Leap Forward

Y Combinator is the legendary startup program that has launched more than 5,000 companies, collectively worth over a trillion dollars. Household names like Airbnb, DoorDash, Coinbase, Instacart, and Stripe. And without Jessica Livingston, YC would not exist today.

In this episode, we dive into Jessica’s unlikely origin story. She and her husband and co-founder Paul Graham share never-before-heard stories from YC's founding: the winding career path that gave Jessica an unlikely but perfect skill set, how a husband and wife built one of the most important institutions in startup history, and the secret to what Paul calls "the magic of Y Combinator".

Leap Forward is a show about founders and the people who believed in them before anyone else. Each episode traces the real story behind a company you might know, both from the perspective of the founder, and someone who believed in them before anyone else, like a first boss, early investor, college roommate, or even a parent. Through candid conversations we uncover the story of how companies actually get built, and why it rarely looks the way you might expect.