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.

Livingston grew up in the Boston area.

In 1989, she graduated from Phillips Academy.

She received a Bachelor of Arts with a major in English from Bucknell University.

Prior to founding Y Combinator, Livingston was vice president of marketing at Adams Harkness Financial Group.

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

Livingston married Paul Graham in 2008.

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 aimed at the safe development of artificial general intelligence.

In 2023, she started co-hosting The Social Radars Podcast alongside Carolyn Levy.

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.

Since late 2016, she and her family have resided in the United Kingdom.