What would bring Paypal co-founder Max Levchin back to NZ?

Max Levchin. (Image: Getty)

Thu, 12 Jun 2025

“I’m just here to meet interesting people.” That was the start of my discussion with Max Levchin, the billionaire co-founder of PayPal, in Parnell in 2010. It turned out that it was also towards the end of our discussion. The bar to be interesting was more “I’ve built a company as large as yours” than “I am also from the US.” Despite an endorsement (and presumably a nice pad in Queenstown) provided by his friend and co-founder, Peter Thiel, Levchin determined that few in the New Zealand...

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