Health

The founder of PayPal uses data to optimize every aspect of his life — and he says being healthier comes down to a single habit

By Shana Lebowitz and Alyson Shontell
Max Levchin cyclist on bridge in Milley Valley California
Don't waste any willpower. Wil Matthews
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  • Max Levchin is a cofounder of PayPal and the CEO of online lending service Affirm.
  • He told Business Insider he made healthy eating and exercise a habit by doing it every day without fail.
  • Research supports this strategy: Once a habit becomes routine, you don't have to think about it.


"Be on the bike." That might as well be Max Levchin's fitness mantra.

Levchin is a cofounder of PayPal and the CEO of online lending service Affirm. On an episode of Business Insider's podcast, "Success! How I Did It," Levchin told US editor-in-chief Alyson Shontell about the philosophy behind his health and fitness regimen.

That philosophy boils down to one word: consistency.

"I basically find a routine that I like, and I just stick to it obsessively," Levchin told Shontell. "If I skip a day, it's extremely uncomfortable. The No. 1 power in any behavior is in turning it into a default. So long as you make those defaults healthy, it's very easy. You can just exist in a fairly healthy universe."

For Levchin, that means exercising every single morning, within reason. He said: "So long as your daily default is 'Be on the bike,' some days you'll miss because you're traveling or you're sick. But most of the time, you'll just get up, and get on a bike first thing in the morning, which is what I do."

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shana lebowitz new headshot
Shana Lebowitz
Shana was a correspondent for Insider, where she covered career development and workplace culture.In 2022, she published "Don't Call It Quits" to help professionals who feel stuck in their careers find greater happiness at work.Shana spearheads the HR Insider series, for which she's interviewed talent chiefs at Microsoft and Goldman Sachs, shared tips from an ex-Googler on knowing when to change jobs, and demystified the hiring process at Salesforce. She regularly publishes news analysis; past topics have included burnout among US workers, gender and racial dynamics within HR, and the hybrid workplace.She has moderated programs at Chief and the Harvard Business School Club of New York and has appeared on Cheddar and Bold TV.Before beginning her career in journalism, Shana studied English and psychology at Brandeis University and received her master's degree in English literature from Columbia University.
Alyson Shontell Business Insider
Alyson Shontell
Alyson is the Editor-in-Chief and CCO at Fortune.  She was previously a co Editor-in-Chief overseeing Business Insider's tech and business coverage.She joined Business Insider in July 2008 as the company's sixth employee. She started as a sales planner before joining the editorial team in 2010, where she became a startup reporter and was first to cover some of today's largest tech companies, including Pinterest, Tinder, Instagram, Uber and Snap. Alyson rose to become a senior correspondent, then Executive Editor.She was appointed Editor-in-Chief of Business Insider in 2016, at which point she became the youngest and only woman to run a global business publication. Under her leadership, the business division has grown to hundreds of  millions of monthly readers.Alyson was a host of  Insider's conferences and launched a podcast, "Success! How I Did It," where she interviewed influencers ranging from Sheryl Sandberg to Steve Ballmer about their career paths (subscribe on iTunes here).She has appeared on ABC, Good Morning America, Al Jazeera, MSNBC, CNBC, CNN, and CBC, and she has interviewed media personalities such as Megyn Kelly, technology leaders like Fred Wilson, political leaders like John Brennan, and sports star LeBron James. She is a judge for the prestigious Gerald Loeb Awards in business journalism, and has been named one of Min's Rising Stars in Media, as well as Folio's 2017 Top Women in Media.She graduated from Syracuse University's Newhouse School of Public Communications, where she majored in psychology and advertising.You can read some of her investigative articles here:— Leaked videos reveal the true founding story of Snapchat— The founder who dumped Jared Kushner: Inside the phone call that left the White House star in a fit of rage— The downfall of billion-dollar startup, Fab— How a startup that raised the largest seed round in Silicon Valley history blew itself up before it even launched— The dark side of Facebook, where people lie, cheat, and make millions— A profile of Uber's controversial CEO, Travis Kalanick— The mystery of Jody Sherman, a founder who was driven to suicide and left behind a shocking business disasterDisclosure: Alyson owns bitcoin and Snap. She is also an investor in The Spun, a sports-media startup founded by her husband.
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