Breaking Precedent

Leah Solivan
  • 0.0 (0)
  • Entrepreneurship
  • Updated Fortnightly

Welcome to Breaking Precedent, the podcast that dives deep into the stories of trailblazers, innovators, and game-changers who are redefining societal precedents. Join us as we sit down with extraordinary individuals who are pushing the boundaries of social norms, challenging precedents, and setting new ones in their fields. Whether it’s in technology, art, social justice, or beyond, Breaking Precedent is your source of inspiration for understanding how precedents are broken and new paths are forged.

  1. 2 hrs ago

    Boardroom Break-in: Stacy Brown-Philpot on Power, Leadership, and Playing the Long Game [Replay]

    What happens when leadership becomes a way of creating opportunity for other people? This summer, Breaking Precedent is revisiting conversations that feel just as resonant now as when they were first recorded. In this episode, Leah Solivan sits down with Stacy Brown-Philpot to explore leadership, resilience, trust, and what it means to build systems that help more people participate in wealth creation. Stacy Brown-Philpot is a longtime operator, board leader, investor, and former CEO of TaskRabbit whose career spans Google, the gig economy, inclusive capital, and the launch of Cherry Rock Capital. Her story begins in Detroit, in a four-generation household shaped by women who taught her to stand up for herself, care for others, and never let circumstances define who she could become. The conversation traces Stacy's path from Detroit to Penn, Stanford, Google, TaskRabbit, SoftBank, and Cherry Rock Capital. Leah and Stacy reflect on what it takes to build trust inside a company, why TaskRabbit's human side mattered as much as its technology, how hard decisions can save a business, and why access to capital is not a pipeline problem. They also explore candor, resilience, inclusive investing, AI, founder self-awareness, and the leadership work of becoming more fully yourself. Relaunch Context This episode originally captured Stacy Brown-Philpot at a moment of reflection across multiple chapters of her career: operator, CEO, board member, investor, and founder. The replay is preserved because its larger themes remain urgent: how leaders tell the truth without losing humanity, how companies scale without flattening trust, and how capital can become a tool for changing who gets to build enduring businesses. Timestamps 00:00 Welcome back to Breaking Precedent 00:21 Stacy Brown-Philpot's leadership through line 01:20 Leah introduces Stacy Brown-Philpot 02:20 Icebreaker: Detroit roots and karaoke confidence 04:20 Growing up in a four-generation Detroit household 05:30 Learning to stand up for yourself 06:40 Being the only woman or only Black person in the room 08:20 Candor, hard decisions, and withholding judgment 09:40 Education, reading, and learning how to learn 12:20 Choosing Penn and discovering Wharton 13:40 Goldman, Google, and strong company cultures 15:50 Detroit resilience and Stanford perspective 18:00 What educators should understand about spotting potential 19:30 Responsibility, motivation, and doing well by doing good 20:30 Early signs of leadership 22:00 Entering TaskRabbit and scaling the company 24:00 Culture, free lunch, and building connection inside the office 26:40 TaskRabbit, human trust, and the gig economy 29:20 Scaling without commoditizing human work 30:00 Changing the TaskRabbit model 31:10 The London launch and the hard reset 32:10 Conviction during backlash 33:40 What an AI-native TaskRabbit could look like 36:00 The board vote to sell TaskRabbit to IKEA 39:50 Moving from operator to investor 42:00 SoftBank Opportunity Fund and turning outrage into action 44:20 Why there was no pipeline problem 45:00 Inclusive capital is not charity 46:00 Cherry Rock Capital and the Series A gap 48:00 Hard truths with kindness 50:10 Coaching founders after the check 51:30 Founder traits, grit, teams, and self-awareness 53:50 Responsibility after success 55:00 Changing the face of wealth creation 55:40 Rejecting the 24-hour work culture 56:50 Becoming who you really are 58:00 Closing reflection About the Guest Stacy Brown-Philpot is an operator, investor, board leader, and former CEO of TaskRabbit. Her career has included leadership roles at Google and TaskRabbit, board service across major companies, work with the SoftBank Opportunity Fund, and the founding of Cherry Rock Capital. Across her work, Stacy has focused on building systems that create opportunity: for employees, taskers, founders, and communities that have historically had less access to capital and power. Her leadership reflects a belief that resilience, candor, trust, and responsibility can shape not only individual careers, but the structure of who gets to build and benefit from the future Connect with Leah Website: breakingprecedent.com Instagram: @leah_solivan X: @labunleashed

    Boardroom Break-in: Stacy Brown-Philpot on Power, Leadership, and Playing the Long Game [Replay]

  2. 9 July

    Summer Break: Breaking the Pipeline Myth - Who Really Gets Funded in Venture Capital

    This special summer episode of Breaking Precedent brings together six investors who are each rewriting the assumptions behind who gets funded. Across venture capital, professional sports, and philanthropy, the conversation traces where the industry's oldest excuses fall apart, and what these investors built instead. Samara Mejia Hernandez talks about building Chingona Ventures around the fastest growing, least funded founder population in the country. Stacy Brown-Philpot explains how she and two co-founders proved there was no pipeline problem, and why that discovery led her to launch Cherry Rock Capital. Ryan Nece reflects on what he saw handing money to unqualified advisors in professional sports, and why he built Next Play Capital instead. Ann Miura-Ko traces how much less capital it now takes to start a company, and questions whether venture has built enough tools beyond its own standard model. Aaron Holiday breaks down the structural math problem that led him to co-found 645 Ventures. Shiza Shahid describes why she left nonprofit fundraising for an investing model that let her stay closer to the work. Together, these conversations make the case that capital is never neutral. Access is a decision, not a law of nature. Key Insights What sounds like a pipeline problem in venture is usually a myth. The real gap shows up later, at Series A.Framing founder diversity as charity misses the point. These investors underwrite for returns, not goodwill.Access to capital does not guarantee access to good advice.Pattern matching rewards familiarity. Thoughtfulness rewards attention.The amount of capital a company needs to start has changed faster than venture's own toolkit. Timestamps 00:00 Capital’s Clean Myth 00:35 Scarcity to Math Drive 01:53 Naming Chingona Ventures 03:06 Breaking Into Venture 04:47 Investing in the New Majority 06:16 Opportunity Fund Origin Story 08:46 Killing the Charity Narrative 10:01 Coaching as Value Add 12:58 Cherry Rock Series A Gap 14:44 Athlete Founder Reality Check 17:53 Building Thoughtful Access 20:14 Thoughtful as Greatness 21:31 Beyond Founder Stereotypes 22:47 Athlete Career Transitions 23:57 Anne Mirakos VC Origin 26:27 Networking Without Networking 27:48 From 911 to New VC 30:21 Fixing Venture Incentives 33:36 Building Cornell Tech 37:52 Why Six Four Five 39:23 Shiz Shahid on Impact 41:47 Founder Empathy Investing Featured Voices Samara Mejia Hernandez (Chingona Ventures), Stacy Brown-Philpot (Cherry Rock Capital), Ryan Nece (Next Play Capital), Ann Miura-Ko (Floodgate), Aaron Holiday (645 Ventures), and Shiza Shahid. Resources Breaking Precedent: https://www.breakingprecedent.com/ Fund and company websites for the six guests are not stated in the transcript and are not included here. Source and confirm them before publishing rather than guessing at URLs. Connect with Leah Website: https://www.breakingprecedent.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/leah_solivan/ X: https://twitter.com/labunleashed

    Summer Break: Breaking the Pipeline Myth - Who Really Gets Funded in Venture Capital

  3. 2 July

    Breaking the Silence: Derrick “D-Nice” Jones on Music, Movement, and the Legacy of Club Quarantine [Replay]

    What happens when culture becomes a form of leadership? This summer, Breaking Precedent is revisiting conversations that feel just as resonant now as when they were first recorded. In this episode, Leah Solivan sits down with Derrick T. Jones, better known as D-Nice, to explore how music, creativity, and shared experience can become infrastructure for connection. D-Nice is a legendary DJ, photographer, producer, and cultural connector whose career spans the early days of hip-hop, reinvention through technology, and the global phenomenon of Club Quarantine. What began as an Instagram Live DJ set during the isolation of COVID became a virtual gathering place for millions, reminding people that music can do more than entertain. It can hold people together. The conversation traces D-Nice’s path from hip-hop pioneer to world-renowned DJ, his role in the Stop the Violence Movement, the responsibility artists carry in public life, and why joy itself can be a serious form of service. Leah and D-Nice also explore reinvention, optimism, technology, execution, and what it means to build spaces where people feel seen, included, and connected. Relaunch ContextThis episode originally captured a moment when the memory of Club Quarantine was still closely tied to the isolation and uncertainty of the pandemic. The replay is preserved because its larger themes remain urgent: how culture builds community, how artists can lead without becoming detached from humanity, and how shared joy can become a public good in fractured times. Key InsightsCulture is not just entertainment; it can become infrastructure for belonging.Music can create community across geography, industry, generation, and status.Reinvention is not a single pivot; it is a lifelong creative discipline.Technology can amplify connection when it is used in service of human presence.Club Quarantine worked because it gave people more than a soundtrack; it gave them a place to gather.Artists carry responsibility because their work shapes the emotional atmosphere of a culture.Joy can be a serious intervention during seasons of fear, loneliness, and uncertainty.The Stop the Violence Movement showed how hip-hop could respond directly to social crisis.Execution matters as much as ideas, especially when trying to reach people at scale.Breaking precedent can mean refusing to let success harden into a fixed identity. Timestamps00:00 Welcome back to Breaking Precedent00:21 Misty Copeland’s farewell gala02:00 Career shifts and the impact of COVID02:45 Icebreaker: reinventing yourself04:00 Childhood memories and early upbringing07:00 Entering hip-hop at a young age13:00 Technology, creativity, and new tools for artists23:00 Community, generosity, and giving back29:00 The musical journey into DJing35:00 Creating “Stop the Violence”39:00 Hope and optimism in difficult times40:00 Politics, culture, and personal reflection42:00 The birth of Club Quarantine42:21 How Club Quarantine evolved53:00 From virtual parties to iconic venues58:00 Reinvention and resilience in entertainment01:06:00 AI, technology, and the future of creativity01:11:56 Ideas, execution, and thinking about the masses About the GuestDerrick T. Jones, known professionally as D-Nice, is a DJ, photographer, producer, and cultural curator whose career spans decades at the intersection of music, art, technology, and community. He first rose to prominence in hip-hop before becoming one of the most influential DJs of his generation. During the COVID-19 pandemic, D-Nice created Club Quarantine, a virtual DJ gathering that brought people together through Instagram Live and became one of the defining cultural moments of lockdown. His work continues to demonstrate how music can build bridges across communities, industries, and generations. D-NiceClub QuarantineBoogie Down ProductionsStop the Violence Movement ResourcesD-NiceClub QuarantineBoogie Down ProductionsStop the Violence MovementMisty CopelandCarnegie HallKennedy CenterHollywood BowlAI and creativity Connect with LeahWebsite: breakingprecedent.comInstagram: @leah_solivanX: @labunleashed

    Breaking the Silence: Derrick “D-Nice” Jones on Music, Movement, and the Legacy of Club Quarantine [Replay]

  4. 25 June

    Summer Break: Breaking Culture - The Artists Who Move Us Forward.

    This special summer compilation of Breaking Precedent brings together artists and culture makers who have each broken precedent in a different way. Across Broadway, music, food, visual art, ballet, and memoir, the episode explores how artists sense cultural change before systems have language for it. Rachel Sussman talks about theater that asks hard questions. D-Nice reflects on Club Quarantine as a cultural lifeline. Christina Tosi explains how limitation can become the creative engine. Windy Chien connects outsider identity to artistic freedom. Tamara Rojo reframes ballet as an art form of reinvention and emotional access. Sarah Hoover speaks about turning rage and postpartum pain into work that other people can recognize. Together, these conversations make the case that art is not downstream from culture. Artists often move first. Key Insights Storytelling can reach culture faster than policy.Limitation can force originality.Digital spaces can become meaningful cultural rooms when people need connection.Being outside a system can make it easier to build by your own rules.Great institutions survive by changing while protecting what matters.Art can give language to private experiences people rarely say out loud.Timestamps 00:00 Artists move first00:25 Rachel Sussman on art with social conscience01:55 Storytelling and political culture04:30 Hillary Clinton, Malala, and Broadway producing07:17 Liberation, motherhood, and intergenerational progress12:30 Broadway's financial model14:42 D-Nice on creative reinvention17:20 Club Quarantine as culture20:50 Christina Tosi and the empty pantry25:45 Limitation as creativity29:10 Windy Chien on outsider identity33:35 Planning a creative leap37:25 Tamara Rojo on ballet and reinvention42:00 Ballet as emotion in movement45:52 Sarah Hoover on rage and art48:05 Artists make the invisible visible Featured Voices Rachel Sussman, D-Nice, Christina Tosi, Windy Chien, Tamara Rojo, and Sarah Hoover. Resources Milk Bar: https://milkbarstore.com/Christina Tosi: https://www.christinatosi.com/Windy Chien: https://www.windychien.com/San Francisco Ballet: https://www.sfcballet.org/

    Summer Break: Breaking Culture - The Artists Who Move Us Forward.

  5. 18 June

    Emergency Break: A Doctor's Case for Rebuilding the System, Not Just Treating the Symptoms [Replay]

    What if the healthcare system is not simply broken, but producing exactly what it was designed to produce? This summer, Breaking Precedent is revisiting conversations that feel just as urgent now as when they were first recorded. In this episode, emergency physician and author Dr. Thomas Fisher joins Leah Solivan to examine what the ER reveals about American society, why caring clinicians can still become trapped inside harmful systems, and what it means to move upstream from treatment toward public action. Dr. Fisher grew up on Chicago's South Side and has spent more than two decades caring for patients in the community that raised him. He explains why the emergency department became his window into inequality: everybody gets sick, everybody gets injured, and every failure outside the hospital eventually arrives inside it. The conversation explores The Emergency, the patient stories healthcare workers carry, what COVID revealed about public health, how metrics can improve or distort care, why startups cannot fix healthcare alone, and why the moral purpose of the system must be to protect one another when we are vulnerable. Relaunch Context This interview was recorded while Dr. Fisher was running for the Democratic nomination in Illinois' 7th Congressional District. The primary took place on March 17, 2026; State Representative La Shawn Ford won the nomination, and Dr. Fisher did not advance. The campaign portion is preserved as recorded because its larger themes of service, policy, truth, and moral responsibility remain relevant. Key Insights Emergency medicine requires finding the signal inside a constant flood of decisions and distractions.The ER is one of the few places where every part of society still enters through the same door.Entrenched systems often create exactly the outcomes they were designed to create.Caregivers and patients can be trapped together inside the same harmful structure.COVID exposed systemic weakness while also demonstrating the power of science and public-health execution.Metrics need a clearly defined moral purpose or they become targets to manipulate.Entrepreneurship can build necessary healthcare tools, but only public systems can guarantee that everyone is included.Moving upstream means addressing the policy and economic conditions that repeatedly send people into crisis.We do not control every outcome, but we can choose how we live and serve.Timestamps 00:00 Why this conversation remains relevant00:49 Welcome to Breaking Precedent01:30 Non-obvious superpowers02:38 Finding the signal in the noise04:30 Growing up on Chicago's South Side06:35 Family, education, and a legacy of service09:00 Learning the stories history books left out10:00 Seeing unequal systems from both sides14:25 Leaving Chicago for Dartmouth15:55 Violence, safety, and the desire for a different experience17:35 Choosing medicine19:20 Meaning, grief, and the illusion of stability20:45 Why emergency medicine became his calling21:38 The ER as society's common denominator23:35 Writing The Emergency as a love letter25:10 Systems working as designed27:40 The patient story that still stays with him30:10 What healthcare workers carry from COVID31:05 Why public health may be worse off32:30 The vaccine as a triumph of American ingenuity33:15 When metrics replace the patient36:30 The moral purpose of healthcare36:50 EMTALA, emergency care, and the missing next step39:00 Entrepreneurship and healthcare innovation40:30 Why startups are only part of the solution42:38 Moving from bedside care toward public service43:10 Why treating patients was no longer enough44:00 Choosing how to live45:05 Entering public service as a doctor46:00 Learning the machinery of politics48:25 Healthcare, public safety, and shared responsibility50:50 Universal coverage52:30 Truth and courage in Congress54:00 A toast to the ancestors56:00 Remembering we are part of something bigger57:05 Closing reflection About the Guest Dr. Thomas Fisher is a board-certified emergency medicine physician, author, and public-health leader who has spent more than two decades caring for patients on Chicago's South Side. He studied at Dartmouth College, the University of Chicago School of Medicine, and the Harvard School of Public Health, and previously served as a White House Fellow. He is the author of The Emergency: A Year of Healing and Heartbreak in a Chicago ER. In 2026, he ran in the Democratic primary for Illinois' 7th Congressional District. Dr. Thomas FisherThe EmergencyUniversity of Chicago Medicine Resources The Emergency by Thomas FisherRedesign HealthMiSalud HealthMedicareMedicaid Connect with Leah Website: breakingprecedent.comInstagram: @leah_solivanX: @labunleashed

    Emergency Break: A Doctor's Case for Rebuilding the System, Not Just Treating the Symptoms [Replay]

  6. 11 June

    Summer Break: Broken By Design - The People Inside Healthcare's Hardest Problem

    During our summer break, we're revisiting a compilation of previously released episodes about a healthcare system that is at once the most advanced in the world and one of the most broken. Hear Halle Tecco on why healthcare can't absorb its own innovation, Dr. Thomas Fisher on a system that's working exactly as designed, Lynn Jurich on the research gap that overlooked women's bodies, Kevin Caldwell of Ossium Health on prevention at the cellular level, and Andy Dunn on why mental health is health.  Together, these stories trace why the system stays broken and introduce the people working to change it.  Broken System: Halle Tecco on What it Takes to Build Massively Better Healthcare Listen here: Apple | SpotifyEmergency Break: A Doctor's Case for Rebuilding the System, Not Just Treating the Symptoms Listen here: Apple | SpotifyShattering the Grid: Lynn Jurich on Electrifying Homes and Extending Women's Lives Listen here: Apple | SpotifyBreaking Bad: Kevin Caldwell and Ossium Health is Banking on Bone Marrow for Curing Cancers and Transforming Longevity Listen here: Apple | SpotifyThe Breakdown: Andy Dunn on Building Bonobos, Battling Bipolar, and Baking Pie Listen here: Apple | Spotify Halle Tecco Halle Tecco is a healthcare investor, operator, and educator who founded Rock Health, the first venture fund dedicated to digital health. An angel investor and longtime voice in health innovation, she frames healthcare around the "iron triangle," now four aims of better outcomes, greater access, lower cost, and a better experience, and argues the industry has "an implementation problem, not an innovation problem." In this episode she draws on case studies from her work, including PillPack and the cautionary tale of uBiome, to explain why the system so often rewards incumbents over better ideas. Connect with Halle Tecco on LinkedIn and at halletecco.com Dr. Thomas Fisher Dr. Thomas Fisher is an emergency physician and the author of The Emergency: A Year of Healing and Heartbreak in a Chicago ER. Writing and practicing from inside an overwhelmed emergency department, he makes the case that the system is "working as designed," built to step in when things go wrong rather than to keep people well, and that its true moral purpose is to protect us when we are most vulnerable. In this episode he shares the story of a COVID-era patient he couldn't save, and how the same metrics that hide problems can be used to close equity gaps. Dr. Fisher is now a candidate for U.S. Congress in Illinois, carrying his case for rebuilding the system into public office. Connect with Dr. Thomas Fisher on LinkedIn and learn about his campaign at Thomas Fisher for Congress Lynn Jurich Lynn Jurich is a serial entrepreneur best known as the co-founder and former CEO of Sunrun, which she led for 16 years and took public as the largest residential solar company in the U.S. After a health scare in her early forties, she turned her attention to female longevity, building a new standard of precision, prevention-first care for women. In this episode she confronts how little research exists on women's bodies, noting that before 2016, 80% of NIH studies were conducted only on men, and what it would take to change that. Connect with Lynn Jurich on LinkedIn Kevin Caldwell Kevin Caldwell is the co-founder of Ossium Health, which is building the first large-scale bank of bone-marrow stem cells for cell therapies, and a Bridgewater Associates alum. Convinced that rising healthcare costs are better solved through biotechnology than through politics, he champions proactive, preventative medicine: banking your own stem cells while you're young and healthy, the way you might fund a 401(k). His guiding line, borrowed from Virgil's Aeneid: "the greatest wealth is health." Learn more about Ossium Health and connect with Kevin Caldwell on LinkedIn Andy Dunn Andy Dunn is the co-founder and former CEO of Bonobos, the menswear brand acquired by Walmart, and the author of Burn Rate: Launching a Startup and Losing My Mind, a memoir about building a company while living with bipolar disorder. A leading voice on founder mental health, he speaks candidly about diagnosis, a second manic episode at the height of his success, recovery, and the conviction that mental health is not separate from physical health. Connect with Andy Dunn at andydunn.com and on Instagram Resources: Rock Health PillPack Outlive (Peter Attia) Sunrun The Emergency (Thomas Fisher) Burn Rate (Andy Dunn) Bonobos NIH Show Notes: 00:00 – The most advanced system in the world, and one of the most broken00:25 – Welcome to Breaking Precedent00:35 – Halle Tecco: growing up on Medicaid, the haves and have-nots01:10 – Where you live predicts how long you live02:13 – It's not effort: the incentives don't match02:28 – "Death by pilot": an implementation problem, not innovation03:40 – The system is rigged: incumbents, PillPack, and the DC lobby04:33 – From the iron triangle to four aims: follow the evidence05:23 – Founders carry the full stack06:00 – Venture timelines vs. healthcare, and the uBiome cautionary tale08:01 – Nobody knows what anything costs08:25 – Built for emergencies: why inefficiency is a feature08:56 – Dr. Thomas Fisher: "working as designed"10:13 – The story that keeps him up at night12:33 – Health is economic13:03 – Misinformation, vaccines, and losing sight of the stakes14:48 – Juking the stats, and using metrics to close the gap17:02 – Lynn Jurich: from sick care to health span17:43 – Neck surgery at 41 and the women's-health research gap19:45 – Precision, prevention-first care for women21:22 – Kevin Caldwell: prevention at the cellular l...

    Summer Break: Broken By Design - The People Inside Healthcare's Hardest Problem

  7. 28 May

    Breaking the “Best Practice” Myth: Eric Ries on The Lean Startup to Incorruptible Companies

    What if the real value in a startup is not the code you write, but the learning you earn? Eric Ries, author of The Lean Startup and Incorruptible, joins Leah Solivan on Breaking Precedent to talk about the painful lessons behind the Lean Startup movement, why AI does not replace human learning, and how founders can build companies designed to stay mission-driven over time. Eric shares the IMVU story that shaped his thinking: after months of engineering work, the team realized they had built around the wrong customer behavior. That experience led him to the core insight behind The Lean Startup: progress in uncertainty should be measured by validated learning, not by how much product has been built. Leah and Eric also discuss the Long-Term Stock Exchange, the short-term incentives of public markets, and Eric's new book, Incorruptible: Why Good Companies Go Bad...and How Great Companies Stay Great. Eric argues that many companies are not truly mission-driven; they are mission hopeful. To endure, companies need structures that protect trust, purpose, and long-term value when the pressure to optimize for transactions, growth at all costs, or conventional "best practices" gets loud. Key Insights Failure taught Eric lessons that theory could not.The IMVU pivot showed him that building more code is not the same thing as creating more value.If you do not know who the customer is, you do not know what quality means.AI should help founders learn faster, not outsource the learning that creates startup value.Public markets often reward transaction volume rather than long-term company building.Mission-driven companies need governance, culture, and business models that protect the mission from corruption.Trust is a real business asset and can create a durable competitive advantage.Founders should question "best practice" advice when it pushes the company away from long-term value.Timestamps 00:00 Coordinating the episode with Eric's book release00:38 Welcome to Breaking Precedent00:58 Leah and Eric's early connection through Floodgate and TaskRabbitEric Ries on Voluntary Exchange, Lean Startup Lessons, and Building the Long-Term Stock Exchange Host Leah Sullivan (TaskRabbit founder and VC) interviews Eric Ries, creator of The Lean Startup and the Long-Term Stock Exchange (LTSE), discussing how voluntary exchange creates wealth when transactions are voluntary and informed, and how exploitative systems undermine trust. Ries reflects on growing up in San Diego in a family of Holocaust-survivor doctors, discovering programming and the early internet, and learning from a failed dot-com startup and the different attitudes toward failure on the East Coast versus Silicon Valley. He recounts IMVU’s early mistake—building for existing friends instead of new-friend discovery—leading to the insights behind MVPs, pivots, and validated learning. Ries explains LTSE as an SEC-regulated exchange designed to reward long-term, stakeholder-oriented governance, critiques transaction-volume incentives, and previews his book Incorruptible, a manual for building and protecting mission-driven companies, citing examples like Patagonia, IKEA, Costco, and Novo Nordisk and challenging “best practices” such as quarterly reporting. 00:00 Voluntary Exchange Magic00:31 Meet Leah and Eric02:02 Old Friends and Investors03:15 Downturn Business Ideas05:17 Barter and Fair Rules07:24 Recession Policy and Power08:56 Early Life and Family Roots11:08 Programming and Internet Escape13:26 Yale Choice and Dotcom Era16:24 First Startup Failure Lessons19:46 IMVU Pivot Births Lean23:49 Minimum Viable Learning25:33 Building the Lean Framework27:12 Explaining Lean at IMVU28:48 Truth Over Convention30:09 Lean Startup in AI31:59 Why Build LTSE37:10 How LTSE Works39:36 Incorruptible Mission Companies43:27 Examples That Break Rules51:01 Kroger vs Costco Governance54:43 Closing Reflections About the Guest Eric Ries is an entrepreneur and the author of The Lean Startup, The Startup Way, and Incorruptible: Why Good Companies Go Bad...and How Great Companies Stay Great. He is the founder of the Long-Term Stock Exchange and has worked with startups, large companies, nonprofits, and government organizations on innovation, validated learning, and long-term company building. Eric RiesIncorruptibleLong-Term Stock Exchange Resources Incorruptible by Eric RiesSimon & Schuster: IncorruptibleThe Long-Term Stock ExchangeThe Lean StartupIMVUTaskRabbitIKEANovo NordiskCostco Connect with Leah Website: breakingprecedent.comInstagram: @leah_solivanX: @labunleashed

    Breaking the “Best Practice” Myth: Eric Ries on The Lean Startup to Incorruptible Companies

  8. 14 May

    Breaking the Pattern: Paige Hendrix Buckner on Leadership, Access, and Building What’s Missing

    What if talent was never the real differentiator, but access was? Paige Hendrix Buckner, CEO of All Raise, joins Leah Solivan on Breaking Precedent for a conversation about who gets access to opportunity, who gets trusted with capital, and what it actually takes to change an entrenched system from the inside. Paige's path runs through education, public service, startups, venture capital, and now All Raise, where she is focused on increasing the power and influence of women and non-binary investors. She traces the throughline from her father's early lesson that relationships shape opportunity, to her years as a Teach For America educator, to her own experience as a founder trying to raise venture capital without understanding the rules of the game. What emerges is a clear argument about power: venture does not only reward talent. It rewards proximity, pattern matching, trust, and access. Paige and Leah unpack why representation is not enough if decision-making power does not move with it, why titles can obscure who actually controls capital, and why changing venture means changing the stories investors tell themselves about who gets to build the future. Key Insights Access can shape outcomes before talent ever gets seen.Relationships are not just networking; they are how people build trust, sponsorship, and opportunity.Teaching taught Paige to design with the person in mind, a lesson that later translated directly into startups and systems change.Venture capital is a black box for many founders because the rules are rarely made explicit.Representation is not the same as power. A title does not tell you who controls capital, leads deals, or wins board seats.Structural change requires focus, data, community trust, and the willingness to let go of work that no longer serves the mission.The future Paige is building is not just more women in venture, but more women and non-binary investors with real influence, capital, and gravity.Breaking precedent sometimes starts with an internal shift. For Paige, that meant allowing creativity to become part of her definition of success.Timestamps 00:00 Access versus talent01:34 Welcome to Breaking Precedent01:48 Paige's early lesson about relationships03:36 Growing up in a family built on humor, support, and ambition 05:57 Coach Who Changed Everything 06:56 College Curiosity Path 09:39 Teach For America Lessons 12:27 Opportunity Gaps In Schools 16:57 Portland Reset And Service 19:35 Startup Weekend Spark 20:56 Founder Gym And VC Basics 21:39 Pitching Lessons And Narrative 27:43 Underrepresented Founder Patterns 28:41 Spotting Structural Bias 29:01 Bias in Venture 30:26 Network Over Talent 32:07 Choosing to Change 33:50 All Raise and 2 Percent 35:09 Power Beyond Titles 38:26 Big Firms vs New Funds 42:15 Making Change Stick 52:09 Vision for 2035 55:02 Redefining Success 56:52 Creativity and Closing About the Guest Paige Hendrix Buckner is the CEO of All Raise, a nonprofit working to accelerate the success of women and non-binary investors and founders in venture capital and technology. Her career spans education, public service, entrepreneurship, founder education, and venture ecosystem building. Before All Raise, Paige worked with Founder Gym, supporting underrepresented founders learning how to raise venture capital. Today, she leads All Raise's work to shift not only representation in venture, but real power, influence, and access to capital. Paige Hendrix Buckner on LinkedInAll Raise Resources All RaisePaige Hendrix Buckner on LinkedInFounder GymTeach For AmericaUrban League of PortlandTaskRabbitFloodgateStitch FixSunrunForbes: All Raise CEO Paige Hendrix Buckner On Why Investors Should Bet On Women

    Breaking the Pattern: Paige Hendrix Buckner on Leadership, Access, and Building What’s Missing
See All (55)

Trailer

About

Welcome to Breaking Precedent, the podcast that dives deep into the stories of trailblazers, innovators, and game-changers who are redefining societal precedents. Join us as we sit down with extraordinary individuals who are pushing the boundaries of social norms, challenging precedents, and setting new ones in their fields. Whether it’s in technology, art, social justice, or beyond, Breaking Precedent is your source of inspiration for understanding how precedents are broken and new paths are forged.

Information

  • Creator
    Leah Solivan
  • Years Active
    2024 - 2026
  • Episodes
    55
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Leah Solivan

You Might Also Like