 months or 24 months, if you're a penny short or a day late paying your principal, the interest accrues retroactively. to the beginning of time. Basically, the day you got that card, you swiped it for $1,000. You wake up and you owe $3,000 two years later. So this is called a deferred interest credit card. and a huge opportunity we tapped into, directly from that rage was this idea of our 0% is going to be a real zero. When you go to buy the inflatable mattress or the mattress from a box, you're going to get a 0% loan. And even if you're a month late or a year late, we're not going to change the price because we are so sick and tired of these ridiculous people who are lying to you about zero with an asterisk. It will never be an asterisk on a firm zero. That is the origin story of why we don't charge late fees, we don't do deferred interest, all the sort of gimmicks and gotchas that the industry loves to throw at people. Like, you know what, when you decide to do this for three years with us, you will never get screwed. You will never be surprised to the negative. And so that was another sort of big bounce up point. And then every mattress company was like, oh, wow, like these guys are doing it. We should do the same thing. Because fast forwarding a bit, a lot of people hear Affirm today and one quick thing they think is buy now, pay later. What is this not fully encapsulated or what is this miss about the company today? It's for Nesventary. One of the things in the email thread that I just reread in the origin, origin of a firm was your claim that advertising and payments are converging, which was the thesis behind trial pay and is behind a bunch of different things. Actually, a failed project within PayPal called PayPal Shops, where I was trying to personally, I built this thing where I was trying to remarket. what you just bought, that information should give us a sense for what you might buy next. And all these things, by the way, have turned out to be true. Like there was just 15, 20, 30 years before their time. But affirm more and more today is means for merchants to not just satisfy demand. So somebody comes in and says, look, I'm going to buy this thing, but my budget is this big. I won the shoes. I'd love a bag, but I'm, and a firm is there to say, actually, we can help you finance this on transparent terms. A lot of times, a third of the time on no interest at all, you should get the bag and the shoes. It's safe. But that, that is the brand promise of a firm and it works tremendously well, you know, tens of billions of dollars a year worth. And. That is now becoming more and more about creating a platform for merchants to tell their shoppers, hey, we are launching a new thing. We have this desirable new product. We are launching. selling. We've transacted with roughly 50 plus million Americans alone and we're now live in four countries and growing pretty quickly. We have shifted to just satisfying demand to helping merchants create or guarantee demand. And the convergence of payments and advertising is upon us, although... 15 years later, that's how I was predicted. You were too early with Trotipay? I'm certainly too early with PayPal. Well, the other side, I remember, maybe it was in that thread or not, I should find that email, but most companies have very high customer acquisition cost. And the joke that I make now as a VC is that when I see 90% of consumer companies, I'd kind of rather buy Google stock or Facebook stock because that's where all the customers come from. And I distinctly remember many, many conversations around how do we have customers Negative CAC. And I think, to me, one of the coolest things about Affirm to this day is it has negative customer acquisition cost. I mean, it is paid to a client. [45:00] buyer or customer, and there are some companies that you would think they look like this, but they don't because they're basically white labeling something. But going back to the mattresses, let's just say that you're late on one of your payments. Casper, the friendly white ghost mattress company, because Casper's a white ghost, doesn't want to go, or a cat or something. We had a cat named Casper when I was growing up. They don't want to send you a Dunning notice saying, like, get off my mattress. You haven't paid me back. They want that to be a third party. versus other companies where, yes, what is the difference? B2B2C is a really interesting category. It's business to business to consumer. I tried doing this with trial pay because it's like, all right, you're playing a Zynga game. Go get free coins if you sign up for Geico, powered by trial pay. Nobody knew who the hell trial pay was. So we actually tried sending messages to consumers. I think we got blocked by our email provider. We actually had a right Whereas actually having a financial relationship with 50 million people with negative CAC, I mean, it really is, not to pet you, it's incredible. Like, it's so hard to do. We never see anything like this in the venture land. Because yeah, there are lots of companies that can get to scale. I mean, Casper got to scale, but lots of CAC, lots of CAC. And that's why a lot of these business models, they tend to degrade over time, because all the economic value goes to Google and Facebook. So if you can have negative CAC, and then you can launch other products as well, right? Because you actually own the customer. And most important, the brand wants you owning the customer. Right? Like this is what I didn't get right at Travel Pit. Like Zynga didn't want me owning their customer. Netflix didn't want me owning their customer. I just connected the two. But Affirm, the merchants actually want you to own the customer. It's very difficult. you already have a burden of supporting your product and dealing with unsatisfied customers or technical support issues or whatever. A company that tells you 12 times for a year-long loan or 39 times... you know, if it's a three and a half year loan, hey, you're late, or you gotta make a payment, or all the communications that come from your lender is just another type of burden that the brand is kind of like, hey, you know what, a firm you guys can handle this. This would be great. And so... The... the relationship with the customer, is. a key component of the foundation of a firm and our ability to develop new products. is really built on that. One of the other really sort of cool to sort of going all the way back to the credit scoring thing, So we are the only company in the industry really, there's plenty of competitors who are trying and some degree of success, but mostly not really, who will go into longer term loans. And by longer, I don't mean mortgage or 15 plus years, but like three and a half years is a fairly long term. period of time relative to the average buy-in-out palliator, which is like six weeks. And to do that, you have to underwrite. Like you can't shortcut the, I'll just look at your FICO score, or I'll just sort of, you know, I'll look at your Facebook friends, like none of that works. You actually have to do a real, very sophisticated degree of, uh, machine learning work, There are two cool things about it. It's hard to do, and so it's just hard to compete with us on that front. But the other side is it gives you 39 shots on goal or 12 shots on goal to tell this consumer as you send them billing notices and as you have conversations with them, as they pay you to upsell them on a new service. And so these long-term loans, which are actually quite hard to manage and quite hard to maintain reasonable default rates and delinquency rates on, is the price you pay as a provider of financing to upsell consumers on more and more services. And so our been fueled by these long-term products. even though they are probably the most challenging part of payments. Yeah. We've been covering some, a firm history while we're doing a stroke episode. I also want to ask a question about, PayPal history. I'll keep us straight to it. And, you know, um, There's been a book came out, Founders, recently. There's been sort of a lot of revisiting of PayPal, both in its impact as a pioneer in sort of payments and fintech, but also in terms of the people that came out of it. It feels like the highest concentration or highest hit rate of people who would go on to do incredible things. The only comparable thing I could think of today is not even companies, it's the Teal Fellowship or something. I can't think of a comparable company to PayPal today. and you know all with the or many with extremely strong strengths, but also very strong personalities and some strong weaknesses as well. And so I'm curious if there's something you think that goes wrong, As that story is being told of its impact in the industry, how early it was, and sort of the people that came out of it, if there's something that's underappreciated or you think not quite grokked or any additions you want to make to how we perceive that company in that time period. Sort of an old answer and a new answer to this question, which you might expect that [50:00] once or twice before. So the canonical answer that I gave in a book, which by the way is very good. So there have been many, much ink spilled on the history of PayPal. The Founders actually had a very good book. And part of it is because it's well-written, but part of it is because Jimmy, the guy who wrote it, interviewed every single character in the story extensively. He spent a lot of time talking to all of us. And so it's at the very least grounded in facts. So the answer I gave for his research was, as we were interviewing, certainly the early team and even the later team, we kept on selecting for entrepreneurs. We would ask, like one of the stock questions I would ask, we would say, "What are you gonna do after PayPal?" And the answer that I welcomed the most was, "Oh, this is the last one. "I'm gonna start my own afterwards." So they're like, "Oh, if you're coming in here "to kind of get your final graduate degree in entrepreneurship, "of course we'd love to have you. "Like, you know, you're that smart, you're that good, "and you're that ambitious." please come along. And so that's kind of the Why? I think so many people that came out of PayPal proceeded to start companies. And like literally, Hot tech and after, we all dispersed YouTube and Yelp and Peter's first major fund at LinkedIn. And so that was not an accident. We were attracting entrepreneurs by design. The other part that I think has actually not been talked about and maybe subtle and sort of my own cut of this, but. we knew the people in the room intimately. Like we literally, you know, exchanged fur mones by hanging out in these sweaty rooms, brainstorming, screaming at each other, and spending a lot of time as whiteboards and declaring the other person's ideas idiotic and so on. We knew the true version of that person. The sort of the extremely... I don't know, the ultra-philosophical Peter Thiel and the go-all-in-every-time-Elon-Musk and the these days, gubernatorial, David Sachs, you know, all these people, they all have kind of the presentation layer and then there's like the kind of what they are like. at a dinner party, and then what are they when they're really stressed out and just head hurts, don't know what to do, and we have a real problem we need to solve. So if you know kind of the true base version of who we all are, as you watch one of these people go for something really big, like Elon Musk, taking humanity to Mars, which, is extraordinary. And yet, you know, he's a human being. Like, I've seen him sweaty and tired and grumpy, at the company kitchen, a thousand times, or Peter, when he is in his doubt, and calls me from some fundraising trip saying, "I think we might run out of money." You know they're not gods, you know they're humans. And that inspires you to actually, like, you know what, if that guy who's just a normal dude, I spent a lot of time with him, he's normal. And he's going for this big of an idea? I should do the same. I should strive too. And so I think the combination of, these are very ambitious people. They all wanted to be entrepreneurs. But we also knew each other when we were young and filled with doubt, which many, I think, still are. I think that that sort of gives you confidence that. It's not all. you know, better roses. It's, it's, it's, it's paved with, uh, with, with, with, with bumpy parts. Is there anything we didn't get to that you want to make sure that we... Get to what? What were you? I'm probably less... optimistic about agentic shopping and I'm very optimistic about agentic payments. Yeah. I think the notion of robots will buy our robots, Thank you. Friday night outfits is misguided. We want to know what we look like long before the robot delivers it to your door. But I think the friction, this notion of the best user interface ever created is the credit card. This may actually be finally up for renegotiation because agents are, in fact, smarter than pieces of plastic and even pieces of plastic with rewritable chips. And so I think that's a... A lot of conversation around agentic commerce is probably looking 20 degrees off where, you know, how can I convince you to just trust the robot to buy the right thing? Like, I don't want to. Like, I love buying bike parts, and I spend way too much time looking at two slightly different bike parts because I just, you know, have to participate in the purchase. But the part where I'm like, okay, that one... The end right now, that one is the beginning where you pull out your wallet or you. And so I think we were we're about to see some interesting innovation in payments user interface. So can I ask a question on that? So I mostly agree, but I think it depends on there's like the I need to research what to buy where AI is just yet another tool at your disposal. Like you ask your friends. That's what it's a bike part. I'm asking you. I'm also asking AI. I'm asking both of you. But now I have the skew that I want. Thank you. And I don't actually care which one of the 19 different places that I get it from. And I kind of think about the world, like you have people that care more about money than time. You have people that care more about time than money. The way that I kind of think about agentic commerce, again, none of this is happening right now. So it's trying to prognosticate what's going to happen, is here is the. [55:00] the UPC, here's the SKU that I actually want, go buy it for me at the lowest cost. It's kind of the thing that people that have a lot more time than money do right now anyway. And that's why I always point to camel, camel, camel is my favorite example of this. Because it's one of the top 100 websites in America that probably nobody with over $100,000 a year of income has ever heard of. But it's a way of saying, I know what I want. The robot's not telling me what bike part to buy, telling me what soda to buy. I know. Just give it to me at the lowest price. But it takes way too much time. And sometimes you can just observe one group of humans that already have something as table stakes and then porting that to another group of humans. I guess, do you think that that form of agentic commerce, because it's actually related to agentic payments as well. I have nine different cards. I don't remember the Amazon Chase issued by Chase card terms for a non-restaurant purchase of something under $500. And if I've used my whatever, like it's the same thing. time, they will figure that out. People that care more about time than money, they probably won't. I think directionally that'll make sense. I think the... adoption curve is probably... going to be fairly slow. And these things are always sort of easy to predict to be very slow and sort of the usual adage as well, slowly at first and all at once. I'm not I'm not sure I can handicap that. Well, I think, The reason people don't, so there's plenty of people who live in this, Somewhat. murky world of sometimes I have money, sometimes I have time. And it has more to do than anything with the price and the degree of care you put into it. I don't always just buy parts. Sometimes I buy milk and Milk is built. Ceremony bike parts. I mostly buy buy words. Um, but, uh, the I think... what really happens. for a lot of people it's just sort of like well yeah i'll i'll get the i'll find the cheapest price But then I'm not sure how to handicap the probability of that item actually showing up at my door at the time of my desired outcome. Even if I'm okay buying a... some bike part from some faraway land and it's sold from three different retailers. I'm going to go with the most reputable one. versus the one that's promising me the cheapest or sometimes the fastest. And so I think, we're probably a few steps away from AI grasping, both the preferences but also handicapping how these preferences would change based on the input which In fact, maybe AI is already there. It's just that you haven't yet trusted your agent to do as good a job as you would. Like you can eyeball aside, be like, that looks like it was edited in the 90s. I'm just not quite sure that I'm going to spend $1,000 for a new cassette or $600, whatever the cassettes go for these days in bike cassettes. the rear assembly. Bike Closet is the site that I'm thinking about that looks like it was made in the 1990s that will sell you a very cheap cassette. Exactly, but do you know if it were used by someone? It's true. Teeth rubbed off and all. So I think... I think we are in that difficult period where we're still figuring out. The other thing that, you know, just sort of maybe end on a positive note, The thing that's really true that no one seems to be celebrating just yet is Grocery shopping is 100% authentic. for anyone who uses Instacart. Like you tell your Instacart shopper, go bring me milk, You don't think twice when they say, oh, yeah, you wanted whole milk from... organic valley, but I found some other brand and here it is. And you're like, well, of course, like it makes sense. And so the AI inside that shopper's head is maybe not even as good as Gemini or KGV is these days, but you just sort of say, I, you just, you go through Trader Joe's or Whole Foods or whatever you're shopping and you figure it out and it shows up and 99.9% of the time, it is exactly what you want it or better. And so we are already conditioned to allow some of these purchases to be fully outsourced, payments and shopping and everything else. And so we're definitely going how soon will we work through the quirks of like, well, returning of this wrongly purchased bike part or waiting for it forever and not really knowing what's going to happen to it because it's in transit, but we don't know where it is. I, that, that may, be protracted. I mean, more protracted people think. That's a good note to end on. We'll have to get a part two at some point when we talk more about the future. Max, Alex, thanks so much for having me. Thank you very much. Thanks for listening to this episode of the A16Z podcast. If you liked this episode, be sure to like, comment, subscribe, leave us a rating or review and share it with your friends and family. For more episodes, go to YouTube, Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Follow us on X at A16Z and subscribe to our sub stack at A16Z.substack.com. Thanks again for listening and I'll see you in the next episode. [60:00] As a reminder, the content here is for informational purposes only. Should not be taken as legal business, tax, or investment advice, or be used to evaluate any investment or security, and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any A16Z fund. Please note that A16Z and its affiliates may also maintain investments in the companies discussed in this podcast. For more details, including a link to our investments, please see A16Z.com forward slash disclosures. Bye. you you