Gideon: What? What did he actually mean by that?
Lauren: Yes, that’s a good question. I mean, here’s just one example. One of the things he immediately said to me was that he thinks that in just 30 years we will all be part cyborg – that we will pay for things through some sort of chip in our bodies.
Max (audio clip): Kind of like contacts enhanced with electronics beyond the basic optical value, um, that you can actually remove and rid yourself of the enhancements if you want it to be a pure human again.
Lauren: And that, you know, people are on the cusp of a great global advancement brought about by technology.
Gideon: So we’re all going to be part human, part machine, sort of Six million dollar man kind of thing.
Archive audio clip: Gentlemen, we can rebuild. We have the technology.
Lauren: Yes, exactly. Between that and some combination of AI, it was just, we’re going to be fully automated as human beings. And, by the way, Levchin acknowledged that this is an ethically complicated view, but at the same time, this kind of enthusiastic prediction right now feels like it’s from, I don’t know, the 2010s.
Gideon: I think more like from the 70s.
[Six Million Dollar Man theme song]
Lauren: Right, right, to keep up Six million dollar man theme. And so in the context of buy now, pay later, it’s perhaps not too surprising that he’s pitching Affirm, his company, as sort of a tech solution for credit cards. Have you ever used the buy now, pay later service?
Gideon: I actually never have.
Lauren: So I have, twice. They are basically short-term loans with a fixed number of payments.
Gideon: Isn’t that what a credit card is?
Lauren: Yes, but different, because with a credit card you can just carry that balance from month to month, and there are usually higher interest rates. Affirm is different in that they say most of their loans don’t actually have any fees or interest rates, but they also encourage you to pay something off in, say, four payments in six weeks.
Gideon: So how do they make their money?
Lauren: Ah, that’s a good question. They do pay some longer-term loans, and there will be some interest on them. But they are also paid by the sellers they work with. So let’s say you buy a platoon from Affirm. Peloton pays Affirm a fee for actually providing that loan.
Gideon: OK, so it’s in Affirm’s best interest that you just buy things?
Lauren: Yeah, and I’ve asked Max before and asked again in this podcast what society looks like in the future if his, you know, buy now, pay later fever dream comes true and people buy now, pay later start using—not just for things like Platoons, right, but things like groceries or gas.
