Jessica Livingston

Jessica Livingston (born 1971) is an American founding partner of the seed stage venture firm Y Combinator and author. She is the wife of founding partner Paul Graham. Early life and career Livingston grew up in the Boston area. In 1989, she graduated from Phillips Academy and earned a B.A. in English from Bucknell University. Prior to founding Y Combinator, Livingston was the VP of marketing at Adams Harkness Financial Group. Investing Livingston met Paul Graham, Robert Morris and Trevor Blackwell (the co-founders of dot-com company Viaweb) at a party in Cambridge. They discussed creating a startup incubator and in 2005 the four co-founded Y Combinator. In the early days of YC, Livingston and Graham hosted weekly meals for their founders at their home near 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 role leading Y Combinator, handing over to Altman, Livingston increased her day to day involvement, including having responsibility for the organisation's Startup School. In 2016, she took a year long sabbatical from the incubator.