Paul Graham penned a blog post about his wife Jessica Livingston yesterday. The two of them started YCombinator which has been nothing short of amazing.
Paul gets most of the attention for YC likely because of his big personality and insightful and pointed writing. But for all of us that have met and interacted with Jessica it’s very obvious how special and vital she is to the YC story.
One of the many lines I loved in Paul’s post was this one:
What made YC successful was being able to pick good founders. We thought Airbnb was a bad idea. We funded it because we liked the founders.
Paul goes on to highlight Jessica’s ‘Social Radar’, her superpower to identify great founders. I love their emphasis on the importance of founders. I listed it essentially twice on the four things I look for.
And it’s clear why YC worked so well. Yes, you can see it in their work. But you can really see it in the quality of their founders.