Join us for an insightful evening at Asia Society as Alok Sama, former President & CFO of Softbank Group International and author of the bestselling literary memoir The Money Trap: Lost Illusions Inside the Tech Bubble, engages in a compelling conversation with renowned fintech entrepreneur Max Levchin, co-founder of PayPal and founder-CEO of Affirm. They will share invaluable lessons from their extensive careers in tech and finance, delving into the current landscape of tech investment, exploring the impact of the present administration's tech vision, and the U.S.-China tech rivalry.  With Masayoshi Son leading President Trump's AI infrastructure investment project — Project Stargate — Mr. Sama has special insight into what to expect from the enigmatic "Masa," much of his experience also documented in his book The Money Trap. What is it that investors and innovators are not seeing? Or choosing not to see?

Don't miss this opportunity to gain wisdom from some of the industry's giants in a thought-provoking discussion. The Money Trap will be available for sale during the event with a book signing to follow.

Speakers

Alok Sama currently serves as a Senior Advisor to Warburg Pincus LLC and Chairs the Advisory Board for Valhalla Ventures. While at SoftBank he led the $34 billion acquisition of Arm Holdings, the $59 billion merger of T-Mobile and Sprint and multiple growth investments across technology verticals. He has over 30 years of investment banking, capital market and investment experience in New York, London and Hong Kong. Prior to Softbank, he was a senior Managing Director at Morgan Stanley, where he led the firm's communications practice in Europe and the TMT practice in the Asia-Pacific region. He holds an MBA from The Wharton School and an MFA in Creative Writing from New York University. He is a member of the CNBC Global CFO Council, and a former Chairman of the London Chapter of the Young President's Organization

Max Levchin is the founder and CEO of Affirm, and the co-founder and Chairman of Glow, a data-driven fertility company. Max was one of the original co-founders of PayPal where he served as the Chief Technology Officer. Max also founded Slide, which was acquired by Google in 2010, and helped create Yelp, where he served as Chairman from 2005 until July 2015. Max was born in Kyiv (Ukraine) and holds a B.S. in Computer Science from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is a serial entrepreneur, computer scientist, philanthropist and active investor in more than 100 startups.

This program is part of the Asian Diaspora Project.