There are very few inspiring women role model, especially in tech & business which give hope to aspiring women who are starting out. Here are three women in the world of startups, who inspire me the most!
Jessica Livingstone, most of the people know about YC and Paul Graham (and his brilliant famous blogs!) but very few people have heard about the legendary co-founder of YC Jessica Livingstone. As Paul describes she had an X-ray vision for judging character of people! (He recently tweeted she got perfect 36/36 on quiz of judging people by eyes). She would be observer without actively participating in conversation during some early YC interviews and just note body language, etc and later Paul and others would lean in for her opinions! This alone makes me super curious to meet her at some point of my life to see it myself! This likely played major role in picking early top startups (like Airbnb which sounded insanely bad idea at the time but YC funded them anyways seeing hustle in the founders). You can read more about her by an essay by Paul himself (https://paulgraham.com/jessica.html) and this podcast with Garry Tan: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYFjKml9ptk)
Diana Hu is a group partner at YC, I got to know her first through the amazing Lightcone video series (if you haven’t watched the series you should, it’s full of live examples of edge-cutting things happening right now in tech!). I then discovered that she had pretty badass journey thus far, she is highly technical (rare!!) with business acumen - built and sold her AR/VR startup Escher Realities to Niantics (makers of pokemon go)! Like what, its already rare to find someone who has technical depth and business acumen and one of handful women partners at YC! From being researcher at CMU to all of this, its legit super impressive. Resonates with something I aspire to be! She would be without a doubt my favorite YC partner someday if I apply to YC.
Coincidentally the third person in my list also has YC nexus (I swear its a coincidence xD). She’s Lucy Guo, ex-founder of Scale AI who founded a decacorn (reread: not a unicorn) startup called Scale AI. She’s wild, started as Snapchat’s first female designer to being 2nd richest self made woman (skip ‘2nd’, i don’t count Kylie :P). She was also Thiel fellow. Has dozens of cool examples of hacking her way out spread across interviews like making first million in school and despite that saved money living on McDonald till she had $10M! Froogle and hacky to its best. (read: https://fortune.com/2023/07/11/lucy-guo-scale-ai-first-million-savings-tips/, use 12ft.io for free access)
You know, sometimes I think about these women and wonder if our paths will ever cross. Call it fate or just wishful thinking, but I can't shake the feeling that somehow, someday, I'll get to meet them. And when that day comes, you can bet I'll be geeking out like a kid in a candy store, soaking in every bit of wisdom and inspiration they have to offer.
In a world where it's easy to feel overwhelmed or discouraged, these three women are like pillars of hope, reminding me that anything is possible if you dare to dream and work your butt off for it. So here's to Jessica, Diana and Lucy—my heroes, my idols, and the badass women who make me believe that the sky's the limit. 🍺🚀
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