Jessica Livingston

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.

Early life and education Livingston was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and later relocated to the Boston area, raised in large part by her father and grandmother. In 1989, she graduated from Phillips Academy. Later, she received a Bachelor of Arts with a major in English from Bucknell University.

Career After college, Livingston pursued an array of jobs, including work at Fidelity, the Food & Wine magazine, an automotive consulting firm, and a wedding planning service.

Livingston met Paul Graham, Robert Morris and Trevor Blackwell (the co-founders of dot-com company Viaweb) at a party in Cambridge. Sam Altman (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 leadership role and Altman succeeded him, Livingston became more involved in the organization's daily operations, including overseeing its Startup School program.

In early 2007, Livingston published Founders at Work: Stories of Startups' Early Days, a collection of interviews with famous startup founders, including Steve Wozniak.

In 2013, Livingston launched the Female Founders conference with the aim of inspiring more women to found startup companies.

Livingston is one of the financial backers of OpenAI, a for-profit company aiming to develop artificial general intelligence.

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

Personal life Livingston married Paul Graham in 2008. They have two children. Since late 2016, the family has resided in the United Kingdom.