И чтец, и жнец, и на дуде игрец. Affirm, Glow, SciFi. ✡️
SF, CA
Joined April 2008
- Tweets4.6K
- Following610
- Followers256K
- Likes889
Pinned Tweet
🚨A PSA as you consider your holiday shopping budget.🚨
When a traditional credit card bank suddenly announces they too offer BNPL services -- are they really trying to get their credit card holders to pay less interest and not revolve?!! Are they really turning pro-consumer?!!
Absolutely not: what they are trying to do is give their transactors (who never revolve) a feeling of a "safe debt" and ease them into revolving, which is where the money is for the bank . It's the "first one's free" honeypot.
So this holiday season, if you are considering using a pay-later service, the absolute WORST place you can get it from is a credit card issuing bank. They are just trying to trap ya. I'd give you names, but you already know who they are.
Praemonitus praemunitus!
Though @Affirm is my 120% job, I sometimes help out the inimitable @nlevchin and @BrooksHosfield at @SciFiVC -- and they just published their latest thoughts on finetch 3.0 here: scifivc.substack.com/p/scifi…
Max Levchin retweeted
Announcing a major milestone achieved by my team @GoogleDeepMind: we have proven key security properties of the machine code underlying the Signal messaging protocol. This is the first time the actual production code of a widely deployed protocol has been formally verified – by any method, with or without AI – and at this depth.
More than a research breakthrough, it’s a prime example of how frontier AI can be a force multiplier to counter the speed and scale of modern cyber threats.
Formal verification offers a higher standard of security; however, it’s extremely complex and time consuming, which is why in many cases it’s considered to be impractical. Similar efforts could take teams decades of combined effort. We did it in a month’s time.
Using AlphaProof Code, Google DeepMind's new agentic framework for formal verification that runs on LLMs including Gemini Carbon, we verified the Signal protocol down to the actual code running on devices. This milestone lays the groundwork for a future in which vital systems, from medical device firmware to power grid software, ship with mathematical proof that their protections work.
Reaching that future will take continued research from our community. In that spirit, we're open-sourcing our formal specifications and verification artifacts so others can build on this work.
On a personal note, this moment is of deep significance to me. I started my own research journey more than two decades ago as an intern working on checking the consistency of complex software systems. Seeing this grand challenge made practical with modern AI is extraordinary.
I'm extremely proud of my team members: Swarat Chaudhuri, Andrew Ferraiuolo, Anton Kovsharov, Tej Chajed, Sam Schlesinger, Karn Seth, Jonathan Katz, and Charles Sutton for taking on this grand challenge and delivering, and grateful to the Signal team for their partnership.
deepmind.google/blog/formal-…
Max Levchin retweeted
We asked GPT-6 Astra to edit Qwen3.5-0.8B weights to improve math.
It directly changed only 0.016% of weights, fixing 0.8B's reasoning loops & improving math up to 6x and even instruction following 3x, without gradients or training.
We call this Weight-Space Programming: frontier LLMs can now natively read/write neural network weights! 🧵
Blog: rikiyat.github.io/blog/weigh…
Readers added context they thought people might want to know
LLM was given weights explicitly as text in prompt and used code/forward passes (per authors' logs) to ablate Qwen looping direction, a known thinking-mode issue per model card. Primarily fixed repetition in that mode, not general 'natively' improving weights/math.
rikiyat.github.io/blog/weight-sp…
github.com/RikiyaT/lm_und…
huggingface.co/Qwen/Qwen3.5-0…
huggingface.co/RikiyaT/Qwen3.…
Max Levchin retweeted
Jensen does NOT support Prop 40 or the wealth tax. I have discussed this with Jensen & the reporting is untrue. What he has said is that IF the tax were to pass - he would stay & pay it. He loves CA & will pay his taxes but he too is worried it could negatively impact CA. 🇺🇸
This quoted post is unavailable.
Max Levchin retweeted
@SamsClub chose Affirm. Exclusively.
(That’s it.)
Read more: bit.ly/4ibR9Z0
ALT Dark blue background with logos of "Affirm" and "Sam's Club" in white, separated by a vertical line.
Thrilled about this one!
bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
Max Levchin retweeted
Dave Regan wants to attack innovation, success & the American Dream in order to fund his healthcare fraud in CA. And then export his socialist agenda around the country. That has never been the American Way. We win when we grow the pie & include everybody in the upside! 🇺🇸🚀
Next thing you know they are gonna explain the S-box design criteria, and we’ll literally be out of tin foil hat mysteries!!
CLAUDE FOUND THE SEEDS
anthropic.com/research/ecdsa…
There are so many heartbreaking stories to be reread and remembered on this anniversary of Oct 7th. Not sure there is much one can add to find or create meaning. Except one thing, every time.
Am Yisroel Chai!
Max Levchin retweeted
October 7 2023 is the most documented and intensely filmed crime of mass murder and atrocious sadism in all of human history. Those who celebrated it on that day, October 8 2023 and the following weeks shocked us all.
Today should only be a sorrowful day. Those who march today of all days in London or elsewhere are not only rejecting and mocking the most elementary decency but celebrating the killing, torture and rape of ordinary people. It is hard to think of anything more degenerate and depraved.
The decision to allow this march today is unconscionable, cowardly and despicable @metpoliceuk @ShabanaMahmood, an abuse and degradation of our values of free speech and assembly, particularly after countless demonstrations that have already taken place. I am afraid it reveals a saddening and alarming void at the moral centre of this government and police that should worry us all.
Max Levchin retweeted
"The grownup way to buy things that matter to you." That's how @mlevchin describes Affirm and what led to our new partnership with @CrateandBarrel. Watch on @FoxBusiness with @LizClaman: foxbusiness.com/video/640592…
Max Levchin retweeted
Wild hijacking attempt of a FlyDubai plane that was Tel Aviv bound and heroic response from brave and capable Israeli passengers who saved many lives on the plane and on the ground.
A passenger on the Dubai–Tel Aviv flight recounts:
“We are currently in Saudi Arabia.
One of the crew members attacked the pilot with a knife and disabled the aircraft’s systems. Yaniv (pictured?) and another passenger stormed the cockpit and subdued the attacker.
Luckily, there were two more pilots on board. They were the ones who managed to land the plane.”
Well, yes. Overall, the probability that a plane full of Israelis will contain a trained assault team, two additional pilots, and, statistically, at least one cardiac surgeon, psychologist, lawyer, and diamond dealer is substantially higher than 50%.
Always a pleasure to chat with @LizClaman. Thank you for having me on!
- @Affirm expands buy now, pay later with @CrateandBarrel partnership @FoxBusiness @mlevchin
foxbusiness.com/video/640592…
3
10
9,073
Max Levchin retweeted
- @Affirm expands buy now, pay later with @CrateandBarrel partnership @FoxBusiness @mlevchin
foxbusiness.com/video/640592…
Max Levchin retweeted
🌈🇺🇸 BRANDON MCNULTY 🇺🇸🌈
Unbelievable scenes as the American claims the 2026 Men Elite UCI Road World Championships title 🤯
Just WOW! 👏
#Montréal2026
Congratulations to @BrandonMcNult -- the new UCI Road World Champion! Amazing to have the rainbow jersey (finally) in the USA after a 30+ year drought!
2
54
8,711
Max Levchin retweeted
Millions of @amazon 🇬🇧 customers can now access @Affirm. We've delivered a simple, streamlined UX for customers... abstracting huge lending complexity across credit, regs, payments, ops, etc. All the while putting customers first w/ no surprises, compounding interest, fees etc!
We're live with @amazon in the UK with the full range of terms you'd expect from @Affirm, and a new Pay in 3 plan! No late fees, obviously. Congrats to the UK teams and all Affirmers!
investors.affirm.com/news-re…
We're live with @amazon in the UK with the full range of terms you'd expect from @Affirm, and a new Pay in 3 plan! No late fees, obviously. Congrats to the UK teams and all Affirmers!
investors.affirm.com/news-re…