Max Levchin (@mlevchin) is a serial entrepreneur and investor in 100+ startups. He's the founder and CEO of Affirm, the payment network powering consumer purchases and merchant growth. An original PayPal co-founder, Max served as CTO until its 2002 acquisition by eBay.
This episode is brought to you by:
ProLon: science-backed Fasting Mimicking Diet that helps activate cellular renewal through fasting, while still eating nourishing meals: ProlonLife.com/Tim
Monarch track, budget, plan, and do more with your money: Monarch.com/Tim
Shopify global commerce platform, providing tools to start, grow, market, and manage a retail business: Shopify.com/tim
Timestamps:
[00:00:00] Start.
[00:02:50] The Ronin line that rewired how Max makes every decision.
[00:06:09] Paprika-style brain-computer interfaces.
[00:09:09] PayPal's founders lived inside a Neal Stephenson novel.
[00:19:21] Transformation via Neuromancer and Snow Crash.
[00:23:40] The book that found Max his wife.
[00:29:24] The real secret to a great marriage.
[00:38:29] What's worth tracking, and what's not.
[00:44:13] A scrawny kid, a clarinet, and a Kyiv velodrome.
[00:46:55] What going all-out on a bike actually gives you.
[00:51:02] The mantra by which Max rides.
[00:53:02] A Soviet kid's fear of socialism.
[01:02:48] Making a profit without destroying society.
[01:04:31] What is Affirm, and why did every banker say it would fail?
[01:20:18] Why the best mathematicians eschew the lending industry.
[01:23:50] Does agentic commerce break Affirm, or supercharge it?
[01:28:01] A PhD-level financial advisor in everyone's pocket.
[01:29:58] How close are we to buying anything through one AI chat?
[01:36:32] Improving your coffee: cheap, intermediate, and Bugatti options.
[01:44:33] The books every first-time founder should actually read.
[01:48:08] Claude Shannon, Ed Thorp, and the joy of playful genius.
[01:51:00] Why physical books still beat every digital reading experience.
[01:51:44] Parting thoughts.
*
For show notes and past guests on The Tim Ferriss Show, please visit tim.blog/podcast.
For deals from sponsors of The Tim Ferriss Show, please visit tim.blog/podcast-sponsors
Sign up for Tim’s email newsletter (5-Bullet Friday) at tim.blog/friday.
For transcripts of episodes, go to tim.blog/transcripts.
Discover Tim’s books: tim.blog/books.
Follow Tim:
Twitter: twitter.com/tferriss
Instagram: instagram.com/timferriss
YouTube: youtube.com/timferriss
Facebook: facebook.com/timferriss
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/timferriss
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Scott and Wes sit down with Kent C. Dodds to break down MCP, context engineering, and what it really takes to build effective AI-powered tools. They dig into practical examples, UI patterns, performance tradeoffs, and whether the future of the web lives in chat or the browser.
Show Notes
00:00 Welcome to Syntax!
00:44 Introduction to Kent C. Dodds
02:44 What is MCP?
03:28 Context Engineering in AI
04:49 Practical Examples of MCP
06:33 Challenges with Context Bloat
08:08 Brought to you by Sentry.io
09:37 Why not give AI API access directly?
12:28 How is an MCP different from Skills
14:58 MCP optimizations and efficiency levers
16:24 MCP UI and Its Importance
19:18 Where are we at today with MCP
24:06 What is the development flow for building MCP servers?
27:17 Building out an MCP UI.
29:29 Returning HTML, when to render.
36:17 Calling tools from your UI
37:25 What is Goose?
38:42 Are browsers cooked? Is everything via chat?
43:25 Remix3
47:21 Sick Picks & Shameless Plugs
Sick Picks
Kent: OneWheel
Shameless Plugs
Kent: http://EpicAI.pro,http://EpicWeb.dev,http://EpicReact.dev
Hit us up on Socials!
Syntax: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads
Wes: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads
Scott: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads
Randy: X Instagram YouTube Threads
Max Levchin probably knows as much about online payments as anyone. He was part of the original "PayPal mafia" before going on to become co-founder and CEO of Affirm, the $22 billion player in the Buy Now, Pay Later industry that's hoping to disrupt the incumbent credit card companies. While BNPL is booming, there is still a lot of confusion about how it works, how it makes money, and how transparent its activities are. On this episode, we speak with Max about why he started his company, and why he believes that BNPL offers a superior product to traditional forms of payment and credit. We also discuss the current state of the economy, AI, and what he sees as the role of crypto in payments.
Subscribe to the Odd Lots Newsletter
Join the conversation: discord.gg/oddlots
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
In this conversation, May Zabaneh breaks down PayPal’s move into stablecoins with PYUSD and why it matters for financial inclusion. We explore how PYUSD could lower costs for cross-border payments, deliver faster settlement, and plug directly into PayPal’s existing ecosystem. The discussion covers why PayPal built a proprietary stablecoin, early adoption and real-world use cases, and plans for international expansion. We also examine the role merchants play in crypto acceptance, how DeFi and traditional finance are converging, and why interoperability will be essential in the next phase of digital payments.
Chapters
00:00 PayPal’s Vision for Stablecoins
02:47 Why PYUSD? Rationale and Goals
05:18 Stablecoin Advantages: 24/7, Inclusion, Cross‑Border
08:22 Why Proprietary vs Supporting Others
11:06 Unlocking B2B and Rebuilding On‑Chain
12:20 PYUSD in the PayPal/Venmo Ecosystem
14:21 International Expansion and Global Transfers
17:02 Merchant Fit: Categories, Costs, Declines
19:32 User Segments: Crypto‑Curious to Super Users
23:28 Pay with Crypto: Scaling to Larger Merchants
29:38 PYUSD in DeFi: Open and Multi‑Chain
32:01 Liquidity, Partnerships, and the Three Pillars
35:56 Interoperability and Evolving Roles
39:11 AI x Payments: Agent‑Driven Commerce
40:42 Finding the Flywheel, What’s Next
This week, we’re bringing you a recent interview from “Interesting Times with Ross Douthat,” one of The New York Times’s newest podcasts. In this episode, Ross sits down with Peter Thiel, the co-founder of PayPal and Palantir and one of the most contrarian thinkers in tech. Together, they unpack Thiel’s theory that we’re living through an era of technological stagnation, and debate whether President Trump’s populism and the development of artificial intelligence will help us unlock new progress.
Guest:
Peter Thiel, co-founder of Paypal and Palantir.
Additional Reading:
Peter Thiel and the Antichrist
We want to hear from you. Email us at hardfork@nytimes.com. Find “Hard Fork” on YouTube and TikTok.
Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.
Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
During its formative years in the late 1990's, Paypal attracted an extraordinary group of young entrepreneurs, who then went on to build some of the best known companies in tech. They became known as The PayPal Mafia—and Max Levchin was one of the leaders. A computer genius from Soviet Ukraine, Max joined Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, Reid Hoffman and others as they grew PayPal into a massively successful online payment service. Along the way, they encountered almost every start-up challenge imaginable, including the emotional ouster of Elon Musk as CEO. After PayPal was acquired by eBay in 2002, Max couldn't sit still, so he launched a startup lab that eventually led to another successful fintech company: Affirm.
This episode was produced by Alex Cheng with music by Ramtin Arablouei. Edited by Neva Grant, with research from Claire Murashima.
You can follow HIBT on X & Instagram, and email us at hibt@id.wondery.com. Sign up for Guy’s free newsletter at guyraz.com
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Max Levchin is one of the great founders and technologists of our time. As the Founder and CEO of Affirm, he has built am $18.7BN monster in the buy no pay later space. Prior to Affirm he was one of the original co-founders of PayPal. Max is also the co-founder and Chairman of Glow, a data-driven fertility company. Max is also an immensely successful angel investor with a portfolio including the likes of Yelp, Pinterest and Evernote.
In Today's Episode We Discuss:
04:19 How to Hire the Best People in the World
05:05 How to Manage Extreme Personalities
08:18 Biggest Lessons on Trust and What Happens When Lost
12:05 Is Grading Talent A and B Players Total BS?
15:31 How to Think About Calculated vs Uncalculated Risk
27:18 How to Create a Culture of Post Mortems: Step by Step
32:08 Why Every Person Must Write and How to Create a Writing Culture
36:01 Leadership Lessons from Layoffs
38:38 Is Affirm Losing or Beating Klarna in the US?
47:03 Peter Thiel or Elon Musk: Who Would Max Rather Start a New Company With?
48:37 Quickfire Round
At React Summit in New York, KBall & Nick sat down with Kent C. Dodds & Theo Browne for two fascinating conversations. Both of them showed us the whole gamut of their personalities!
Kent shared his insights on effective teaching methodologies and the future of developer education, while diving deep into React and the Remix/React Router ecosystem, and closing on an appeal for kindness int he world.
Then Theo took us behind the scenes of his developer-focused content creation, from streaming to the origins of the T3 stack, and how his online persona (including T3!) is “just him”.
Join the discussion
Changelog++ members save 5 minutes on this episode because they made the ads disappear. Join today!
Sponsors:
WorkOS – AuthKit offers 1,000,000 monthly active users (MAU) free — The world’s best login box, powered by WorkOS + Radix. Learn more and get started at WorkOS.com and AuthKit.com
Jam.dev – One click bug reports developers love — Never explain another bug report again. Jam auto-captures all the info engineers need to debug and repro.
Featuring:
Kent C. Dodds – Website, GitHub, X
Theo Browne – GitHub, LinkedIn, X
Kevin Ball – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, X
Nick Nisi – Website, GitHub, Mastodon, X
Show Notes:
React Summit
Epic Web
Remix
React Router
T3 Stack
Cursor
Something missing or broken? PRs welcome!
Fastlane by PayPal is an accelerated guest checkout experience. Visit theFastlane Resource Center for Developers to get started.
You can find Sunny Patel on LinkedIn and on GitHub.
Find Kyle Prinsloo on X and on LinkedIn.
Congrats to Lifeboat badge winner M.M who provided an answer to What does the "Expected '(' for function-style cast or type construction" error mean?
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
In this episode, Paul Bances, VP of Market and Business Development at PayPal Crypto, discusses the evolution of global money movement and PayPal's stablecoin answer. He explains the inefficiencies in traditional payment systems and how stablecoins can address these issues. Bances also delves into PayPal's strategy behind launching pyUSD, its potential impact on various payment scenarios, and the company's vision for the future of digital payments. The conversation also covers the regulatory landscape, the choice of blockchain platforms, and the broader implications for global commerce and financial inclusion. Thanks for tuning in!
- -
Follow Jason: https://twitter.com/JasonYanowitz
Follow Santiago: https://twitter.com/santiagoroel
Follow Empire: https://twitter.com/theempirepod
Subscribe on YouTube: https://tinyurl.com/4fdhhb2j
Subscribe on Apple: https://tinyurl.com/mv4frfv7
Subscribe on Spotify: https://tinyurl.com/wbaypprw
Start your day with crypto news, analysis and data from Katherine Ross and David Canellis.
Subscribe to the Empire newsletter: https://blockworks.co/newsletter/empire?utm_source=podcasts
Get top market insights and the latest in crypto news. Subscribe to Blockworks Daily Newsletter: https://blockworks.co/newsletter/
- -
The 6th edition of Meridian, a web3 conference hosted by the Stellar Development Foundation is happening in London, England October 15-17, 2024.
Learn more and get your early-bird priced tickets now at meridian.stellar.org by using the code BLOCKWORKSPOD.
- -
Polygon Labs is developing the next generation of open source zero-knowledge tech to aggregate crypto liquidity and user bases with the AggLayer. To support the aggregated future, the Polygon Community Grants Program was launched with 1 billion tokens — all for Polygon builders.
Season One of the community grants program is live now, and features 35 million in MATIC to support the next generation of Polygon projects!
Join the aggregated future today by applying at https://polygon.technology/grants
- -
Harpie sets the standard in on-chain security, actively monitoring and safeguarding your crypto wallet against theft in real time. It detects, blocks, and recovers stolen assets from risky transactions before they execute, shielding you from even the most advanced hacks and scams. Harpie is free to use and compatible with all Ethereum, Base, Polygon, and Arbitrum wallets.
Protect your crypto today at harpie.io.
- -
Step into MyPrize—the online multiplayer casino that lets you battle your friends and play alongside creators. On MyPrize, you're invited to get rowdy and share every victory and defeat with your pals. Because we know the only thing more fun than beating the house is beating your friends.
Get started with $20 free when you deposit or purchase of $10 or more: https://myprize.com/invite/Empire
- -
Timestamps:
(00:00) Introduction
(01:33) How Does Money Move?
(07:00) Delayed Settlement Risk
(10:30) Cross Border Stablecoin Unlock
(17:53) History of Paypal Crypto Strategy
(26:14) Stellar Ad
(27:04) Polygon Ad
(28:15) pyUSD Design Decisions
(34:24) Stablecoin Landscape
(37:07) Global & Market Opportunity
(47:31) Why Solana Over L2s or Alt L1s
(50:34) Political Climate Impact
(55:42) Optimistic pyUSD Endgame
- -
Disclaimer: Nothing said on Empire is a recommendation to buy or sell securities or tokens. This podcast is for informational purposes only, and any views expressed by anyone on the show are solely our opinions, not financial advice. Santiago, Jason, and our guests may hold positions in the companies, funds, or projects discussed.
Jose Fernandez da Ponte is the Head of Crypto at PayPal. PayPal's entry into the crypto market dates back to 2020 when they announced the integration of various crypto assets, enabling users to buy, sell, and hold digital currencies. Since then, they have progressively expanded their crypto offerings and adopted more ambitious strategies to incorporate blockchain technology. In this podcast, we'll explore PayPal's motivation for entering the crypto space, the current crypto applications available on their platform, the creation and purpose of their stablecoin, PYUSD, and their approach to facilitating mass adoption of blockchain technology.
0:00 Intro
0:58 PayPal Enters Crypto
6:27 PayPal Crypto Payments
16:58 Fees
20:16 PayPal Wallet
22:28 PYUSD
36:43 PayPal Yield
40:23 Stablecoin Competition
48:57 Multichain
53:25 Adoption
Our sponsors
https://stellar.org/soroban?utm_source=defiant&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=defiant_podcast
https://near.org/?utm_campaign=defiant&utm_medium=banner&utm_source=defiantgtb
https://safe.global/?utm_source=defiant&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=tte
✨ Check out our new website ✨
https://thedefiant.io/
🚀 Sign up to our newsletter 🚀
https://thedefiant.io/go-premium#pricing?utm_source=YT&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=signup
🤑 Find DeFi investment opportunities & educational primers here
https://thedefiant.io/promo?utm_source=YT&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=alpha
✊ Follow The Defiant
Twitter: https://twitter.com/defiantnews
Discord: https://discord.com/invite/3SdRdEs5ag
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thedefiant.io/
Telegram: https://t.me/DefiantNews
📬 Contact our Newsroom
editorial@thedefiant.io
🤝 Sponsorships & Partnerships
sponsors@thedefiant.io
#TheDefiant #DeFi #Decentralized #Finance #Blockchain #Web3
A major player has entered the stablecoin wars. PayPal went deeper down the crypto rabbithole this week with the launch of its Ethereum-based PYUSD. The dollar-backed stablecoin now puts PayPal in competition with the likes of Tether and Circle for quickly sending value around the world on-chain. José Fernández da Ponte, PayPal’s crypto SVP, joins the show to unpack how the fintech giant is building a long-term strategy around blockchain-based payments.
Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform.
Show highlights:
why PayPal decided to launch a stablecoin
how long it will take for stablecoins to reach mainstream adoption and what the advantages of stablecoins are
how PYUSD will differentiate from other giants in the stablecoin space such as USDT and USDC
whether the U.S. stablecoin bill influenced the launch of PYUSD
why stablecoins should be regulated at the state level
whether PayPal plans to launch stablecoins pegged to other fiat currencies
how Paxos will provide attestation reports for PYUSD
why Jose thinks gaming is a huge opportunity for stablecoin payments
what the rationale was for launching an ERC-20 on Ethereum
how PayPal plans to monetize the stablecoin
why PayPal’s expectations for PYUSD in the short-term are “moderate”
Thank you to our sponsors!
Crypto.com
Arbitrum Foundation
Thales DAO
Guest
José Fernández da Ponte, SVP of Blockchain, Crypto and Digital Currencies at PayPal
Links
Unchained: PayPal Launches PYUSD Stablecoin Built on Ethereum
CoinDesk:
PayPal’s Real Stablecoin Strategy: It Wants to Earn Interest on Your Deposits
Congresswoman Maxine Waters Says She’s ‘Deeply Concerned’ About PayPal’s New Stablecoin
U.S. Stablecoin Bill Takes Big Step Despite Fight From Democrats, White House
Paxos Has Other 'White Label' Stablecoin Opportunities in the Works in Addition to PayPal USD
Blockworks: PayPal’s new stablecoin stirs centralization criticism
CNBC: PayPal is trying to drag its 435 million users into the $120 billion stablecoin market — here's why
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Can we go Bankless using PayPal? We brought on Jose Fernandez da Ponte, the Senior Vice President of Blockchain, Crypto, and Digital Currencies at PayPal and Venmo to help us answer that question. Jose is responsible for driving PayPal’s efforts to bring the utility of crypto-assets and crypto-networks to their hundreds of millions of global consumers.
He also knows a thing or two about how the banking system works and how to fix it. And we also got the SVP of PayPal to say, “DeFi Mullet,” not once, but three times.
*PayPal currently offers crypto services only in the U.S., U.K., and Luxembourg. Venmo is available in the US only.
------ ✨ DEBRIEF | Unpacking the episode: https://www.bankless.com/debrief-jose-paypal
------ 🚀 Unlock $1,000+ in Perks with Bankless Citizenship 🚀 https://bankless.cc/GetThePerks
------ In today’s episode, we cover:
1) What PayPal sees in crypto 2) What PayPal’s 400M accounts can do with crypto today 3) How we get to $1T in stablecoins 4) What’s the role of CDBCs in a world of highly successful stablecoins? Can CDBCs and crypto co-exist? 5) Jose’s contrarian view on crypto regulatory environment in the U.S. and why he sees it as a “glass half full”
------ BANKLESS SPONSOR TOOLS:
🐙KRAKEN | MOST-TRUSTED CRYPTO EXCHANGE https://k.xyz/bankless-pod-q2
🦊METAMASK LEARN | HELPFUL WEB3 RESOURCE https://bankless.cc/MetaMask
👾STADER LABS | ETHX LIQUID STAKING https://bankless.cc/Stader
⚖️ ARBITRUM | SCALING ETHEREUM https://bankless.cc/Arbitrum
🗣️TOKU | CRYPTO EMPLOYMENT SOLUTION https://bankless.cc/Toku
🎮IMMUTABLE | GAMING ECOSYSTEM https://bankless.cc/Immutable
🛞MANTLE | MODULAR LAYER 2 NETWORK https://bankless.cc/Mantle
------ TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 Intro 7:55 What a PayPal Dollar Is 11:21 PayPal & Venmo Crypto 16:29 The Crypto Strategy 22:59 DeFi Mullet 27:33 Service Providers 31:24 Is Crypto Useless? 32:30 PayPal’s Crypto Back-End 34:40 How Hard Was PayPal’s Crypto Integration? 36:35 Path to $1T In Stablecoins 40:31 Payments 44:36 Gaming 46:46 Network Integration 49:47 DeFi on PayPal’s Radar? 56:38 What’s Broken About U.S. Banking? 1:01:51 Settlement in the U.S. 1:06:32 Best Digital Cash Society 1:13:10 Stablecoins in the U.S. 1:16:25 Crypto Regulation 1:20:44 Making Crypto More Useable 1:23:30 Closing & Disclaimers
------ RESOURCES:
Jose Fernandez da Ponte https://www.linkedin.com/in/jose-fernandez-da-ponte-a46ba81/
Payments and Evolution of Stablecoins Paper https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4425922
------ Not financial or tax advice. This channel is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. This video is not tax advice. Talk to your accountant. Do your own research.
Disclosure. From time-to-time I may add links in this newsletter to products I use. I may receive commission if you make a purchase through one of these links. Additionally, the Bankless writers hold crypto assets. See our investment disclosures here: https://www.bankless.com/disclosures
Summary
There has been a lot of discussion about the practical application of data mesh and how to implement it in an organization. Jean-Georges Perrin was tasked with designing a new data platform implementation at PayPal and wound up building a data mesh. In this episode he shares that journey and the combination of technical and organizational challenges that he encountered in the process.
Announcements
Hello and welcome to the Data Engineering Podcast, the show about modern data management
Are you tired of dealing with the headache that is the 'Modern Data Stack'? We feel your pain. It's supposed to make building smarter, faster, and more flexible data infrastructures a breeze. It ends up being anything but that. Setting it up, integrating it, maintaining it—it’s all kind of a nightmare. And let's not even get started on all the extra tools you have to buy to get it to do its thing. But don't worry, there is a better way. TimeXtender takes a holistic approach to data integration that focuses on agility rather than fragmentation. By bringing all the layers of the data stack together, TimeXtender helps you build data solutions up to 10 times faster and saves you 70-80% on costs. If you're fed up with the 'Modern Data Stack', give TimeXtender a try. Head over to dataengineeringpodcast.com/timextender where you can do two things: watch us build a data estate in 15 minutes and start for free today.
Your host is Tobias Macey and today I'm interviewing Jean-Georges Perrin about his work at PayPal to implement a data mesh and the role of data contracts in making it work
Interview
Introduction
How did you get involved in the area of data management?
Can you start by describing the goals and scope of your work at PayPal to implement a data mesh?
What are the core problems that you were addressing with this project?
Is a data mesh ever "done"?
What was your experience engaging at the organizational level to identify the granularity and ownership of the data products that were needed in the initial iteration?
What was the impact of leading multiple teams on the design of how to implement communication/contracts throughout the mesh?
What are the technical systems that you are relying on to power the different data domains?
What is your philosophy on enforcing uniformity in technical systems vs. relying on interface definitions as the unit of consistency?
What are the biggest challenges (technical and procedural) that you have encountered during your implementation?
How are you managing visibility/auditability across the different data domains? (e.g. observability, data quality, etc.)
What are the most interesting, innovative, or unexpected ways that you have seen PayPal's data mesh used?
What are the most interesting, unexpected, or challenging lessons that you have learned while working on data mesh?
When is a data mesh the wrong choice?
What do you have planned for the future of your data mesh at PayPal?
Contact Info
LinkedIn
Blog
Parting Question
From your perspective, what is the biggest gap in the tooling or technology for data management today?
Closing Announcements
Thank you for listening! Don't forget to check out our other shows. Podcast.__init__ covers the Python language, its community, and the innovative ways it is being used. The Machine Learning Podcast helps you go from idea to production with machine learning.
Visit the site to subscribe to the show, sign up for the mailing list, and read the show notes.
If you've learned something or tried out a project from the show then tell us about it! Email hosts@dataengineeringpodcast.com) with your story.
To help other people find the show please leave a review on Apple Podcasts and tell your friends and co-workers
Links
Data Mesh
O'Reilly Book (affiliate link)
The next generation of Data Platforms is the Data Mesh
PayPal
Conway's Law
Data Mesh For All Ages - US, Data Mesh For All Ages - UK
Data Mesh Radio
Data Mesh Community
Data Mesh In Action
Great Expectations
Podcast Episode
The intro and outro music is from The Hug by The Freak Fandango Orchestra / CC BY-SA
Sponsored By:
TimeXtender: 
TimeXtender is a holistic, metadata-driven solution for data integration, optimized for agility. TimeXtender provides all the features you need to build a future-proof infrastructure for ingesting, transforming, modelling, and delivering clean, reliable data in the fastest, most efficient way possible.
You can't optimize for everything all at once. That's why we take a holistic approach to data integration that optimises for agility instead of fragmentation. By unifying each layer of the data stack, TimeXtender empowers you to build data solutions 10x faster while reducing costs by 70%-80%. We do this for one simple reason: because time matters.
Go to [dataengineeringpodcast.com/timextender](https://www.dataengineeringpodcast.com/timextender) today to get started for free!
Support Data Engineering Podcast
Khatereh (KK) Khodavirdi is focused on using AI to create better customer experiences — a process she compares to creating an “AI Legoland,” in which various technology components fit together to build cohesive solutions for PayPal’s customers. This is an approach she is applying in her role as senior director of data science in the online payment systems company’s consumer products division, where she oversees data science teams for PayPal, its peer-to-peer payment app Venmo, and e-commerce coupon-finder Honey.
On this episode, KK joins Sam and Shervin to describe how PayPal’s various consumer products work together to help users have a seamless experience across its products. She also talks about AI’s role in further personalizing the customer experience across the company’s brand portfolio, data governance challenges following corporate acquisitions, and her approach to creating effective teams. Read the episode transcript here.
Me, Myself, and AI is a collaborative podcast from MIT Sloan Management Review and Boston Consulting Group and is hosted by Sam Ransbotham and Shervin Khodabandeh. Our engineer is David Lishansky, and the coordinating producers are Allison Ryder and Sophie Rüdinger.
Stay in touch with us by joining our LinkedIn group, AI for Leaders at mitsmr.com/AIforLeaders or by following Me, Myself, and AI on LinkedIn.
Guest bio:
In her role as senior director of data science, Khatereh Khodavirdi leads a cross-functional team of data scientists, analytics experts, and strategists to help accelerate revenue growth through data and insights for PayPal, Venmo, and Honey. She was a founding member of eBay’s advertising data team and has spent her career building analytics functions to accelerate growth initiatives in commerce, advertising, monetization, and digital payments, with increasing levels of responsibility.
We encourage you to rate and review our show. Your comments may be used in Me, Myself, and AI materials.
We want to know how you feel about Me, Myself, and AI. Please take a short, two-question survey.
Today we’re joined by Vidyut Naware, the director of machine learning and artificial intelligence at Paypal. As the leader of the ML/AI organization at Paypal, Vidyut is responsible for all things applied, from R&D to MLOps infrastructure. In our conversation, we explore the work being done in four major categories, hardware/compute, data, applied responsible AI, and tools, frameworks, and platforms. We also discuss their use of federated learning and delayed supervision models for use cases like anomaly detection and fraud prevention, research into quantum computing and causal inference, as well as applied use cases like graph machine learning and collusion detection.
The complete show notes for this episode can be found at twimlai.com/go/593
After PayPal sold to eBay in 2002, Max Levchin could have relaxed on a beach for the rest of his life. But that’s not the kind of person he is. He isn’t happy unless he’s coming up with new ideas and building companies – so much so that he actually fell into a dark place after leaving PayPal. He didn’t fully find himself until years later, when he rediscovered his passion for the “hard, valuable, fun” problems of fintech. Now, Max runs another billion-dollar company: Affirm, a “buy now, pay later” service that’s transforming how we purchase things on credit. This is the second part of a two-part conversation with Max; to hear the story of PayPal, be sure to listen to part 1!
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
During its formative years in the late 1990's, Paypal attracted an extraordinary group of young entrepreneurs, who then went on to build some of the best known companies in tech. They became known as The PayPal Mafia—and Max Levchin was one of the leaders. A computer genius from Soviet Ukraine, Max joined Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, Reid Hoffman and others as they grew PayPal into a massively successful online payment service. Along the way, they encountered almost every start-up challenge imaginable, including the emotional ouster of Elon Musk as CEO. After PayPal was acquired by eBay in 2002, Max couldn't sit still, so he launched a startup lab that eventually led to another successful fintech company: Affirm. Guy will talk to Max about Affirm next week, in the second episode of this two-part series.
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Kent and our panelists dive deep on the hottest new React framework: Remix. What it does today, what makes it special, how it lured Kent away from a lucrative independent teaching career, and what’s coming up next.
Join the discussion
Changelog++ members save 6 minutes on this episode because they made the ads disappear. Join today!
Sponsors:
Raygun – Never miss another mission-critical issue again — Raygun Alerting is now available for Crash Reporting and Real User Monitoring, to make sure you are quickly notified of the errors, crashes, and front-end performance issues that matter most to you and your business. Set thresholds for your alert based on an increase in error count, a spike in load time, or new issues introduced in the latest deployment. Start your free 14-day trial at Raygun.com
SignalWire – Build what’s next in communications with video, voice, and messaging APIs powered by elastic cloud infrastructure. Try it today at signalwire.com/video and mention “JS Party” to receive an extra 5,000 video minutes.
Sourcegraph – Move fast, even in big codebases. Sourcegraph is universal code search for every developer and team. Easily search across all the code that matters to you and your organization: find example code, explore and read code, debug issues, and more. Head to info.sourcegraph.com/changelog and click the button “Try Sourcegraph now” to get started.
Featuring:
Kent C. Dodds – Website, GitHub, X
Kevin Ball – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, X
Ali Spittel – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, X
Divya – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, X
Show Notes:
Remix Vs Next
Fly.io
JSParty #119 Redwood brings full-stack to the JAMstack
Remix Quickstart
Remix Deep Dive
Remix Discord
React Server Components and Remix
A better idea would be to replace / improve the fetch spec
Something missing or broken? PRs welcome!
In this episode, we talk about how you develop a CI/CD workflow with Victoria Lo, solutions engineer at PayPal. Victoria talks about transitioning from pursuing business and finance to web development, how her personal coding blog was key to landing her job at PayPal, and understanding CI/CD devops.
Show Links
Partner with Dev & CodeNewbie! (sponsor)
GitHub Actions 101: Develop a CI/CD Workflow
CI/CD
Visual Basic
Java
Python
Unity
C#
JavaScript
Jenkins
Travis CI
Cypress
GitHub Actions
Buddy
Node.js
MPM
Heroku
Victoria Lo
Victoria Lo is a Solutions Engineer at PayPal and a technical blogger at https://lo-victoria.com. Her background is in full-stack software/web development. She loves to share her knowledge on programming and give advice for new developers on her blog.
Jose Fernandez da Ponte, PayPal’s senior vice president and general manager of blockchain, crypto, and digital currencies, discusses PayPal’s crypto game plan, how CBDCs might be implemented, crypto regulations, and more. Show highlights:
Jose’s path to becoming the GM of blockchain, crypto, and digital currencies at PayPal
what factors led to PayPal’s decision to launch its crypto offering
what sort of customer makes up PayPal’s crypto demographic
how users are engaging with the various PayPal crypto services, like crypto-rewards cards
whether the introduction of crypto had anything to do with Venmo’s 36% jump in volume during Q3 2021
how PayPal interacts with Paxos on the backend to settle crypto transactions
why Jose thinks PayPal has decided to not add cryptocurrency to its balance sheet
how crypto transactions work within PayPal’s internal ledger and how that might change once PayPal launches support for withdrawals off-platform
the three types of directions that Jose believes stablecoins and CBDCs could be built
what solutions would need to be built before PayPal would consider issuing its own stablecoin
what scaling technologies, be it L1 or L2, PayPal is interested in
whether stablecoins and CBDCs can/will co-exist
Jose’s thoughts on how long it will be before CBDCs are being issued
why Jose thinks that new regulation might be necessary for cryptocurrencies
whether PayPal will be participating in decentralized activities, such as on-chain governance
why Jose thinks that PayPal’s crypto offering could help improve financial inclusion -- especially for smaller companies
why Jose and PayPal are excited about NFTs
how PayPal will decide to support new cryptocurrencies on its platform
what Jose thinks PayPal’s crypto offering could look like in the future
Thank you to our sponsors!
Crypto.com: https://crypto.onelink.me/J9Lg/unconfirmedcardearnfeb2021
Nodle: https://bit.ly/3AXGydJ
Episode Links
Jose Fernandez da Ponte
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jose-fernandez-da-ponte-a46ba81/
PayPal Crypto Basics
Homepage:
https://www.paypal.com/us/digital-wallet/manage-money/crypto
FAQs:
https://www.paypal.com/us/smarthelp/article/cryptocurrency-on-paypal-faq-faq4398
https://www.paypal.com/us/smarthelp/topic/MY_WALLET_PER
Terms + Conditions:
https://www.paypal.com/us/webapps/mpp/ua/cryptocurrencies-tnc
Venmo Crypto:
https://venmo.com/about/crypto/
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
This week we talk with Kent C. Dodds, one of the greatest React teachers in the industry, all about React! Why choose React over another framework? What are the hardest parts about learning React? You’ll find out this week!
Join the discussion
Changelog++ members save 4 minutes on this episode because they made the ads disappear. Join today!
Sponsors:
Raygun – With Raygun Error and Performance Monitoring you have all the information you need at your fingertips to quickly find and fix errors and performance issues across your tech stack down to the line of code. Get started with a free 14-day trial, head to raygun.com and join thousands of customer-centric software teams who use Raygun every day.
Micro – Micro is reimagining the cloud for the next generation of developers. It’s a developer friendly platform to explore, search, and use simpler APIs for everyday consumption all in one place. They’re in early development building out the first set of APIs, and they’re looking for feedback from developers. Signup and get $5 in free credits.
Square – Develop on the platform that sellers trust! Use API Explorer to interact with, test, or play with your applications in Square. You can build, view, and send HTTP requests that call Square APIs with API Explorer. Get started with Square, check out the API Explorer, or the API Explorer docs.
Featuring:
Kent C. Dodds – Website, GitHub, X
Emma Bostian – GitHub, LinkedIn, X
Nick Nisi – Website, GitHub, Mastodon, X
Show Notes:
Epic React
React docs
Getting Closure on React Hooks by Swyx
Common Mistakes With React Testing Library
Soft Skills Podcast
Why React Hooks
JSParty Building on the TanStack
React Testing Library
The Beginner’s Guide to React on Egghead.io
The Beginner’s Guide to React v2 on Egghead.io
React Error Boundary
My State Management Mistake
Remix
Remix Docs
React Query
Aha Programming
Cher Scarlet
When to Break Up a Component Into Multiple Components
Tanner Linsley
React Router
Ryan Florence
Michael Jackson
React Helmet
Chantastic React Podcast + Kent
I think y’all know what side I’m on
Something missing or broken? PRs welcome!
Marcy Campbell knows a thing or two about taking risks.
Over her almost 40 years in business, Marcy’s worked at 11 different startups — building several sales organizations from the ground up.
Now, as Vice President of Global Professional Services at PayPal, Marcy employs grit on a daily basis as she leads sales teams on the newest company products. On this episode of Go to Market Grit, Joubin and Marcy discuss the challenges women face in business, creating sales motions and the qualities of a successful sales rep.
In this episode, we cover:
Marcy's career working at 11 startups — and the challenges women face in reaching senior sales positions. (1:05)
'I’ve never done anything in a straight line': Taking risks and finding success. (7:50)
'Fail up': Using the lessons learned from failure to take more risks. (12:48)
How Marcy deals with always having been ‘the underdog’ — and why she mentors other women. (16:11)
Being 'immersed in the actual event of learning' — and how failure builds maturity. (19:26)
Why understanding a company's products, customers, and market dynamics is key to establishing successful sales motions. (23:19)
Collaboration and chemistry: The characteristics that Marcy looks for in companies she's looking to join. (28:20)
Belief, commitment and support: What it takes to work at a company where 'there's a puzzle to fix.' (30:27)
Why Marcy goes on 'a big listening tour' to understand all aspects of a company when she first joins. (34:30)
The value of curiosity and intelligence in a sales rep — and the qualities Marcy evaluates in sales candidates for during job interviews. (37:15)
How Marcy defines grit. (43:59)
Connect with Marcy
LinkedIn
Email: marcycampbell@paypal.com
Connect with Joubin
Twitter
LinkedIn
Email: gtmg@kleinerperkins.com
Learn more about Kleiner Perkins
Capitalism urgently needs an upgrade, says PayPal CEO Dan Schulman, and it starts with paying people enough to actually invest in their futures. He explains the epiphany that led PayPal to create a whole new metric for adequate pay, Net Disposable Income, and why investing in employees' financial health is just good business. After the talk, host Modupe Akinola makes the case for going one step further and considering how fair pay might actually mean something pretty different for every employee. (This is an episode of TED Business. Find it wherever you listen to podcasts.)
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Over the next couple of episodes of this show, we're talking about learning and teaching in public. Today, we sit down with Kent C. Dodds. Kent has created some of the most important teaching materials for React developers at epicreact.dev.
In this part 2 with Kent, we talk about building a teaching platform and the importance of giving away most of your knowledge for free.
🌎 Kent on the Web
Twitter - @kentcdodds
Epicreact.dev
Testing JavaScript
Kent's Blog
Kent's Website
Discord
Courses
✨ Sponsor: New Relic
Thank you to New Relic for sponsoring today's episode!
Make managing and analysis of complex digital architectures work for you. Check them out at NewRelic.com to become a full access user with 100GB per month totally free.
📮 Ask a Question
If you enjoyed this episode and would like me to discuss a question that you have on the show, drop it over at: developertea.com.
🧡 Leave a Review
If you're enjoying the show and want to support the content head over to iTunes and leave a review! It helps other developers discover the show and keep us focused on what matters to you.
Over the next couple of episodes of this show, we're talking about learning and teaching in public. Today, we sit down with Kent C. Dodds. Kent has created some of the most important teaching materials for React developers at epicreact.dev.
In this part 1 with Kent, we talk about the roots of why Kent cares so much about teaching.
🌎 Kent on the Web
Twitter - @kentcdodds
Epicreact.dev
Testing JavaScript
Kent's Blog
Kent's Website
Discord
Courses
✨ Sponsor: Linode
Thank you to long time sponsor and friends of the show Linode for sponsoring today's episode!
Simplify your cloud infrastructure with Linode’s Linux virtual machines and develop, deploy, and scale your modern applications faster and easier.
Listeners of Developer Tea can now enjoy $100 in free credit! You can find all the details at linode.com/developertea.
📮 Ask a Question
If you enjoyed this episode and would like me to discuss a question that you have on the show, drop it over at: developertea.com.
🧡 Leave a Review
If you're enjoying the show and want to support the content head over to iTunes and leave a review! It helps other developers discover the show and keep us focused on what matters to you.
The pandemic has hurt many businesses – but PayPal isn't one of them. PayPal has boomed as e-commerce has swelled, with stock up more than 50% this year and a huge new demographic joining the platform. That doesn't mean, though, that CEO Dan Schulman has been sitting back. PayPal recently committed more than $500 million to support Black and minority-owned businesses, after facilitating some $1.9 billion in PPP loans to largely underbanked communities. Dan says PayPal has a unique opportunity to spur emerging economic recovery – and to make a longterm impact in the fight for racial justice. Interviewed by editor Bob Safian.
Read a transcript of this episode at https://mastersofscale.com
Subscribe to the Masters of Scale weekly newsletter at https://mastersofscale.com/subscribe
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Part 1The crew chats about how Paul and Sara made the transition from individual contributors to managers overseeing teams of engineers. Sara used to see this transition as a form of selling out, but has a new perspective after having made the shift. Paul admits he still doesn’t feel like a “CEO” and how he approaches his role as the co-founder who focuses on creating signal instead of operations. OF course, we argue about Bitcoin, and finally we examine the role luck plays in life, especially for The Rock.
Interview - Kent C DoddsKent admits that when he first tried programming, he just couldn’t understand strings, and decided the career path wasn’t for him. He ended up on a track that would have made him an accountant or business intelligence analyst. From that perch, however, he began to find ways to automate and improve his workflows. Not only did this help him stand out at work, it reawakened his interest in coding, which is now his full time career.
Part 2 Sara talks about the difference between writing code for software applications, and writing firmware, which she got into while helping to launch and run Jewelbots. Paul and Sara recall what it was like working in tech during the 90s, when they had to constantly worry about how to conserve RAM. We also talk about the days before Git, when folks passed a hard drive around from hand to hand. The kids today have no idea how good they have it.
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Summary
Apache Spark is a popular and widely used tool for a variety of data oriented projects. With the large array of capabilities, and the complexity of the underlying system, it can be difficult to understand how to get started using it. Jean George Perrin has been so impressed by the versatility of Spark that he is writing a book for data engineers to hit the ground running. In this episode he helps to make sense of what Spark is, how it works, and the various ways that you can use it. He also discusses what you need to know to get it deployed and keep it running in a production environment and how it fits into the overall data ecosystem.
Preamble
Hello and welcome to the Data Engineering Podcast, the show about modern data management
When you’re ready to build your next pipeline, or want to test out the projects you hear about on the show, you’ll need somewhere to deploy it, so check out Linode. With 200Gbit private networking, scalable shared block storage, and a 40Gbit public network, you’ve got everything you need to run a fast, reliable, and bullet-proof data platform. If you need global distribution, they’ve got that covered too with world-wide datacenters including new ones in Toronto and Mumbai. Go to dataengineeringpodcast.com/linode today to get a $20 credit and launch a new server in under a minute.
Go to dataengineeringpodcast.com to subscribe to the show, sign up for the mailing list, read the show notes, and get in touch.
Join the community in the new Zulip chat workspace at dataengineeringpodcast.com/chat
Your host is Tobias Macey and today I’m interviewing Jean Georges Perrin, author of the upcoming Manning book Spark In Action 2nd Edition, about the ways that Spark is used and how it fits into the data landscape
Interview
Introduction
How did you get involved in the area of data management?
Can you start by explaining what Spark is?
What are some of the main use cases for Spark?
What are some of the problems that Spark is uniquely suited to address?
Who uses Spark?
What are the tools offered to Spark users?
How does it compare to some of the other streaming frameworks such as Flink, Kafka, or Storm?
For someone building on top of Spark what are the main software design paradigms?
How does the design of an application change as you go from a local development environment to a production cluster?
Once your application is written, what is involved in deploying it to a production environment?
What are some of the most useful strategies that you have seen for improving the efficiency and performance of a processing pipeline?
What are some of the edge cases and architectural considerations that engineers should be considering as they begin to scale their deployments?
What are some of the common ways that Spark is deployed, in terms of the cluster topology and the supporting technologies?
What are the limitations of the Spark programming model?
What are the cases where Spark is the wrong choice?
What was your motivation for writing a book about Spark?
Who is the target audience?
What have been some of the most interesting or useful lessons that you have learned in the process of writing a book about Spark?
What advice do you have for anyone who is considering or currently using Spark?
Contact Info
@jgperrin on Twitter
Blog
Parting Question
From your perspective, what is the biggest gap in the tooling or technology for data management today?
Book Discount
Use the code poddataeng18 to get 40% off of all of Manning’s products at manning.com
Links
Apache Spark
Spark In Action
Book code examples in GitHub
Informix
International Informix Users Group
MySQL
Microsoft SQL Server
ETL (Extract, Transform, Load)
Spark SQL and Spark In Action‘s chapter 11
Spark ML and Spark In Action‘s chapter 18
Spark Streaming (structured) and Spark In Action‘s chapter 10
Spark GraphX
Hadoop
Jupyter
Podcast Interview
Zeppelin
Databricks
IBM Watson Studio
Kafka
Flink
Podcast Episode
AWS Kinesis
Yarn
HDFS
Hive
Scala
PySpark
DAG
Spark Catalyst
Spark Tungsten
Spark UDF
AWS EMR
Mesos
DC/OS
Kubernetes
Dataframes
The intro and outro music is from The Hug by The Freak Fandango Orchestra / CC BY-SA
Support Data Engineering Podcast
If you want to grow your business, your goal isn’t to beat the competition — it’s to escape the competition altogether. No one knows this better than PayPal founder Peter Thiel. His theory? “Competition is for losers.” Thiel is a former colleague, frequent co-investor and longtime intellectual sparring partner with host Reid Hoffman. Their combined thinking on the competitive landscape is unmissable.
Read a transcript of this interview at: https://mastersofscale.com/peter-thiel-escape-the-competition/
Subscribe to the Masters of Scale weekly newsletter: https://mastersofscale.com/subscribe
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.