Jessica Livingston is a cofounder 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 earlystage startups. She’s also the host of the popular podcast The Social Radars, where she interviews billiondollarstartup founders, and the author of the acclaimed book Founders at Work, which captures the origin stories of some of today’s most interesting companies. In our conversation, we discuss:
• How Jessica gained the affectionate title of the “social radar”
• Why defensive founders are a red flag
• How to develop your social radar
• What she looks for in founders during YC interviews
• How YC’s early inexperience in angel investing led to the batch model
• Her favorite stories from interviews with Airbnb, Rippling, and more
• Lessons learned from hosting her own podcast
• Much more

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Find the transcript at: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/th...

Where to find Jessica Livingston:
• X: https://x.com/jesslivingston
• LinkedIn:   / jessicalivingston1  
• Podcast: https://www.thesocialradars.com/

Where to find Lenny:
• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com
• X:   / lennysan  
• LinkedIn:   / lennyrachitsky  

In this episode, we cover:
(00:00) Jessica’s background
(02:42) Thoughts on being underrecognized
(07:52) Jessica’s superpower: the social radar
(15:11) Evaluating founders: key traits and red flags
(21:00) The Airbnb story: a lesson in hustle and determination
(25:57) A YC success story
(28:26) The importance of earnestness
(32:45) Confidence vs. defensiveness
(34:43) Commitment and cofounder disputes
(37:46) Relentless resourcefulness
(40:00) Jessica’s social radar: origins and insights
(43:24) Honing her social radar skills
(45:44) Conviction and scams: a Y Combinator story
(46:50) The interview process: challenges and insights
(48:20) Operationalizing founder evaluation
(49:38) Advice for building social radar skills
(52:08) The “Reading the Mind in the Eyes” quiz: https://s3.amazonaws.com/heassetspr...
(55:19) Jessica’s podcast: The Social Radars
(01:00:34) Lessons from podcasting and interviewing
(01:09:58) Lightning round

Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email [email protected].

Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed.