Breaking Precedent

Leah Solivan
  • 5.0 (27)
  • Entrepreneurship
  • Updated Biweekly

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. 23h ago

    Breaking the Code: Anne Wojcicki on Genetics, Reinvention, and Rewriting Consumer Health

    What did Anne Wojcicki see in healthcare that made her leave Wall Street and risk challenging an entire industry to put power back in patients’ hands?  Welcome to the brand new season of Breaking Precedent where Leah Solivan interviews 23andMe founder Anne Wojcicki about breaking medical “gatekeeping” by giving consumers direct access to their genetic information and using that data to drive research and prevention. Solivan shares learning she did not carry BRCA2 while pregnant, and Wojcicki recounts motivations shaped by her mother’s fierce self-advocacy, a Stanford community of inquiry, and an immigrant family history that emphasized purpose over materialism. After Yale (biology and a year of hockey) and a Wall Street career that exposed ethical problems in healthcare, Wojcicki drew inspiration from HIV patient advocates to build a platform for people to advocate for themselves.  She describes co-founding 23andMe in 2006 with Linda Avey and Paul Cusenza, early public skepticism, the unexpected power of ancestry, medical resistance to broad genetic testing, and how COVID-era telehealth and AI enable new prevention tools. Wojcicki explains buying 23andMe back via a nonprofit to better align incentives, scale research access, and build a subscription product integrating genetics with medical records, self-report data, wearables, and updated insights for personalized risk prediction and guidance. Key Insights • Questioning the status quo can become a foundation for leadership and innovation. • Unexpected experiences can reveal what truly matters and shape a person’s direction. • Advocacy can inspire people to create systems that empower others to speak for themselves. • Different perspectives can come together to create a more powerful and holistic idea. • Breaking precedent often requires challenging assumptions that others accept as normal. • Innovation requires understanding how people actually respond, not just what founders expect. • Responsible innovation means considering the ethical consequences of new technology. • Personal values can become the foundation of a larger mission to empower people and improve systems. • Purpose becomes more powerful when it extends beyond personal success and creates impact for others.  Timestamps: 00:00 Welcome to Breaking Precedent  00:42 Meet Anne Wojcicki 01:58 BRCA Midnight Results 03:27 Ashkenazi Screening Gaps 04:32 Question Everything 06:12 Mom the Advocate 09:17 Rebel Teacher Mindset 12:05 Debate and Free Thinking 14:46 Stanford Community Roots 16:52 Immigrant Purpose Drive 19:42 Yale Hockey and Culture Shock 24:25 Wall Street Detour 26:13 Healthcare Ethics Wakeup 28:21 HIV Activists Inspire 31:24 Founding 23andMe 34:55 Selling Genetics DTC 38:36 Prevention Meets AI 41:45 Nonprofit Mission Shift 43:50 Drug Discovery Reality 46:31 Paying for Prevention 53:00 Closing Reflections Resources HIV Activist Movement: https://www.hiv.gov?utm_source=chatgpt.com  The Michael J. Fox Foundation: https://www.michaeljfox.org?utm_source=chatgpt.com  23andMe Research Institute: https://www.23andme.org/about/?utm_source=chatgpt.com  Leah Solivan is the host of Breaking Precedent, a podcast that explores the stories of innovators who are pushing societal boundaries and setting new precedents in their fields. Leah Solivan is General Partner at Fuel Capital, where she invests in early-stage companies across consumer technology, hardware, education, marketplaces, and retail. Leah Solivan has 15 years of experience building and creating technology products that have reached millions of people around the globe. She started her career at IBM as an engineer in the software group, working on Lotus Notes and Domino. In 2008, Leah Solivan founded TaskRabbit, the leading on-demand service marketplace in the world. Thank you to our Precedent Breaking Partners!TaskRabbit: taskrabbit.com/?utm_source=breakingprecedent&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=breakingprecedent&utm_content=podcast Justworks: justworks.com/?utm_source=breakingprecedent&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=breakingprecedent&utm_content=podcast  Squared Away: gosquaredaway.com/breakingprecedent?utm_source=breakingprecedent&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=breakingprecedent&utm_content=podcast Connect with Leah Solivan: Website: breakingprecedent.com/  Instagram: @leah_solivan X: @labunleashed

    Breaking the Code: Anne Wojcicki on Genetics, Reinvention, and Rewriting Consumer Health

  2. Sep 3

    Breaking the Script - Season 3

    Season 3 of Breaking Precedent is here. This season, Leah sits down with founders, athletes, and builders who refused to accept the world as it was handed to them. From a card game that turns into hard business questions, to rewriting the script for life after sports, to reimagining what healthcare could look like if someone actually believed in you — these are conversations about challenging inherited beliefs, collecting skills, and taking your future into your own hands. Welcome to Season 3. Connect with Leah SolivanWebsite: breakingprecedent.comInstagram: @leah_solivanX: @labunleashed

  3. Aug 27

    Breaking the Bank: Aaron Holiday on 645 ventures' data-driven approach to sourcing deals and bringing the invisible to life [Replay]

    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 Aaron Holiday to explore what it means to challenge the systems and assumptions that determine who gets access to opportunity.  Aaron is the co-founder and Managing Partner at 645 Ventures. He oversees the firm’s investing approach, strategy, investor relations, and governance. Since founding 645 Ventures in 2014, Aaron has worked closely with portfolio company founders to strengthen, grow, and scale businesses. Aaron led 645 Ventures early-stage investments in several breakout successes, including Goldbelly, Iterable, FiscalNote, Squire, Resident/Nectar Sleep, FLY Labs (acquired by Google), Source3 (acquired by Facebook), and several other category-defining companies. In 2021, Aaron made the Midas Brink List of VC investor up-and-comers to watch for his involvement and investments in startup companies that have scaled to hundreds of millions in revenues and unicorn status. The conversation traces Aaron’s path from growing up in New Orleans and imagining a different future to studying computer science, working on Wall Street, entering venture capital, and building 645 Ventures. Leah and Aaron explore access to opportunity, mentorship, technology, data-driven investing, the limitations of traditional venture networks, and why finding the best founders requires looking beyond established circles. They also discuss experimentation, giving people a shot, and what it takes to build new systems when the old ones were never designed to include everyone.  Relaunch Context This episode originally captured a moment when venture capital was beginning to confront the limitations of traditional networks, narrow sourcing models, and the assumptions about where great founders and companies come from. The replay is preserved because those questions have only become more relevant: how to uncover talent beyond established circles, how technology and data can expand access to opportunity, and how to build investment systems that can see what others overlook. Aaron Holiday’s journey with 645 Ventures offers a powerful look at what happens when you challenge the conventional model and build a new way to bring the invisible to life.  Key Insights Growing up in New Orleans taught Aaron to imagine a different world and question the assumptions that define the one around him.Breaking precedent often starts with finding people who can show you what is possible beyond the world you already know.Access to information, knowledge, and resources can dramatically change the trajectory of talented people, regardless of where they come from.Aaron saw that venture capital's traditional reliance on established networks could miss promising founders and companies outside those circles.The rapid growth of startup formation created a larger pool of companies that traditional venture firms were not necessarily equipped to discover.Data and software could expand a venture firm's reach by identifying high-potential companies beyond its existing network.645 Ventures developed a different approach to early-stage investing by combining proprietary software, outbound sourcing, and a new mentality around due diligence.The firm's original fund was designed as a proof of concept for a fundamentally different model of early-stage venture capital.Technology can create societal impact at scale by making products more efficient, expanding their reach, and changing the number of lives they touch.Experimentation is central to innovation, but founders and investors also need systems that protect people when an experiment does not work.The venture industry can reproduce its own limitations when successful firms continue using the same strategies and networks that worked in the past.Opening networks is not simply a diversity strategy—it can be a fundamental requirement for finding the strongest companies in an expanding startup ecosystem.Breaking precedent requires more than identifying what is wrong with an existing system; it requires building a credible alternative and proving that it can work. Timestamps 00:00 Welcome Back to Breaking Precedent01:20 Meet Aaron Holliday04:20 New Orleans Roots05:00 Dreaming Beyond Reality06:40 Morehouse Leap08:10 Choosing Computer Science12:30 Learning Through Collaboration13:20 Hustleman Origin Story16:30 Breaking Into Internships20:20 Goldman Trading Algorithms24:20 From Goldman to GFI26:40 Discovering Venture Capital28:50 Cornell Venture Fund33:00 Advice To Work With Founders33:20 Blip TV and Early Web Video34:20 First VC Role: DFJ Gotham36:30 Cornell Tech Leap39:30 Inventing Startup Pedagogy41:40 Why 645 Was Needed45:10 Data-Driven Deal Sourcing48:40 Fund One Proof of Concept53:30 Scaling Funds Two and Three58:40 Power Law and The Invisible01:01:50 New Manager Survival01:05:40 Rapid Fire: Values and Legacy01:09:00 Closing Reflections and Outro About the Guest Aaron Holiday is the Founder and Managing Director of 645 Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm focused on discovering promising founders beyond traditional networks. His journey began in New Orleans and took him through computer science, Wall Street, technology, and venture capital. Aaron co-founded 645 Ventures around a data-driven approach to sourcing startups, using software and technology to identify high-potential companies that might otherwise remain outside established venture networks. His work reflects his belief in expanding access to opportunity and rethinking how the venture industry discovers and supports the next generation of founders. Connect with Leah Solivan Website: breakingprecedent.comInstagram: @leah_solivan X: @labunleashed

    Breaking the Bank: Aaron Holiday on 645 ventures' data-driven approach to sourcing deals and bringing the invisible to life [Replay]

  4. Aug 20

    Summer Break: How They Broke Precedent - The Origin Stories

    This special compilation of Breaking Precedent brings together origin stories from people who have each broken precedent in a different way. Across leadership, entrepreneurship, education, music, and social mobility, the episode explores how financial constraints, family sacrifices, limited access, and unfamiliar environments can shape the people who learn to challenge what came before them. Stacy Brown-Philpot reflects on stepping into leadership without initially seeking it and the lessons her family taught her about generosity, self-advocacy, and responsibility. Samara Hernandez shares how growing up with limited resources taught her to make more out of less and find support through community. D-Nice (Derrick Jones) describes how curiosity, creative exploration, and losing everything pushed him to reinvent himself across music, photography, technology, and business. Shiza Shahid discusses breaking precedents because many of them simply did not exist for her. Bianca Gates connects her childhood experiences of exclusion and belonging to the communities she builds today. Bismarck Lepe reflects on the sacrifices his parents made to create opportunities for their children, while Aaron Holiday shares what it meant to leave New Orleans and enter a new environment where few people from his hometown had gone before him. Alejandra Campoverdi explores the complicated emotional experience of being a “first and only,” from social mobility and dual rejection to becoming both a precedent breaker and precedent setter. Together, these stories challenge the myth that success follows a clean, linear path—and show how what people were denied can become the very thing that helps them see, create, and build differently. Key Insights • Constraints can become the training ground for leadership, creativity, and resilience.• Leadership often emerges before people consciously seek leadership roles.• Scarcity can teach people to recognize possibilities and make more out of less.• Curiosity can become a powerful tool for navigating uncertainty and reinvention.• Breaking precedent often means creating a path where no clear precedent exists.• Family sacrifice can become an invisible foundation for future opportunity.• Being a “first” or “only” can involve both breaking old patterns and setting new ones.• Origin stories are rarely linear; the meaningful parts often exist between the traditional    markers of success.• Community can provide the support and belonging needed to navigate unfamiliar systems.• The experiences people are forced to navigate can eventually become resources they use to help others.• Changing a cycle is not only about personal achievement—it can make the path easier for the next generation.• Art, entrepreneurship, education, and leadership can all become ways of transforming constraint into possibility. Timestamps: 00:00 Introduction to Breaking precedent 00:54 Accidental Leadership 02:14 Matriarch Lessons 03:54 Only One in Room 06:01 Proving Them Wrong 07:08 Scarcity to Strategy 07:33 Samara Makes More 09:52 D-Nice Reinvention 11:32 Bronx Childhood Curiosity 14:19 Hip Hop to Tech Pivot 16:57 Shiza Breaks Precedent 18:53 Pakistan Childhood Turbulence 20:37 Activism in Pakistan 21:52 Parents and Empowerment 23:37 Accidental Stanford Path 25:51 Purpose at Stanford 26:43 Bianca Gates Origins 27:55 Latina Outsider Experience 29:31 Izmir Family Sacrifice 31:00 Leaving Home for Morehouse 32:13 First Gen Anti Memoir 35:02 Dual Rejection Explained 36:48 Costume Changes and Belonging 38:19 Pride in Being First 41:36 First Gen Fund Launch 44:12 Closing Reflections Featured Voices:  Stacy Brown-Philpot, Samara Hernandez, D-Nice (Derrick Jones), Shiza Shahid, Bianca Gates, Bismarck Lepe, Aaron Holiday, Alejandra Campoverdi Resources First Gen Fund: https://www.firstgen.org/?utm_source=chatgpt.com  Taskrabbit: https://www.taskrabbit.com/?utm_source=chatgpt.com  Morehouse College: https://morehouse.edu/?utm_source=chatgpt.com  Leah Solivan is the host of Breaking Precedent, a podcast that explores the stories of innovators who are pushing societal boundaries and setting new precedents in their fields. Leah Solivan is General Partner at Fuel Capital, where she invests in early-stage companies across consumer technology, hardware, education, marketplaces, and retail. Leah Solivan has 15 years of experience building and creating technology products that have reached millions of people around the globe. She started her career at IBM as an engineer in the software group, working on Lotus Notes and Domino. In 2008, Leah Solivan founded TaskRabbit, the leading on-demand service marketplace in the world. Connect with Leah Solivan: Website: breakingprecedent.com/  Instagram: @leah_solivan X: @labunleashed

    Summer Break: How They Broke Precedent - The Origin Stories

  5. Aug 13

    Broken System: Halle Tecco on What it Takes to Build Massively Better Healthcare [Replay]

    What happens when healthcare innovation stops chasing disruption and starts earning trust? 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 Halle Tecco to explore healthcare as one of the most complex, resistant, and consequential systems in American life. Halle Tecco is a founder, investor, educator, and system-level thinker who has spent her career seeing around corners in healthcare. From founding Rock Health to backing health innovators, building companies, teaching, writing, and pushing the industry to prove what actually works, Halle has been asking the questions healthcare often avoids: who gets care, who gets left behind, who benefits from complexity, and what would it take to build something meaningfully better? The conversation traces Halle's path from a practical Midwest upbringing to the early days of digital health, the rise of Rock Health, the pandemic's impact on healthcare technology, and the ideas behind her book, Massively Better Healthcare. Leah and Halle explore access, trust, data, incentives, patient power, women in healthcare leadership, founder responsibility, and why healthcare needs builders who are willing to understand the whole system, not just the product they are trying to sell. ## Relaunch Context This episode originally captured a moment when healthcare innovation was moving from early digital health optimism into a more serious conversation about proof, trust, outcomes, and responsibility. The replay is preserved because those questions have only become more urgent: how to use technology without losing humanity, how to fix incentives that reward the wrong outcomes, and how to build healthcare systems that serve more people instead of simply extracting more value from them. Key InsightsHealthcare access is shaped by income, geography, race, job, literacy, time, and support, not only by clinical care.Engagement with the healthcare system is itself a privilege.Healthcare innovation has to confront fairness, not just efficiency.Rock Health was built around the belief that technology talent and healthcare institutions needed a bridge.The pandemic forced healthcare organizations to adopt technology faster than they had before, and some of that innovation muscle remained.Healthcare has a data problem in both directions: data is underused for outcomes and misused or exposed through security failures.Proof of concept is not the same as proof of impact.Healthcare often has an implementation problem, not an innovation problem.Founders need to understand when a problem is technological, regulatory, behavioral, or structural.Medication adherence cannot be solved only with better apps if the biggest barrier is the high cost of prescriptions.Healthcare deserves beautiful, impressive technology, but it only matters if it improves outcomes, access, cost, or experience.Venture timelines can conflict with healthcare timelines when investors push growth before evidence is ready.Patient data, pricing, and options are still too often controlled through information asymmetry.Annual insurance enrollment creates a short-term incentive system for problems that need long-term solutions.Massively better healthcare means better access, better continuity, and better alignment between effort and outcome for more people.Breaking precedent in healthcare means moving wisely, proving what works, and building systems that actually serve. Timestamps 00:00 Welcome back to Breaking Precedent00:21 Why Halle Tecco's healthcare insights still matter01:00 Leah introduces Halle Tecco02:40 Halle joins the conversation03:00 Icebreaker: the life experience that changed how Halle thinks about healthcare03:40 Healthcare as a system of haves and have-nots05:10 Growing up in a practical Midwest family07:20 Learning to question systems and fairness08:40 Seeing healthcare beyond medicine10:20 Calling out bad actors from outside the system11:20 Women, leadership, and paternalism in healthcare13:00 The origin of Rock Health14:20 Seeing the digital health opportunity before it was obvious15:00 Bridging Silicon Valley startups and healthcare institutions16:00 What traditional healthcare got wrong about startups16:50 How the pandemic forced healthcare technology adoption18:00 AI adoption, healthcare data, and the next frontier19:40 Underused data, misused data, and cybersecurity risk20:30 Healthcare's proof problem21:30 Proof of concept versus proof of impact22:40 Myths healthcare founders need to unlearn23:20 Medication adherence and the real barrier of drug cost24:20 Why founders need to advocate beyond their own product25:40 Impressive technology versus meaningful outcomes27:00 Venture timelines and healthcare evidence28:40 The danger of grow-at-all-costs thinking in healthcare29:20 The most dangerous precedent healthcare treats as inevitable30:00 Paternalism, patient data, and information asymmetry31:00 Healthcare pricing and the lack of transparency32:40 Misaligned incentives across payment and outcomes35:10 Halle's book, Massively Better Healthcare36:40 Why now is the moment for better healthcare tools37:00 What "massively better" means38:00 Who the book is for39:10 Big precedents, small precedents, and ripple effects41:20 The uncomfortable truth about incumbents and fairness42:30 What Halle wants readers to do after finishing the book45:00 Closing reflection About the Guest Halle Tecco is a founder, investor, educator, writer, and healthcare innovation leader. She founded Rock Health, one of the earliest organizations focused on digital health startups, and has spent more than a decade helping builders, funders, and institutions understand how healthcare can change. Her work sits at the intersection of technology, public health, venture, patient access, and system design. Through investing, teaching, podcasting, writing, and her book Massively Better Healthcare, Halle challenges innovators to move beyond incremental optimization and build healthcare that is meaningfully better for more people. Connect with Leah Website: breakingprecedent.comInstagram: @leah_solivanX: @labunleashed

    Broken System: Halle Tecco on What it Takes to Build Massively Better Healthcare [Replay]

  6. Aug 6

    Summer Break: Breaking New Ground - Fighting the Monopolies

    This special summer compilation episode of Breaking Precedent asks a different David and Goliath question: what does it take to change an industry when Goliath controls the rules? Across real estate, rooftop solar, healthcare, consumer products, beverages, and food, the episode traces what happens when founders challenge systems that were built to protect incumbents. Austin Allison describes the lawsuits, legal threats, and cease-and-desist letters that followed dotloop’s attempt to digitize real-estate transactions. Lynn Jurich revisits the rooftop-solar fight in Nevada, where a powerful utility tried to change the economics of distributed energy retroactively and force a new model back into the old rules. Halle Tecco brings the theme into healthcare, naming the way incumbents can outspend challengers, bend policy, and make a noble goal feel like a fair contest when it is not. Eric Ryan explains how Method challenged the consumer-products giants that already controlled the shelves. Kara Goldin shares why Hint refused to accept preservatives and industry defaults as inevitable. Patrick Brown closes with the first-principles approach behind Impossible Foods and the idea that a massive problem can still be broken into solvable pieces. Together, these conversations make the case that a better product is only the beginning. The real breaking point comes when the incumbent system decides the challenger is a threat, and the founder has to keep building through resistance, skepticism, regulation, capital, habit, and the temptation to give up. Key Insights A monopoly can protect itself through contracts, policy, distribution, capital, or habit. Resistance is often evidence that a new model is threatening an old profit pool. Passion matters because changing an entrenched market is too hard to sustain as a purely abstract exercise. Founders need allies and ground-level organizing, not only a strong product. Industry defaults often survive because nobody asks who benefits from them. A new category can begin with a smaller product, a different process, or a better question. Large problems become more workable when they are broken into solvable components. The most durable disruption creates a precedent that other people can build on. Timestamps 00:00 Rigged Systems 01:19 Real Estate Forms War 03:01 Solar Versus Utilities 04:24 Healthcare Incumbents 05:34 Founder Passion Test 08:33 Changing Real Estate 12:03 Network Effects Resistance 15:06 Change Management Playbook 17:55 Book Takeaways 19:34 Method Origin Story 21:03 Design Meets Sustainability 22:23 Co Founder Dynamic 22:50 Risk And Roles 23:06 Bootstrapping Method 23:57 De Risking The Idea 25:15 Cold Email Design 28:07 Target Breakthrough 29:52 Hint Shelf Life 33:18 Integrity Over Easy 36:42 Impossible Foods Mission 39:15 Solving Big Problems 40:23 Silicon Valley Culture Featured Voices Leah Solivan, Austin Allison, Lynn Jurich, Halle Tecco, Eric Ryan, Kara Goldin, and Patrick Brown. Connect with Leah Website: https://www.breakingprecedent.com/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/leah_solivan/X: https://twitter.com/labunleashed

    Summer Break: Breaking New Ground - Fighting the Monopolies

  7. Jul 30

    The Breakdown: Andy Dunn on Building Bonobos, Battling Bipolar and Baking Pie [Replay]

    What if the parts of us we try hardest to hide are actually where our strongest leadership begins? This summer, Breaking Precedent is revisiting conversations that feel just as relevant now as when they were first recorded. In this episode, Bonobos co-founder, author, and Pie founder Andy Dunn joins Leah Solivan to talk about building something non-consensus, navigating identity, living with bipolar disorder, and finding meaning beyond achievement. Andy is best known for helping pioneer direct-to-consumer retail through Bonobos, which grew from a better-fitting men’s pants idea into a category-shaping brand. But what makes this conversation so powerful is not just the company-building story. It is Andy’s willingness to talk honestly about the unseen costs of ambition, the pressure to perform, and the danger of confusing success with wholeness. The conversation explores growing up in a biracial household in suburban Chicago, learning to embrace difference, founding Bonobos at the dawn of digital retail, selling the company to Walmart, and writing Burn Rate, Andy’s memoir about entrepreneurship and bipolar disorder. Leah and Andy also discuss mental health stigma, the role of love and accountability in healing, the need for real-life community, and why his newest company, Pie, is focused on helping people build meaningful offline friendships. Relaunch ContextThis conversation originally captured Andy in a new chapter after Bonobos and Burn Rate, as he was building Pie around the problem of loneliness and real-life connection. That mission has only become more timely. As of 2026, Andy is still actively building Pie in Chicago as a platform designed to bring people together in real life and combat social isolation. The replay is preserved because its larger themes of vulnerability, mental health, identity, community, and building against consensus remain central to the Breaking Precedent mission. Timestamps00:00 Why this conversation matters now00:49 Andy Dunn on breaking precedent00:58 Welcome to Breaking Precedent01:10 Introducing Andy Dunn01:20 Building Bonobos01:35 Identity, humor, and belonging02:00 Bonobos, Walmart, and success beyond the exit02:10 Burn Rate and mental health02:50 Building Pie and real-life connection03:30 Andy Dunn joins Leah03:50 What it means to be a precedent breaker05:00 Growing up in a multicultural household05:20 Becoming aware of difference06:30 Wanting to fit in07:20 Finding power in what makes you different08:20 Early self-expression and fashion09:50 Family, leadership, and cultural heritage11:50 Early ideas about entrepreneurship13:20 Michael Jordan, Chicago, and entrepreneurial aspiration14:50 Northwestern, consulting, and business ambition15:50 Stanford GSB and learning to dream bigger18:20 Meeting Brian Spaly and the Bonobos origin story20:30 Why new companies have to be non-consensus21:30 Helping men care about fit23:00 Building a better digital customer experience24:50 Guide shops and the return to physical retail25:50 Nordstrom and breaking the DTC playbook27:50 Bonobos’ legacy in modern digital brands29:00 Lessons from trying to build software inside Bonobos31:30 Writing Burn Rate and revealing a hidden story32:20 Being diagnosed with bipolar disorder33:30 Understanding mania, hypomania, and psychosis35:30 Denial, family culture, and burying the diagnosis36:50 Entrepreneurship and mood disorders37:30 Living for years without facing the diagnosis40:20 A second manic episode and much higher stakes42:00 Shame, legal consequences, and depression43:10 Recovery, treatment, and support44:20 Love, accountability, and Manuela’s family45:00 Why language matters around mental illness46:30 Culture, therapy, and difficult conversations50:20 Understanding neurodiversity and mental hygiene51:40 Why everyone should think about mental fitness52:40 Turning perceived weakness into superpower53:20 The gift is in the wound54:30 Taking off the mask in the second half of life56:40 Building Pie57:00 From senior dating to platonic friendship58:50 Discovering the need for real-life connection59:40 Rebuilding Pie in person in Chicago01:01:30 The next social network may compete for offline attention01:02:40 AI, friendship, and better matching01:04:30 Redefining success01:05:30 Seasons of sacrifice, family, and future meaning01:07:00 The societal precedent Andy wants to break01:07:10 Building friendships across political difference01:09:30 Mind, gut, and heart in decision-making01:10:40 Leah’s closing reflection01:11:10 Vulnerability, neurodiversity, and perceived weakness as strength About the GuestAndy Dunn is an entrepreneur, author, and investor best known as the co-founder of Bonobos, one of the early direct-to-consumer brands that helped reshape modern retail. Bonobos pioneered new ways of combining digital commerce, customer experience, fit, and later physical guide shops before being acquired by Walmart. Andy is also the author of Burn Rate: Launching a Startup and Losing My Mind, a memoir about building Bonobos while living with bipolar disorder. Today, he is the founder of Pie, a Chicago-based platform focused on helping people build real-life friendships and fight social isolation. Connect with LeahWebsite: breakingprecedent.comInstagram: @leah_solivanX: @labunleashed

    The Breakdown: Andy Dunn on Building Bonobos, Battling Bipolar and Baking Pie [Replay]

  8. Jul 23

    Summer Break: Breaking the Scorecard - What Comes After Success

    This special summer episode of Breaking Precedent asks the question success does not answer for you: now what? Across Olympic competition, company building, professional sports, venture-backed startups, and personal reinvention, the episode traces what happens after the medal, the acquisition, the stadium, or the thing you built no longer defines your day. Nastia Liukin reflects on standing on the Olympic podium and feeling the fear that can arrive inside a moment everyone expects to feel only triumphant. Leah Solivan connects that feeling to the sale of TaskRabbit to IKEA, when a dream outcome also meant letting go of a company that had become part of her identity. Austin Allison talks about the constant pull of the next mountain after Zillow and the long path toward Pacaso. Ryan Nece describes the withdrawal from professional football, the fight with ego, and why building a startup was harder than being on the field. Julie Rice adds the emotional disorientation of leaving SoulCycle and learning what it means for a brand to live beyond its founder. Bianca Gates shares how Birdies began through imperfect first steps, good-enough prototypes, and the decision to keep walking before everything was figured out. Andy Dunn brings the theme to its deepest edge, naming the way identity can become a mask and how the second half of life asks us to take it off. Together, these conversations make the case that achievement can be meaningful without being complete. The real breaking point comes after the win, when the old scorecard stops working and the next chapter has to be built from something deeper than applause. Key Insights Success can create a new kind of uncertainty because it removes the goal that once organized your life. A medal, title, company, relationship, or salary can be meaningful without being the thing that defines who someone is. For founders, selling a company can feel like both relief and grief, especially when the company has become part of the founder's identity. Ambition can inspire risk, sacrifice, and leadership, but it can also make every milestone feel insufficient. The transition out of professional sports can feel like withdrawal from significance, spotlight, and structure. Perfectionism can help someone reach excellence, but the same pattern can become limiting when life no longer has a clear scoring system. Reinvention does not always require a perfect plan. Sometimes it starts with a good-enough first version and a willingness to keep walking. The work after success is not only about building again. It is about learning how to live without needing the old role to prove your worth. Timestamps 00:00 The Question Success Does Not Answer 00:33 Nastia On The Podium Now What 02:02 Identity Beyond Winning 02:26 TaskRabbit Exit Emotions 06:29 Achievement Withdrawal 08:18 Zillow Exit Next Mission 11:15 Retirement Feels Empty 12:04 Athlete Withdrawal Ego 14:16 Perfectionism Unlearning 16:44 Life After Scoring 17:40 Startup Harder Than Sports 19:43 SoulCycle After Leaving 22:11 Peoplehood Relational Health 24:28 Birdies Done Better 28:27 Leap From Facebook 31:40 Taking off the Mask Featured Voices Nastia Liukin, Stacy Brown-Philpot, Austin Allison, Ryan Nece, Julie Rice, Bianca Gates, and Andy Dunn. Connect with Leah Website: https://www.breakingprecedent.com/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/leah_solivan/X: https://twitter.com/labunleashed

    Summer Break: Breaking the Scorecard - What Comes After Success
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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
    63
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Leah Solivan
  • Show Website
    Breaking Precedent

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