Max Levchin

Max Levchin is the kind of builder I genuinely admire. A Kyiv-born engineer turned Silicon Valley founder, he co-created PayPal and, just as importantly, the early commercial CAPTCHA that quietly shaped how the whole web fights fraud. I am drawn to technologists who solve the unglamorous problems, the plumbing of trust and money, rather than chase the spotlight. His University of Illinois grounding gave him rigor, but it is the relentless serial-founder drive that impresses me most. Levchin strikes me as proof that durable impact often comes from the engineer in the back room, not the loudest voice on stage.

Name (English)

Max Levchin

Name (Japanese)

マックス・レヴチン

Reading

まっくす・れゔちん

Born

July 11, 1975 (age 51)

Zodiac / Chinese zodiac

Cancer / Rabbit

Origin

Kyiv, Kievan Rus'

Occupation

computer scientist / entrepreneur / businessperson / web development

High school

Stephen Tyng Mather High School

University

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

• Official sitehttps://www.levchin.com/
• Xhttps://x.com/mlevchin
• Wikipedia (English)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max%20Levchin
• Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%83%9E%E3%83%83%E3%82%AF%E3%82%B9%E3%83%BB%E3%83%AC%E3%83%B4%E3%83%81%E3%83%B3
• Wikidatahttps://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q93014

Tags

• computer scientist
• entrepreneur
• businessperson

Last updated

2026-06-19

Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public or unconfirmed items are omitted. English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.