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Jessica Livingston (2015)
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- cperciva 3y agoPosting this here because (as pointed out by pg's recent tweet about Wikipedia) many people don't realize just how important a role Jessica Livingston has played "behind the scenes".
- tough 3y agoI think anyone who's read enough of Paul's and knows a bit of YC's backstory would understand that Jessica was the human between all the nerds making things stick together.
- francesca 3y agoThanks for posting this. I always wondered why Jessica wasn't a bigger part of the YC story that so many people told. This line stood out to me in particular: _It's not just because she's shy that she hates attention, but because it throws off the Social Radar. She can't be herself. You can't watch people when everyone is watching you._ No matter what you get acknowledged for I think it's so important to always be yourself but to know what makes you strong is so challenging.
- neonate 3y agohttps://twitter.com/paulg/status/1672293903486074880 https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1672293903486074880
- mkmk 3y agoWhile we're on the topic, she's also the author of this wonderful book of founder interviews, which is illuminating even 15ish years after publication. I highly recommend it if you haven't come across it yet: https://www.amazon.com/Founders-Work-Stories-Startups-Early/dp/1430210788 https://www.amazon.com/Founders-Work-Stories-Startups-Early/...
- marban 3y agoThe whole ...at work series by Apress is excellent. VCs, Coders , etc.
- ericd 3y agoSeconding that, it's easily my favorite business/entrepreneurship book. It's very helpful for getting in the mindset if you're trying to figure out how to start a company, but it's also just really interesting and entertaining in its own right.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- bjornsing 3y agoIn my bookshelf. But haven’t had the time.
- jedberg 3y agoIf you're an aspiring founder, you should definitely try to make the time. It's a pretty easy read and insightful.
- billclerico 3y agoAlso worth mentioning her new podcast (along with Carolynn Levy), The Social Radars, which is sort of a podcast version of Founders At Work: https://www.thesocialradars.com/ https://www.thesocialradars.com/
- 2arrs2ells 3y agoThis podcast is wonderful – I'd recommend starting with the Paul Graham espisode.
- joshu 3y agoI was interviewed for that book! Good stuff.
- teach 3y ago(2015)
- telotortium 3y agoThanks for this - without the year, I thought Jessica Livingston had just passed away.
- hsjqllzlfkf 3y ago[flagged]
- scg 3y agoWhy?
- fragmede 3y agoBecause she's seen all their pitches to YC. And that Social Radar of hers should get a good read on crypto bros, and so the question is how many of them are grifters and con artists trying to cash in on the next Bitcoin, and how many of them are true believers of the ideals being spouted. And how many of them are, actually, honestly, good people.
- gregmfoster 3y agoThis comment seems off topic?
- jedberg 3y agoEven though this is old, I'm glad it's here again. Jessica deserves so much credit for the success of YC but she's far too humble to make a big deal of it herself. It's important for the rest of us to call this out once in a while. Thank you Jessica for everything you've done and do.
- swyx 3y agongl i had a mild heart attack seeing her name at the top of HN
- AmericanOP 3y agoThis was like the golden age of individuals furthering the zeitgeist of entrepreneurial discovery. A glowing recommendation from a luminary was like finding a missing piece of the puzzle.
- crashingintoyou 3y ago"Jessica deserves so much credit for the success of YC but she's far too humble to make a big deal of it herself." It seems to me that one reason for her success is that's she's able to exist in the limelight. Give her a higher profile and I'm not sure that the her approach as described in PG's post would work as well. I'm not convinced that everyone wants much attention - I know that I don't.
- AndrewKemendo 3y agoI can only imagine this is related to PG‘s recent tweet about how the Wikipedia article on Jessica has “questionable notability” warning due to sexist nonsense.
- tptacek 3y agoAnybody in the world can put a notability tag on an article in Wikipedia. The notability tag is properly read as a "this article needs more sources and more claims of notability" call for help, not a "get this article off the site" argument. Livingston will have no trouble maintaining a Wikipedia article; she's had profiles written about her in mainstream sources. A big chunk of complaints about Wikipedia notability come from people who don't quite grok the dynamic of how biographical articles like these get added to WP. Usually, someone writes a stub article with few sources and no clear statement of what the person is notable for. Those are bad articles! They actually need the notability tag! That's how they turn into better articles!
- tobyjsullivan 3y agoAnyone who's seen an article covering a topic of personal interest removed due to "lack of notability" would be forgiven for assuming the bar is "important to an arbitrary few editors", because that is the bar. From the examples I've encountered over the years, once an article is deemed irrelevant, it is deleted permanently with little to no opportunity for recovery (unless some event makes the subject suddenly more noteworthy). The reality is the most active Wikipedia editors make great contributions to the world's knowledge, but aren't exactly the most representative sample of humanity.
- tptacek 3y agoCite examples, so we can look at the deletion log and the AfD and make up our own minds.
- cubefox 3y agoI always found it a mix of amusing and annoying that my complaints about Wikipedia are usually self-defeating: "This article is bad! They should have ... okay, I should ... nevermind."
- bluepod4 3y agoI understand the optics involved with the Wikipedia situation. But an automated script (AnomieBot) tagged that article because it met or rather didn’t meet certain guidelines. It’s a stub article and lacked certain citations. Why not just flesh the article out? The “Notability” tag on Wikipedia has a different meaning than “notability” in the dictionary. Either way, it seems like someone already removed the tag manually with the justification “clearly notable” and uploaded a better photo. There’s still a lack of information though.
- echelon 3y agoThe photo situation on Wikipedia is so weird. Editors often upload bad photos, even if better alternatives exist in the public domain or are fair use. But the thing that grates me more than anything is Wikipedia uses elderly photos of famous figures that were at the peak of their careers in their 20s, 30s, and 40s. The appearance of these public figures changes, and sometimes the changes are so dramatic that I have to question if these are the same person. Wikipedia should have multiple photos in the top info box, but if not, they should focus on photos of subjects when they were in their peak of public activity. Good: - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elvis_Presley https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elvis_Presley - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Clinton https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Clinton - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Moore https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Moore Bad: - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Ramis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Ramis - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Murray https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Murray - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrie_Fisher https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrie_Fisher - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Simmons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Simmons - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Turner https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Turner There are far worse examples, and a lot of them. I'm having trouble finding them on the spot, though. Edit: Another super weird case of this is articles on famous child actors that didn't go on to act later in life, but their photo is of them in their 40's or substantially after their heyday. There's so much of that. They're easy examples to find: - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Thomas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Thomas - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jake_Lloyd https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jake_Lloyd - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Mazzello https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Mazzello - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Schwartz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Schwartz - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary-Kate_and_Ashley_Olsen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary-Kate_and_Ashley_Olsen
- chinchilla_opt 3y agoSo pg had a secret weapon all along.
- Euphemistic 3y ago[flagged]
- carlysagan 3y ago[flagged]
- A4ET8a8uTh0 3y ago[flagged]
- carlysagan 3y ago[flagged]
- fairity 3y ago> No one understands female founders better than Jessica. But it's unlikely anyone will ever hear her speak candidly about the topic. She ventured a toe in that water a while ago, and the reaction was so violent that she decided "never again." I wonder how much wisdom has been lost bc of this effect. I feel like society needs to create a much larger incentive for thoughtful people to share their wisdom. Today, you stand to gain status & wealth, but a lot of thoughtful people like Jessica don't care about that. I think the only solution is to somehow protect them from the disincentive (backlash from the internet mob), but I don't know how.
- burnished 3y agoDoesn't the phrase 'pearls before swine' refer basically to this situation? Basically I don't think it's something you can do in the presence of a thing like twitter because of the participants whose goal isn't communication. Which is fine. The wisdom isn't lost, its just not as widely available.
- mandmandam 3y ago> Which is fine. The wisdom isn't lost, its just not as widely available. It's not fine though. Our political and economic spheres have been run by the swine for too long, and the planet's back is breaking. The second order effects of only giving the brash and thick-hided a voice in society are everywhere, causing permanent harms. Let's start making space for the wise and sensitive types, and make pearls abundant.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- callistus 3y agohttps://blog.samaltman.com/pg-and-jessica https://blog.samaltman.com/pg-and-jessica
- alexpotato 3y agoOne of the things she's best at is judging people. She's one of those rare individuals with x-ray vision for character. She can see through any kind of faker almost immediately. Her nickname within YC was the Social Radar, and this special power of hers was critical in making YC what it is A manager at a past job also had a similar "x-ray vision". During interviews, she would always sit in with another interviewer and never ask any questions of the candidates. She would just observe. Over 5 years of working with her, every single person she said we should hire turned out great. Every person she said was no good, turned out to not be great. This was particularly fascinating to watch when she was the lone dissenter either way. e.g. there were times where 7 out of 8 interviewers said "pass", she said "hire" and she was always right. The first time I read pg's essay about Jessica, it immediately reminded me of my old manager. It also reminds me of a story from, I believe, Malcolm Gladwell's Blink about the tennis coach who knew before a tennis player served if they would double fault. Some people have either a natural gift or their brains have picked up a set of weights for their internal neural network that make them fantastic at this kind of thing.
- dpflan 3y agoDevil's Advocate: what are the counter examples for her x-ray vision for character?
- jjtheblunt 3y agoFounders at Work starts with the assertion that a sprinter is never faster than out of the blocks. As a one time sprinter, i read that, knew it totally false, and it invalidated my trust in reading further. So i wasted money buying that book. If one publishes so carelessly, it’s sad.
- slushh 3y agoNot necessary a counter example but with all the Reddit drama right now, I would like to know her opinion on Steve Huffman and if he is fulfilling expectations.
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- hoofhearted 3y ago[flagged]
- carlysagan 3y agoThis is honestly infuriating. Why wouldn't you realize that all of the characteristics of Jessica are why women are pushed out of the start-up world from the very first day they start? Why wouldn't you realize from this experience that women are the ones providing all the reasons and ideas for why a startup might be successful, but then are swept under the rug as a wife/family member/outside consultant/etc?
- eastbound 3y ago[flagged]
- carlysagan 3y agoIt sounds to me like you are admitting that women often provide the crucial ideas and then are dis-credited. What direction would any work take without the initial idea? Lol. Even when a female has the idea and does all the work (ah-hem), a man will come along, steal the idea, claim it as his own, and suddenly be the one with a multi-million dollar seed deal or Nobel Prize or whatever. That is the reality that I have seen over and over.
- eastbound 3y agoYou have a selective vision of the world if that is your conclusion. Plenty of examples of the opposite, I can’t convince you with just one example, so you’ll have to take a friendlier look at men, and once you find the pattern where men aren’t recognized for a particular deed, you’ll find it everywhere and in as great quantity as women. Concerning Marie Curie, maybe if we could agree on another example than one 120 years ago, that would revive the proof. As far as I’m concerned, every time someone cites Marie Curie, it rather confirms that we haven’t been doing that for the last 120 years, otherwise you’d cite a contemporary example. But the problem of contemporary examples, is that we’re here to analyze them, and they don’t generally hold the scrutinity. I don’t know for Marie Curie, I wasn’t there.
- bell-cot 3y ago[flagged]
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- dclowd9901 3y agoWords like "social" and "culture" and a ton of other now-taboo hiring ideas throughout this writeup. I wonder how much YC has changed over the last few years with regards to how it uses nebulous hiring practices like "someone's gut feeling" to reject or accept candidates. I also wonder what YCs diversity numbers look like.
- YetAnotherNick 3y agoI don't doubt Jessica is good at reading people, but I found out during hiring people is that it is the easiest/cheapest skill to hire. I am honestly curious about why pg skipped the most frequently asked question: Would Jessica be close to this level of successful if she was not his wife? Also I would be very curious to know about female founders that Jessica selected. According to [1], companies with at least 1 female founder has <10% of valuation compared to YC companies with all male founders[2]. Just on casual looking all female founder companies is <2% compared to all male founder companies, which is below average for VCs. [1]: https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/women-founders https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/women-founders [2]: https://www.ycombinator.com/ https://www.ycombinator.com/
- InitialLastName 3y agoI see: Combined Valuation (all companies): $600B Combined Valuation (Companies with women founders): $45B Still unbalanced, but closer to 15:1 as opposed to 49:1. That's also a comparisons that is totally useless without the base rate. If half the companies had female founders, it might be valid to say "why are the companies with women raising at a lower rate" but I'd be willing to bet that the application pool is heavily skewed male, and thus that the accepted pools are also heavily skewed male. It wouldn't shock me if that skew were on the order of 50:1. It also wouldn't shock me if it were trending in a more balanced direction; that would lead to a fundraising bias towards older companies that have raised more money over time and are more likely to have only men as founders.
- YetAnotherNick 3y agoI said 10% valuation for companies with at least 1 female founder compared to no female founder. And in that list, I could see something like 5:1 for company with at least female founder to company with all female founder. That is how I arrived with all female:all male ratio of 2% if we ignore mixed gender founder companies. Also I am not arguing whether female founders experience discrimination or not, I am just arguing YC's female ratio is not significantly higher than other VC's which pg hints at due to Jessica.
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- stcroixx 3y agoWouldn't be HN content without using the word orthogonal somewhere in there and this didn't disappoint.
- fragmede 3y agoI wonder what her Social Radar picks up off cryptocurrency-adjacent individuals. Because she's seen their pitches to YC. And that Social Radar of hers should get a good read on crypto bros. And so the question is how many of them are grifters and con artists trying to cash in on the next Bitcoin, and how many of them are true believers of the ideals being spouted. And how many of them are, actually, honestly, good people. Because they're there, but they seem few and far between.
- scg 3y agoCan you point to a single YC crypto / "cryptocurrency-adjacent" company that is a "grift"?
- btilly 3y agoWho determines whether it is a grift? I would cite Coinbase. But if you don't agree that it is a grift, what have we shown?
- fragmede 3y agoI don't follow the YC applicant space that closely. Is every rejection posted publicly? Cryptocurrencies do have some true believers, but there are also some of those that aren't. Hence by sheer statistics, we'd be safe to assume they exist in the YC applicant pool.
- louwrentius 3y agoCrypto is by definition a red flag. I don’t believe honest good people involve themselves with crypto.
- danq_ 3y ago[flagged]
- seizethecheese 3y agoYou clearly don’t know the history of YC or haven’t been involved in a startup. Paul and Jessica started YC together. Saying she is like Bill Gates’ wife is ludicrous. Maybe “Paul Allen” would be less wrong.
- danq_ 3y ago[flagged]
- saagarjha 3y agoLet’s not ignore the sexism here, because what you’ve written is pretty a blatant example. Besides that, the fact that you seem to have unironically written something like this: > Things like walking home alone in the dark and other activities with low probability of danger they just are more reactive to it for various reasons. makes me feel that you are either completely ignorant of women’s issues or minimizing them, neither of which helps your case.
- danq_ 3y ago[flagged]
- leshow 3y ago> The qualities of the founders are the best predictor of how a startup will do. And startups are in turn the most important source of growth in mature economies. Ah yes, "growth" in our economy is all because of a select few of super special amazing people. It seems obvious to me this is a post facto rationalization.
- telltruth 3y agoI wish pg the best but I think everyone should know how much legal liability these kind of public writings creates. A person I know closely had 25 year marriage in CA and he always believed in love and lifelong relationship. But as their kids went to college, wife's priorities changed. She started affair, started helping out her partner financially etc. Husband discovered all these accidently from her phone. After many discussions, they decided to file for divorce. She apparently claimed in court that she owned majority of his company even though she didn't played much of the part. The guy had started the company even before marriage by his own money. She produced bunch of emails among friend where he appreciated her for help. That was the end of it. It's easy to swept away in "love" and all that but the reality is that 50% of marriages in Western world ends in divorce. Always remember that people change over time.
- smt88 3y agoAnyone this cynical about marriage just shouldn't get married.
- telltruth 3y agoEveryone not cynical about marriage only realize their mistake after they get put in 50% bucket of divorces couples. No one who is getting married think they will the one who end up in divorce. It's always that other couple :).
- LukeShu 3y agoThat oft-cited statistic about divorce is misleading. Most marriages end in divorce, but most people who get married don't get divorced. It's that if you get divorced once, you're more likely to get divorced again; serial-divorcees produce a disproportionate number of marriages.
- seizethecheese 3y agoThis is an extremely weird thing to say, since Jessica is legitimately a cofounder of YC…
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- medler 3y agoCan’t read this without thinking about the founders I know who started (and are still running) a successful unicorn. When they were founding this unicorn, they applied to YC and were rejected. Why, I’ll never know, but they’re both fairly immigranty and the cynical side of me wonders if the “social radar” didn’t like that about them. There’s a thin line between social radar and unconscious bias.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- globalnode 3y agothanks for the link back to this, was a great story. i think women in general are more like this and as the article states, tend to never get enough credit for the things they achieve.
- sovietswag 3y agoThere was a comment here earlier explaining how many modest/humble/non-confrontational/etc qualities portrayed as reflections of good character in this article by PG come from a place of privilege. I think it’s gone now, does anybody have a copy of it / is the author around? It was probably unnecessarily mean but it was insightful for me and made me reflect. Would appreciate any help finding it, thanks
- tlrobinson 3y agoJessica is one of my favorite people from the YC community, and I think that’s a commonly shared opinion!
- crashingintoyou 3y agoMight as well link Jessica Livingston's post at https://foundersatwork.posthaven.com/the-sound-of-silence https://foundersatwork.posthaven.com/the-sound-of-silence Its' start: """ I recently heard one of the more interesting insights about Silicon Valley I'd heard in a while. It explained something I’d wondered about for years. But I can't tell you what it was. There's too much downside in sharing any opinion that could easily be misinterpreted online. Even facts are dangerous to share if they don’t align with what people want to believe. There's a lot of concern about "fake news" lately. That is a real problem, but there's also the opposite problem: true things that aren't being said. Some of the most useful things I've learned about startups over the years are also things I'd never share publicly. Not because the ideas are necessarily controversial in their own right, but because anyone could twist them to seem controversial if they were sufficiently motivated to. And when that happens I immediately regret having said anything. It's a massive distraction. I have two young kids, and I have hundreds of startups to keep track of. I don't have time to fight with people who are trying to misunderstand me. """