Vik the CricketGeek

My conversation with CEO Mario Harik, CEO of @XPOLogistics His journey from bomb shelters in Lebanon to becoming Brad Jacobs protégé, has never been told before. Enjoy. 0:00 Approach to Solving Problems 3:38 Letting Go of Perfection 5:14 Lessons from Brad Jacobs 10:51 Disagreement vs. Consensus 19:41 Leading from the Front 22:35 Using AI to track performance 29:30 Structuring Meetings 32:36 Pre-meeting Prep 39:48 Hiring & Assessing Candidates 47:30 Escaping Lebanon Bomb Shelters 49:29 How he Makes Decisions 59:23 Framework for evaluating talent 1:02:12 High Performance Environment 1:07:33 Value Creation (Includes paid partnerships.)

BREAKING: Max Levchin (@mlevchin), Co-Founder of PayPal & CEO of @Affirm — HQ Tour A Masterclass in: Espressos → Big Lebowski → PayPal lessons → Affirm → Economics of AI The Dude abides. “The net IQ of the world Is about to go up 50 points” Result: As intelligence becomes normalized, bad actors & "fine print" companies will get exposed faster. We cover: • Capitalism vs the “warm embrace” of socialism • You can’t perfectly time an IPO • The best time ever to be a CS CEO • AI collapsing the cost of intelligence • Great economic shift underway Strikes & gutters, ups & downs. Recorded at Affirm HQ, March 30, 2026 𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐌𝐏𝐒 (00:00) Max Levchin, Co-Founder & CEO at Affirm (01:35) Inside Affirm's office espresso bar (06:46) How the love for espressos started at age 5 (10:30) Truth about bad coffee beans (13:51) Strava & cycling (14:56) Meeting Alfred Lin & Tony Hsieh over poker (21:14) Onboarding 800K Shopify merchants in one week (22:59) Big Lebowski in every shareholder letter (32:11) The PayPal lesson that built Affirm (35:25) Being a technical CEO (37:57) Why this is the best time to be a technical CEO (42:10) Should engineers still learn to code? (44:48) Side quest with AI (46:59) Companies AI will destroy (49:46) How AI has changed engineering at Affirm (50:54) Agentic commerce & DoorDash (52:28) Devolution of Credit (55:06) Biggest misconceptions about BNPL (57:42) Being a public company CEO (01:07:01) Advice for private companies (01:11:09) Creating his own economy (01:14:29) Can AI help solve the $39T debt problem? (01:16:00) Learnings (01:17:46) Will average IQ rise or fall?

The Silk Road made everyone rich, and then it killed half of them. Progress ep02 is live with @typesfast of @Flexport. We discuss why the global economy is as fragile as ever, what it takes for America to build again, and whether AI needs its own god.

Wow @Rippling crossed $1B ARR + is growing 78% YoY., with growth accelerating every quarter for three straight quarters... The growth re-acceleration is what stands out. In May '25, @parkerconrad shared that growth was "well over 30%." Less than a year later, 78%! ~$350M ARR (end of 2023) → ~$570M (early 2025) → $1B+ today What's notable is how deliberate they were. While competitors were rushing AI features to market in '24, Conrad shared with TechCrunch that he felt like "there's just a lot of really insubstantial stuff out there in the AI world." He wasn't anti-AI but also wasn't going to ship an AI feature for the sake of it. They waited, launched their AI analyst in March '26 (a natural language layer that lets employees and admins query live data and take real action across HR, payroll, IT, and finance). Already considered their most successful product launch ever Amazing to see both acceleration and compounding at scale

"High performance machines don't have psychological safety. They're about winning." Keith Rabois (@rabois) was COO of Square, part of the PayPal Mafia, an early investor in Stripe, Palantir, Airbnb, DoorDash, and Ramp, and a 2x founder. He's spent 25 years obsessing over how to build world-class teams. In our in-depth conversation, we discuss: 🔸 How to identify undiscovered talent 🔸 Keith's barrels vs. ammunition hiring framework 🔸 The three traits of the best-performing companies right now 🔸 Why talking to customers is actively harmful for consumer products 🔸 Why the PM role is dying 🔸 The specific interview question he asks every senior candidate 🔸 Why CMOs (not engineers) are becoming the #1 consumer of AI tokens Watch now 👇 youtu.be/xCd9ykretlg