Breaking Precedent

This special summer compilation episode of Breaking Precedent asks a different David and Goliath question: what does it take to change an industry when Goliath controls the rules? Across real estate, rooftop solar, healthcare, consumer products, beverages, and food, the episode traces what happens when founders challenge systems that were built to protect incumbents.

Austin Allison describes the lawsuits, legal threats, and cease-and-desist letters that followed dotloop’s attempt to digitize real-estate transactions. Lynn Jurich revisits the rooftop-solar fight in Nevada, where a powerful utility tried to change the economics of distributed energy retroactively and force a new model back into the old rules.

Halle Tecco brings the theme into healthcare, naming the way incumbents can outspend challengers, bend policy, and make a noble goal feel like a fair contest when it is not. Eric Ryan explains how Method challenged the consumer-products giants that already controlled the shelves. Kara Goldin shares why Hint refused to accept preservatives and industry defaults as inevitable. Patrick Brown closes with the first-principles approach behind Impossible Foods and the idea that a massive problem can still be broken into solvable pieces.

Together, these conversations make the case that a better product is only the beginning. The real breaking point comes when the incumbent system decides the challenger is a threat, and the founder has to keep building through resistance, skepticism, regulation, capital, habit, and the temptation to give up.

Key Insights

A monopoly can protect itself through contracts, policy, distribution, capital, or habit.

Resistance is often evidence that a new model is threatening an old profit pool.

Passion matters because changing an entrenched market is too hard to sustain as a purely abstract exercise.

Founders need allies and ground-level organizing, not only a strong product.

Industry defaults often survive because nobody asks who benefits from them.

A new category can begin with a smaller product, a different process, or a better question.

Large problems become more workable when they are broken into solvable components.

The most durable disruption creates a precedent that other people can build on.

Timestamps

00:00 Rigged Systems

01:19 Real Estate Forms War

03:01 Solar Versus Utilities

04:24 Healthcare Incumbents

05:34 Founder Passion Test

08:33 Changing Real Estate

12:03 Network Effects Resistance

15:06 Change Management Playbook

17:55 Book Takeaways

19:34 Method Origin Story

21:03 Design Meets Sustainability

22:23 Co Founder Dynamic

22:50 Risk And Roles

23:06 Bootstrapping Method

23:57 De Risking The Idea

25:15 Cold Email Design

28:07 Target Breakthrough

29:52 Hint Shelf Life

33:18 Integrity Over Easy

36:42 Impossible Foods Mission

39:15 Solving Big Problems

40:23 Silicon Valley Culture

Featured Voices

Leah Solivan, Austin Allison, Lynn Jurich, Halle Tecco, Eric Ryan, Kara Goldin, and Patrick Brown.

Connect with Leah

Website: https://www.breakingprecedent.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/leah_solivan/
X: https://twitter.com/labunleashed

What if the parts of us we try hardest to hide are actually where our strongest leadership begins?

This summer, Breaking Precedent is revisiting conversations that feel just as relevant now as when they were first recorded. In this episode, Bonobos co-founder, author, and Pie founder Andy Dunn joins Leah Solivan to talk about building something non-consensus, navigating identity, living with bipolar disorder, and finding meaning beyond achievement.

Andy is best known for helping pioneer direct-to-consumer retail through Bonobos, which grew from a better-fitting men’s pants idea into a category-shaping brand. But what makes this conversation so powerful is not just the company-building story. It is Andy’s willingness to talk honestly about the unseen costs of ambition, the pressure to perform, and the danger of confusing success with wholeness.

The conversation explores growing up in a biracial household in suburban Chicago, learning to embrace difference, founding Bonobos at the dawn of digital retail, selling the company to Walmart, and writing Burn Rate, Andy’s memoir about entrepreneurship and bipolar disorder. Leah and Andy also discuss mental health stigma, the role of love and accountability in healing, the need for real-life community, and why his newest company, Pie, is focused on helping people build meaningful offline friendships.

Relaunch Context
This conversation originally captured Andy in a new chapter after Bonobos and Burn Rate, as he was building Pie around the problem of loneliness and real-life connection. That mission has only become more timely. As of 2026, Andy is still actively building Pie in Chicago as a platform designed to bring people together in real life and combat social isolation. The replay is preserved because its larger themes of vulnerability, mental health, identity, community, and building against consensus remain central to the Breaking Precedent mission.

Timestamps
00:00 Why this conversation matters now
00:49 Andy Dunn on breaking precedent
00:58 Welcome to Breaking Precedent
01:10 Introducing Andy Dunn
01:20 Building Bonobos
01:35 Identity, humor, and belonging
02:00 Bonobos, Walmart, and success beyond the exit
02:10 Burn Rate and mental health
02:50 Building Pie and real-life connection
03:30 Andy Dunn joins Leah
03:50 What it means to be a precedent breaker
05:00 Growing up in a multicultural household
05:20 Becoming aware of difference
06:30 Wanting to fit in
07:20 Finding power in what makes you different
08:20 Early self-expression and fashion
09:50 Family, leadership, and cultural heritage
11:50 Early ideas about entrepreneurship
13:20 Michael Jordan, Chicago, and entrepreneurial aspiration
14:50 Northwestern, consulting, and business ambition
15:50 Stanford GSB and learning to dream bigger
18:20 Meeting Brian Spaly and the Bonobos origin story
20:30 Why new companies have to be non-consensus
21:30 Helping men care about fit
23:00 Building a better digital customer experience
24:50 Guide shops and the return to physical retail
25:50 Nordstrom and breaking the DTC playbook
27:50 Bonobos’ legacy in modern digital brands
29:00 Lessons from trying to build software inside Bonobos
31:30 Writing Burn Rate and revealing a hidden story
32:20 Being diagnosed with bipolar disorder
33:30 Understanding mania, hypomania, and psychosis
35:30 Denial, family culture, and burying the diagnosis
36:50 Entrepreneurship and mood disorders
37:30 Living for years without facing the diagnosis
40:20 A second manic episode and much higher stakes
42:00 Shame, legal consequences, and depression
43:10 Recovery, treatment, and support
44:20 Love, accountability, and Manuela’s family
45:00 Why language matters around mental illness
46:30 Culture, therapy, and difficult conversations
50:20 Understanding neurodiversity and mental hygiene
51:40 Why everyone should think about mental fitness
52:40 Turning perceived weakness into superpower
53:20 The gift is in the wound
54:30 Taking off the mask in the second half of life
56:40 Building Pie
57:00 From senior dating to platonic friendship
58:50 Discovering the need for real-life connection
59:40 Rebuilding Pie in person in Chicago
01:01:30 The next social network may compete for offline attention
01:02:40 AI, friendship, and better matching
01:04:30 Redefining success
01:05:30 Seasons of sacrifice, family, and future meaning
01:07:00 The societal precedent Andy wants to break
01:07:10 Building friendships across political difference
01:09:30 Mind, gut, and heart in decision-making
01:10:40 Leah’s closing reflection
01:11:10 Vulnerability, neurodiversity, and perceived weakness as strength

About the Guest
Andy Dunn is an entrepreneur, author, and investor best known as the co-founder of Bonobos, one of the early direct-to-consumer brands that helped reshape modern retail. Bonobos pioneered new ways of combining digital commerce, customer experience, fit, and later physical guide shops before being acquired by Walmart.

Andy is also the author of Burn Rate: Launching a Startup and Losing My Mind, a memoir about building Bonobos while living with bipolar disorder. Today, he is the founder of Pie, a Chicago-based platform focused on helping people build real-life friendships and fight social isolation.

Connect with Leah
Website: breakingprecedent.com
Instagram: @leah_solivan
X: @labunleashed

This special summer episode of Breaking Precedent asks the question success does not answer for you: now what? Across Olympic competition, company building, professional sports, venture-backed startups, and personal reinvention, the episode traces what happens after the medal, the acquisition, the stadium, or the thing you built no longer defines your day.

Nastia Liukin reflects on standing on the Olympic podium and feeling the fear that can arrive inside a moment everyone expects to feel only triumphant. Leah Solivan connects that feeling to the sale of TaskRabbit to IKEA, when a dream outcome also meant letting go of a company that had become part of her identity. Austin Allison talks about the constant pull of the next mountain after Zillow and the long path toward Pacaso. Ryan Nece describes the withdrawal from professional football, the fight with ego, and why building a startup was harder than being on the field.

Julie Rice adds the emotional disorientation of leaving SoulCycle and learning what it means for a brand to live beyond its founder. Bianca Gates shares how Birdies began through imperfect first steps, good-enough prototypes, and the decision to keep walking before everything was figured out. Andy Dunn brings the theme to its deepest edge, naming the way identity can become a mask and how the second half of life asks us to take it off.

Together, these conversations make the case that achievement can be meaningful without being complete. The real breaking point comes after the win, when the old scorecard stops working and the next chapter has to be built from something deeper than applause.

Key Insights

Success can create a new kind of uncertainty because it removes the goal that once organized your life.

A medal, title, company, relationship, or salary can be meaningful without being the thing that defines who someone is.

For founders, selling a company can feel like both relief and grief, especially when the company has become part of the founder's identity.

Ambition can inspire risk, sacrifice, and leadership, but it can also make every milestone feel insufficient.

The transition out of professional sports can feel like withdrawal from significance, spotlight, and structure.

Perfectionism can help someone reach excellence, but the same pattern can become limiting when life no longer has a clear scoring system.

Reinvention does not always require a perfect plan. Sometimes it starts with a good-enough first version and a willingness to keep walking.

The work after success is not only about building again. It is about learning how to live without needing the old role to prove your worth.

Timestamps

00:00 The Question Success Does Not Answer

00:33 Nastia On The Podium Now What

02:02 Identity Beyond Winning

02:26 TaskRabbit Exit Emotions

06:29 Achievement Withdrawal

08:18 Zillow Exit Next Mission

11:15 Retirement Feels Empty

12:04 Athlete Withdrawal Ego

14:16 Perfectionism Unlearning

16:44 Life After Scoring

17:40 Startup Harder Than Sports

19:43 SoulCycle After Leaving

22:11 Peoplehood Relational Health

24:28 Birdies Done Better

28:27 Leap From Facebook

31:40 Taking off the Mask

Featured Voices

Nastia Liukin, Stacy Brown-Philpot, Austin Allison, Ryan Nece, Julie Rice, Bianca Gates, and Andy Dunn.

Connect with Leah

Website: https://www.breakingprecedent.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/leah_solivan/
X: https://twitter.com/labunleashed

What happens when leadership becomes a way of creating opportunity for other people?

This summer, Breaking Precedent is revisiting conversations that feel just as resonant now as when they were first recorded. In this episode, Leah Solivan sits down with Stacy Brown-Philpot to explore leadership, resilience, trust, and what it means to build systems that help more people participate in wealth creation.

Stacy Brown-Philpot is a longtime operator, board leader, investor, and former CEO of TaskRabbit whose career spans Google, the gig economy, inclusive capital, and the launch of Cherry Rock Capital. Her story begins in Detroit, in a four-generation household shaped by women who taught her to stand up for herself, care for others, and never let circumstances define who she could become.

The conversation traces Stacy's path from Detroit to Penn, Stanford, Google, TaskRabbit, SoftBank, and Cherry Rock Capital. Leah and Stacy reflect on what it takes to build trust inside a company, why TaskRabbit's human side mattered as much as its technology, how hard decisions can save a business, and why access to capital is not a pipeline problem. They also explore candor, resilience, inclusive investing, AI, founder self-awareness, and the leadership work of becoming more fully yourself.

Relaunch Context

This episode originally captured Stacy Brown-Philpot at a moment of reflection across multiple chapters of her career: operator, CEO, board member, investor, and founder. The replay is preserved because its larger themes remain urgent: how leaders tell the truth without losing humanity, how companies scale without flattening trust, and how capital can become a tool for changing who gets to build enduring businesses.

Timestamps

00:00 Welcome back to Breaking Precedent

00:21 Stacy Brown-Philpot's leadership through line

01:20 Leah introduces Stacy Brown-Philpot

02:20 Icebreaker: Detroit roots and karaoke confidence

04:20 Growing up in a four-generation Detroit household

05:30 Learning to stand up for yourself

06:40 Being the only woman or only Black person in the room

08:20 Candor, hard decisions, and withholding judgment

09:40 Education, reading, and learning how to learn

12:20 Choosing Penn and discovering Wharton

13:40 Goldman, Google, and strong company cultures

15:50 Detroit resilience and Stanford perspective

18:00 What educators should understand about spotting potential

19:30 Responsibility, motivation, and doing well by doing good

20:30 Early signs of leadership

22:00 Entering TaskRabbit and scaling the company

24:00 Culture, free lunch, and building connection inside the office

26:40 TaskRabbit, human trust, and the gig economy

29:20 Scaling without commoditizing human work

30:00 Changing the TaskRabbit model

31:10 The London launch and the hard reset

32:10 Conviction during backlash

33:40 What an AI-native TaskRabbit could look like

36:00 The board vote to sell TaskRabbit to IKEA

39:50 Moving from operator to investor

42:00 SoftBank Opportunity Fund and turning outrage into action

44:20 Why there was no pipeline problem

45:00 Inclusive capital is not charity

46:00 Cherry Rock Capital and the Series A gap

48:00 Hard truths with kindness

50:10 Coaching founders after the check

51:30 Founder traits, grit, teams, and self-awareness

53:50 Responsibility after success

55:00 Changing the face of wealth creation

55:40 Rejecting the 24-hour work culture

56:50 Becoming who you really are

58:00 Closing reflection

About the Guest

Stacy Brown-Philpot is an operator, investor, board leader, and former CEO of TaskRabbit. Her career has included leadership roles at Google and TaskRabbit, board service across major companies, work with the SoftBank Opportunity Fund, and the founding of Cherry Rock Capital.

Across her work, Stacy has focused on building systems that create opportunity: for employees, taskers, founders, and communities that have historically had less access to capital and power. Her leadership reflects a belief that resilience, candor, trust, and responsibility can shape not only individual careers, but the structure of who gets to build and benefit from the future

Connect with Leah

Website: breakingprecedent.com

Instagram: @leah_solivan

X: @labunleashed

This special summer episode of Breaking Precedent brings together six investors who are each rewriting the assumptions behind who gets funded. Across venture capital, professional sports, and philanthropy, the conversation traces where the industry's oldest excuses fall apart, and what these investors built instead.

Samara Mejia Hernandez talks about building Chingona Ventures around the fastest growing, least funded founder population in the country. Stacy Brown-Philpot explains how she and two co-founders proved there was no pipeline problem, and why that discovery led her to launch Cherry Rock Capital. Ryan Nece reflects on what he saw handing money to unqualified advisors in professional sports, and why he built Next Play Capital instead. Ann Miura-Ko traces how much less capital it now takes to start a company, and questions whether venture has built enough tools beyond its own standard model. Aaron Holiday breaks down the structural math problem that led him to co-found 645 Ventures. Shiza Shahid describes why she left nonprofit fundraising for an investing model that let her stay closer to the work.

Together, these conversations make the case that capital is never neutral. Access is a decision, not a law of nature.

Key Insights

• What sounds like a pipeline problem in venture is usually a myth. The real gap shows up later, at Series A.
• Framing founder diversity as charity misses the point. These investors underwrite for returns, not goodwill.
• Access to capital does not guarantee access to good advice.
• Pattern matching rewards familiarity. Thoughtfulness rewards attention.
• The amount of capital a company needs to start has changed faster than venture's own toolkit.

Timestamps

00:00 Capital’s Clean Myth

00:35 Scarcity to Math Drive

01:53 Naming Chingona Ventures

03:06 Breaking Into Venture

04:47 Investing in the New Majority

06:16 Opportunity Fund Origin Story

08:46 Killing the Charity Narrative

10:01 Coaching as Value Add

12:58 Cherry Rock Series A Gap

14:44 Athlete Founder Reality Check

17:53 Building Thoughtful Access

20:14 Thoughtful as Greatness

21:31 Beyond Founder Stereotypes

22:47 Athlete Career Transitions

23:57 Anne Mirakos VC Origin

26:27 Networking Without Networking

27:48 From 911 to New VC

30:21 Fixing Venture Incentives

33:36 Building Cornell Tech

37:52 Why Six Four Five

39:23 Shiz Shahid on Impact

41:47 Founder Empathy Investing

Featured Voices

Samara Mejia Hernandez (Chingona Ventures), Stacy Brown-Philpot (Cherry Rock Capital), Ryan Nece (Next Play Capital), Ann Miura-Ko (Floodgate), Aaron Holiday (645 Ventures), and Shiza Shahid.

Resources

• Breaking Precedent: https://www.breakingprecedent.com/

Fund and company websites for the six guests are not stated in the transcript and are not included here. Source and confirm them before publishing rather than guessing at URLs.

Connect with Leah

Website: https://www.breakingprecedent.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/leah_solivan/
X: https://twitter.com/labunleashed

What happens when culture becomes a form of leadership?

This summer, Breaking Precedent is revisiting conversations that feel just as resonant now as when they were first recorded. In this episode, Leah Solivan sits down with Derrick T. Jones, better known as D-Nice, to explore how music, creativity, and shared experience can become infrastructure for connection.

D-Nice is a legendary DJ, photographer, producer, and cultural connector whose career spans the early days of hip-hop, reinvention through technology, and the global phenomenon of Club Quarantine. What began as an Instagram Live DJ set during the isolation of COVID became a virtual gathering place for millions, reminding people that music can do more than entertain. It can hold people together.

The conversation traces D-Nice’s path from hip-hop pioneer to world-renowned DJ, his role in the Stop the Violence Movement, the responsibility artists carry in public life, and why joy itself can be a serious form of service. Leah and D-Nice also explore reinvention, optimism, technology, execution, and what it means to build spaces where people feel seen, included, and connected.

Relaunch Context
This episode originally captured a moment when the memory of Club Quarantine was still closely tied to the isolation and uncertainty of the pandemic. The replay is preserved because its larger themes remain urgent: how culture builds community, how artists can lead without becoming detached from humanity, and how shared joy can become a public good in fractured times.

Key Insights
Culture is not just entertainment; it can become infrastructure for belonging.
Music can create community across geography, industry, generation, and status.
Reinvention is not a single pivot; it is a lifelong creative discipline.
Technology can amplify connection when it is used in service of human presence.
Club Quarantine worked because it gave people more than a soundtrack; it gave them a place to gather.
Artists carry responsibility because their work shapes the emotional atmosphere of a culture.
Joy can be a serious intervention during seasons of fear, loneliness, and uncertainty.
The Stop the Violence Movement showed how hip-hop could respond directly to social crisis.
Execution matters as much as ideas, especially when trying to reach people at scale.
Breaking precedent can mean refusing to let success harden into a fixed identity.

Timestamps
00:00 Welcome back to Breaking Precedent
00:21 Misty Copeland’s farewell gala
02:00 Career shifts and the impact of COVID
02:45 Icebreaker: reinventing yourself
04:00 Childhood memories and early upbringing
07:00 Entering hip-hop at a young age
13:00 Technology, creativity, and new tools for artists
23:00 Community, generosity, and giving back
29:00 The musical journey into DJing
35:00 Creating “Stop the Violence”
39:00 Hope and optimism in difficult times
40:00 Politics, culture, and personal reflection
42:00 The birth of Club Quarantine
42:21 How Club Quarantine evolved
53:00 From virtual parties to iconic venues
58:00 Reinvention and resilience in entertainment
01:06:00 AI, technology, and the future of creativity
01:11:56 Ideas, execution, and thinking about the masses

About the Guest
Derrick T. Jones, known professionally as D-Nice, is a DJ, photographer, producer, and cultural curator whose career spans decades at the intersection of music, art, technology, and community. He first rose to prominence in hip-hop before becoming one of the most influential DJs of his generation.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, D-Nice created Club Quarantine, a virtual DJ gathering that brought people together through Instagram Live and became one of the defining cultural moments of lockdown. His work continues to demonstrate how music can build bridges across communities, industries, and generations.

D-Nice
Club Quarantine
Boogie Down Productions
Stop the Violence Movement

Resources
D-Nice
Club Quarantine
Boogie Down Productions
Stop the Violence Movement
Misty Copeland
Carnegie Hall
Kennedy Center
Hollywood Bowl
AI and creativity

Connect with Leah
Website: breakingprecedent.com
Instagram: @leah_solivan
X: @labunleashed

This special summer compilation of Breaking Precedent brings together artists and culture makers who have each broken precedent in a different way. Across Broadway, music, food, visual art, ballet, and memoir, the episode explores how artists sense cultural change before systems have language for it.

Rachel Sussman talks about theater that asks hard questions. D-Nice reflects on Club Quarantine as a cultural lifeline. Christina Tosi explains how limitation can become the creative engine. Windy Chien connects outsider identity to artistic freedom. Tamara Rojo reframes ballet as an art form of reinvention and emotional access. Sarah Hoover speaks about turning rage and postpartum pain into work that other people can recognize.

Together, these conversations make the case that art is not downstream from culture. Artists often move first.

Key Insights

• Storytelling can reach culture faster than policy.
• Limitation can force originality.
• Digital spaces can become meaningful cultural rooms when people need connection.
• Being outside a system can make it easier to build by your own rules.
• Great institutions survive by changing while protecting what matters.
• Art can give language to private experiences people rarely say out loud.

Timestamps

00:00 Artists move first
00:25 Rachel Sussman on art with social conscience
01:55 Storytelling and political culture
04:30 Hillary Clinton, Malala, and Broadway producing
07:17 Liberation, motherhood, and intergenerational progress
12:30 Broadway's financial model
14:42 D-Nice on creative reinvention
17:20 Club Quarantine as culture
20:50 Christina Tosi and the empty pantry
25:45 Limitation as creativity
29:10 Windy Chien on outsider identity
33:35 Planning a creative leap
37:25 Tamara Rojo on ballet and reinvention
42:00 Ballet as emotion in movement
45:52 Sarah Hoover on rage and art
48:05 Artists make the invisible visible

Featured Voices

Rachel Sussman, D-Nice, Christina Tosi, Windy Chien, Tamara Rojo, and Sarah Hoover.

Resources

• Milk Bar: https://milkbarstore.com/
• Christina Tosi: https://www.christinatosi.com/
• Windy Chien: https://www.windychien.com/
• San Francisco Ballet: https://www.sfcballet.org/

What if the healthcare system is not simply broken, but producing exactly what it was designed to produce?

This summer, Breaking Precedent is revisiting conversations that feel just as urgent now as when they were first recorded. In this episode, emergency physician and author Dr. Thomas Fisher joins Leah Solivan to examine what the ER reveals about American society, why caring clinicians can still become trapped inside harmful systems, and what it means to move upstream from treatment toward public action.

Dr. Fisher grew up on Chicago's South Side and has spent more than two decades caring for patients in the community that raised him. He explains why the emergency department became his window into inequality: everybody gets sick, everybody gets injured, and every failure outside the hospital eventually arrives inside it.

The conversation explores The Emergency, the patient stories healthcare workers carry, what COVID revealed about public health, how metrics can improve or distort care, why startups cannot fix healthcare alone, and why the moral purpose of the system must be to protect one another when we are vulnerable.

Relaunch Context

This interview was recorded while Dr. Fisher was running for the Democratic nomination in Illinois' 7th Congressional District. The primary took place on March 17, 2026; State Representative La Shawn Ford won the nomination, and Dr. Fisher did not advance. The campaign portion is preserved as recorded because its larger themes of service, policy, truth, and moral responsibility remain relevant.

Key Insights

• Emergency medicine requires finding the signal inside a constant flood of decisions and distractions.
• The ER is one of the few places where every part of society still enters through the same door.
• Entrenched systems often create exactly the outcomes they were designed to create.
• Caregivers and patients can be trapped together inside the same harmful structure.
• COVID exposed systemic weakness while also demonstrating the power of science and public-health execution.
• Metrics need a clearly defined moral purpose or they become targets to manipulate.
• Entrepreneurship can build necessary healthcare tools, but only public systems can guarantee that everyone is included.
• Moving upstream means addressing the policy and economic conditions that repeatedly send people into crisis.
• We do not control every outcome, but we can choose how we live and serve.

Timestamps

00:00 Why this conversation remains relevant
00:49 Welcome to Breaking Precedent
01:30 Non-obvious superpowers
02:38 Finding the signal in the noise
04:30 Growing up on Chicago's South Side
06:35 Family, education, and a legacy of service
09:00 Learning the stories history books left out
10:00 Seeing unequal systems from both sides
14:25 Leaving Chicago for Dartmouth
15:55 Violence, safety, and the desire for a different experience
17:35 Choosing medicine
19:20 Meaning, grief, and the illusion of stability
20:45 Why emergency medicine became his calling
21:38 The ER as society's common denominator
23:35 Writing The Emergency as a love letter
25:10 Systems working as designed
27:40 The patient story that still stays with him
30:10 What healthcare workers carry from COVID
31:05 Why public health may be worse off
32:30 The vaccine as a triumph of American ingenuity
33:15 When metrics replace the patient
36:30 The moral purpose of healthcare
36:50 EMTALA, emergency care, and the missing next step
39:00 Entrepreneurship and healthcare innovation
40:30 Why startups are only part of the solution
42:38 Moving from bedside care toward public service
43:10 Why treating patients was no longer enough
44:00 Choosing how to live
45:05 Entering public service as a doctor
46:00 Learning the machinery of politics
48:25 Healthcare, public safety, and shared responsibility
50:50 Universal coverage
52:30 Truth and courage in Congress
54:00 A toast to the ancestors
56:00 Remembering we are part of something bigger
57:05 Closing reflection

About the Guest

Dr. Thomas Fisher is a board-certified emergency medicine physician, author, and public-health leader who has spent more than two decades caring for patients on Chicago's South Side. He studied at Dartmouth College, the University of Chicago School of Medicine, and the Harvard School of Public Health, and previously served as a White House Fellow.

He is the author of The Emergency: A Year of Healing and Heartbreak in a Chicago ER. In 2026, he ran in the Democratic primary for Illinois' 7th Congressional District.

Dr. Thomas Fisher
The Emergency
University of Chicago Medicine

Resources

The Emergency by Thomas Fisher
Redesign Health
MiSalud Health
Medicare
Medicaid

Connect with Leah

Website: breakingprecedent.com
Instagram: @leah_solivan
X: @labunleashed

During our summer break, we're revisiting a compilation of previously released episodes about a healthcare system that is at once the most advanced in the world and one of the most broken. Hear Halle Tecco on why healthcare can't absorb its own innovation, Dr. Thomas Fisher on a system that's working exactly as designed, Lynn Jurich on the research gap that overlooked women's bodies, Kevin Caldwell of Ossium Health on prevention at the cellular level, and Andy Dunn on why mental health is health.  Together, these stories trace why the system stays broken and introduce the people working to change it. 

• Broken System: Halle Tecco on What it Takes to Build Massively Better Healthcare Listen here: Apple | Spotify
• Emergency Break: A Doctor's Case for Rebuilding the System, Not Just Treating the Symptoms Listen here: Apple | Spotify
• Shattering the Grid: Lynn Jurich on Electrifying Homes and Extending Women's Lives Listen here: Apple | Spotify
• Breaking Bad: Kevin Caldwell and Ossium Health is Banking on Bone Marrow for Curing Cancers and Transforming Longevity Listen here: Apple | Spotify
• The Breakdown: Andy Dunn on Building Bonobos, Battling Bipolar, and Baking Pie Listen here: Apple | Spotify

Halle Tecco Halle Tecco is a healthcare investor, operator, and educator who founded Rock Health, the first venture fund dedicated to digital health. An angel investor and longtime voice in health innovation, she frames healthcare around the "iron triangle," now four aims of better outcomes, greater access, lower cost, and a better experience, and argues the industry has "an implementation problem, not an innovation problem." In this episode she draws on case studies from her work, including PillPack and the cautionary tale of uBiome, to explain why the system so often rewards incumbents over better ideas. Connect with Halle Tecco on LinkedIn and at halletecco.com

Dr. Thomas Fisher Dr. Thomas Fisher is an emergency physician and the author of The Emergency: A Year of Healing and Heartbreak in a Chicago ER. Writing and practicing from inside an overwhelmed emergency department, he makes the case that the system is "working as designed," built to step in when things go wrong rather than to keep people well, and that its true moral purpose is to protect us when we are most vulnerable. In this episode he shares the story of a COVID-era patient he couldn't save, and how the same metrics that hide problems can be used to close equity gaps. Dr. Fisher is now a candidate for U.S. Congress in Illinois, carrying his case for rebuilding the system into public office. Connect with Dr. Thomas Fisher on LinkedIn and learn about his campaign at Thomas Fisher for Congress

Lynn Jurich Lynn Jurich is a serial entrepreneur best known as the co-founder and former CEO of Sunrun, which she led for 16 years and took public as the largest residential solar company in the U.S. After a health scare in her early forties, she turned her attention to female longevity, building a new standard of precision, prevention-first care for women. In this episode she confronts how little research exists on women's bodies, noting that before 2016, 80% of NIH studies were conducted only on men, and what it would take to change that. Connect with Lynn Jurich on LinkedIn

Kevin Caldwell Kevin Caldwell is the co-founder of Ossium Health, which is building the first large-scale bank of bone-marrow stem cells for cell therapies, and a Bridgewater Associates alum. Convinced that rising healthcare costs are better solved through biotechnology than through politics, he champions proactive, preventative medicine: banking your own stem cells while you're young and healthy, the way you might fund a 401(k). His guiding line, borrowed from Virgil's Aeneid: "the greatest wealth is health." Learn more about Ossium Health and connect with Kevin Caldwell on LinkedIn

Andy Dunn Andy Dunn is the co-founder and former CEO of Bonobos, the menswear brand acquired by Walmart, and the author of Burn Rate: Launching a Startup and Losing My Mind, a memoir about building a company while living with bipolar disorder. A leading voice on founder mental health, he speaks candidly about diagnosis, a second manic episode at the height of his success, recovery, and the conviction that mental health is not separate from physical health. Connect with Andy Dunn at andydunn.com and on Instagram

Resources: Rock Health PillPack Outlive (Peter Attia) Sunrun The Emergency (Thomas Fisher) Burn Rate (Andy Dunn) Bonobos NIH

Show Notes:

00:00 – The most advanced system in the world, and one of the most broken
00:25 – Welcome to Breaking Precedent
00:35 – Halle Tecco: growing up on Medicaid, the haves and have-nots
01:10 – Where you live predicts how long you live
02:13 – It's not effort: the incentives don't match
02:28 – "Death by pilot": an implementation problem, not innovation
03:40 – The system is rigged: incumbents, PillPack, and the DC lobby
04:33 – From the iron triangle to four aims: follow the evidence
05:23 – Founders carry the full stack
06:00 – Venture timelines vs. healthcare, and the uBiome cautionary tale
08:01 – Nobody knows what anything costs
08:25 – Built for emergencies: why inefficiency is a feature
08:56 – Dr. Thomas Fisher: "working as designed"
10:13 – The story that keeps him up at night
12:33 – Health is economic
13:03 – Misinformation, vaccines, and losing sight of the stakes
14:48 – Juking the stats, and using metrics to close the gap
17:02 – Lynn Jurich: from sick care to health span
17:43 – Neck surgery at 41 and the women's-health research gap
19:45 – Precision, prevention-first care for women
21:22 – Kevin Caldwell: prevention at the cellular l...

What if the real value in a startup is not the code you write, but the learning you earn?

Eric Ries, author of The Lean Startup and Incorruptible, joins Leah Solivan on Breaking Precedent to talk about the painful lessons behind the Lean Startup movement, why AI does not replace human learning, and how founders can build companies designed to stay mission-driven over time.

Eric shares the IMVU story that shaped his thinking: after months of engineering work, the team realized they had built around the wrong customer behavior. That experience led him to the core insight behind The Lean Startup: progress in uncertainty should be measured by validated learning, not by how much product has been built.

Leah and Eric also discuss the Long-Term Stock Exchange, the short-term incentives of public markets, and Eric's new book, Incorruptible: Why Good Companies Go Bad...and How Great Companies Stay Great. Eric argues that many companies are not truly mission-driven; they are mission hopeful. To endure, companies need structures that protect trust, purpose, and long-term value when the pressure to optimize for transactions, growth at all costs, or conventional "best practices" gets loud.

Key Insights

• Failure taught Eric lessons that theory could not.
• The IMVU pivot showed him that building more code is not the same thing as creating more value.
• If you do not know who the customer is, you do not know what quality means.
• AI should help founders learn faster, not outsource the learning that creates startup value.
• Public markets often reward transaction volume rather than long-term company building.
• Mission-driven companies need governance, culture, and business models that protect the mission from corruption.
• Trust is a real business asset and can create a durable competitive advantage.
• Founders should question "best practice" advice when it pushes the company away from long-term value.

Timestamps

00:00 Coordinating the episode with Eric's book release
00:38 Welcome to Breaking Precedent
00:58 Leah and Eric's early connection through Floodgate and TaskRabbit
Eric Ries on Voluntary Exchange, Lean Startup Lessons, and Building the Long-Term Stock Exchange

Host Leah Sullivan (TaskRabbit founder and VC) interviews Eric Ries, creator of The Lean Startup and the Long-Term Stock Exchange (LTSE), discussing how voluntary exchange creates wealth when transactions are voluntary and informed, and how exploitative systems undermine trust. Ries reflects on growing up in San Diego in a family of Holocaust-survivor doctors, discovering programming and the early internet, and learning from a failed dot-com startup and the different attitudes toward failure on the East Coast versus Silicon Valley. He recounts IMVU’s early mistake—building for existing friends instead of new-friend discovery—leading to the insights behind MVPs, pivots, and validated learning. Ries explains LTSE as an SEC-regulated exchange designed to reward long-term, stakeholder-oriented governance, critiques transaction-volume incentives, and previews his book Incorruptible, a manual for building and protecting mission-driven companies, citing examples like Patagonia, IKEA, Costco, and Novo Nordisk and challenging “best practices” such as quarterly reporting.

00:00 Voluntary Exchange Magic
00:31 Meet Leah and Eric
02:02 Old Friends and Investors
03:15 Downturn Business Ideas
05:17 Barter and Fair Rules
07:24 Recession Policy and Power
08:56 Early Life and Family Roots
11:08 Programming and Internet Escape
13:26 Yale Choice and Dotcom Era
16:24 First Startup Failure Lessons
19:46 IMVU Pivot Births Lean
23:49 Minimum Viable Learning
25:33 Building the Lean Framework
27:12 Explaining Lean at IMVU
28:48 Truth Over Convention
30:09 Lean Startup in AI
31:59 Why Build LTSE
37:10 How LTSE Works
39:36 Incorruptible Mission Companies
43:27 Examples That Break Rules
51:01 Kroger vs Costco Governance
54:43 Closing Reflections

About the Guest

Eric Ries is an entrepreneur and the author of The Lean Startup, The Startup Way, and Incorruptible: Why Good Companies Go Bad...and How Great Companies Stay Great. He is the founder of the Long-Term Stock Exchange and has worked with startups, large companies, nonprofits, and government organizations on innovation, validated learning, and long-term company building.

Eric Ries
Incorruptible
Long-Term Stock Exchange

Resources

Incorruptible by Eric Ries
Simon & Schuster: Incorruptible
The Long-Term Stock Exchange
The Lean Startup
IMVU
TaskRabbit
IKEA
Novo Nordisk
Costco

Connect with Leah

Website: breakingprecedent.com
Instagram: @leah_solivan
X: @labunleashed