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Jessica Livingston

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2024-06-27
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2024-06-27
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  1. “Well, you check out the social radars on all the podcast platforms, Apple, Spotify, Amazon, all those. And then there's a website, but social radars.com. And they can be helpful by just listening to it and spreading the world word because I don't do any marketing for it besides like posting on Twitter just because I'm, you know, you know, it's expensive doing a podcast and stuff. So I don't do any marketing. So if it resonates with you, if you find an episode interesting, please spread the word and write a review and rating.”

    2024-06-27 · Lenny's Podcast · The social radar: Y Combinator’s secret weapon | Jessica Livingston (co-founder of Y Combinator, author, podcast host) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  2. “Yeah, yeah, we definitely Invest in a whole bunch at once, and then the plan was to go to asynchronous investing, like normal investors. But we realized that there was something magical about this batch thing. So sometimes I always say we love domain experts, but sometimes maybe ignorance is sort of bliss and you just discover new things.”

    2024-06-27 · Lenny's Podcast · The social radar: Y Combinator’s secret weapon | Jessica Livingston (co-founder of Y Combinator, author, podcast host) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  3. “And then at the same time, I think it was like Charles River Ventures or one of these Boston, maybe it wasn't even Boston, but it was a VC firm did like the seed program where they invested maybe 100K in startups. And the press loved that. They like wrote all about this $100,000 investment. And they'd sort of mention Y Combinator as doing small investments. And then that coupled with the Reddit press sort of made us feel like, oh my gosh, we are sort of legitimate in the eyes of outsiders became sort of aware of who we were. And I sort of felt like we've arrived. We've been in the newspaper. We've been in the press. Like people are finally paying attention.”

    2024-06-27 · Lenny's Podcast · The social radar: Y Combinator’s secret weapon | Jessica Livingston (co-founder of Y Combinator, author, podcast host) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  4. “Know those were in the first batch. And the batch thing worked really well because they all became friends. We could have dinner every week and bring in guest speakers and then introduce them to investors at Demo Day. And that whole batch investing thing was an aha moment. And we said, oh my gosh, let's keep doing this. This really works. And so we said that was a moment where we knew we were on to something. And that's when we then did it in California in the winter. But the second big moment was probably, it was, I remember it was like a year later and no reporter would write about us. Investors really didn't, you know, think that much of us. But I remember when Reddit got bought by Condane Nast in 2006, it was that.”

    2024-06-27 · Lenny's Podcast · The social radar: Y Combinator’s secret weapon | Jessica Livingston (co-founder of Y Combinator, author, podcast host) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  5. “Were sort of two moments that I remember I felt like YC was working. Because remember, we started Y Combinator as 100% like an experiment. Could we fund younger founders with small amounts of money? That was it. Then that summer we created this batch investment idea. And then that became the idea of funding them in batches. And that was the first aha moment was after that first summer when we invited people to participate in the summer founders program, which is what it was called. And remember that first summer had Sam Altman, Emmett Shier and Justin Kahn, Alexis and Steve of Reddit.”

    2024-06-27 · Lenny's Podcast · The social radar: Y Combinator’s secret weapon | Jessica Livingston (co-founder of Y Combinator, author, podcast host) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  6. “Negative news stories about us. I mean, the negative stories in the press, because I'm a people person and I'm very sensitive, like Paul's not as sensitive as me. And so he doesn't care if there's a negative story in the press that's not true. Like, I do. It really, like, affected me. And I hated when we got big enough that, you know, people would lie about us and say bad things. So I look back fondly when we first started. It was the most fun time of my life, the most productive time of my life. Didn't have kids then. And I could just help the founders and like learn about all these exciting things that happened in the startup world because it was new to me then, the startup world was new when we started Y Combinator. So I had a lot of learning to do. And I met all these cool people. And it was just very authentic. Like no one was doing it to be cool.”

    2024-06-27 · Lenny's Podcast · The social radar: Y Combinator’s secret weapon | Jessica Livingston (co-founder of Y Combinator, author, podcast host) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  7. “Funny you ask because actually one of my ideas I've had lately is that I want to start thinking about writing sort of a YC biography kind of book. I don't know when the time is, but the point is I have to remember things because it's hard when it's been 20 years to go way back. You have to remember specific things that happened. I mean why see, I just remember the early days being so magical and so pure when we started like no one knew about us. No one was bothering us. We just did what we were doing with no distractions. We were helping, albeit a very small group of founders, you know, eight in that first summer. We were just doing what we love doing and growing organically and no one was scrutinizing us or blaming us for things or, you know, writing now.”

    2024-06-27 · Lenny's Podcast · The social radar: Y Combinator’s secret weapon | Jessica Livingston (co-founder of Y Combinator, author, podcast host) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  8. “Honestly, I wouldn't. And it's, I wish I could say, oh, I knew they'd be this big. But the truth is with all of the super successful startups, yeah, you can remember feeling very positively about them and certainly feeling like as they went along in the first few years, like they're doing really well, they're really determined. They're doing a great job, but you just never really think. They themselves probably didn't realize that they'd ever be that big, let's face it. That's just the way startups are.”

    2024-06-27 · Lenny's Podcast · The social radar: Y Combinator’s secret weapon | Jessica Livingston (co-founder of Y Combinator, author, podcast host) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  9. “I have learned so much from the founders that we funded. I mean, some of them are just incredible people and have been through so much and survived so much and built these amazing companies that I couldn't have even imagined when we funded them that these companies would be as successful as they are and they're all so many of them are just great people and they now teach me things honestly like Brian Chesky teaches me things the student has become the master he knows so much more about me and running a business and I often like will go to him for advice and so I'm really lucky to be surrounded by so many smart people in the startup world because as a startup nerd I mean I could talk about startups you know and think about them all the time and it's so great to have all these people around sort of lifting Lifting me up.”

    2024-06-27 · Lenny's Podcast · The social radar: Y Combinator’s secret weapon | Jessica Livingston (co-founder of Y Combinator, author, podcast host) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  10. “Our personal life that is just so admirable. And I just, I've really learned, learned a lot from him. It's such a boring thing to like learn from your husband. But at the same time, I'm going to extend this. I'm going to win bag a little bit longer.”

    2024-06-27 · Lenny's Podcast · The social radar: Y Combinator’s secret weapon | Jessica Livingston (co-founder of Y Combinator, author, podcast host) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  11. “In my career, I definitely have to say my husband, Paul Graham. I've just learned so much from him over the years. And he's such a good person, and I don't I think people who know him all know that he is. It's just he has such a big online personality either through Twitter or through his essays. And so he has a lot of people that don't like him. Because he also speaks what he believes and he is not afraid to say anything if he believes it's true and needs to be said. Whereas I'm the exact opposite. I'm like, oh, I'm not going near that. I'm not touching that with a 10 foot pole. I don't even want to get in someone's crosshairs or fight with someone. And I admire that so much. Like there's so much that he's done with Y Combinator and just.”

    2024-06-27 · Lenny's Podcast · The social radar: Y Combinator’s secret weapon | Jessica Livingston (co-founder of Y Combinator, author, podcast host) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  12. “Jeremy Clarkson. He's in a show called Top Gear. I don't watch that, but he lives out in the English countryside. He has a farm and he decided that he'd farm it. And the whole show is about him getting into this business that he knows nothing about. Everything goes wrong, but it is hysterical and heartbreaking at the same time. I've learned so much about England and about where I live and the crops that are grown and how hard it is for farmers. He's really shown a light on the difficulty of being a farmer these days. And it's fabulous. Clarkson's farm. And it has some bad language in it, but I do recommend that kids watch it because it's just a good show to watch as a family if you can deal with a little foul language, foul language, the Brits say drunk. A lot of F bombs.”

    2024-06-27 · Lenny's Podcast · The social radar: Y Combinator’s secret weapon | Jessica Livingston (co-founder of Y Combinator, author, podcast host) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  13. “Don't tend to watch recent movies. I watch old school movies like from the 50s through the 90s and stuff. My favorite new TV show just off the top of my head right now is Clarkson's Farm. Have you heard of that on Amazon?”

    2024-06-27 · Lenny's Podcast · The social radar: Y Combinator’s secret weapon | Jessica Livingston (co-founder of Y Combinator, author, podcast host) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  14. “Stones at all. That was really good. And then I recently read Barbara Streisen's biography called, I think it's called My Name is Barbara, something, and I kept thinking as I was reading this, like every female founder should read this book. And you're looking at me like, that's so random. But it's because she was such a success within this totally male-dominated like world of Hollywood and just treated like garbage and dismissed and calded diva when she was very particular about something. Whereas a man would be called, you know, a great director and she was called a diva. And I felt like every woman should just read this to inspire them. It was such a great book, long but very good.”

    2024-06-27 · Lenny's Podcast · The social radar: Y Combinator’s secret weapon | Jessica Livingston (co-founder of Y Combinator, author, podcast host) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  15. “And they are so funny. They're just fabulously written. Like his use of words makes me laugh so hard. And so I would specifically recommend like the starter books that I'd write he wrote. Tons of books and he lived till he was like 100. He start with like very good Jeeves or right ho Jeeves, carry-on jeeves, those three are really good books. And then I tend to read, so Paul's the big reader in the family. He reads, you know, riveting books like on Roman grains and anything that has to do with medieval history. I tend to read biographies of people. And so I just, especially musicians, especially English musicians, strangely. And so I've recommended to a lot of people, if you really want a good autobiography, because I sometimes hate autobiographies because I feel like people hold back and don't really share everything. Keith Richards, his autobiography called Life is really good if you're a fan of the rolling.”

    2024-06-27 · Lenny's Podcast · The social radar: Y Combinator’s secret weapon | Jessica Livingston (co-founder of Y Combinator, author, podcast host) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  16. “Well, I definitely would recommend like my first, second, and third books would all be PG Woodhouse books. Do you know him as an author, Ask Jeeves? Okay, so he was old school author and he wrote the As Jeeves books about the Butler and”

    2024-06-27 · Lenny's Podcast · The social radar: Y Combinator’s secret weapon | Jessica Livingston (co-founder of Y Combinator, author, podcast host) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  17. “Okay, yeah, because people come to yours expecting to learn things Now I'm getting a little nervous. I'm going to get axed because I'm not teaching them anything. Valuable.”

    2024-06-27 · Lenny's Podcast · The social radar: Y Combinator’s secret weapon | Jessica Livingston (co-founder of Y Combinator, author, podcast host) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  18. “Thank you. Can I ask you a question about podcasting really quickly? When you do a podcast, after you hang up with a person can you tell do you have a gut instinct like that was a really great one?”

    2024-06-27 · Lenny's Podcast · The social radar: Y Combinator’s secret weapon | Jessica Livingston (co-founder of Y Combinator, author, podcast host) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  19. “Number of subscribers. Okay, one thing I also, this is just my personality. I can't bring myself to do what I want to, is ask people if you like the social radars, like please subscribe and leave a rating and a review. Like, I would do anything to have people leave rating in reviews.”

    2024-06-27 · Lenny's Podcast · The social radar: Y Combinator’s secret weapon | Jessica Livingston (co-founder of Y Combinator, author, podcast host) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  20. “I need to be a little bit more like that. I don't know any of my statistics. What should I, what statistic you tell me as an experienced podcaster? What statistics should I be like have taped up to my mirror every day and track?”

    2024-06-27 · Lenny's Podcast · The social radar: Y Combinator’s secret weapon | Jessica Livingston (co-founder of Y Combinator, author, podcast host) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  21. “And I just want to have conversations that I personally find interesting. I'm very selfish about it, Lenny. As long as I have an interesting conversation, I tell Carolyn this all the time. Like, as long as we have like 20 listeners, that's all I need. 20 really interested listeners will keep doing it.”

    2024-06-27 · Lenny's Podcast · The social radar: Y Combinator’s secret weapon | Jessica Livingston (co-founder of Y Combinator, author, podcast host) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  22. “So he doesn't care, and Parker's moved on. He's successful with rippling. He doesn't think about this stuff. But I do, I care about justice, you know, and it was a horrible thing that was done to him. And like it affected his health, it affected his life, you know. And I just am glad to have sort of been a conduit to set the record straight.”

    2024-06-27 · Lenny's Podcast · The social radar: Y Combinator’s secret weapon | Jessica Livingston (co-founder of Y Combinator, author, podcast host) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  23. “Stories planted in the press, and I had him come on and I had him tell what really happened, you know, and I, even I who have seen so much shit behind the scenes with startups in Silicon Valley over the years, like stuff you just couldn't believe this was unbelievable. And the thing that really sticks with me is that like, no reporter ever like. Maybe no reporters listened to it, but no one said, like, hey, I got that wrong years ago. I shouldn't have written that. That wasn't true. Let me set the record straight.”

    2024-06-27 · Lenny's Podcast · The social radar: Y Combinator’s secret weapon | Jessica Livingston (co-founder of Y Combinator, author, podcast host) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  24. “The podcast that really sticks with me is the Parker Conrad episode of Rippling, but we spent a lot of time on Xenophones because if you didn't follow that story years ago, The press annihilated him. And in talking to him, I learned why. There was a smear campaign. Know paid for Someone's still at Xenophes. There were legal threats made to force him to sign this legal document that would allow them to have a non-compete in California so that he couldn't start another company, basically making his life miserable, disparaging him.”

    2024-06-27 · Lenny's Podcast · The social radar: Y Combinator’s secret weapon | Jessica Livingston (co-founder of Y Combinator, author, podcast host) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  25. “It's not like talking to a reporter who's going to publish it. Like I care about them. I care about making them look good. And I'd never want to betray their trust. And they know that. So that's part of it too. For me with the podcast, I just have some questions that I do ahead of time just so I have something down. But I also just let the conversation go where it's going. And we get into some random tangents that I find are really fascinating.”

    2024-06-27 · Lenny's Podcast · The social radar: Y Combinator’s secret weapon | Jessica Livingston (co-founder of Y Combinator, author, podcast host) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  26. “Remember, I've been interviewing people Since YC started, because I was working on founders at work when simultaneously when we started YC. And so that was a collection of interviews. And back then I can't say I was that good at it. I've got much better. And then I've since gone. I used to do a lot of interviews at startup school on stage with people. And now the podcast, I think one thing that is that the guests trust me, they trust that I'm not going to try to like have a gotcha moment. I'm not trying to lure them into saying anything controversial. I mean, do I love it when they say something that hasn't been said before? Yes. But I'm not trying to trick them. And just like you, I tell them, you will have a chance to review this before it goes public. And I think that disarms people. And they say, okay, I can open up because I know if I regret saying something.”

    2024-06-27 · Lenny's Podcast · The social radar: Y Combinator’s secret weapon | Jessica Livingston (co-founder of Y Combinator, author, podcast host) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  27. “In terms of content, I mean, every single episode is a gem in its own, right? And there aren't like massive lessons because they're all sort of specific to that person. And I never know exactly which direction we're going to go in when we get into things. But it was interesting. There were definitely some themes with Adora Chung and Tony Zhu of DoorDash where they said they really made a mistake early on scaling into different cities before they had nailed the original city. And that's an important lesson. There's lessons for everyone, I think, in addition to really getting to know these founders, their personal side of their personality. There's some great lessons that they all tell.”

    2024-06-27 · Lenny's Podcast · The social radar: Y Combinator’s secret weapon | Jessica Livingston (co-founder of Y Combinator, author, podcast host) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  28. “I could talk for an hour just on. I want to learn from you as an expert podcaster because I'm still a noob here. What I've learned the hard way, and you probably will nod your head when I say this, is that I talk way too much. I'm a huge windbag and I hate, I don't notice it now when I'm just talking to you and going off and talking, talking, talking, but when I'm editing the podcast and I'm listening to myself, ask a question in 20 sentences when I could ask it in two. So I've really had to train myself to keep Short. Like, you want regular short dialogue, you know this, but you also have to interrupt guests if they're going off too much. So like the talking of the hosts should be frequent but short. That's the lesson that I've learned.”

    2024-06-27 · Lenny's Podcast · The social radar: Y Combinator’s secret weapon | Jessica Livingston (co-founder of Y Combinator, author, podcast host) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  29. “Honestly, like, I truly believe this. I'm not BSing you. I think they're all really, really good. And there's so many interesting takeaways from every single one. If I were coming to it for the first time, I'd probably choose, I'd look at the guests and say, who am I interested? Have I stayed at an Airbnb and I want to learn more about that? Or do I use Reddit? Just see who the guests are and start with someone you're kind of interested in. And I guarantee you'll like learn more about this person.”

    2024-06-27 · Lenny's Podcast · The social radar: Y Combinator’s secret weapon | Jessica Livingston (co-founder of Y Combinator, author, podcast host) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  30. “Emmett Sheer, by the way, the week after he was named OpenAI CEO for like 72 hours, that one launched. I was like, I could not have planned that timing better.”

    2024-06-27 · Lenny's Podcast · The social radar: Y Combinator’s secret weapon | Jessica Livingston (co-founder of Y Combinator, author, podcast host) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  31. “27 that have launched yet. And there's a few coming out. Season three. We're still in the middle of that. I'm still editing some and doing some. But it's been so much fun and I love it, and I hope that people enjoy listening. I hope I'm not just working this really small corner of the room. I hope people enjoy sort of unstructured conversations. But people open up to me, though, because what I copied from SmartList that I liked, you know, they'd say, hey, remember when we were at that Oscars party and this happened, like because they had that relationship with the people they're interviewing in a lot of cases, I feel like I've had that with a lot of people I'm interviewing and I could say, hey, Brian, remember when you interviewed and brought the cereal boxes, you know, and he could tell he shared that story. I don't think I knew it before then that they were on the 101 and the phone went out, you know, the reception went out before Paul said that they were accepted. So I learn a lot and it's really just fascinating to me.”

    2024-06-27 · Lenny's Podcast · The social radar: Y Combinator’s secret weapon | Jessica Livingston (co-founder of Y Combinator, author, podcast host) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  32. “And we'll keep going if it's fun. And I have had so much fun catching up with all the people I've interviewed. I mean, at this point, I forget how many podcasts I've even done, but maybe about.”

    2024-06-27 · Lenny's Podcast · The social radar: Y Combinator’s secret weapon | Jessica Livingston (co-founder of Y Combinator, author, podcast host) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  33. “Just genuine conversations, most of the time, these actors knew the people and were friends, and I just found it fascinating. I could not stop. And I thought there should be like a really informal conversation like this with startup founders so people could understand the people behind the startups. And it's not too scripted and not too, maybe I don't want to say professional because I hope it's professional sounding, but it's very conversational and authentic. And I was trying to mimic that a little bit. So I convinced my colleague and friend Carolyn Levy, who, of course, has a full-time job being one of the amazing lawyers within YC, and she's super busy. I convinced her to do it with me so I could have a partner in crime. And then we just started. And I said, we'll do a few episodes, see how it goes.”

    2024-06-27 · Lenny's Podcast · The social radar: Y Combinator’s secret weapon | Jessica Livingston (co-founder of Y Combinator, author, podcast host) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  34. “Okay, so just for the listeners, it is a podcast hosted by three actors, Jason Bateman, Will Arnett, and Sean Hayes. And they really, they invite Hollywood people, actors, directors, musicians, sometimes athletes on the show. And the thing is one person, one of the hosts invites the guests, the other two don't know. So there's no preparation and it's the most fascinating thing. I love movies and I love television and I can tell you like another weird eccentric sort of gift of mine as I remember every name in Hollywood and know all like their children and all this stuff because I've been reading people magazine since I was 13. I loved like you'd learn so much about the actors as a people because they weren't talking from a script or their, you know, media messages for promoting a movie. It was like.”

    2024-06-27 · Lenny's Podcast · The social radar: Y Combinator’s secret weapon | Jessica Livingston (co-founder of Y Combinator, author, podcast host) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  35. “Well, I'm really excited that you're asking that question because no one has ever asked me about the social radars. Yes, I mean, it's pretty new, but we launched last year. I decided to start the social radars because I live off in the English countryside, not really as connected as I'd like to be with Silicon Valley, partly by choice, but I do miss it a lot. And I was finding that as I was catching up with YC alumni, you know, that would come visit or I'd see. I just loved the conversations we were having and I missed that. I missed that connection with these people and sort of sharing their stories of triumph and failure in some cases, but mostly triumph at the same time, I became obsessed with this podcast called Smartless. Have you ever heard of it?”

    2024-06-27 · Lenny's Podcast · The social radar: Y Combinator’s secret weapon | Jessica Livingston (co-founder of Y Combinator, author, podcast host) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  36. “I know. Well, that's the other thing. I told Paul also the challenge is you really have to understand what each feeling, what that word means. He's like, oh, that didn't even occur to me because he's such a word person and knows the exact definition of every single word. But I thought some people will struggle understanding the complexities of the emotion.”

    2024-06-27 · Lenny's Podcast · The social radar: Y Combinator’s secret weapon | Jessica Livingston (co-founder of Y Combinator, author, podcast host) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  37. “Think when people take Have to look into their eyes and say, What are they trying to tell me? I hope you're not trying to tell me you're full of shit.”

    2024-06-27 · Lenny's Podcast · The social radar: Y Combinator’s secret weapon | Jessica Livingston (co-founder of Y Combinator, author, podcast host) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  38. “Like, it's kind of hard to tell the difference between irritated and angry. And I remember looking into these people's eyes saying, what are they trying to communicate to me? Are they irritated with me? Or are they mad at me kind of thing? And as I went through, it would tell you if you got it correct. And as I almost got to the end, I was like, oh my God, this is going to be a near perfect score. I have to nail this. And when I got 36 out of 36, I was like, yes. And I told Paul, he tweeted it. We then, like a week later, had this YC event in London, and I swear to God, about 10 people came up to me to talk about this iQuiz and how they had not done well and what was my secret. It was very amusing. I never thought that anyone would think it interesting.”

    2024-06-27 · Lenny's Podcast · The social radar: Y Combinator’s secret weapon | Jessica Livingston (co-founder of Y Combinator, author, podcast host) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  39. “I did nail it. I do have to tell a funny story about this. So, Paul. Sort of like late at night, and he emailed me because I had like gone to bed, but I had my thing. And he emailed me. He's like, check out this quiz. I got 55 out of 36. What can you get? So I got my computer out because I was like, I have to beat Paul. And I did it. And it was really hard. Like they'd only show the eyes. And then it would say, what is this person?”

    2024-06-27 · Lenny's Podcast · The social radar: Y Combinator’s secret weapon | Jessica Livingston (co-founder of Y Combinator, author, podcast host) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  40. “Be a little bit more conscious about asking these types of questions to reveal like some key information for your investment decision.”

    2024-06-27 · Lenny's Podcast · The social radar: Y Combinator’s secret weapon | Jessica Livingston (co-founder of Y Combinator, author, podcast host) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  41. “Try to just tell yourself, okay, I'm going to go in. I'm going in to evaluate these founders, evaluate this investment opportunity. I know I'm bad at these kind of judgments. I'm going to remember like, do they seem like they get along? Because there are no like trick questions. I don't have any trick questions that you could ask. Or it's just paying attention. Like have a conversation. Do they understand their product well? Are they defensive? Like maybe have your own little checklist that you think about you. You don't have to have it written down, but you think about and then afterward you spend some time thinking like, were they defensive? Like when I ask them why this is better than the competitor, how did that go? Or ask them maybe you do have some questions like if you don't know how long they've known each other, ask them that question. How did you two meet? Have you ever worked together before? How's it going?”

    2024-06-27 · Lenny's Podcast · The social radar: Y Combinator’s secret weapon | Jessica Livingston (co-founder of Y Combinator, author, podcast host) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  42. “I really think that our advantage was that my three co founders were deeply technical people. And I think a lot of investors back then weren't a lot, you know, didn't have that background. And I think that that background really helped YC choose good founders. So I don't want it make it sound like, you know, it was that big of a deal. advice. Advice for how to hone. May I think just try to pay attention to subtle cues. If you really feel like, gosh, I am so clueless about these things.”

    2024-06-27 · Lenny's Podcast · The social radar: Y Combinator’s secret weapon | Jessica Livingston (co-founder of Y Combinator, author, podcast host) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  43. “It's all just stuff in the application that automatically flags certain things. I actually don't remember all of them. But it's just all it is a please pay attention to this, reader of the application. It's not. This disqualifies anyone. It's just please pay attention. And those are things like I mentioned, like a really crazy equity structure. Founders not quitting their job, things like that, that it's important that someone is voting on them and then interviewing them knows because I would often, some of the questions I'd ask at the end of the interview, I'd say it looks like, you know, you have 90% of the stock and your co-founder only has one. Can you tell us why that's the case? And maybe they could make a case for it. You know, who knows? But at least I'd ask. So the flags just say, pay attention to it.”

    2024-06-27 · Lenny's Podcast · The social radar: Y Combinator’s secret weapon | Jessica Livingston (co-founder of Y Combinator, author, podcast host) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  44. “We've been tricked in that respect all the time. Or, oh gosh, they seemed so impressive in the interview. And now they're just posers, you know, can't really do anything. Like definitely, I'm tricked all the time in little ways. Or like I didn't notice two founders didn't get along and then, you know, one co-founder goes missing, you know, a week into the program or something crazy. There's all sorts of crazy stuff like that that happen.”

    2024-06-27 · Lenny's Podcast · The social radar: Y Combinator’s secret weapon | Jessica Livingston (co-founder of Y Combinator, author, podcast host) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  45. “Well, you find a lot can come in reading the application. That's a lot of like work at the beginning. You read the application. But then the 10 minutes is kind of as long as you need in most cases because we found when they were longer, like 20 minutes, you'd know in 10 minutes and be like twiddling your thumbs trying to get through the interview for the next 10 minutes. So we kept them short so we could interview more people. But there have definitely been cases where we've interviewed people, accepted them, and then very soon afterward we're sort of like sort of crestfallen like, oh, these people are very limp. This, what were we thinking? Definitely.”

    2024-06-27 · Lenny's Podcast · The social radar: Y Combinator’s secret weapon | Jessica Livingston (co-founder of Y Combinator, author, podcast host) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  46. “And they stole like billions of dollars. Yeah. And I definitely don't remember thinking anything bad about him, you know, or thinking he could be that kind of person. So that definitely there have been some dozies like that where I did not see that one coming”

    2024-06-27 · Lenny's Podcast · The social radar: Y Combinator’s secret weapon | Jessica Livingston (co-founder of Y Combinator, author, podcast host) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  47. “Oh, yeah, for sure I can't really talk about the times I have been tricked just because I don't want to say anything really negative about people, but there was, well, there was one example that I do feel comfortable sharing. Ilya Liechtenstein of Mix Rank. Do you know the guy that likes stole billions of dollars in Bitcoin from a crypto wallet? Do you not know this crazy crazy story? I think he's in the joint now. He was definitely convicted of this. And his wife?”

    2024-06-27 · Lenny's Podcast · The social radar: Y Combinator’s secret weapon | Jessica Livingston (co-founder of Y Combinator, author, podcast host) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  48. “More intellectual But it does come from inside. I don't know how to hone it. I can't, it has to come natural. You have to have a natural interest in sort of people. And so I'm sometimes not listening to all the words and I'm sort of just observing them. I don't know.”

    2024-06-27 · Lenny's Podcast · The social radar: Y Combinator’s secret weapon | Jessica Livingston (co-founder of Y Combinator, author, podcast host) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  49. “And now I can say, you know, I was right about them. That feeling was right. So I do try to sort of follow up with some of the really strong gut instincts that I had to see if I was right. I often when I have a gut instinct, it's like a negative thing. So we wind up not funding someone. So I really need to know if that person went on to be super successful. And I will answer your question right now. There's no one. I had a strong dislike for that I sort of said we should not fund them, that has gone on to be a super success. Thank God.”

    2024-06-27 · Lenny's Podcast · The social radar: Y Combinator’s secret weapon | Jessica Livingston (co-founder of Y Combinator, author, podcast host) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  50. “No, but one of the things I do try to do is sort of reinforce, like sometimes I'll have a feeling about someone. Maybe we fund them, maybe we don't. I'd sort of like to know what happens a few years later. I like to follow up. Like there definitely have been some situations where I haven't liked someone that we funded. And it's taken, you know, five to ten years before they failed. And in some cases, like for a bad reason, you know, where I'll say, oh, thank God I was right about that. I did have this feeling. Or, you know, I knew they'd be successful. And like the goat guys who I was saying before, there was definitely a period when Grub with us there first started up wasn't doing well and they were starting like that maybe some people would have given up on them”

    2024-06-27 · Lenny's Podcast · The social radar: Y Combinator’s secret weapon | Jessica Livingston (co-founder of Y Combinator, author, podcast host) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source