Jessica Livingston
Jessica Livingston is a co-founder of Y Combinator, the first and most successful startup accelerator. Y Combinator has funded over 5,000 companies, 200 of which are now unicorns, including Airbnb, Dropbox, DoorDash, Stripe, Coinbase, and Reddit. Jessica played a crucial role in YC’s early success, when she was nicknamed the “social radar” because of her uncanny ability to quickly evaluate people—an essential skill when investing in early-stage startups. She’s also the host of the popular podcast The Social Radars, where she interviews billion-dollar-startup founders, and the author of the acclaimed book Founders at Work, which captures the origin stories of some of today’s most interesting companies.
Hiring & Teams Skills
Having a dedicated observer who is not leading the technical questioning allows for better detection of social and behavioral cues.
"I would be in charge of the stopwatch that would time us. And I'd say, 'Okay, our time's up.' ... I would observe. Paul, Robert and Trevor, my co-founders would be asking them all sorts of questions a..."
Short, high-intensity interviews are often sufficient to make a high-level judgment on talent and fit.
"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 twiddling your thumbs trying to get through the i..."
Co-founder dynamics and defensiveness are critical indicators of a startup's potential for success or failure.
"I would look at, do the co-founders get along? Are these people committed? And if a founder would get defensive, that was always a bad sign."
Evaluating founders requires looking beyond technical skills to assess commitment, domain expertise, and interpersonal dynamics.
"I would look at other things about founders. When we'd have these 10-minute interviews, I would look at, do the co-founders get along? Are these people committed? Do they really know about their produ..."
The ability to engage in a spirited debate without becoming defensive is a hallmark of a successful, flexible-minded founder.
"If a founder would get defensive, that was always a bad sign, always a bad sign. The best founders would say, 'Gosh, I have thought about it and here's what I figured out.' Or, they just have this alm..."
Imbalanced power dynamics or equity structures between co-founders are significant red flags.
"One founder, once we asked a question and one person started to respond and the other founder put his arm in front of him and said, 'I'll answer that question.' And it was just so weird that he wouldn..."
Authentic passion for the problem and the user is a better predictor of success than following trends for 'easy money.'
"Earnestness is one of the most important because earnest, sort of to me, is bucketed with authenticity. And to be a successful startup founder, you have to care so much about the problem you're trying..."
True confidence is the ability to admit ignorance while demonstrating a plan to find the solution.
"Confidence means you can say, 'I've thought about that and I don't know the answer.' That's confidence. And they'll say, 'But here's what I do to try to figure it out. Here are my plans to address tha..."
A shared history between co-founders provides a foundation of trust necessary to survive the difficulties of a startup.
"I love co-founders that have a history together; either they went to school together, they went to college together, work together, maybe they're siblings. Because when you have a long-term relationsh..."
Filtering for personality and 'no-asshole' rules early on is essential for building a collaborative, long-term community.
"I did sometimes tend to say, 'I really think this person's an asshole, I do not want to fund them.' ... it was sort of important early on in weeding out explicit assholes because that was the basis of..."