Jessica Livingston
I would think most founders who&#x27;ve been through YC would recognize Jessica&#x27;s importance in the equation, so it&#x27;s interesting that it is some sort of secret in the industry at large. Even early on, before her first book was published, she was obviously on top of, and involved in, everything. She was the primary point of contact for damned near everything for founders.<p>So, it&#x27;s an interesting phenomenon that even with such a preponderance of evidence, the story that gets told and re-told mostly leaves her out. Our industry has so many internalized prejudices that are invisible unless and until you&#x27;re looking for them, it can seem perfectly normal for the story to be about a lone man building an empire with a few supporting characters. If the story were framed as building a &quot;family&quot;, rather than a business empire, would Jessica&#x27;s role be more prominent in the telling? I think one could tell it either way, but the tech industry doesn&#x27;t have language for that, even though I think some of the best companies were as much a family as an empire (early HP, for example).<p>Gender roles are weird, is what I&#x27;m trying to say, and the tech industry is more rigid than many.