Jessica Livingston (born 1971) is an American investor, writer, and podcaster. She is best known for being a founding partner of the seed stage venture firm

Y Combinator Y Combinator, LLC (YC) is an American technology startup accelerator and venture capital firm launched in March 2005 which has been used to launch more than 5,000 companies. The accelerator program started in Boston and Mountain View, Californi ...

Early life and education

Livingston was born in

Minneapolis, Minnesota Minneapolis is a city in Hennepin County, Minnesota, United States, and its county seat. With a population of 429,954 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the state's List of cities in Minnesota, most populous city. Locat ...

, and later relocated to the Boston area, raised in large part by her father and grandmother. In 1989, she graduated from

Phillips Academy Phillips Academy (also known as PA, Phillips Academy Andover, or simply Andover) is a Private school, private, Mixed-sex education, co-educational college-preparatory school for Boarding school, boarding and Day school, day students located in ...

, a high private boarding school in Andover, Massachusetts. Later, she received a

Bachelor of Arts A Bachelor of Arts (abbreviated B.A., BA, A.B. or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is the holder of a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the liberal arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts deg ...

with a major in English from

Bucknell University Bucknell University is a Private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal-arts college in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, United States. Founded in 1846 as the University at Lewisburg, it now consists of the College of Arts a ...

Career

After college, Livingston pursued an array of jobs, including work at Fidelity, the

Food & Wine ''Food & Wine'' is an American monthly magazine published by Dotdash Meredith. It was founded in 1978 by Ariane and Michael Batterberry. It features recipes, cooking tips, travel information, restaurant reviews, chefs, wine pairings and sea ...

magazine, an automotive consulting firm, and a wedding planning service. Later, she served as vice president of marketing at Adams Harkness Financial Group, an investment bank. Livingston met Paul Graham, Robert Morris and

Trevor Blackwell Trevor Blackwell (born 4 November 1969, in Canada) is a Canadian-American computer programmer, engineer, entrepreneur and roboticist based in England. Blackwell is a developer of humanoid robots. Blackwell is the founder and former CEO of Anyb ...

(the co-founders of

dot-com company A dot-com company, or simply a dot-com (alternatively rendered dot.com, dot com, dotcom or .com), is a company that conducts most of its businesses on the Internet, usually through a website on the World Wide Web that uses the popular top-level dom ...

Viaweb Viaweb was a web application, web-based application that allowed users to build and web hosting, host their own online stores with little technical expertise using a web browser. The company was started in July 1995 by Paul Graham (computer progr ...

) at a party in

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a List of cities in the United Kingdom, city and non-metropolitan district in the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It is the county town of Cambridgeshire and is located on the River Cam, north of London. As of the 2021 Unit ...

. They discussed creating a startup incubator, and in 2005 the four co-founded Y Combinator (YC). In the early days of YC, Livingston and Graham hosted weekly meals for their founders at their home near Cambridge.

Sam Altman Samuel Harris Altman (born April 22, 1985) is an American technology entrepreneur, investor, and the chief executive officer of OpenAI since 2019 (he was Removal of Sam Altman from OpenAI, briefly dismissed and reinstated in November 2023). He ...

(a former YC partner) credits Livingston with being essential to the transformation of Y Combinator into a startup ecosystem. When Graham stepped down from his leading role, handing over to Altman, Livingston increased her day to day involvement, including responsibility for the organization's Startup School. In early 2007, Livingston published '' Founders at Work: Stories of Startups' Early Days'', a collection of interviews with famous startup founders, including

Steve Wozniak Stephen Gary Wozniak (; born August 11, 1950), also known by his nickname Woz, is an American technology entrepreneur, electrical engineer, computer programmer, philanthropist, and inventor. In 1976, he co-founded Apple Inc., Apple Computer with ...

. In 2013, Livingston launched the Female Founders conference with the aim of inspiring more women to found startup companies. In 2016, she took a year-long sabbatical from the incubator to spend time with her family and consider projects and other things she wanted to pursue. Livingston is one of the financial backers of

OpenAI OpenAI, Inc. is an American artificial intelligence (AI) organization founded in December 2015 and headquartered in San Francisco, California. It aims to develop "safe and beneficial" artificial general intelligence (AGI), which it defines ...

, a for-profit company aiming to develop

artificial general intelligence Artificial general intelligence (AGI)—sometimes called human‑level intelligence AI—is a type of artificial intelligence that would match or surpass human capabilities across virtually all cognitive tasks. Some researchers argue that sta ...

. In 2023, she started co-hosting The Social Radars podcast alongside fellow YC partner Carolynn Levy.

Personal life

Livingston married Paul Graham in 2008. Since late 2016, she and her family have resided in the United Kingdom.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Livingston, Jessica American computer businesspeople Businesspeople from Minneapolis Living people Bucknell University alumni Y Combinator people American venture capitalists Women venture capitalists American women investors Angel investors 1971 births 21st-century American businesspeople 21st-century American businesswomen