PayPal co-founder Max Levchin, one of the most tireless entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley, has begun work on another startup, he said this weekend on Twitter. Levchin left Google just six weeks ago, after the search giant shut down his last startup it acquired for an estimated $200 million, Slide.com. Levchin is also the Chairman of the Board of Directors at Yelp. He’s a fascinating guy.
A Ukrainian immigrant whose parents fled Chernobyl, Levchin was described by author Sarah Lacy in the excellent book Once You’re Lucky, Twice You’re Good as, at his core, all about competition. After making online e-commerce viable and secure with PayPal and inventing the widget at Slide, what will Levchin bring to market next? We’ll find out soon, he said this weekend.
Levchin said last month while on stage with PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference that “innovation, specifically technology innovation, in this country is somewhere between dire straights and dead…
“I think there is a great deal of ferment and activity in Silicon Valley. There has definitely been some innovation, so it would be an exaggeration to say that nothing has happened. But if one looks outside of computers and the Internet, there has been…we’ve had 40 years of stagnation.”
That certainly is some context in which to launch something new. Levchin’s LinkedIn profile says his current position is Founder at No Name Yet.
No details about the new project are available, but Levchin says it’s already coming along faster than expected and that he now has a “very real” need for an “amazing graphic/UI designer.” He says he’ll begin discussing what space the new startup is in soon.
I wish I knew more than that, but I haven’t been able to find any details and Levchin hasn’t responded to a request for comment.
