Jessica Livingston & Paul Graham: The Untold Story Behind Y Combinator

She's not a programmer. She's not a typical tech founder. But without Jessica Livingston, Y Combinator, the world’s most prestigious startup accelerator would not exist — and thousands of companies might never have launched. Y Combinator has backed over 5,000 companies, collectively worth over a trillion dollars. Everyone knows the names of storied companies that began as Silicon Valley startups: Airbnb. Stripe. Dropbox. But the story of how YC actually became YC (and the co-founder who made it possible) has rarely been told. In this episode, Jessica Livingston 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". 🎙️ HOST: David Rusenko — founder of Weebly (acquired by Square for $365M), now backing early-stage founders at Leap Forward Ventures. 🔗 Website: https://leapforward.fm/ 💼 LinkedIn:   / leapforwardfm   📸 Instagram:   / leapforwardfm   🐦 Twitter/X: https://x.com/leapforwardfm