Using machine language smarts to screen for a much wider array of fraudulent online behavior, startup Sift Science now has $5.5 million to broaden its beta test beyond a few select companies. Read more »
PayPal co-founder Max Levchin has launched a new payments startup called Affirm, coming out of his new lab venture meant to foster startups around the concept of data. Read more »
Is the world of big data one in which information about us allows us to personalize services and benefit from that personalization, or is it one in which our data is used against us by companies and governments? Read more »
Max Levchin, who in his past life started PayPal and Slide is back at it again. He has started a new hybrid R& D Lab/Incubator (HVF) and his focusing on opportunities created by the digitization of our physical world and explosion of data. Read more »
Yahoo, once an Internet giant has fallen behind competitors and is slowly losing the battle of attention to newer and more nimble competitors. The hiring of ultra smart Marissa Mayer and addition of ex-PayPal CTO Max Levchin won’t really change anything for the hobbled giant. Read more »
London currency exchange startup Transferwise has teamed up with a neighbor, The Currency Cloud, to let people transfer money between a range of European currencies. But is the next stop for the disruptive finance company going to be the US dollar? Read more »
London currency exchange Transferwise has taken a big step forward by bringing in a team of heavy hitting investors including PayPal co-founder Max Levchin, and a who’s who of disruptive financial entrepreneurs. Read more »
The emergence of inexpensive sensors is the singularly most exciting thing about the world in many ways. A big part of our life is to make sense of it all before it’s too late. Read more »
Startup Xatori has quietly been boosting both its social and mobile features for its electric car charging network PlugShare. Read more »
When it comes to Facebook, you can count on one thing –- CEO/Founder Mark Zuckerberg is not afraid to move hundreds of millions of people in a new direction. That’s one reason why the Palo Alto-based social web company has been able to constantly reinvent itself. Read more »
In Part II of his video interview, Slide Founder Max Levchin talks about PayPal’s turbulent early years, the delicate balance between platform owners and developers and his not-so-fond-memories of the advertising based business models. He talks about the lack of desire for big breakthroughs in society. Read more »
In the Part 1 of the two part interview, Max Levchin, the Ukrainian-born co-creator of PayPal and founder of Slide, talks about his entrepreneurial journey. It is a story of immigrant work ethic, relentless desire to live his version of the American dream. Read more »
Slide CEO Max Levchin is joining Google with the acquisition of his company, but some of his thinking could collide with the way Google CEO Eric Schmidt has been approaching social products like Google Wave. One of the biggest issues: Levchin really doesn’t like failure. Read more »
Google this morning confirmed what had already been widely reported — that it has bought Slide, the social application maker. Google’s blog post on the matter is incredibly vague as to what Slide will actually be doing for Google, but let’s read the tea leaves. Read more »
Did PayPal discover some sort of magic recipe that allowed so many of its former executives and other staff to create startups like YouTube, Slide, Yelp and the newly public Tesla Motors? PayPal staffers say it was smart management, but some PayPal cash probably helped, too. Read more »
