Affirm’s Max Levchin: Why ‘Buy Now, Pay Later’ Beats Credit Cards

Is "buy now, pay later" a debt trap or the future of finance? Affirm CEO Max Levchin says the real problem is the credit card in your wallet. On this week’s episode of Bold Names, Levchin joins WSJ’s Tim Higgins to discuss how his early days as a co-founder of PayPal led him to his latest venture: using “buy now, pay later” loans to reinvent how people buy things. We talk about why he thinks financing is more transparent than credit, the personal reason he hates late fees and how AI is changing shopping. To watch the video version of this episode, visit our WSJ Podcasts YouTube channel or the video page of WSJ.com. Check Out Past Episodes: The Boldest Ideas of 2025 — And What’s in Store for 2026 Inside Visa’s Tech-Charged Future: From Crypto to AI This CEO Says Global Trade Is Broken. What Comes Next? Why Bilt’s CEO Wants You To Pay Your Mortgage With a Credit Card Let us know what you think of the show. Email us at BoldNames@wsj.com. Sign up for the WSJ's free Technology newsletter. Read Christopher Mims’s Keywords column. Read Tim Higgins’s column. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Affirm’s Max Levchin: Why ‘Buy Now, Pay Later’ Beats Credit Cards is an episode from WSJ’s The Future of Everything by The Wall Street Journal.

This episode is 26:47 long.

This episode was published on Jan 9, 2026.

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