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ML Max Levchin Max Levchin Founder and CEO of Affirm, the installment-lending company that helped popularize buy now, pay later at checkout.

“I think the notion of robots will buy our Friday night outfits is misguided. We want to know what we look like long before the robot delivers it to your door.”

a16z Podcast · Startups & Venture · September 2026

“I think the notion of robots will buy our Friday night outfits is misguided. We want to know what we look like long before the robot delivers it to your door.” — Max Levchin, a16z Podcast

Context

Levchin had just drawn a line between agentic payments, which he is bullish on, and agentic shopping, which he is not. His example is his own habit of spending too long comparing two nearly identical bike parts, because he wants to participate in the choice. It is a live disagreement rather than a settled one: minutes later Alex Rampell argues the opposite for cases where you already know the exact SKU you want.

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Transcript

a16z Podcast Around 52:56 into the episode
Max Levchin

I'm probably less optimistic about agentic shopping. And I'm very trusty about agentic payments.

Erik Torenberg

Yeah.

Max Levchin

I think the notion of robots will buy our Friday night outfits is misguided. We want to know what we look like long before the robot delivers it to your door. But I think the friction, this notion of sort of the best user interface ever created is the credit card. This may actually be finally up for renegotiation because agents are, in fact, smarter than pieces of plastic and even pieces of plastic with rewritable chips. And so I think that's a lot of conversation around Agentic Commerce is probably looking 20 degrees off where, you know, how can I…

Alex Rampell

So can I ask a question on that? So I mostly agree, but I think it depends on there's like the, I need to research what to buy, where AI is just yet another tool at your disposal. Like you ask your friends, that's one. It's a bike part. I'm asking you. I'm also asking AI. I'm asking both of you.…

Speaker 4

I

Alex Rampell

have nine different cards. I don't remember the Amazon Chase issued by Chase card terms for a non-restaurant purchase of something under $500. And if I've used my whatever, like it's the same thing. Like people that care more about money than time, they will figure that out. People that care more…

Speaker names come from our own diarization. The position is estimated from where the line sits in the episode.

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