
Jessica Livingston - urs
http://paulgraham.com/jessica.html
======
pc
I'm delighted that this essay exists. Jessica helped out in so many different
ways during the early days of Stripe that I can barely remember half of them.

(John and I became interested in startups in large part as a result of reading
Founders at Work. And then, because John and I were immigrants without credit
history, our residence of the Bay Area started with Jessica helping to
convince a landlord to rent a place to us. Once the company was underway,
whenever John and I had a major decision to make, figuring things out
generally involved biking over to Jessica's and PG's place for an invariably
clarifying discussion.

I recall one particular decision that John and I had been debating for weeks.
We just couldn't decide. Jessica's response, when asked, was immediate and
adamant. We were surprised but trusted her. John and I often remark at how
differently (and, I'm confident, worse) things would have ended up had Jessica
not convinced us to make that call.)

~~~
throwaway1985
I think Jessica should have become the president of YC. Then this essay won't
be needed as her achievements will be very visible. Imagine a woman leading
the most prestigious VC company or incubator. She will be seen as a role model
by many women who wants to get into tech. Instead, she just fades into the
background.

~~~
fsloth
I think this essay made it pretty clear she wanted to be in the background.
Gender equality is about allowing individuals choices and respecting and
supporting those choices.

------
tptacek
All the great teams I've worked on had the "family-like" property Paul Graham
talks about here.

The first really great company I worked at was explicit about being family-
oriented; they'd bring everyone's family to the office and cook dinners, had
Christmas at the founders house, that sort of thing.

I left that company and joined a different sort of family, which was more of a
bar-fighting sort of family but _still had that vibe_.

Then I started my first company, which cratered, and which did not have that
family feel at all, despite it being largely a group of people who were
friends in real life.

I felt like we got part of the way there with Matasano (at least in the
Chicago office, which was our largest), but not all of the way. It's tricky to
pull off!

I really only want to work at companies that have that feel, for the rest of
my career. It makes a huge difference. Also: if Jessica Livingston can
generate that kind of culture on demand, that's definitely a reason to be
impressed by her!

~~~
cballard
> The first really great company I worked at was explicit about being family-
> oriented; they'd bring everyone's family to the office and cook dinners, had
> Christmas at the founders house, that sort of thing.

This sounds horrid. I don't want to spend Christmas with my _boss_ , and I
definitely don't want to have dinner in the office, _ever_.

"Sorry Grandma, can't make it for Christmas, have to go see my boss instead"?

~~~
tptacek
Argh. Nobody was required to go to the Christmas party, which was not actually
on Christmas, and nobody was required to eat dinner in the office.

~~~
cballard
Ah, "had Christmas", to me, implies being on Christmas, i.e. "we had Christmas
at Aunt A and Uncle B's last year".

~~~
tptacek
Sorry. Not my most carefully-worded comment ever.

------
austenallred
I would guess that (almost?) all successful startups have a lot going on
behind the scenes that doesn't make it into the press.

My company isn't even particularly successful, but it's incredibly difficult
for us to get anyone who writes about us to mention that I'm a co-founder (not
_the_ founder, let alone the fact that the community that does most of the
important work) and that there's an entire team behind what we're doing (that
it's not "my" thing).

The single-man myth is just a lot sexier, even if false. There are great
founders, to be sure, but every time you talk to the person who is the "single
man" they talk about how the company is successful because of a fantastic
team. In fact, a lot of the work of a founder _is_ assembling a great team and
making them work well together. I don't think I've ever seen an exception to
that - even Jobs, Musk, etc.

In fact, the real moral of the story is that the tech press is almost entirely
bullshit, and that is mostly to be avoided.

~~~
birken
Yup, as an early employee of a very successful company, I know the opposite
side of this. The ratio of key contributions between founders:early employees
is probably between 2:1 and 1:1, while the ratio of tech press is about
1000:0. And you are dead on with the co-founder and founder thing. The tech
press really has a founder and "single-person" fetish in the way they write
their stories.

Basically, don't value yourself based on what the tech press writes about you.
If you are the one getting the press: you actually aren't that great; if you
aren't getting the press: who cares.

I understand that PG is writing this article because he feels it is unfair he
gets written about too much and Jessica not enough, but the real crux of the
issue is that the tech press is so stupid it doesn't matter. I mean just look
at that article that was written about Jessica...

~~~
jacobolus
History books are as bad or worse than the tech press.

Taken to extremes, you get
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Man_theory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Man_theory)

------
SwellJoe
I would think most founders who've been through YC would recognize Jessica's
importance in the equation, so it's interesting that it is some sort of secret
in the industry at large. Even early on, before her first book was published,
she was obviously on top of, and involved in, everything. She was the primary
point of contact for damned near everything for founders.

So, it's an interesting phenomenon that even with such a preponderance of
evidence, the story that gets told and re-told mostly leaves her out. Our
industry has so many internalized prejudices that are invisible unless and
until you're looking for them, it can seem perfectly normal for the story to
be about a lone man building an empire with a few supporting characters. If
the story were framed as building a "family", rather than a business empire,
would Jessica's role be more prominent in the telling? I think one could tell
it either way, but the tech industry doesn't have language for that, even
though I think some of the best companies were as much a family as an empire
(early HP, for example).

Gender roles are weird, is what I'm trying to say, and the tech industry is
more rigid than many.

~~~
Natsu
Just from PG's essays alone, I've always known how important she was. I
remember him making it very clear, so it's sad that the media hasn't really
given her proper credit. I don't blame her about not wanting to deal with
journalists, though, after all that. I wouldn't either.

~~~
jsprogrammer
I have not read all of PG's essays, but the few things that I have read here,
talking about Jessica Livingston, including this essay, set her up as a magic
oracle, sitting in obscure silence, judging everyone (on which basis, it is
never revealed, except for appeals to "character", through a Social Radar).

I don't disbelieve that is how it happens, but to me it just seems all a bit
too magical. Like, founders should be betting their entire business that this
person who won't talk to you can correctly divine your entire past and future
trajectories just by watching you talk to her husband? Otherwise, they won't
accept you into their family?

It's a bit of a turn off and vaguely cult-like.

~~~
rudolf0
It's not cult-like, but it does seem arbitrary. What if Jessica gets a "bad
vibe" from someone who happens to genuinely be a good, smart, honest person?
All forms of radar have false positives and false negatives. Even if she does
happen to have a very high success rate, she or anyone else can't always be
right.

Of course, that's what all job interviews are like. If they get a bad vibe
from you or think you're not a "culture fit", they can quickly reject you
based on a short impression. And that's not necessarily a bad thing.

What bothers me is the reptition of the idea that any one person can be some
kind of magical oracle of character judgment, bordering on having psychic
properties. Especially without strong scientific evidence. I'd rather PG use
less black-and-white language.

~~~
SwellJoe
What I'm seeing a lot of is discomfort with the seemingly arbitrary nature of
social interactions and making judgments based on them. We nerds (and I am
among this bunch) don't really like the fact that popularity, "emotional IQ",
and social influence are not quantifiable, but we are judged on them, anyway.
When someone wants to be judged on very clear metrics, being told there is a
mysterious "other" metric that seems to reside in the head of one person, is
uncomfortable, maybe even frightening.

The thing is, however, that _everything_ you do will also have this metric
applied to it, by everyone you interact with, and it is a metric that impacts
success. Any sales interaction you have, any hiring process you implement, any
investor meeting you have, etc. All human interactions will be judged with
this metric in addition to the other metrics. Is it "fair"? I don't know. But,
it is reality. Given that, having someone who is good at it, on a team that is
otherwise _not_ good at it (and having read pg on nerds and popularity, I can
surmise he considers himself not terribly good at it; nerds in general are
famously socially inept), is worthwhile.

Which raises the concern that the social ineptitude of a technically brilliant
founder might prevent them from getting into YC (and I think that is the fear
being expressed in this thread). I can say that most YC founders I know are
charming people; nerdy, mostly, but still charming and socially adept, at
least when interacting with similarly nerdy peers. Is this a prerequisite for
startup success? And, is it actually what is being selected for when we talk
about this "social radar"? I don't know. I don't think I have this particular
skill strongly enough to recognize a hit and a miss on these metrics, though I
can spot technical fakery a mile away (and there's a surprisingly high number
of applicants who are technically incompetent trying to pass for competent; I
suspect few make it past the application process).

~~~
jsprogrammer
Where are you seeing discomfort in this thread?

>We nerds (and I am among this bunch) don't really like the fact that
popularity, "emotional IQ", and social influence are not quantifiable, but we
are judged on them, anyway.

It's not exactly that such things are not quantifiable, but that PG is unable
to express what is being judged other than in the same few, undefined words,
at least in this essay. An example of such judgement is never given, it is
only asserted that correct judgement can be dispensed by Jessica. That is a
magic oracle. No basis is provided for the judgement (other than its source),
only the judgement itself.

Now, as others have pointed out, I doubt this is exactly how it happens. Most
likely Jessica brings to light some contradiction, however, the essay doesn't
go into what those contradictions have been, or might be. The essay really
only provides the view that the contradictions are blessed and therefore
automatically accepted.

The concern here is that PG is propagating concepts like "character", "Social
Radar", etc., without being able to define what they are. Others may try to
replicate this and start their own cargo cult, which has applied its own
secret definition of those words, in order to work the magic sauce.

What is so hard about the concept/metric being applied here that it can't be
put into words?

~~~
SwellJoe
_" Where are you seeing discomfort in this thread?"_

In every one of your responses, for starters. ;-)

 _" Others may try to replicate this and start their own cargo cult, which has
applied its own secret definition of those words, in order to work the magic
sauce."_

As I mentioned I would like for more investors to try to behave like YC, even
if they're unsuccessful in the attempt.

And, there are already many investors cargo culting the YC process. I don't
think that's a bad thing; they aren't as successful (I guess TechStars is the
nearest analog so far), but they're trying to replicate the winning formula.
They may fail in a variety of interesting ways, because it _is_ cargo culting
in many cases, but by trying to do things more like YC they're likely making
the world a little better for early stage founders.

 _" What is so hard about the concept/metric being applied here that it can't
be put into words?"_

Again, I would guess pg doesn't understand it, and so can't quantify it, but
trusts that Jessica's correct more often than not. It doesn't seem like pg was
even trying to show everyone how to do what Jessica does, just to clarify that
she does many things within YC and that she has often been forgotten in the
telling of the YC story; explaining that does not require him to explain how
it works.

~~~
swombat
> "What is so hard about the concept/metric being applied here that it can't
> be put into words?"

> Again, I would guess pg doesn't understand it, and so can't quantify it, but
> trusts that Jessica's correct more often than not. It doesn't seem like pg
> was even trying to show everyone how to do what Jessica does, just to
> clarify that she does many things within YC and that she has often been
> forgotten in the telling of the YC story; explaining that does not require
> him to explain how it works.

I can have a stab at an explanation here. I'm sort of straddling the border
(being a "socially inept" nerd by nature, and having invested considerable
amounts of time over the last 15 years in getting better at the "social
stuff") and know enough people who are on the other side, and have spoken with
them often enough, to have formed some ideas about this.

First, most people who are really good at this tend to be at a stage of
unconscious competence. It's not really something you teach to others very
frequently, so it's rare to find someone who spends the time to analyse their
own analysis of others, which helps explain the "mystery factor" here. As they
say, if it takes 10 years to get good at something, it takes another 10 years
to get good at teaching it to other people!

In my experience people who get very good at this tend to be (like Jessica is
described in this article) people who have a strong discomfort around conflict
and/or other people's distress. I don't know what the chicken/egg situation is
- which comes first, the sensitivity to other people's distress, or the skill
in reading other people's emotional states? Either way, the two combine and
lead to someone who spends a lot of time being aware of how people around them
are feeling, what they're thinking about, etc, so that they can detect
potential conflicts very early and head them off before they cause distress.
Like anything else, you get good at what you do a lot, and someone who spends
a lot of time thinking about what's going on in other people's heads is, over
a few decades, going to naturally develop an incredible (from the outside,
almost magical) skill at reading people from what are almost unnoticeable cues
like tone of voice, body language, the content of what they say, what they
don't say, etc.

Ultimately what this boils down to, imho, is building a model of the other
person in your head. Think of your best friend, the one you understand most -
you probably have a model of them in your head. You could have a conversation
with that model and, if you have known them for a while and are not totally
insensitive to people (which is possible... don't beat yourself up about it!)
you can probably predict how they would react to a given situation with a
fairly high degree of accuracy. Sure, you'll get it wrong from time to time,
but you'll get it mostly right. People who are good at this "social stuff"
just build those models much, much more rapidly, and much more accurately,
than you do, through practice and habit, and they do so constantly throughout
the day with everyone they bump into, so they get to practice that over and
over again, and keep getting better.

Does this help a little?

~~~
jsprogrammer
This is a good explanation and probably close to how it works. However, the
"build a model of the other person in your head" method isn't foolproof. In
fact, the longer you consider it, the less sense it seems to make. Your model
can never be accurate to what that person is thinking (might as well not even
have the person if you can already simulate their entire mind in yours). It
would be dangerous to think that you have an actual model of someone's mind
(as opposed to a model of your own perceptions of someone's mind).

------
angelbob
I'm never sure how to reconcile PG's stance of "our founders are good people"
/ "X-ray vision for character" with some of the things that some of the
portfolio companies do.

For instance, the vigorous, long-lasting and constantly denied spamming that
AirBnB did off CraigsList with fake names, or some of the early Reddit fake
accounts and general puffing-up (which was, to be fair, less bad.)

Maybe business tactics are explicitly not part of what PG and Jessica consider
"good character"? It seems increasingly clear that they mean something
different by it than I do.

~~~
S4M
She did also miss Live Coding[0] - or maybe she didn't interview the founder.
After reading that thread, it's hard to believe that YC has a magic filter of
bad people, which is basically what PG claims when he mentions the "Social
Radar".

[0]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10486476](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10486476)

~~~
noobermin
Another possibility: she's not the pope, and while her hunches might be right
a good majority of the time, she's not infallible.

------
ggchappell
Footnote #3 is worth pointing out, I think:

> The existence of people like Jessica is not just something the mainstream
> media needs to learn to acknowledge, but something feminists need to learn
> to acknowledge as well. There are successful women who don't like to fight.
> Which means if the public conversation about women consists of fighting,
> their voices will be silenced.

> There's a sort of Gresham's Law of conversations. If a conversation reaches
> a certain level of incivility, the more thoughtful people start to leave.

I imagine that this idea applies to many situations. Replace "feminists" and
"[successful] women" with something else.

~~~
mcnamaratw
"There's a sort of Gresham's Law of conversations. If a conversation reaches a
certain level of incivility, the more thoughtful people start to leave."

If there are equations that describe the net, since the mid-1980s, this is one
of them.

A lot of the commentary here is about "shyness" or "introversion," which, I
don't know J.L.

But I think the point of PG's Gresham comment is it's not only personality.
Analogy: What professor of physics is going to wade into the hyper-bullshit
environment of a typical online physics "discussion?" As soon as they see the
word "photon" or "rest mass" I'm sure they run for the hills. Introvert or
extrovert, it's a waste of time. Just get out in one piece before it gets any
worse.

It's a trap!

------
iandanforth
Jessica,

Any chance you could write up what it means to have social radar? Right now
you might as well substitute the word "magic." What is it that you see that
other people don't? Do you score especially highly on reading micro-
expressions ([http://www.paulekman.com/micro-
expressions/](http://www.paulekman.com/micro-expressions/))? Is this a
familial trait? What is your subjective experience when talking to a 'faker?'
Have you ever tried to track you first impressions against later behaviors?

I'm super curious about what seems to be a real life superpower!

~~~
brudgers
Jessica Livingston spoke about it at the Female Founder's Conference earlier
this year.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEp9aaQuYp4&index=1&list=PLQ...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEp9aaQuYp4&index=1&list=PLQ-
uHSnFig5NECe5MbTzqJaVjxoEjunvB)

~~~
mcherm
Thank you for the link. It was a good talk. Actually, I am struck by what a
large percentage of the talk and this essay are identical in content.

------
wpietri
On the one hand, good for PG for speaking up. On the other, how can one write
a piece about persistent discrimination against a woman without mentioning
societal gender discrimination as a thing?

He even asks the question, "If Jessica was so important to YC, why don't more
people realize it?" His answer: he's vocal and she doesn't seek attention.
Those may be true, but that's not enough to answer the question. As the NYT
just wrote, even famous female economists get slighted like this:

[http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/12/upshot/even-famous-
female-...](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/12/upshot/even-famous-female-
economists-get-no-respect.html)

~~~
mosquito242
you seem to completely have missed this footnote:

>[3] The existence of people like Jessica is not just something the mainstream
media needs to learn to acknowledge, but something feminists need to learn to
acknowledge as well. There are successful women who don't like to fight. Which
means if the public conversation about women consists of fighting, their
voices will be silenced.

~~~
wpietri
I did not in fact miss that footnote. Given that, is there some point you were
trying to make?

~~~
mosquito242
That he did in fact mention this issue, and noted it's relationship to Jessica
in his article. He didn't expound on it at length, but why would he when the
point of this article is Jessica's involvement in YC?

~~~
wpietri
That footnote does not even admit that gender discrimination exists, let alone
address it.

It admonishes feminists for doing feminism wrong. Which I always find a little
rich from people who are not themselves doing the thing. It feels to me like
when non-developers tell me how to develop. My reaction is, "Oh, you know how
to do this better? Why don't you show me?"

The point of this article also wasn't Jessica's involvement in YC. It was
correcting the general public's lack of understanding of her involvement.

That lack of understanding fits the broad pattern of women being undervalued,
and the work of women being written off as subsidiary to prominent men. It's a
topic that has been much discussed, and was, as I linked, in the New York
Times less than a week ago.

Given that he literally asks why more people don't recognize a woman's
contributions, it seems weird to me that he lays it entirely at her character
(and his), without reference to known systemic biases. That footnote only
makes it weirder, in that he seems to be claiming sufficient acquaintance with
the discussion of this problem that he should be aware of the biases.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Do we have to turn _everything_ into a gender issue? This is exactly what
feminists (or maybe people acting in the name of feminists) do wrong - they
try to inject their fight for social justice every. fucking. where., whether
it's startup economy or landing on a goddamn comet.

And pg is actually very right - reasonable people from all sides of the issue
avoid mainstream social justice discussions because they're just ridiculous
and a huge waste of time. Participants of those have their stance on discussed
issues tied too close to their personal identity[0].

[0] -
[http://www.paulgraham.com/identity.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/identity.html)

~~~
wpietri
> Do we have to turn everything into a gender issue?

Feminists are arguing for things _not_ to be gender issues. People make it a
gender issue when they ignore female accomplishments for which men would be
honored. Paul Graham explictly made this a gender issue when he praised her
for being the "mom".

If you don't think talking about these things is valuable, nobody's forcing
you to talk about them. The participants, me included, don't see it as a waste
of time, because society has been making steady progress on this for the last
hundred years or so. Maybe in another hundred things finally won't be
intrusively gendered all the time and we can all get back to what we're doing.
If you'd like to help, great. If not, maybe let the people who care get on
with it?

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _Feminists are arguing for things not to be gender issues._

Interesting way of doing that by _making everything a gender issue all the
time_.

> _Paul Graham explictly made this a gender issue when he praised her for
> being the "mom"._

No, he just praised Jessica for performing the role of mother in the YC
family.

> _If you don 't think talking about these things is valuable, nobody's
> forcing you to talk about them. (...)_

I usually don't. But someone has to speak up when there's bullying starting to
happen, because if nobody does, then it will just continue. I want to live in
the world where all people are respected and happy. I don't want to live in
the world where everyone is afraid of saying a thing in fear of getting
bullied by political-correctness defenders.

------
pitchups
Great essay. Besides setting the record straight on Jessica's key role in the
founding and growth of YC, it also offers a rare glimpse into how and why YC
became the juggernaut it is today.

"The overall atmosphere was shockingly different from a VC's office on Sand
Hill Road, in a way that was entirely for the better."

The rest of the essay is filled with words like family, mom, character,
culture, authenticity, good(ness), social radar etc. Words you would hardly
ever associate with a successful business - let alone a big time, successful
VC firm on Sand Hill Road or anywhere else. It sounds like a crazy way to run
a company based on such fuzzy concepts. But remarkably, these soft, fuzzy
concepts appear to be a key part of YC's huge success - and not some cold,
calculated decision making. In a way this bears out one of PG's other theories
- that hugely successful startups usually start out with ideas that look
really bad or crazy. And in YC's case, the most successful startup to come out
of YC may be regarded as YC itself!

Edit: Would like to add a key part of their approach seems to have been to
throw out the old, tried and true approach, think from first principles and
build the company and culture in a way that they felt comfortable with - and
not how it was "supposed to be done".

------
mbrock
_Founders at Work_ , her book of founder interviews, is stunningly good. I'm
not surprised she's key to YC.

~~~
hudibras
The interview with the founder of Hot or Not is an all-time classic.

Edit: I just re-read it and it's still as awesome as I remember. This would
actually make a great movie, much better and more exciting than the Facebook
or Apple films.

~~~
mbrock
Yeah, a great read.

> _So we decided to build a moderation system. I originally had my parents
> moderating since they were retired, and after a few days I asked my dad how
> it was going. He said, “Oh, it’s really interesting. Mom saw a picture of a
> guy and a girl and another girl and they were doing ...” So I told Jim,
> “Dude, my parents can’t do this any more. They’re looking at porn all day.”
> We decided to open up the community of moderators to the public. You had to
> apply and write an essay to get in._

------
brownbat
> "There's a sort of Gresham's Law of conversations."

Generalized, this explains why a lot of the really cool, thoughtful, and kind
people I know seem to fly under the radar.

And it suggests that moderating a discussion forum means constantly pushing
uphill.

~~~
jolhoeft
I wonder what the direction of causation is. Perhaps the issue is not the
cool, thoughtful, and kind are pushed out of the forums, but they are
successful in engaging people on a personal level and are less motivated to go
public. The obnoxious, however, however tend to get avoided on the personal
level and find it easier to get an audience in a public forum.

------
mattmaroon
I still remember, back in 2007, sitting in the old Mountain View office when
Jessica came out and yelled "Matt Maroon! I just love that name." I had been a
little nervous until that but for some odd reason that was calming.

Those of us in YC knew she wasn't just PG's girlfriend.

------
jessaustin
_The existence of people like Jessica is not just something the mainstream
media needs to learn to acknowledge, but something feminists need to learn to
acknowledge as well. There are successful women who don 't like to fight.
Which means if the public conversation about women consists of fighting, their
voices will be silenced._

It's my impression (primarily from lurking) that the more nuanced, observant
conversation tends to take place in less publicized fora, which while not
exactly closed are at least so little publicized that they are not "public".
Sometimes this is termed a "safe space", sometimes the essential
characteristics are arranged without calling it that. Anyway the conversations
are very much "here's my impression; it's different than yours but we can
agree on at least these things" and "I'm sorry but that is just so far out of
bounds that we'll have to part ways and not try to work this out". There's a
conversation, but not a debate.

Maybe some would lament the "filter bubble" aspect of such an arrangement,
because after all everyone should prefer to debate each point to death, but in
fact not everyone does prefer that. (Of course, I do, but I'm slowly learning
not to assume everyone else is like me.) It's tempting to put this all on "the
feminists", but that is selling ourselves short. We can all listen without
speaking, long enough to realize that feminism is not monolithic and that many
feminists are aware of women like Livingston. The ignorance of the media and
the Twitterati is a property of them, not of all of feminism. (Of course much
of feminism is, for want of a better word, "masculine" in the sense of wanting
to dialogue each point until we have a party line for everyone to toe, but
much of feminism is not that.)

~~~
cauterized
Part of the problem is that every time the fact that it needs discussing is
brought up, there's a group of reactionaries that turns it into a fight --
thus not giving us a chance to have that conversation without it turning into
a brawl.

You don't even have to be belligerent about it. Just say "maybe we should
discuss the gender imbalance in tech and startups" in a public forum, and
you're guaranteed a flamewar.

------
dtf
Here's an older piece by Jessica herself, on being a social radar, and the
"mom" of the family:

[http://foundersatwork.posthaven.com/the-social-radar-
what-i-...](http://foundersatwork.posthaven.com/the-social-radar-what-i-did-
at-y-combinator)

(I posted this partly due to the predictable reaction to PG's use of the word
mom.)

------
sparkzilla
I made a newsline of Jessica Livingston, that compiles many of her interviews:
[http://newslines.org/jessica-livingston/](http://newslines.org/jessica-
livingston/)

~~~
pavornyoh
This is neat. Thank you.

------
zubspace
So, what's her secret?

Is it something you can learn, is it experience, x-ray vision you either have
or have not? Are women better suited for this job?

What clues are you looking for while talking to founders?

Is there something like a 'perfect' character or does she make a list of
positive and negative traits?

Are some traits more important than others?

~~~
cookiecaper
>Are women better suited for this job?

Yes, practically all of the core traits PG describes are typical feminine
traits. This is a nice piece because it explains how critically important the
feminine touch is, and how easy it is to ignore that because most females
don't care much about their personal fame, they mostly care about helping
people and being useful.

While PG has described the utility these traits have in running a "family" of
founders, they're also extremely valuable in running an actual family. PG has
really written an ode to womanhood in general, and whilst reading it, I think
most of us will relate as we identify similar things in our wives and mothers.

This is not to detract from Jessica Livingston's specific ability to apply
these to the world of VC, which undoubtedly takes a lot of skill and
knowledge, but I think it's important that we recognize the value from these
types of contributions is accessible and often regularly enjoyed by those of
us who are lucky enough to have such stereotypically selfless women in our
lives.

~~~
wpietri
Ugh. I get that the gender binary is something that we all grew up with, so it
can seem like some sort of immutable feature of the universe. But "typical
feminine traits" can be learned by actual dudes.

Guys, if you think that these traits are useful for running successful
businesses, just go learn them. It is possible for men to listen just like
Jessica. We can also be nurturing, supportive, sensitive, thoughtful,
emotionally perceptive, and kind. These are actual skills that we can actually
learn if we want. We don't have to push women to be stereotypes just to have
successful businesses and families.

~~~
cookiecaper
Gender roles _are_ an immutable feature of the universe. Yes, men can learn
and become good at some of these things that women have a natural inclination
toward, just as women can learn and become good at some of the things that men
have a natural inclination toward, and there is some play here in terms of the
quantity of each trait that a specific individual gets, but it's hard to fully
substitute a native intuition.

We need both genders -- neither can be discarded, and insisting that the two
genders are so similar as to not have any unique properties or advantages is
the same as discarding them.

~~~
throwaway_929
The hardcore downvotes on this comment, ostensibly given because it _seems to_
run counter to today’s moral crisis of Women in Engineering, and it sounds _so
very regressive,_ despite the possibility it’s … not wrong, are a perfect
illustration of
[http://paulgraham.com/say.html](http://paulgraham.com/say.html)

I have a simple thought experiment for those who have a strong impulse to
downvote the parent comment (and doubtless my own comment): Imagine the
discussion here were, say, a study that illustrated men naturally resorted to
forming factions and solving disagreements with violence, and someone
commented, “No, it’s 100% society, not innate whatsoever” and then someone
replied to _that_ saying “no, while individual variation is of course very
real, there is some evidence that the general trends that inform some of our
stereotyped intuitions of gender are based in biological fact.” Would you be
quite so quick to mash the down arrow? … Perhaps. It’s a discussion fraught
with a lot of charged emotions, and we collectively are not so good at dealing
with points of view contrary to whatever we want to believe.

~~~
wpietri
The difference is that in your imaginary discussion, the person is proposing
nuance informed by evidence. The comment you're replying to, on the other
hand, pushes against nuance based only on personal opinion.

I don't know anybody who would argue that gender has absolutely no biological
implications. But to suggest they tell us something about how society should
be structured is the naturalistic fallacy, confusing _is_ with _ought_.

As an example, illness and death are natural. But that doesn't mean that we
should just shrug and say, "Oh well, tuberculosis is natural, so we should
just accept it." The natural details of death should certainly inform how we
fight it. But they can never tell us we shouldn't.

------
rdl
I wonder if it's easier to judge people's honesty/character/civility/etc. if
they're interacting mainly with other people under your observation, rather
than with you directly. I suspect so.

~~~
nickpsecurity
Yes, it is. The reason is you can focus 100% on observing them, their body
language, their words, and the dynamic of the conversation. Talking to them
means you also have to be participating in the discussion. Additionally, with
their focus on you, they are adapting their own style to how you react to it.
You have to sort of do the same. That makes the patterns harder to see.

So, many people that do this try to detach themselves. That Jessica further
keeps the image or at least visitors' assumption that she might be just a
secretary is straight brilliant: almost nobody pays attention to such people.
That let's her stay either 100% or nearly so focused on her evaluation of
them.

There are two modifications that have shown to be superior. One is that one or
more of the interviewers have the same ability to read people. As I said, the
difficulty makes these rare people. However, you do see this among talented
negotiators, intelligence types, and so on.

The other one is keeping the assessor outside the room but with full visual
and audio to pick up the unconscious cues _plus a feedback mechanism_. This
might be a computer or earpiece for one or more interviewers. The reason is
that the character assessment might run into situations where it's too vague
to make the assessment. So, the person assessing might give a suggestion to
the interviewers for how to prod the person to get a specific reaction. This
might happen a little or a lot if the overall team has worked together a lot.
Eventually, the interviewers get so good at spotting these situations and
remembering how they were handled that they intuitively create these
opportunities for the remote reviewer without being asked. The results are a
more detailed and effective evaluation.

Such a setup is not for everyone. Many prefer just having one or more people
talking with another doing more listening and people watching. That's Y
Combinator's setup. Many high-stakes interviews or negotiations use the latter
method though with lots of effectiveness. That you can read the reviewer while
the reviewer can read you probably helps a lot. ;)

------
matrix
Thanks for this PG, it's wonderful to see Jessica get the long overdue credit
she deserves.

That essay is also comforting for me on a personal level because like Jessica,
I'm uneasy with attention, public speaking, etc and that's a tough thing to
struggle with when you're a startup founder, where a big part of your job is
to be the affable, extroverted face of the company. The thought of doing a YC
or similar interview makes me sweat, even though I know what I'm building is
awesome, cool and valuable. If ever Jessica is giving lessons on how to get
over that, sign me up please!

------
flinty
[http://recode.net/2014/08/21/ycs-jessica-livingston-was-
hit-...](http://recode.net/2014/08/21/ycs-jessica-livingston-was-hit-on-by-a-
vc-on-the-way-to-this-interview/) this is the article in question?

~~~
tomsun
Wow. To call this article a fluff piece is an insult to fluff pieces.

------
achow
> _If bad founders succeed at all, they tend to sell early. The most
> successful founders are almost all good._

I wonder what chances these people would have if they were to apply to YC now:
Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Ellison, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Jack Dorsey etc.

------
FD3SA
> The existence of people like Jessica is not just something the mainstream
> media needs to learn to acknowledge, but something feminists need to learn
> to acknowledge as well. There are successful women who don't like to fight.
> Which means if the public conversation about women consists of fighting,
> their voices will be silenced.

And therein lies the problem. Professional feminists are extremely vocal
radicals that do not represent the majority of women. Their statistics and
talking points tend to be universally unsound and inflammatory, and they are
at this point more accurately described as a racist and sexist hate group.

So the question is, why are they deemed the authority on so many issues in the
mainstream media? Why does PG even acknowledge their nonsensical demands, or
try to engage with them to defend Jessica?

Anyone who has lived a day on this planet understands that empirical reality
is immutable, and ideologies cannot alter them. So when feminists for example,
state matter-of-factly that "biology is a social construct", why are they
allowed to continue speaking nonsense? Meanwhile, brilliant academics who
debunk feminist propaganda like Helena Cronin [1] are nowhere to be found in
the media.

Perhaps women like Jessica Livingston and Helena Cronin need to take an active
stance against radical feminists, and not dignify their accusations with a
response other than: "please educate yourself before attempting to open a
dialogue regarding these issues."

AKA: Do not feed the trolls.

1\. [https://edge.org/conversation/helena_cronin-getting-human-
na...](https://edge.org/conversation/helena_cronin-getting-human-nature-right)

~~~
kbart
A really good comment, I'd like to hear from downvoters their arguments
against it.

------
samstave
Great article.

Only one typo "[pg] is better at some things (that) [sic] Jessica is"

But I do have to say, wow, there was a lot of really new information in this
post, to me, and I also could feel the emotion and passion in it.

It's nice when someone gets praised in such a manner - regardless of if its
from their SO, because I felt that there was a lot of objectivity in this post
as well.

------
kelukelugames
The take away for me is no matter how good you are, you still need to sell
yourself.

~~~
talsraviv
I understand why you might arrive at that conclusion, but think about another
level: What did Jessica Livingston lose or miss out on by not promoting
herself to the public?

I would argue that she missed out on nothing that matters.

~~~
nostrademons
I think that's the calculus that she figured on when she made the decision not
to be a public figure.

I suspect that the recent articles playing up her role are because she & YC
realized that there _is_ something they're missing out on: millions of
potential female founders are not starting companies because they don't have
strong role models. This hurts YC in a financial sense, but even beyond that:
if your mission is to increase the amount of startups and innovation in the
world, then having half the world's population disqualify themselves because
they don't have many good examples of it being done before is losing out.

------
masonhipp
Excellent read. Especially interesting trying to figure out all of the behind
the scenes reasons for writing this essay, timing, content, etc.

My co-founder is a woman and we have a somewhat similar dynamic: she doesn't
write as much, doesn't like the publicity or argument that sometimes happens
with a position in business: but at the end of the day she helps create a
feeling of family in our team. I don't know if it is gender-based or just her
personality, but it's nice to see someone in a similar (albeit much more
successful) position getting some recognition.

------
darkroasted
_The existence of people like Jessica is not just something the mainstream
media needs to learn to acknowledge, but something feminists need to learn to
acknowledge as well. There are successful women who don 't like to fight._

There is another lesson here for feminists that PG does not fully articulate.
In my experience, most women are similar to Jessica in that they do not fit
naturally into an alphadog founder type role. The time-honored tradition for
such women to be part of accomplishing great things, is to partner with an
alphadog mate. Unfortunately, modern feminism is all about turning women into
men, rather than guiding women to fit in as complements and partners to a
strong man.

 _If Jessica was so important to YC, why don 't more people realize it? Partly
because I'm a writer, and writers always get disproportionate attention._

And also because she was not listed as involved when YC was first founded. I
assume that Jessica was "The Fourth Man wants to remain anonymous for now"?
[https://web.archive.org/web/20050324095016/http://ycombinato...](https://web.archive.org/web/20050324095016/http://ycombinator.com/about.html)

------
larryfreeman
Thanks, PG. From my vantage point, authenticity is probably the not-so-secret
ingredient of YC. This is a great essay and I hope that it impacts others not
only in shining a light on the important contributions made by Jessica in the
founding of YC but also in showing that one important tactic in the fight
against sexism is to make sure to give credit when credit is due.

------
ecesena
I knew Jessica and Paul were married, and implicitly assumed this was pre-YC.
I read with interest the data point that they were "already dating" at the
time.

I was wondering if you could share any data on success/failure of startups
where 2 co-founders are in a relationship, and if/how this is rated in yc
applications.

------
htchang_ycombi
I've been thinking about this essay and reading all those comments for a few
days now. I am looking for a company where people are not arrogant, and where
self-confidence and outspokenness is not a proof of someone's talent, and
where everyone gets a fair chance of recognition, without having to brag and
show off. Those traits are not in my own personality. I am smart though. It
looks like YC can be a good place for that. Unfortunately, and as I was being
told personally, this kind of place is very hard to find. So all those
comments makes me a bit sad, because it's basically an exception in this
world. While it's good that someone speaks about JL's talents, there's
actually a lot of places where someone absolutely has to show other abilities
in order to be recognized.

------
rokhayakebe
"The less energy people expend on performance, the more they expend on
appearances to compensate." J.L.

------
JMiao
my first company, thesixtyone, would've never happened if it weren't for
jessica. she welcomed me to yc teas when i was just a starry eyed idea dude
from los angeles (hello, xobnis and zenters!), and she also saved our face and
investment after i naively bumbled pg's verbal offer.

------
graycat
It's really nice to see a man really, really in love with his wife! Mother
Nature really likes that!

For how she is so good with _personality radar_ , IIRC recently there was a
research paper that confirmed that already in the crib the girls are paying
attention to people and the boys, to things. So the girls are making eye
contact, understanding facial expressions, smiling, and, thus, _eliciting
protective emotions from adults_ while the boys are trying to hack the latch
on the crib and install Wi-Fi and an real-time, embedded Linux in the toy fire
truck on the floor!

So, with some nerd men and a really feminine woman, there's no contest -- on
_personality radar_ , no way will the men catch up with the woman!

Congrats PG, you just achieved "the greatest prize life has to offer".

------
artur_makly
As a husband-wife co-founder team, I totally can relate. Having my wife's
female intuition ( yes it really exists.. it's like a heat-sensing radar and
magic 8ball all-in-one )

see her in action: [https://www.instagram.com/p/zA41aSKM9C/?taken-
by=juicycanvas](https://www.instagram.com/p/zA41aSKM9C/?taken-by=juicycanvas)

The challenge is that 99% of my time is spent on so many righ-brain tasks..i
practically become a 'vulcan' so when a customer email or PR challenge or new
biz dev opp comes flying in.. its very easy to just mis-read it or reply in a
curt almost cold way. Luckily she QA's all our communication with a filters
yet undiscovered by scientists. Deb i love you darlin! Where would we be
without you!

------
zensavona
_" At one of the first she did, the reporter brushed aside her insights about
startups and turned it into a sensationalistic story about how some guy had
tried to chat her up as she was waiting outside the bar where they had
arranged to meet. Jessica was mortified"_

Interestingly I read the article he refers to earlier today and I was really
surprised (I took it at face value, apparently I should have been wiser) to
read that someone like Jessica was _so_ "shaken" by a guy hitting on her in
what sounded like not-that-aggressive a way to me. I've never met her, but
I've read enough online about her to have the opinion that she probably isn't
someone who gets off on playing the victim.

~~~
ziedaniel1
You misunderstood -- she was mortified that the reporter's story focused only
on that.

~~~
biot
She was mortified about the reporter's story _and_ she was apparently shaken
up during the interview with the reporter, who quotes her as saying:

    
    
      “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m just still really shaken up.
      That’s never happened to me before.”
    

Not having been there (and tending to give people the benefit of the doubt) it
sounds like the VC guy thought she might have been there for an unrelated
Match.com event (in which case asking her about that doesn't appear
inappropriate) and, when he found out she is an investor, he switched gears to
VC mode and asked if there were any opportunities there.

Imagine you were at a bar and you saw an attractive person and started to
inquire as to whether they are single, etc. You find out they are happily
involved in a relationship already, but that they're a developer and they're
waiting for some coworkers. If you work for a company that is hiring
developers, you might ask them if they're open to exploring new opportunities.
Absent any "creepy" signals, it seems unreasonable for them to conclude that
you are offering an interview or a job in exchange for a date.

Without knowing more information regarding body language, tone of voice, and
so on it's entirely possible that she simply misread his intentions.
Especially since the article concludes with:

    
    
      “What if he wasn’t hitting on me? What if I totally misunderstood?” she said.
    

Conversations flow. I sometimes get confused when female friends abruptly
change the conversation and I'm left asking them what in the world topic B has
to do with topic A, only to hear the response that they mentally switched
gears to the new topic and the two are totally unrelated. I find men tend not
to do that without some signal that the topic just switched.

------
robg
Surprised the essay doesn't mention _Founders At Work_ , a great read that is
really well done and likely very difficult given the breadth of the interview
subjects. Seems like a perfect reflection on its author.

------
nickpsecurity
Now that I know about her, she seems pretty awesome. Great work, Jessica! I
especially respect that she stays out of the press battles to focus on
productive things. It's wiser because they're a trap anyway. The post gave a
perfect example of that where they just tried to set her up for ratings. She
seems to be playing her hand incredibly well as a ninja and sage behind the
scenes. Such people don't get much press but are essential to many of the best
organizations. Most are fine with the former because the pride is in the
latter. :)

------
urs2102
Having read posts on both HN and hearing from other founders, I'd always
assumed for years that it was common knowledge that Jessica was so integral to
YC.

Then again, I have noticed some of the changing narrative on the founding of
YC and it's good that pieces like this are being written to prevent erasure.
I've heard her speak both times at Columbia and have only heard wonderful
things about her, so I'm glad this piece exists - hopefully the narrative will
shift back to what I had thought it was in the future.

------
chaostheory
Great essay that should leave no doubt for credit where it's due. What I find
strange is that pg would even have to explain all of this in an essay after
all this time since none of this is new to me (or I would imagine many people
in the start up scene) since it's been mentioned so many times in different
interviews. Then again it was also strange that a Bay Area vc wasn't able to
recognize Jessica in either Palo Alto or Mountain View and start making some
weird remarks towards her.

------
the_watcher
I highly recommend Founders at Work to anyone who hasn't read it. Jessica is
an absolutely incredible interviewer (in my opinion, one of the more
underrated skillsets out there, probably because we're used to such generic
interviews). This essay highlights some of her strengths that helped her write
such an incredibly insightful book. PG is right, she simply has a knack for
asking extremely illuminating questions and getting insightful or informative
responses.

------
Kluny
Thanks for writing this. I've been reading your essays for years and Jessica's
name has never entered my radar. It really means something, to hear that not
only is the female cofounder a central part of the team, but that we've never
heard of her because she avoids the spotlight. It makes me think twice about
stories of companies that don't seem to have any women in them - perhaps they
are there, but they've been written out of the story.

------
tomasien
The fact that the tone and method of delivery for various conversations
affects who participates in them and how was lost on me for most of my life.

------
dfraser992
Character is indeed very important, and in my view (given all the ^%&*$ I've
been through with the one -and probably never again- startup I was involved
with) the most important factor in any business. I wish I knew Jessica and
that she'd could have warned me... She sounds like an "essential" person to
know.

You are a lucky man, PG

------
guelo
pg was famous among programmers before YC so it makes sense that everyone
considered it pg's new venture. It's the same with Stackoverflow being
considered Spolsky and Attwood's venture even though there were a bunch of
other cofounders.

Also, the publicity. pg was public in a bunch of ways that Jessica wasn't.

------
KeepTalking
>> Incidentally, if you saw Jessica at a public event, you would never guess
she hates attention, because (a) she is very polite and (b) when she's
nervous, she expresses it by smiling more.

on point(b) - I do this too. I have seen that very few people pick up on this
queue. I smile and hide my nervous energy.

------
theoh
"(As we later learned, it probably cost us little to reject people whose
characters we had doubts about, because how good founders are and how well
they do are not orthogonal. If bad founders succeed at all, they tend to sell
early. The most successful founders are almost all good.)"

A little Manichaen?

------
donlzx
So, Jessica is the Socrates for YC, and YC is the Socrates for YC start-ups.

Successful founders are usually doers that often make bold adventures and can
execute plans efficiently and ruthlessly, but they need consultant guidance
from a wise person. I guess this is the YC's success formula?

------
billions
Livingston's book, Founders at Work is the most insightful book on startups I
have read. In hindsight it was her ability to bring out the core of the
founders' character that made the book so informative.

~~~
ericd
Yeah, probably my favorite book on startups for that reason.

------
highCs
> It was also how we picked founders who were good people.

I've read about qualities of good startup founders. Wondering now, what are
the qualities of good people? (real question) What have you found? What should
I read?

------
ghufran_syed
I am a huge fan of Ms Livingston's book, and would love to see a follow-up
work. I have no firsthand knowledge whatsoever regarding her work as a yc
founder, but I certainly have no reason to doubt the views of many yc alumni
who have commented on her importance at YC. However, as a father of two
daughters who are started to find their way in the tech world, I'm a little
confused and disappointed by this post by Mr Graham. If Ms Livingston's wishes
are to remain in the background, then Mr Graham should respect that. If she
has apparently changed her mind and wishes to take on a higher profile, she
should speak for herself, not have 'the man' explain things to the world on
her behalf, which wrongly implies she cannot do so herself.

------
20years
Jessica sounds awesome! It is nice to see YC allow her to add value based on
her strengths rather than forcing her into roles where her strengths would be
lost.

------
cjbenedikt
Is it just me or did the article not mention her contribution to the sector
with the SAFE note? One of the best additions to financing early startups.

------
bootload
_" Jessica knows more about the qualities of startup founders than anyone else
ever has."_

Putting these qualities onto paper would make good reading.

~~~
nosequel
[http://www.amazon.com/Founders-Work-Stories-Startups-
Early/d...](http://www.amazon.com/Founders-Work-Stories-Startups-
Early/dp/1430210788)

As you wished.

~~~
bootload
thx @nosequel, I've got this book and have to re-read it asking that question.
What I was thinking was a book more along the lines of specifically defining
the characteristics then giving examples.

------
jessaustin
How is that this post has 1605 points (and counting), but 'urs2102 only has
648 karma? This is not a complaint, I'm just curious.

------
danbmil99
Having been hiding in the woodwork during YC's early days, this rings so true.

------
orliesaurus
we live in a messed up place where women are undermined no matter how great or
influential they are. we, society, need to stop doing that. good write up -
let's see what happens next.

------
mchu4545
Any guys here who identify with Jessica's personality?

~~~
darkstar999
Of course there are.

------
pbhjpbhj
>A lot of the applicants probably read her as some kind of secretary,
especially early on, because she was the one who'd go out and get each new
group and she didn't ask many questions. //

Yet elsewhere it's noted that one of the candidates pointed out that
Livingston asked the fewest but most pointed questions. This makes me wonder
if anyone ever did think that Livingston was "some kind of secretary" [and
what's wrong with that] or if that assumption just plays to the conclusion
that sex rather than, say, hot-headed assertiveness or attention seeking is
the reason for the disparity in public perceptions of Livingstone and Graham.
[I'm talking speculatively, I don't know either of these people].

Given the nature of the essay I find this, in the footnotes, quite peculiar:

>No one understands female founders better than Jessica. //

Why does she only understand female founders the best - that would presumably
be because females are inherently different in some characteristics pertinent
to being founders? Why is this not "No one understands founders better ..." is
there someone who does understand founders better but for some reason is
unable to understand female founders as well as they do male founders.

Surely this is the answer to the question posed on notability if others are
better at understanding founders who are male, for some reason, then as more
founders are male [it seems, I don't have stats on this, just going with my
perception of the consensus] it would stand to reason that those best able to
understand the largest cadre of founders are most notable - this understanding
we're told is the vital element in the field after all.

The inclusion of the word "female" here is the key one way or another.

>The person who knows the most about the most important factor in the growth
of mature economies—that is who Jessica Livingston is. //

It almost looks like Graham is saying, but perhaps not wanting to say, that
the sex of his co-founder is the key element in reaching a broader base of
founders?

I'm not at all saying Livingston isn't the best person in the World in this
role, but Graham's footnote leads away from that conclusion.

On a slightly different focus:

>There are successful women who don't like to fight. //

 _People_. There are successful _people_ who don't like to fight; unless
you're saying their sex is the reason they don't like to fight or that this
characteristic is peculiar to women then why do people have to force sexual
bivalence all the time. The inference that follows that all [successful] men
do like to fight is doubly unhelpful IMO.

------
edavison1
It's uncomfortable to me that Paul Graham felt he had to write this. In
particular, his enumeration of Jessica Livingston's 'Social Radar' as if it is
some kind of superpower reads to me like a long list of the virtues
emotionally unintelligent hacker dudes lack, like he felt forced to justify
her role in the founding of YC. I could be overreacting but I also find it
telling that he doesn't praise her for business acumen (until that blip at the
end about data), but rather for her intuitive judgments.

Not a very interesting character portrait, and has an slightly weird sniff
about it.

~~~
wpietri
That seems like a fair concern to me. Like you, the piece strikes me as subtly
and uncomfortably gendered. As a hacker myself, my emotional intelligence was
never that great. But I think this was vastly compounded by being a guy;
society didn't expect me to develop much in the way of emotional skills.

A big thing that changed that for me was doing in-person tech support in
college. About 10% of the job was knowing facts. The rest was helping humans
in very human ways. When, years later, the term "emotional labor" [1] came
around, it made a lot of sense to me. I may not have been natively good at it,
but you don't have to have talent to get skill. It just takes more work.

So when he talks about emotional radar and her being the mom and whatnot, it
all strikes me as a false dichotomy, one I've worked hard to avoid. It's
especially odd to me in a piece about society treating a woman as lesser.

[1] Lots of good stuff on the topic in this amazing Metafilter thread:
[http://www.metafilter.com/151267/Wheres-My-Cut-On-Unpaid-
Emo...](http://www.metafilter.com/151267/Wheres-My-Cut-On-Unpaid-Emotional-
Labor)

~~~
tptacek
I winced at the word "mom", too.

~~~
idlewords
You should try my approach of pre-wincing at page load time.

~~~
tptacek
I did my best but quit when my face started hurting.

------
tyoung
I am in House Livingston.

------
shahryc
thanks for sharing this --- puts a lot in context!

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metaphorm
thanks PG for writing this. it needed to be said.

------
EXC_BAD_ACCESS
Deleted

------
pm24601
Its sad - that she isn't out there more: setting a visible example for other
women. But it is by her choice, and I am glad she has the choice.

As men, we should make tech more accommodating to women.

It is interesting that if Jessica was really a man "Jessie" how would the
experiences have been. (i.e. founders ignoring "him", assuming "he" was a
secretary, etc.)

Of course, I better make sure I don't fall into this trap!

 _Update: Interesting state of affairs. My comment is being downvoted._

~~~
ElComradio
Good idea. While you are at it-

Don't bias based on weight.

Don't bias on college/university.

Don't bias on motivation to change the world.

Don't bias on environmental/gender/racial activism or lack thereof.

Don't bias based on the presence of a lumbersexual-style beard.

Don't bias based on sense of humor.

Don't bias based on political opinions.

Don't bias based on social anxiety and bombing an interview because of
freezing.

Don't bias based on age.

Don't bias against dressing well or wearing a suit.

------
motoboi
At certain point in the article, he describes her aversion to give talks and
talk to the press.

This makes me think that YC Combinator should upgrade from a school of
entrepreneurs to a school of entrepreneurs advisers (which will create their
own school of entrepreneurs).

Something like going from a simple school to a school that trains teachers and
them to a school that trains teachers how to train a new teacher of teachers.

At this point, you can achieve self-sustenability. Wouldn't be great if YC
model was replicated around the world (given the basic pre-requisites)?

TL:DR It would be nice if YC Combinator tought people how do what Paul Graham
does, the whole package.

~~~
itchyouch
As rare as good founders are to find, i'd argue that it's even rarer to find
founder founders like PG & Jessica.

Not to say that people like PG & Jessica are so rare that it couldnt happen
via an institution, (i'd ague that most of the yc alumni could become founder
founders), but the circumstances to become a PG & Jessica require a rare blend
of both personal character development beyond just authenticity and a perfect
alignment of opportunity to make for such an incubator.

As soon as the process of an art form is institutionalized, one of the first
things to go tend to be authenticity to the form of process and policy. It
isn't that there is anything inherently wrong with institutionalizing
something, but that authenticity and relationship development inherently do
not scale, and the simplest way to make it scale is to exchange relationships
for process & policy.

Many day to day decisions could be made into an algorithm optimizing for the
greater good, yet opportunities would be lost to scenarios akin to that of the
scene in iRobot where the robot saves the adult man instead of the young girl
from drowning because the robot calculated that the man had a higher chance of
survival. decisions like these are where character is paramount.

------
orionblastar
Yes the Startups and new programmers are sort of like another gold rush,
almost everyone is getting into it.

You have to have social radar to sniff out the fakes and bad founders that
would be bad investments and not able to finish a project.

PR firms and news media and SJW always try to paint women as victims, but
don't talk about female founders like Jessica Livingston as a success who went
on to help many founders start many startups and get them successful. It is
politics mostly from the left that uses victimhood to sell stories and get
ratings and attention. I'd like to read stories about successful female
founders and how they got success through hard work and being able to use
social radar to detect fakes and bad founders and find ways to advise founders
and help people out and give tips for starting up a company.

So often on HN you see a link submitted about sexism in IT or racism or some
other social justice cause and it usually gets flagged because it causes a lot
of trolling and voting down of comments for disagreeing with them. I'm glad to
read one about a female founder that isn't political and talks about her
strengths and how she worked on a team to get things done and deserves more
credit. I think HN needs more of this positive news about female founders
rather than articles about sexism in IT or racism or whatever.

We need real life examples to get females and minorities to study STEM and get
into more startup jobs. When they are victimized, they decide not to study
STEM because they think they would be discriminated against, and really that
isn't the case at YC which has no discrimination and judges based on
authenticity and who is a good founder.

Not everyone is given credit, for example Steve Jobs is given credit for
fixing Apple but he had a team of people helping out to find out which
products cost more to support than they bring in and come up with new ideas
for new products to bring in more revenue. The same with Bill Gates and
Microsoft he had a team of people as well.

Jessica Livingston needs more recognition, and if I was doing PR I would list
her accomplishments, I would write about her social radar and spotting fakes
and bad founders, I would write about how she helped startups and got them
going. I would never try to make her into a victim, I would focus on her
strengths and skills instead.

------
larrys
"After that she told the PR firm to stop."

Oh wow I disagree with this totally. One reporter gives a bad slant to a story
and that is enough to make you give up on setting up and getting other PR?
What am I missing here? Anyone who has ever appeared in a story in the news (I
have multiple times) knows they always get things wrong and always angle to
story to what they think is something interesting that will allow them to sell
advertising. That is the business they are in. With all due respect to Jessica
(who I don't know) this sounds to me very thin skinned and not exactly an
example of overcoming adversity in the entrepreneurship world. Of course it's
her right to not do interviews if she doesn't feel like doing them but the way
PG presents the story it's as if this one incident was enough to sour her
taste (and there were no other factors at play).

Edit: As would be expected say something (not delicately or gently enough)
about anyone closely associated with YC and get downvoted. Maybe that's just
because people will pay attention to the comment more and tend to react more
emotionally than rationally.

Edit#2: As far as those who say "YC is successful Jessica doesn't need to be
in the limelight it's important to realize that people read these essays who
are not in that position. Or even close. So perhaps PG could have pointed that
out in a more direct way so that those learning from his writings could
understand the nuance of the decision.

~~~
tptacek
She didn't want PR for its own sake. She wanted to get a message out, and the
tech press was less interested in the message than in how many clicks they
could milk out of any drama involving YC.

~~~
larrys
Well perhaps she learned a lesson that if you are going to "lead" with a tasty
vignette like that the rest of your message will be lost. So it's a lesson
learned, right? Next interview she would perhaps not do the same thing and
simply save the story for PG.

