EECS Department Colloquium Series
Fireside Chat with Max Levchin: All things Data, Fintech, and How to Solve Hard, Valuable, and Fun Problems 
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Wednesday, October 29, 2014 Max Levchin |
ABSTRACT:
Thanks to low-cost sensors of every imaginable type, near-ubiquitous wireless broadband, advances in distributed computing and storage, data is becoming our most plentiful, and most under-exploited commodity. The insights mined from it will unlock enormous productivity gains, create efficiencies where none existed before, and meaningfully improve lives. Consumer finance and healthcare will be the focus of this conversation but we will have the opportunity to delve into more abstract areas surrounding crypto-security, data, and sensors.
Andreas Weigend will be the moderator of this discussion.
BIOGRAPHY:
Max Levchin is the CEO of "Affirm", the next generation financial services company offering consumer credit at the point of sale and Chairman of "Glow," a women's reproductive health company. Both companies were created and launched from his San Francisco based innovation and investment lab, "HVF." Max was one of the original cofounders of PayPal where he served as the CTO until its acquisition by Ebay in 2002. In 2004, he helped start Yelp, the ratings and review service where he is currently the Chairman of the Board. That same year he founded "Slide," a personal media-sharing service for social networking sites where he was CEO until the company was sold to Google in 2010. He also serves on several boards including Yahoo!, Yelp and Evernote and is an active investor in early stage startups.
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