Sam: Hi,
everyone.
My name is Sam Altman and this is How To Build a Future.
Today,
our guest is Jessica Livingston,
the founder of Y Combinator,
where I now work.
Y Combinator has funded 1,
500 startups,
and they are worth more than $70 billion in total.
More than 10 of them are worth more than a billion dollars or more.
So,
in terms of how to create a unicorn,
Jessica Livingstone probably knows more about this and maybe anybody else in the world.
So we are super delighted you came here today talk to us.
Jessica: Thank you for having me.
Sam: What I really wanna get out of you is how founders get on a path to build a huge company.
So,
you have now,
for 11 years seen founders coming when they are just two or three people and an idea.
And sometimes,
those founders go on to do nothing most of the time.
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.
And what I think would be really helpful is to talk about what the companies do during Y Combinator that allows them to go on and build super impactful companies.
So what have you observed the very best companies do when they are brand new?
Jessica: Well,
I've now seen more than a thousand companies go through YC,
so I'm very familiar what these companies do during YC.
And I'm first gonna
say that there is not really one path for everyone necessarily,
and a lot of times these successful startups get started almost accidentally.
But when they are at the point where they say,
"Yes,
I am gonna take this company seriously,
I am gonna apply to Y Combinator,
" and then they come here to Silicon Valley for three months.
The most successful founders I have noticed are totally focused on two things,
building their product and making something people want,
which of course,
is our motto,
and talking to their users.
And they do not let themselves get distracted by anything else.
And that seems so obvious,
but what's not obvious is how easily distracted founders can be by lots of other things going on,
and the most successful startups are like hyper-focused on their product.
Sam: What are some of the things that distract founders that seem like good ideas at the time?
Jessica: There is a lot of these.
And in fact,
in a talk that I gave at a female founders conference a couple of months ago,
I referred to these things as like the startup equivalent of wolves in sheep's clothing,
because they really do seem like,
"You are doing business.
" A few of them are talking to big companies to try and form partnerships in an attempt to get better distribution or somehow get more users.
To do a lot of PR before you nail down a product,
to talk to corp dev people.
When you are not thinking about being acquired,
yet you still have meetings with these people,
or you'll take meetings with investors when you are not in fundraising mode,
just to sort of build a relationship.
Going to conferences,
networking events,
all these things that seem like important things to do as part of your business are not important in the very early stages when it's critical to build your product.
Sam: And how do you know when have hit the product as you just said?
Jessica: Well,
I think when you have people using it,
you can measure your growth and you can measure how many users you get.
And are they coming back?
Are they paying for your product?
That's just the greatest thing of all if you can charge for your product,
and that growth rate is going up.
Sam: So for all of the YC companies that have gone on to be these sort of household names,
do they all do this during YC,
where they just focus on their growth rate right or talking to users?
Are they the companies that end up ignoring everything else?
Jessica: Yeah,
pretty much.
If I had to think back on the most successful startups,
all during YC,
they were super focused,
and they weren't all over the place in terms of ideas that they were working on or things that they were doing,
they were definitely focused.
Sam: Did they have big plans even during the YC?
Like could Brian Chesky of Airbnb have told you during YC,
"Here is how we're gonna be at $25 billion company and here's how we're gonna look like seven years later"?
Jessica: I don't think they would have gone that far.
I think that all of the most successful founders have ambitious plans,
and they certainly start a lot smaller,
like they seem much less important when they are first getting started,
but I think the founders do have a grand plan.
I have to believe though that when they are all in the earliest phases,
none of them can predict just how big they'll big they'll be.
I don't think Brian Chesky knew that they'd be where they are today.
Sam: And how much strategizing do you think the companies the do about how they are going to get from here to the next step and the step after that?
Like,
during are YC they really just focused on trying to make a few users really happy,
or are they thinking about,
"Well,
we need to build up a monopoly.
And so in Airbnb's case,
we'll have that because we'll have one marketplace"?
Or,
is it really just like,
"Let's build this product people love and see where it goes"?
Jessica: I really do think it starts as,
"Let's build this product and see where it goes.
" In some cases,
"Let's solve our own problem and see where it goes.
" I'm specifically of Stripe.
I mean,
they built that product because it was a pain is the ass for themselves.
They were solving something for themselves.
So I do think that they are saying,
"Let's build this and see where it goes.
" However,
I think that the most successful ones do have that grander vision.
I remember specifically during YC,
Airbnb said to themselves and I think to investors,
"We plan to become the eBay of space.
" Like,
they were nowhere near eBay of space at that point,
but they had that vision and they were working towards that.
Sam: How much does the idea matter?
You said Airbnb came with this idea that turned out to actually be the eBay of space.
But a lot of founders I think don't get started because they don't yet feel like they have the idea that can be that $100 billion company.
So how important do you think it is to get the idea just right at the beginning,
or to just get started with something and then figure out where to take it?
Jessica: I am of the mind of just,
"Get started with something.
" And that's because we are funding companies at such an early stage that we're really finding the companies for the founders and for the attributes of the founders.
Do they seem determined?
Have they been able to ship something in the past?
Do they seem open minded about things?
Are they domain experts?
A lot of times,
they don't get the idea right the very first time.
They might be in a general vicinity of being right,
but then they have to adjust their idea.
Some founders totally fail with their idea and have to change completely,
but I think it's more important to get started with something,
build it.
Because your idea is always gonna evolve.
I mean,
Airbnb is like to me one of the most famous examples of an idea that has evolved.
They came to us with their idea,
which was at the time renting out airbeds in your home while you were there during conferences.
Like,
that's pretty focused,
right?
And then they said,
"Okay,
now we're gonna rent out airbeds in your home but not during conferences.
" Then it was renting out your own home.
So it morphed.
Sam: And did all of that morphing happen during the YC program?
Jessica: No,
it did not happen specifically.
Sam: How long did it take?
Jessica: I think it...
I wanna say it took about a year.
I'm not 100% certain,
but I remember what happened specifically was Airbnb was always very strict about the hosting homes so that they can provide breakfast because there was there was airbedandbreakfast.
com.
And then the famous story is that Airbnb's one of their hosts was Barry Manilow's drummer,
and he had this great place in New York City.
And he contacted them and said,
"Barry is going on tour,
I'm gonna be gone.
Can I just rent out my apartment while I'm not there?
" And like,
the Airbnbs were like,
"That doesn't really fit what we do.
" That's how they figured out how to rent out whole spaces.
And to this day,
I think that that's like the majority of their business.
But it took something like that to get them to even consider doing it.
Sam: Could you tell the story of what you felt the first time you met the Airbnb founders when they came in to interview for YC?
I know they were kind of a rough place,
they were totally out of money.
Every investor had said no to them.
Jessica: Yes.
We actually did not know what a rough place they were in.
I know that now from hearing stories,
but they were...
Sam: And this was,
2009,
right?
Jessica: This is actually in the fall of 2008.
We did the interviews in November.
And for people that weren't around in the fall of 2008,
it was really a grim time to be doing a startup in Silicon Valley.
Sam: Because the macroeconomic conditions had collapsed?
Jessica: The macroeconomic conditions had collapsed,
no one knew what was gonna happen,
Angels were closing their checkbooks,
people all were gonna hold off on investing.
It was really sort of a scary time.
And so I do remember we went into interview saying,
"We are only gonna choose companies that we think could make it to profitability really quickly on their own and then they can live as a cockroach.
"Sam: Because you just weren't sure they'd be able to raise any money at all?
Jessica: Right.
We weren't sure that they come march at demo day that we had no idea what investors would be doing.
And so we were really sort of frightened.
If would be a disaster if we have this big demo day and none of the startups could get more funding.
That would be bad.
So we're very strict.
So,
the Airbnbs came in.
They were sort of a last minute addition to the interview process.
I remember Michael Seibel,
one of the partners here,
said,
"Hey,
can you slot these guys in?
They are really good.
Please have them come in.
"So we said,
"Fine.
"And I remember during the interview,
Paul tried to change their idea.
"We've had this idea of like renting out airbeds was a little weird.
"Sam: What did he try to change it to?
Jessica: I don't even remember,
it's embarrassing.
Sam: Or do you think he didn't?
Jessica: I know,
I know.
But he did try like pitch them a new idea,
and they're like,
"No,
no.
" And that's just one of those things they knew they were on to something because they themselves were hosts.
And that is one of the key things about founders is that,
when you are using your own product or solving your own problem,
you have all these insights that no one else has.
And the Airbnbs were renting out their room in their apartment because they couldn't pay their own rent.
So they had a lot of insights into this idea.
Sam: It's sort of funny given the current controversy on the Airbnb.
The Airbnb started as an affordable housing company.
Jessica: You know,
it's outrageous.
So they were using their own product.
They had these insights that it was this wonderful experience when someone comes out of town to have hosts that can help them and show them around and they knew they were on to something.
So,
they convinced us that their idea had legs and that their users,
the few users they have,
love them.
I remember more about the founders,
though.
I really like the founders.
They were really convincing when they spoke.
You could tell they had thought about this problem a lot.
They didn't have all the answers by any means,
but they just seemed like that they had thought about this a lot.
And I remember also they brought in as a gift the cereal boxes,
Obama-O's and Cap'n McCain's or something.
Sam: This was the 2008 presidential elections?
Jessica: This was the 2008 presidential election,
and they had made these cereal boxes with like Cheerios and Captain Crunch in them,
which sounds so silly because they're cereal.
But I remember they said,
"Oh,
yeah.
You know,
we design these,
and then we went out and got Cheerios,
and we stuffed in there and glue gunned the boxes together,
and we've been giving them lien.
" I thought,
"Oh my god,
these guys are l ike glue gunning the cereal boxes.
"Sam: Why were they doing this?
Jessica: They really were doing this because they were out of money.
And this is like a Hail Mary for them.
And they didn't wind up making a lot of money from these.
But to us,
they were doing it as sort of a fun thing because they are Airbnb,
they provide breakfast,
coincided with the presidential elections.
Sam: But the original driving reason was just like they couldn't raise any money.
Jessica: They couldn't raise any money.
Sam: And they just did anything that they could to survive.
Jessica: Oh my god.
Again,
during the interview we did not know these stories but when you hear the stories of the problems that they had trying to fund raise prior to YC,
it's crazy.
They had one investor like leave in the middle of the pitch,
just walk out without eve say goodbye.
No one believed this idea was good or certainly would be big.
Sam: Did you know at the time that the idea could be great,
or was it for you really just to vet on those three guys as founders?
Jessica: I have to admit,
it was more of a vet on the three founders.
They seemed really good.
I did sort of like the idea of being able to stay in people's home,
but I have to admit I was not thinking it was going to be huge.
Sam: Just because that story was so interesting,
what was it like the Collison brothers?
I think they were in 19 and 17 when they started Stripe.
And they came in and said,
"We're gonna do this crazy thing and we're teenagers and we're going to take on the financial system of the world.
" How does that conversation go?
Jessica: Well,
I have to admit,
we met Patrick years earlier when he was 16 or 17 still living in Ireland because he looked at Paul and we had him over for dinner.
So,
it wasn't like we first met them at a YC interview.
I think Patrick was working on some other idea first or something.
We had high regard for him.
He certainly was good at building things and he had like a Wikipedia app,
so we knew he was like a talented programmer.
He introduced us to his 16-year-old brother.
He was 16 when we meet him,
John was.
And I am trying to remember when they said,
"We're gonna take on the financial industry.
" I think we were kind of like,
"Do you realize how hard this is?
You don't have connections.
" But they weren't trepid.
They were like,
"Well,
we don't have connections,
we'll find connections.
" And they just...
That is actually a really good question that you bring up because it shows how determined they were and how focused they were.
I mean,
you think like the head of a bank is gonna take a 19-year-old startup founder seriously?
It seems pretty implausible,
right,
but they were good enough that they were able to convince these banks to work with them.
Sam: Are there other traits in the founders that go on to really change the future,
besides determination that separates the very best founders from the mediocre founders?
Have you noticed any other traits that kind of founders should aspire to that really wanna have a big impact?
Jessica: Yes.
If I had to say the most important traits of the most successful founders,
I've already mentioned determination.
That is by far the most important.
Sam: More than intelligence?
Jessica: More than intelligence,
more than previous success,
you,
know in school.
I mean,
remember when we started Y Combinator,
our hypothesis was,
"We'll just fund all the best hackers from MIT and Harvard,
and they'll turn out to be great sort of founders.
" That is not true.
That is absolutely not true.
A lot of them are good.
In fact,
Patrick was from MIT,
but it's not true for the most part.
Determination is the most important thing.
Again,
sort of understanding your users and building a product with a great user experience is second most important.
Not being distracted,
not getting lured down these paths that aren't gonna be important for building your product.
Being flexible minded I've always felt this very important,
because you have this idea and you test it out,
and it doesn't always work the first time.
And so you have to be able to say,
"Okay,
I thought I was gonna do this,
but let's try this.
Even though I have like a lot of energy invested in this,
let's try this direction.
" You really have to be open-minded.
And then,
ultimately,
you have to be a good leader.
You have to be convincing and a good leader because you are gonna be convincing employees to join you,
you are gonna be convincing investors to invest in you.
When you do get to the point where you are doing deals with bigger companies,
you have to convince them.
Like,
your whole world is convincing people.
And so you have to be able to communicate your idea and convince people why they should care about you more than any of the other hundreds of startups out there.
Sam: So now I'd like to talk about your startup Y Combinator and how you started that.
Could you tell us the story of starting Y Combinator?
Jessica: Yeah,
it was very much.
It started in the same was as startup is started.
Where Paul and I had this idea,
we really felt that the investment world was broken.
If you are in early stage startup and you just wanted to like test something out,
you either had to go OVC and get $5 million,
which is virtually impossible at that early stage,
or you had to know someone who is rich and could give you money.
And we thought there could be something better.
We thought there could be like a standardized branded form of funding.
So,
if you wanted $25,
000 or whatever,
you could come to Y Combinator,
and we'd make it very easy for you.
So,
we thought,
"Okay,
let's start an investment company.
" And it was just gonna be Paul and me,
and then we sort of lured in his old co-founders,
Robert Morris and Trevor Blackwell,
to be part of this,
even though they were full time of something else.
And we said,
"Gosh,
none of us know anything about angel investing,
well,
let's learn.
So,
how should we do that?
Let's fund a whole bunch of companies at once and learn a lot.
" So we set up a website and we said,
"Come join the summer founders program.
" It was back in Cambridge,
Massachusetts and it was for the summer of 2005,
and we started working on it,
let's just say in January,
and we posted an application.
We wanted to change a few specific things.
We wanted to make it very easy for people to find us and apply.
They didn't have to have a connection to us.
We had an application of like 20 questions.
We wanted to make it very simple on our side.
We're giving you $12,
000 for a startup,
or 18,
000 if you had three founders,
but it was very specific amount for this amount of stock,
and our paperwork is gonna be real straight forward.
You can see it in advance,
and we're gonna make the decision that day.
We'll interview you and tell you that night.
And that never happened back before us.
No one got a same day decision for the most part.
So,
200 people applied,
they had known about Paul because of his essays,
you were one of them?
Sam: I was.
Jessica: Came out from Stanford.
I remember that interview very well.
And we found eight companies to fund that summer.
And we learned very,
very quickly into the three months that funding startups in a batch was incredibly powerful.
And it was powerful in that you could teach them all sort of the same things at once,
and they became colleagues.
Because starting a startup as one or two people is very lonely and very isolating,
and back then in 2005,
there was no information online about early stage startups at all.
So no one knew what they were doing,
so it was sort of a nice atmosphere.
Sam: So,
even Y Combinator was an example of this,
"Start with an idea you don't know much about.
Tell me something so many people want to iterate"?
Jessica: Yes,
yes,
yes.
And we started small...
Sam: Do it light and start small.
Jessica: Do it lightweight,
start small,
and evolve.
And we realized we had dinners on Tuesday nights,
which actually we still have to this day,
and we have guest speakers coming in.
We had paperwork that we gave them.
I personally helped everyone incorporate their company.
Sam: What else did you spend your time on that first summer?
Jessica: Oh my god.
What didn't I spend my time on?
Like,
as any startup there is like too much for everyone to do.
Paul spent his time advising the startups on their ideas because I didn't really know that much about startups.
I was doing everything to get Y Combinator up and running.
I mean,
we had to get our office,
we had to cook dinners,
I was going grocery shopping,
and Paul was cooking the dinners.
We were recruiting speakers to speak that summer.
Sam: This is now how most people picture doing when they think about starting a really important company.
So I think it's good to note that this is,
in fact,
just like...
Jessica: Oh my god,
there is so much unglamorous work that founders have to do early on,
and you just have to do it.
I was delivering air conditioners to different people.
We had eight startups in that batch and they were all living scattered around the Harvard Square area,
and there was a heat wave.
And we are like we can't our founders not being able to work.
So,
I went to home depot,
and I bought like 10 air conditioners and delivered them to everyone.
Sam: What did you know that summer that Y Combinator was going to work?
Jessica: We had a feeling pretty early on.
Sam: Like the first couple of weeks?
Jessica: I would say within the first month.
We were like,
"This is really interesting.
" And people are working on very interesting ideas.
I mean,
you are working on location stuff on your phone,
Reddit was in there,
we're very interested in Reddit.
The Justin TV and Twitch guys,
Justin and Emmett,
were working on a calendar.
Unfortunately Google Calendar launched and killed them.
I mean,
these were interesting things.
So,
we were very excited about the ideas.
Sam: It's a great story about investing in people,
that it was Justin's third Y Combinator startup,
I think,
that ended up being a billion dollar exit?
Jessica: Yeah,
yeah.
Sam: [inaudible 00:23:25] three times,
and it worked out on the third.
Jessica: And it worked out the third time,
it's a charm,
yes.
I mean,
this is,
again,
going back to funding the people.
Justin and Emmett were a great team.
I'll just...
This is a bit of a tangent,
but it's important to remember they were college roommates and like best friends all growing up,
and so they had known each other for a long time and have like this great trust.
And so,
when they wanted to build something,
they were both excellent programmers,
and that's as good of a bet as you can make.
Sam: How important is it that to have co-founders at all?
And then how important is it that the co-founders have a preexisting relationship like that?
Jessica: I think it's critical.
I think there have been cases of successful startups with one founder,
but I'm sure they will tell you it's extremely hard and overwhelming,
emotionally draining.
You have no peer who you can rely on for moral support and holding all of that.
It's a big burden for people emotionally,
I think.
Also,
at the very early stages,
there is so much to get done that you need more than one person doing it.
You can't be out fundraising and building the product at the same time.
So,
yes,
it's important to have a co-founder.
It's not impossible.
I will say it's critical that you know your co-founder well.
Because if you don't,
and if you're like me at a hackathon and things you get along...
Sam: Do you ever see that workout?
Jessica: Rarely.
I'm trying to think of an example and off the top of my head I can't think of an example of two people who were introduced,
or sort of bolted on to each other the last minute ever working.
I'm sure there are examples of it having worked,
but I can't think of them.
The relationship becomes so stressed as the startup goes on its path.
I mean,
you have like,
you could get sued and you have to deal with this,
or you'll get an acquisition offer that's really tempting and that can cause friction.
So many things can cause friction and tension.
It's really like a marriage,
and I know we all laugh at how we compare founder relationships to marriage,
but in many ways,
it's kind of like that.
Sam: There is a lot of issues to that?
Jessica: Yeah,
yeah.
Sam: So,
you said about within the first month,
you could tell YC was on to something.
But when did you first realize that YC was going to be as big as it just turned out to be?
Did you have any idea of that summer?
Jessica: I don't think we had any idea of that,
that summer.
We knew we were on to something,
and after that summer,
we knew we had to come out to Silicon Valley.
That was an important next decision for us.
We knew that people could easily copy us,
and we didn't want someone else to be the Y Combinator of Silicon Valley.
We wanted to be the Y Combinator of Silicon Valley.
And I remember Paul saying,
"We got to go out there.
" And I remember thinking like,
"We have two months to do this.
"Sam: Was that really driven by not wanting to be copied?
Jessica: Yeah,
we did not want somebody else to be the Y Combinator at Silicon Valley.
Sam: You noticed that with great startups a lot,
that they really hate getting copied.
I think that's an interesting point.
Jessica: Well,
you know,
I think no one likes getting copied.
It's unpleasant,
I am used to it by now.
And you just can't worry about it.
If you are building something great,
you're gonna get copied.
So anyway,
so we came out here and now was also very important for us,
because we didn't have relationships in Silicon Valley,
we didn't know the investors out here,
and that's when we started to meet the investors.
And that's an incredibly important component of Y Combinator that we have great relationships with investors,
and they come to our demo days,
and hey invest in our startups because,
again,
we're like first gear for startups,
we're helping them get started,
and then we want to introduce them to like wonderful later stage investors.
Sam: So once you got to Silicon Valley and started running the program out here,
then did you know it was gonna be?
Jessica: Not yet,
not yet.
I think when we had a feeling that it was gonna be really good was when Reddit got bought,
and that was very exciting news for us.
But,
I think like when Dropbox started getting some traction,
then we thought like,
"Whoa,
this could be a contender here.
" This is someone doing it really,
really well,
and you were funded on our....
So,
if companies were sort of flourishing,
that's when we knew I think this could be...
Sam: And what is it like looking back now?
Y Combinator has become this pretty influential thing that has impacted a lot of people on a lot of industries.
Looking back,
is there anything you are like,
"Well,
if I know YC was going to be as important as it's become,
I would have done this differently or anything that...
any lessons that you take away or is it just like,
"Well,
this happened,
and I was only ever looking one step ahead at a time.?
"Jessica: You know,
there is always things that you do a little bit differently.
Possibly,
we would have hired more partners earlier on so that we could have accomplished more.
I mean,
for many years it was just Paul and me full time.
And so,
there is only so much we could do.
So we didn't do so much outreach,
and we...
You know,
I wish maybe we could have done more of that earlier on.
But,
in the grand scheme of things,
there is no like massive,
massive mistake,
I think.
We sort of grew organically.
Sam: And what is it that you did as you were growing organically that has made YC work so low?
Someone recently told me there are now 2,
500 accelerators around the world.
However,
every billion-plus dollar companies so far effort [inaudible 00:29:19] I think is 11,
have been part of YC.
So,
that's a great credit to you and Paul,
but what did you do in your early days that set up YC to do this?
Jessica: Well,
there are a couple of things.
And,
you know,
sometimes I would be nervous about sharing some of our secret weapons.
But I'm gonna share one because it would be great if people copied this,
but they won't.
One of the most important things is that Y Combinator always started to be founder friendly.
We were not doing this to make money.
We were doing this to see if we could encourage more startups to get started.
Because we felt that would be good for the world,
like more people starting startups,
more innovation,
that's good for the world.
And so,
we didn't do it thinking we could make money,
and we weren't trying to like squeeze out the best deals in every situation.
We were always driven by what's best for the founders,
what's best for the startups,
our times in our investment paperwork are very founder friendly,
and I think that attracted good founders who wanted to be treated fairly and not be taken advantage of.
Sam: It's interesting you see that many of YC's most successful founders.
They wanna make a lot of money,
but that is far from the primary motivation.
Jessica: Yes,
you cannot be the most successful startup founder if you are driven by money.
You have to be driven by a greater purpose.
Sam: So,
YC's version of this was just like,
it'll be good for the world to treat founders better and have lot more startups?
Jessica: Yes,
yes.
Now,
we hoped we made some money because we couldn't keep self-funding for the rest of our lives.
We couldn't be self-sustaining if we didn't make some money.
And by the way,
for years we didn't make money.
It takes even a long time.
Sam: I remember,
people forget that.
Jessica: People forget how long it takes to make money as an investor.
So we were always driven by like this benevolence.
And I think it's still part of our DNA,
I truly believe that.
I think we gave great advice.
You know...
Sam: Surprisingly hard to get from investors.
Jessica: Yes,
yes.
There are some great investors out there that do give great advice,
but for the most part getting really good advice is hard.
I think Paul Graham's exceptional giving startup advice and helping people with their ideas.
And quite honestly,
telling people like,
"Hey,
you are doing this,
you're it wrong.
Don't do it that way.
" In a way that's very straightforward,
and founders can respond to that pretty quickly.
What else?
You know,
what the important things about us?
We've always attracted from the very first batch that you are in.
I believe we attracted talented founders.
And they've gone on to be role models and attract other people that are talented,
like,
kind,
intelligent founders.
And so I think it's sort of grown organically and spread,
and we've kept a pretty great community of founders over the years.
Sam: So there are a lot of people that have realized startups are really great ways to impact the world and get new technology built and distributed.
At a young age now people are realizing they may wanna start a startup some day.
So,
if you are an ambitious teenager or college student,
what should you spend on if you know someday you wanna start a startup?
Jessica: Well,
there is a lot of things you can do to sort of prepare yourself to be a startup founder.
The first is learn to code.
There is a lot of great online courses now,
if you don't already know how to code,
but I would strongly recommend that everyone learn to code.
Even if you are not great,
we don't know how to do it,
and it helps you sort of judge other programmers.
Build stuff with people.
It doesn't have to be like the next Facebook,
which by the way did start out obviously as a little side project when it got started.
But just build something that you might like to use.
Try to solve your own problem.
Work with other people,
especially if you are in college,
that is just the best place to meet potential co-founders and get to know people and talk about interesting problems and try to solve them.
It does not have to be the next startup,
but it will at least get you to thinking about problems,
it will get you like practicing,
launching something and listening to users and talking to users.
And after that,
if you are not ready to start a startup right away,
go work in an early stage startup.
You can learn so much working at an early stage startup that you wouldn't working on a big company.
So,
that's probably my best advice of what to do to practice to become a startup's founder.
Sam: Great.
Okay,
last question.
You are probably the most successful female founder in Silicon Valley at this point.
So do you have to advice for other female founder or aspiring female founders about what to do?
Jessica: Well,
it's definitely a subject I think about a lot because when we first started Y Combinator,
there were very few female founders.
They were scarce.
And I am pleased that there are more these days,
and they are just continuing to be more.
And so I spend a lot of time trying to help the women that we've funded to become more successful so that they can go on to inspire people.
Because you have to have those role models so that you can think that,
"Gosh,
maybe I could start a startup.
" But I will give some advice based on my own experience.
You can't worry too much about what everyone is saying and all the noise and like,
"It's so much harder as a woman.
" Yes,
it's harder as a woman.
I've been discriminated against,
but I have always kept focused on my product and what I'm doing.
And I don't listen to all of this stuff going on,
and I'm like building a product that people love.
And I think that the women we funded would say the same thing.
They're startup founders.
They are not like necessarily like female startup founders.
They are first and foremost startup founders,
and they are caring about their product and their users,
and they are totally focused on that.
And so my advice is like,
just do it.
Start a company,
apply to Y Combinator,
and,
you know,
build something people want.
Sam: Great,
Well,
thank you so much for joining us and funding my company in hiring me.
That's great.
Thanks a lot.