
Jessica Livingston: How to Build the Future - sama
http://www.ycombinator.com/future/jessica/
======
noodles23
This is how you do great content marketing and branding.

This entire video series is about inspiring people with a side benefit of
illustrating what makes YC special.

Compare this to content by other accelerators (of which there are many). It's
not a lecture nor a recital of advice. It's a series of relatable and
personable stories with a consistent theme. Start with "Why" you do something,
not how or what.

~~~
sandslash
Thanks! That's what we aimed for.

Feel free to shoot me any suggestions of content you'd find useful via email.
We're always looking for more ways to make valuable and interesting content
more accessible to everyone.

~~~
tedmiston
Hey Steven, Could you enable download for the interviews on Soundcloud?

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bobbylox
I think there needs to be a moratorium on that AirBnB political cereal box
story. "The most important thing to do is to focus on your business, but also
it's cool if you spend time on a random side business," is a big mixed
message.

~~~
simonebrunozzi
I hope people remember that AirBnB spammed Craigslist to grow their user base.
Not a great example of ethical behavior, IMHO.

~~~
mbrock
The takeaway lesson being perhaps that ethical violations are often good for
business?

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elmar
Great interview, I think Jessica was the secret sauce that made YC so good.

~~~
runesoerensen
One of her co-founders agree
[http://paulgraham.com/jessica.html](http://paulgraham.com/jessica.html) :)

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nickpsecurity
It was a great interview. The story about how Airbnb started is interesting.
I'd have laughed at renting air beds during conferences, too. I'd see
potential in it but not billions. The pivot and cereal gimmicks were excellent
examples of her advice that determination is most important. Also, remember
that most politicians or Fortune 100 CEO's didn't get there by being the
smartest. They also got there with a combo of understanding people, focus and
determination. Ruthlessly so in many cases.

So, the goal was increasing innovation across the board rather than making
money. Hmm. I've previously brought up that I'm anti-VC innovation because
many just get acquired by big companies that shelve it, esp if patents are
involved. I also know they're interested in exporting or improving Y
Combinator. I think it would be interesting if they modified the model so the
software had to be GPL, the business had anti-lockin tooling like data
importers, and/or patent suit immunity for non-profits or free software doing
compatible offerings. These kept true even after an IPO or acquisition by
legal means. A combo of techniques like these would allow continuous stream of
competition while preserving most of worth of company due to its brand and
first-mover advantage.

What you all think about that or another modification of YC model to
discourage monopolistic practices, lock-in or shelving post-acquisition?

~~~
ryandrake
> Also, remember that most politicians or Fortune 100 CEO's didn't get there
> by being the smartest. They also got there with a combo of understanding
> people, focus and determination.

Huh, and here I thought it was access to family money and Ivy League elite
connections. Who knew?

~~~
nickpsecurity
"Huh, and here I thought it was access to family money and Ivy League elite
connections. Who knew?"

That, too. There's many more who have access to those than who run Fortune 100
companies or the U.S. government. Additional traits factored in to filter the
ones that made it. My reading on many of them led me to think a few were
important. So, connections and starting point _plus_ those traits.

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SmellyGeekBoy
Maybe slightly off topic, but I'm subscribed to YC on Soundcloud and had a
notification pop up last night to tell me that this interview was available.
Hit "play" on the driveway this morning while still connected to wifi and
started my commute. 5 minutes later and it cuts out - mobile data dropped out
(I live in a rural area).

Does the Soundcloud app not support buffering at all? I'd have thought that 20
minutes of speech would be a couple of MB at most. I see I can "upgrade" to
allow offline listening for £9.99 per month, which seems pointless as this is
all I'd use the service for.

I suppose I'll have to go down the route of using a legally dubious third
party service to download the interview like I did for the Zuckerberg one a
few weeks back. Shame they don't offer a more convenient way to listen, as
this is shaping up to be a really interesting series.

~~~
tedmiston
I had similar issues with the Soundcloud app on iOS cutting out mid-track.
Nothing seemed to fix it aside from totally restarting the app and finding my
play head position again. It's kind of surprising because their desktop
experience is so so good.

It's definitely possible to download on Soundcloud (ex. see "Download" button
here [https://soundcloud.com/travisscott-2/uber-
everywhere](https://soundcloud.com/travisscott-2/uber-everywhere)). I think
whoever runs the YC Soundcloud account has not enabled it. I agree it would be
nice.

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demircancelebi
Jessica Livingston sounds very authentic. Even listening to her inspires me to
work more.

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HiroshiSan
The way she looks at Sam is the way a mother would look at their child.
Jessica seems very endearing.

~~~
theoh
As long as we accept that "endearing" and "politically radical" are attributes
that can and have been held by many, but equally are often not found in the
same person. Afterall, the world will change whether or not YC exists.

For both PG and JL, a big requirement is surely avoiding any of the possible
and unappealing permutations of the phrase "if I can't dance, I don't want to
be part of your revolution". This is obviously really tough to do once you
start tangling with big capital. Motherhood and apple pie is terrific but boy
is it associated with social normativity.

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haberdasher
So...this page has a YouTube embed, a SoundCloud embed and then also a Scribd
embed. I got lazy with the timings / formatting of the transcript, but would
be people rather a single link to something like this?
[https://presentio.us/t/610902](https://presentio.us/t/610902)

Note: You can click the text in the first few paragraphs to jump to the
correct part of the video.

Thoughts?

~~~
tedmiston
The concept has appeal.

That app seems to break in Safari. Clicking many of the links seems to start
the video over if it hasn't fully loaded yet, which is a confusing experience.

It's unclear on the page that there's no visual indication (within sight) that
clicking in the text is doing something.

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ioda
The best I have read from her so far is this-
[http://www.foundersatwork.com/1/post/2012/10/what-goes-
wrong...](http://www.foundersatwork.com/1/post/2012/10/what-goes-wrong.html)

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berpasan
What Jessica has done in YC is an amazing example of how to build great
culture in a Startup (and YC was and still is, in several ways, a startup!).

It's a challenge, but I believe YC can be an organization that can outlive its
founders by the force of its strong, enduring culture. As a YC founder I
didn't have the pleasure to meet Jessica (or Paul) yet (they are in a
Sabbatical in London). But just spending those 3 months in YC and all the
amazing people they put there made me feel as if I had.

~~~
aliakhtar
What's being at YC like? And, any advice you can share on the application and
how to get in?

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known
I believe [http://qz.com/696377/y-combinator-is-running-a-basic-
income-...](http://qz.com/696377/y-combinator-is-running-a-basic-income-
experiment-with-100-oakland-families/) is the future;

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tedmiston
"Every unicorn has come out of Y Combinator"*

That's kind of insane when you think about it.

*marginally paraphrased only because I can't find it in the transcript

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cdupiton
But how did they have the money to even invest in startups?

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berpasan
Paul Graham (and Trevor and Robert) founded a company, Viaweb, that was sold
to Yahoo for close to $50M in 1998. Like Jessica said, they invested $12k per
company in the first batches of YC.

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greggman
AirBnB is an evil company and YC should be ashamed to be apart of it.

AirBnB has the official policy that it's okay to lie about where listings are.
I booked one that turned out to about about half a kilometer away from where
is was marked on the map. I would never have rented it had it been correctly
marked. When I complained I was told it's their policy. It's buried in their
privacy policy in a paragraph aimed at hosts, not guests. Also, the law
appears to say burying stuff in a policy is not a defense excusing deceptive
practices.

I can list more AirBnB deceptive practices. I don't think the idea of AirBnB
is bad but YC should not be associated with the kind of management that thinks
deceptive practices are ok.

~~~
nickpsecurity
I was tempted not to reply given the topic but she mentioned them exemplary
enough that it was worth checking. Plus, I added "ruthless" to her
recommendation that determination trumps all other traits for success. Made me
curious. So, I looked at their policy pages to find something about location
listings. Here's my first find:

"Misrepresenting your spaces You should not provide inaccurate location
information, have incorrect availability, mislead people about the type,
nature, or details of your listing, substitute one listing for another, set up
fake or fraudulent listings, leave fraudulent reviews, engage in deceptive
pricing, or fail to disclose hazards and habitability issues."

From here:

[https://www.airbnb.com/standards](https://www.airbnb.com/standards)

In the privacy policy here...

[https://www.airbnb.com/terms/privacy_policy](https://www.airbnb.com/terms/privacy_policy)

...I noticed they had permission to display location-related stuff, which
should be affected by other policy, in your profile with an "approximate
location" on a map. There could be problems if approximation was wrong due to
crappy, mapping service but good ones are usually pretty good.

Which policy link and quotes do you have that lets them lie about what has to
be honest in the above sections? Or another I haven't seen?

~~~
greggman
Yes it's that second part they quoted to me in email from their customer
service

" The Platform may also display the Accommodation’s approximate geographic
location on a map, such that a user can see the general area of the
Accommodation”

First off its ridiculous to claim that part of the privacy policy is something
clear and obvious to guests and that they will therefore understand that
listing are not representative of the actual locations.

Second, while I can except they might choose to have such a policy to protect
hosts it is a arguably deceptive practice. If it's their policy that locations
on the map may not by accurate that should be on the map page itself in a hard
to miss representation. Not buried in section 5.B of their privacy policy in a
section that starts with "Your public listing page..." making it clearly
directed at hosts not guests.

------
throwaway991199
I have to agree with you there.

I'm in Europe and I just polled a whole bunch of friends, anyone using these
companies and got a resounding NOPE.

I just polled a bunch of US friends too and they say the same. Sure, purely
anecdotal.

But for me, none of these have changed the world.

Maybe if you worship at the alter of YC or a wannabe Paul/Jessica groupie or
liberal/progressive fantasist then I guess you totally buy into that.

Transformed is really a total stretch.

I'm still laughing after listening to that interview.

Waiting for the down-votes and I'm sure this will be flagged as it will upset
some thin-skinned people who live in a (tech) bubble.

~~~
1123581321
I down voted this comment because it is based on counterfactual anecdotes
(those companies do have popular and well-liked products), and builds on those
anecdotes to insult people who believe those statistics, and then tries to
inoculate itself against criticism by accusing downvoters and flaggers of
responding irrationally. The attempt to frame a predictable response as an
unreasonable one hurts the discussion without offering anything in return.

I do agree that world-changing is a term used in contexts such as disease
eradication. Certainly disease eradication changes the world more than
avoiding a stay in a hotel. However, world-changing as a term is not
restricted to the most impactful change to which it has been previously
attached. For a typical programmer, making something that lets millions of
people have an easier workday, vacation or home life should count as changing
the world, even if it is a bit mundane.

~~~
mgkimsal
What's interesting is how we now view what is 'mundane'. Pretty much my entire
'normal' life in 2016 - in which pretty much everything is mundane - is beyond
what many fiction writers were capable of thinking of just 30 years ago.
Instant/live audio/video communication with people around the planet - for
essentially free (24/7!) - is now taken as 'mundane'.

I know most of us 'know' this at one level - well, many do, anyway - but given
the infrastructure we build on, most of what we end up building is somewhat
'mundane' by comparison.

Lastly, I'm of an 'older' generation. Those younger than me do not remember a
time when what's 'mundane' now was ever exciting/new/revolutionary. Much like
having grown up with color TV, telephones and refrigeration and not being able
to imagine a world without those, my younger family really can not imagine a
world without near-free 24/7 access to info/communication.

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ulkram
scribd is such a piece of shit

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enraged_camel
Jessica is awesome. That said, this part near the beginning, where Sam says...

>>Sometimes they create a small success, and sometimes they create these
companies that really transform the world, and YC has been very fortunate to
be involved in a lot of these, Airbnb, Dropbox, Stripe, the list goes on.

I mean... really? OK, I'll grant you Airbnb, but Dropbox "transformed" the
world?

~~~
utefan001
Stripe has transformed the world. In 1999, I was asked to look into how to
setup credit card processing for our company. I contacted Authorize.net for
technical help. They just asked me to fax some information to them. Two months
later my boss receives a bill for $3,000 claiming we had signed a contract
agreeing to that fee. I think Stripe has made CC processing a lot easier for
everyone.

~~~
mgkimsal
lot of time passed between 199 and stripe. a little thing called paypal had a
pretty huge impact on opening up credit card payments for folks too.

~~~
mgkimsal
(obviously 1999, not 199!)

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jedc
"Y Combinator has funded 1,500 startups"

Really?

    
    
      http://www.ycombinator.com/press/ quotes 1297 startups
      http://www.seed-db.com/accelerators/view?acceleratorid=1011 has 1069 companies (+ ~100 from the S16 class) for ~1200 in total
    

Where do the extra companies come from?

~~~
T2_t2
Would you have been as mad with 1703? How many were in the most recent batch?
I have no idea, but 1500 seems close enough to me for a non-specific number.

~~~
berpasan
There's close to 110 companies in the current batch, that just had demo day
last week.

