Jessica Livingston: How to Build the Future | Hacker News Reader

Jessica Livingston: How to Build the Future

ycombinator.com

290 pointssama84 comments

This is how you do great content marketing and branding.

This entire video series is about inspiring people with a side benefit of illustrating what makes YC special.

Compare this to content by other accelerators (of which there are many). It's not a lecture nor a recital of advice. It's a series of relatable and personable stories with a consistent theme. Start with "Why" you do something, not how or what.

While I agree with this being a great way to build an inspirational brand, I am convinced that it has worked because Jessica stays authentic. She sounds genuinely inspiring.

I do think they are keeping this profile in purpose. Jessica mentioned one of the things she wished she had done earlier is start YC's outreach earlier and cast a wider net with more partners. I interpreted this as her saying, this is what has worked wonders, I wish we had done more of it.

Thanks! That's what we aimed for.

Feel free to shoot me any suggestions of content you'd find useful via email. We're always looking for more ways to make valuable and interesting content more accessible to everyone.

Hey Steven, Could you enable download for the interviews on Soundcloud?

I think there needs to be a moratorium on that AirBnB political cereal box story. "The most important thing to do is to focus on your business, but also it's cool if you spend time on a random side business," is a big mixed message.

I think the message that I've gotten from that story is that you need to do whatever you can to afford you the means to focus on your business, no matter how un-scaleable it may seem. And that's the attitude we love here at YC.

It's definitely one of my favorite stories, and really serves as a great testament to the idea that staying alive so you can keep working on your product is easily one of the most important things for (early stage) companies.

Would you have ever advocated that move to a portfolio company? I can't imagine any of the partners advocating that tactic during an office hours conversation... It only seems awesome after the fact.

To answer your question: no, nope, no. Absolutely agree with you there. This anecdote is definitely the most extreme and not-advised route of keeping your company alive. They were extremely lucky this worked at all in their favor. Please don't try this at home :)

There are way more reproducible methods of keeping your company above water, such as reducing burn or spending your time wisely and focusing on your core product (as opposed to adding more and more features no one really wants).

I've heard the Airbnb founders tell their story many times and even they acknowledge this was a last-ditch effort. They ate ramen and cereal for all their meals to extend their bank account and tracked it to the penny. I think that is the point that should be taken from the story; when it comes down to the end of the wire, you should be willing to do whatever you can to stay alive. All cliches aside, startups are hard.

So if I'm reading you right, the tldr: that was a crazy-foolish, low probability move by the airbnb founders rather than a sound "stay alive" strategy. In which case, it should not be fetishized as a "be like them" move (at least in some respects)?

Though it does make for an awesome 'hustle' story (on that, I agree; same with startups being hard). It sounds like they were just having fun, and happened to earn some scratch along the way.

Jessica's words were:

They really were doing this because they were out of money. And this is like a Hail Mary for them.

The sensible advice YC partners will always give you is to avoid running out of money.

If you've run out of money, there's not much advice the YC partners can give you, and the only options are to (a) shut down immediately, or (b) throw a Hail Mary.

The lesson here is that if you're the kind of founder who, in a do-or-die situation, can figure out a Hail Mary that actually hits the mark - and if you believe in your idea enough to be willing to try anything to survive, even when nobody else in the world believes in your idea - you're more likely to be the kind of founder who will accomplish huge success in the long term - due to the determination and inspiration you've shown yourself to possess.

Of course, nobody should fetishize getting in a situation where you have to throw a Hail Mary - but as Jessica explains, in the 2008 climate, it was hard to imagine how they could have avoided it.

But offering this story as a perfect example of how determination and inspiration can lead to massive success continues to be entirely appropriate.

You didn't need to backtrack. Your original comment summed it up nicely: be determined, creative, and willing to do anything necessary for your business to succeed. They did so and cleverly. beambot asking if you'd recommend that specific move any other time is a red herring in the big picture where that move is specific to a moment in time and probably only works once. Point is to make the move that keeps you successful, whatever it may be.

It was a good move, probably only works once, and anyone running a startup about to die should think up something as effective. Lesson learned.

EDIT: Interesting our replies came at almost exactly the same time.

My co-founder and I were most certainly advised by YC partners when we were close to hitting the wall: "just do whatever you have to do to keep your company alive – and do it fast!".

The cereal box story serves as a reminder that sometimes it takes the most unlikely, left-field, crazy-seeming idea to get yourself out of the hole.

The one my company pulled was very different to this, but it worked, and the company is now thriving, albeit on a much smaller scale to Airbnb.

Had we not been in the same YC batch as Airbnb and seen up close just what it takes to survive hardship and get to sustainability, it's unlikely we'd have made it.

What did you guys do? If you don't mind sharing it.

It's too long/complex a story. I'll write about it one day.

Welcome to the contradictory world of Startup Advice: Survival Bias Edition.

I don't see a mixed message. They did what they had to do to survive as a company rather than become consultants or get jobs because they were that focused on making the company work.

But they did get jobs. They got jobs at a humorous cereal box company they founded.

I see your point - but don't you think that's kind of a hyper real view of what this "starting a startup" is really about?

Whether its making personal sacrifices, cutting all unnecessary costs, selling "on boarding" you would do anyway for free - whatever it takes to keep the company alive (lots of things that don't scale) end up being significant in the early (and middle-year) history of startups.

Maybe its played, but I still think its a pretty great example of just getting it done by whatever means necessary.

I hope people remember that AirBnB spammed Craigslist to grow their user base. Not a great example of ethical behavior, IMHO.

The takeaway lesson being perhaps that ethical violations are often good for business?

source?

> but also it's cool if you spend time on a random side business," is a big mixed message

I don't look at it as a random side business because it provided marketing and helped them raise money when they were broke.

Great interview, I think Jessica was the secret sauce that made YC so good.

One of her co-founders agree http://paulgraham.com/jessica.html :)

Absolutely.

It was a great interview. The story about how Airbnb started is interesting. I'd have laughed at renting air beds during conferences, too. I'd see potential in it but not billions. The pivot and cereal gimmicks were excellent examples of her advice that determination is most important. Also, remember that most politicians or Fortune 100 CEO's didn't get there by being the smartest. They also got there with a combo of understanding people, focus and determination. Ruthlessly so in many cases.

So, the goal was increasing innovation across the board rather than making money. Hmm. I've previously brought up that I'm anti-VC innovation because many just get acquired by big companies that shelve it, esp if patents are involved. I also know they're interested in exporting or improving Y Combinator. I think it would be interesting if they modified the model so the software had to be GPL, the business had anti-lockin tooling like data importers, and/or patent suit immunity for non-profits or free software doing compatible offerings. These kept true even after an IPO or acquisition by legal means. A combo of techniques like these would allow continuous stream of competition while preserving most of worth of company due to its brand and first-mover advantage.

What you all think about that or another modification of YC model to discourage monopolistic practices, lock-in or shelving post-acquisition?

> Also, remember that most politicians or Fortune 100 CEO's didn't get there by being the smartest. They also got there with a combo of understanding people, focus and determination.

Huh, and here I thought it was access to family money and Ivy League elite connections. Who knew?

"Huh, and here I thought it was access to family money and Ivy League elite connections. Who knew?"

That, too. There's many more who have access to those than who run Fortune 100 companies or the U.S. government. Additional traits factored in to filter the ones that made it. My reading on many of them led me to think a few were important. So, connections and starting point plus those traits.

Maybe slightly off topic, but I'm subscribed to YC on Soundcloud and had a notification pop up last night to tell me that this interview was available. Hit "play" on the driveway this morning while still connected to wifi and started my commute. 5 minutes later and it cuts out - mobile data dropped out (I live in a rural area).

Does the Soundcloud app not support buffering at all? I'd have thought that 20 minutes of speech would be a couple of MB at most. I see I can "upgrade" to allow offline listening for £9.99 per month, which seems pointless as this is all I'd use the service for.

I suppose I'll have to go down the route of using a legally dubious third party service to download the interview like I did for the Zuckerberg one a few weeks back. Shame they don't offer a more convenient way to listen, as this is shaping up to be a really interesting series.

I had similar issues with the Soundcloud app on iOS cutting out mid-track. Nothing seemed to fix it aside from totally restarting the app and finding my play head position again. It's kind of surprising because their desktop experience is so so good.

It's definitely possible to download on Soundcloud (ex. see "Download" button here https://soundcloud.com/travisscott-2/uber-everywhere). I think whoever runs the YC Soundcloud account has not enabled it. I agree it would be nice.

Jessica Livingston sounds very authentic. Even listening to her inspires me to work more.

The way she looks at Sam is the way a mother would look at their child. Jessica seems very endearing.

As long as we accept that "endearing" and "politically radical" are attributes that can and have been held by many, but equally are often not found in the same person. Afterall, the world will change whether or not YC exists.

For both PG and JL, a big requirement is surely avoiding any of the possible and unappealing permutations of the phrase "if I can't dance, I don't want to be part of your revolution". This is obviously really tough to do once you start tangling with big capital. Motherhood and apple pie is terrific but boy is it associated with social normativity.

So...this page has a YouTube embed, a SoundCloud embed and then also a Scribd embed. I got lazy with the timings / formatting of the transcript, but would be people rather a single link to something like this? https://presentio.us/t/610902

Note: You can click the text in the first few paragraphs to jump to the correct part of the video.

Thoughts?

I disable all JS in the browser and selectively re-enable. Just read the transcript. It was faster than listening.

The concept has appeal.

That app seems to break in Safari. Clicking many of the links seems to start the video over if it hasn't fully loaded yet, which is a confusing experience.

It's unclear on the page that there's no visual indication (within sight) that clicking in the text is doing something.

The best I have read from her so far is this- http://www.foundersatwork.com/1/post/2012/10/what-goes-wrong...

What Jessica has done in YC is an amazing example of how to build great culture in a Startup (and YC was and still is, in several ways, a startup!).

It's a challenge, but I believe YC can be an organization that can outlive its founders by the force of its strong, enduring culture. As a YC founder I didn't have the pleasure to meet Jessica (or Paul) yet (they are in a Sabbatical in London). But just spending those 3 months in YC and all the amazing people they put there made me feel as if I had.

What's being at YC like? And, any advice you can share on the application and how to get in?

I believe http://qz.com/696377/y-combinator-is-running-a-basic-income-... is the future;

"Every unicorn has come out of Y Combinator"*

That's kind of insane when you think about it.

*marginally paraphrased only because I can't find it in the transcript

But how did they have the money to even invest in startups?

Paul Graham (and Trevor and Robert) founded a company, Viaweb, that was sold to Yahoo for close to $50M in 1998. Like Jessica said, they invested $12k per company in the first batches of YC.

AirBnB is an evil company and YC should be ashamed to be apart of it.

AirBnB has the official policy that it's okay to lie about where listings are. I booked one that turned out to about about half a kilometer away from where is was marked on the map. I would never have rented it had it been correctly marked. When I complained I was told it's their policy. It's buried in their privacy policy in a paragraph aimed at hosts, not guests. Also, the law appears to say burying stuff in a policy is not a defense excusing deceptive practices.

I can list more AirBnB deceptive practices. I don't think the idea of AirBnB is bad but YC should not be associated with the kind of management that thinks deceptive practices are ok.

You have a valid point. They do it to protect the privacy of their hosts but mostly their best interests since hosting one's entire home/apt is illegal in many areas.

I agree that they should have a clear disclaimer on the exact location because it is very important in many areas. I think VRBO may be exact so you have another option.

I was tempted not to reply given the topic but she mentioned them exemplary enough that it was worth checking. Plus, I added "ruthless" to her recommendation that determination trumps all other traits for success. Made me curious. So, I looked at their policy pages to find something about location listings. Here's my first find:

"Misrepresenting your spaces You should not provide inaccurate location information, have incorrect availability, mislead people about the type, nature, or details of your listing, substitute one listing for another, set up fake or fraudulent listings, leave fraudulent reviews, engage in deceptive pricing, or fail to disclose hazards and habitability issues."

From here:

https://www.airbnb.com/standards

In the privacy policy here...

https://www.airbnb.com/terms/privacy_policy

...I noticed they had permission to display location-related stuff, which should be affected by other policy, in your profile with an "approximate location" on a map. There could be problems if approximation was wrong due to crappy, mapping service but good ones are usually pretty good.

Which policy link and quotes do you have that lets them lie about what has to be honest in the above sections? Or another I haven't seen?

Yes it's that second part they quoted to me in email from their customer service

" The Platform may also display the Accommodation’s approximate geographic location on a map, such that a user can see the general area of the Accommodation”

First off its ridiculous to claim that part of the privacy policy is something clear and obvious to guests and that they will therefore understand that listing are not representative of the actual locations.

Second, while I can except they might choose to have such a policy to protect hosts it is a arguably deceptive practice. If it's their policy that locations on the map may not by accurate that should be on the map page itself in a hard to miss representation. Not buried in section 5.B of their privacy policy in a section that starts with "Your public listing page..." making it clearly directed at hosts not guests.

I have to agree with you there.

I'm in Europe and I just polled a whole bunch of friends, anyone using these companies and got a resounding NOPE.

I just polled a bunch of US friends too and they say the same. Sure, purely anecdotal.

But for me, none of these have changed the world.

Maybe if you worship at the alter of YC or a wannabe Paul/Jessica groupie or liberal/progressive fantasist then I guess you totally buy into that.

Transformed is really a total stretch.

I'm still laughing after listening to that interview.

Waiting for the down-votes and I'm sure this will be flagged as it will upset some thin-skinned people who live in a (tech) bubble.

In my home European city alone, 450 000 people have stayed on the 4500 available houses on Airbnb in 2015. Other cities have passed or are planning to pass new laws specifically due to its effects.

"Changing the world" is an ambiguous concept, but you can't say it hasn't had an impact on cities across the world.

I down voted this comment because it is based on counterfactual anecdotes (those companies do have popular and well-liked products), and builds on those anecdotes to insult people who believe those statistics, and then tries to inoculate itself against criticism by accusing downvoters and flaggers of responding irrationally. The attempt to frame a predictable response as an unreasonable one hurts the discussion without offering anything in return.

I do agree that world-changing is a term used in contexts such as disease eradication. Certainly disease eradication changes the world more than avoiding a stay in a hotel. However, world-changing as a term is not restricted to the most impactful change to which it has been previously attached. For a typical programmer, making something that lets millions of people have an easier workday, vacation or home life should count as changing the world, even if it is a bit mundane.

What's interesting is how we now view what is 'mundane'. Pretty much my entire 'normal' life in 2016 - in which pretty much everything is mundane - is beyond what many fiction writers were capable of thinking of just 30 years ago. Instant/live audio/video communication with people around the planet - for essentially free (24/7!) - is now taken as 'mundane'.

I know most of us 'know' this at one level - well, many do, anyway - but given the infrastructure we build on, most of what we end up building is somewhat 'mundane' by comparison.

Lastly, I'm of an 'older' generation. Those younger than me do not remember a time when what's 'mundane' now was ever exciting/new/revolutionary. Much like having grown up with color TV, telephones and refrigeration and not being able to imagine a world without those, my younger family really can not imagine a world without near-free 24/7 access to info/communication.

There are many companies that change the world that you nor your friends would probably ever hear from.

Define 'world', then.

I've banned this account for repeatedly breaking the HN guidelines, and because you don't seem to be using this site in good faith. Intentionally or not, your comments have the effect of trolling. (Grandiose rhetoric about YC and the HN community, btw, doesn't insulate an account from needing to follow the rules here.)

If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe you'll follow the rules in the future.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12393868 and marked it off-topic.

scribd is such a piece of shit

Jessica is awesome. That said, this part near the beginning, where Sam says...

>>Sometimes they create a small success, and sometimes they create these companies that really transform the world, and YC has been very fortunate to be involved in a lot of these, Airbnb, Dropbox, Stripe, the list goes on.

I mean... really? OK, I'll grant you Airbnb, but Dropbox "transformed" the world?

Remember to translate out of startup-speak: "change the world" means "make a lot of money for our investors".

Well, "make a lot of money by selling something that enough people want badly enough that they'll voluntarily give us their money" is somewhat closer to "change the world".

Note that they're always careful not to say whether the world is changed in a positive or negative way :D

If my Dropbox gets hacked, I would seriously get very worried. If my Facebook gets hacked, I'd be merely annoyed.

Maybe not directly, but I think it did have a cultural influence:

* Helped people trust the "cloud" and inspired other cloud services to do similar things

* This might have help improve the foundation for remote workers to become more common.

I dunno. Before Dropbox I didn't really use a general purpose file store in the cloud for anything. I stored pictures on flickr and documents on Google Docs but nothing general purpose.

Now I store my entire home directory, all of my financial & legal documents, and quite a few other things (some in Dropbox some elsewhere). I dunno if that's transforming the world or not but it's made a pretty big difference to me personally.

>> I store ... all of my financial & legal documents [in Dropbox]

Are you encrypting these documents client side?

Just had my phone stolen. Good idea.

Have you bought any flash drives recently?

Plenty, you can get killer USB3 flash drives now. USB3 really is the Dropbox moment for flash drives.

Agreed. It takes <60 seconds to back-up all my personal files to a reformatted USB3 thumb drive I can stash in a safe. I only ever use them from one PC. Dropbox is good for collaborating but I think the "use from any device" benefits are a little bit overplayed. How many PCs and cell phones do people really do work on?

I have a desktop and a laptop that I use regularly, plus a work laptop. And I teach in a classroom that has a PC in it, so I regularly access Dropbox from 4 separate machines, not counting mobile devices.

Many people don't even know you can plug in a thumb drive on a phone or tablet, so if you're going to transfer files back-and-forth between just two devices, you pretty much need a syncing software.

It's funny, until I read your comment I didn't realize I would ever actually consider buying flash drive again.

For printing stuff in college or sharing files with someone near you nothing beats a USB. Quick and easy.

Yeah. Except it's formatted in fat and your file is larger than 4GB, oops. So you reformat in NTFS, but now the guy with the Mac can't write to it. USB is fine, but the lack of FS support is a PITA.

exFAT works everywhere for me.

Not on Android.

Yes, but only for Raspberry Pi(s), GoPro(s), and to boot from to install OSs.

rsync for normal people turns out to be a pretty big deal

Stripe has transformed the world. In 1999, I was asked to look into how to setup credit card processing for our company. I contacted Authorize.net for technical help. They just asked me to fax some information to them. Two months later my boss receives a bill for $3,000 claiming we had signed a contract agreeing to that fee. I think Stripe has made CC processing a lot easier for everyone.

lot of time passed between 199 and stripe. a little thing called paypal had a pretty huge impact on opening up credit card payments for folks too.

(obviously 1999, not 199!)

Ah. OK. Transformed the world, no less.

I don't even know what it is.

I setup credit card processing with authorize.net in 2003. Used authorize.net's API docs. Didn't have any significant problems. I like(d) their API less than Stripe's.. but I wouldn't pay a premium for Stripe just for that.

Interesting how much difference 4 years makes.

"Y Combinator has funded 1,500 startups"

Really?

  http://www.ycombinator.com/press/ quotes 1297 startups
  http://www.seed-db.com/accelerators/view?acceleratorid=1011 has 1069 companies (+ ~100 from the S16 class) for ~1200 in total

Where do the extra companies come from?

Would you have been as mad with 1703? How many were in the most recent batch? I have no idea, but 1500 seems close enough to me for a non-specific number.

There's close to 110 companies in the current batch, that just had demo day last week.

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