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Jessica Livingston: What Goes Wrong

foundersatwork.com

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Re: Jessica Livingston: What Goes Wrong

#13
Are people really having such trouble with the context of this article? The author's name is in the headline (maybe it was modded in later, to be fair), but also there's an "author" link[0] in plain sight. PG's essay's don't have a "who am I" introduction, and if you didn't know who he was then you'd simply click on the obvious "bio" link.

[0] http://www.foundersatwork.com/author.html

Re: Jessica Livingston: What Goes Wrong

#15

Very interesting. Statistically speaking, women are better than men in reading non-verbal information. I wonder if this is a part of YC success.

Gender differences are across entire populations, but individual variance absolutely swamps them. If you want to fill a single position, you're better off looking at the individual applicant's skills, not their genitals.

Re: Jessica Livingston: What Goes Wrong

#16
Jessica's speech follows one of the themes she established in "Founders," - overcoming emotional responses being a key to success in startups (and life). Her skill in communicating complex ideas is subtle, but more impressive because it lacks the usual dose of ego and/or one-upmanship. The sole intent being to help people who can listen well enough to use the information to help themselves.

Re: Jessica Livingston: What Goes Wrong

#17
I saw this talk at Startup School. Honestly, as someone working in industry who tried doing a startup during school, there's a huge thing missing.

CMD+F for "luck" = 0 results.

Luck is a huge factor and sometimes you just need to move on to either something new, or working for a company to fill in the gaps, and trying again soon.

Re: Jessica Livingston: What Goes Wrong

#19

I saw this talk at Startup School. Honestly, as someone working in industry who tried doing a startup during school, there's a huge thing missing. CMD+F for "luck" = 0 results. Luck is a huge factor and sometimes you just need to move on to either something new, or working for a company to fill in the gaps, and trying again soon.

Talking about "luck" in a presentation like this is like talking about the life benefits of physical attractiveness.

Precious little of it is in your control, so what's the point? Address what you can control, and hope for the best.

Re: Jessica Livingston: What Goes Wrong

#20
post #9

Very interesting. Statistically speaking, women are better than men in reading non-verbal information. I wonder if this is a part of YC success.

I think so. Within YC Jessica's nickname is The Social Radar. One nickname at least; the other is Panic.

PG, mind sharing some insight on the "Panic" nickname? I'm curious about how/if the two are related.
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