Episodes
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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 VoicesSamara 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 -
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 Context
This 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 Insights
Culture 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.Timestamps
00:00 Welcome back to Breaking Precedent
00:21 Misty Copeland’s farewell gala
02:00 Career shifts and the impact of COVID
02:45 Icebreaker: reinventing yourself
04:00 Childhood memories and early upbringing
07:00 Entering hip-hop at a young age
13:00 Technology, creativity, and new tools for artists
23:00 Community, generosity, and giving back
29:00 The musical journey into DJing
35:00 Creating “Stop the Violence”
39:00 Hope and optimism in difficult times
40:00 Politics, culture, and personal reflection
42:00 The birth of Club Quarantine
42:21 How Club Quarantine evolved
53:00 From virtual parties to iconic venues
58:00 Reinvention and resilience in entertainment
01:06:00 AI, technology, and the future of creativity
01:11:56 Ideas, execution, and thinking about the massesAbout the Guest
Derrick 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-Nice
Club Quarantine
Boogie Down Productions
Stop the Violence MovementResources
D-Nice
Club Quarantine
Boogie Down Productions
Stop the Violence Movement
Misty Copeland
Carnegie Hall
Kennedy Center
Hollywood Bowl
AI and creativityConnect with Leah
Website: breakingprecedent.com
Instagram: @leah_solivan
X: @labunleashed -
Missing episodes?
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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 first
00:25 Rachel Sussman on art with social conscience
01:55 Storytelling and political culture
04:30 Hillary Clinton, Malala, and Broadway producing
07:17 Liberation, motherhood, and intergenerational progress
12:30 Broadway's financial model
14:42 D-Nice on creative reinvention
17:20 Club Quarantine as culture
20:50 Christina Tosi and the empty pantry
25:45 Limitation as creativity
29:10 Windy Chien on outsider identity
33:35 Planning a creative leap
37:25 Tamara Rojo on ballet and reinvention
42:00 Ballet as emotion in movement
45:52 Sarah Hoover on rage and art
48:05 Artists make the invisible visible
Featured VoicesRachel Sussman, D-Nice, Christina Tosi, Windy Chien, Tamara Rojo, and Sarah Hoover.
Milk Bar: https://milkbarstore.com/Christina Tosi: https://www.christinatosi.com/Windy Chien: https://www.windychien.com/San Francisco Ballet: https://www.sfcballet.org/
Resources -
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 relevant
00:49 Welcome to Breaking Precedent
01:30 Non-obvious superpowers
02:38 Finding the signal in the noise
04:30 Growing up on Chicago's South Side
06:35 Family, education, and a legacy of service
09:00 Learning the stories history books left out
10:00 Seeing unequal systems from both sides
14:25 Leaving Chicago for Dartmouth
15:55 Violence, safety, and the desire for a different experience
17:35 Choosing medicine
19:20 Meaning, grief, and the illusion of stability
20:45 Why emergency medicine became his calling
21:38 The ER as society's common denominator
23:35 Writing The Emergency as a love letter
25:10 Systems working as designed
27:40 The patient story that still stays with him
30:10 What healthcare workers carry from COVID
31:05 Why public health may be worse off
32:30 The vaccine as a triumph of American ingenuity
33:15 When metrics replace the patient
36:30 The moral purpose of healthcare
36:50 EMTALA, emergency care, and the missing next step
39:00 Entrepreneurship and healthcare innovation
40:30 Why startups are only part of the solution
42:38 Moving from bedside care toward public service
43:10 Why treating patients was no longer enough
44:00 Choosing how to live
45:05 Entering public service as a doctor
46:00 Learning the machinery of politics
48:25 Healthcare, public safety, and shared responsibility
50:50 Universal coverage
52:30 Truth and courage in Congress
54:00 A toast to the ancestors
56:00 Remembering we are part of something bigger
57:05 Closing reflectionAbout 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 Fisher
The Emergency
University of Chicago MedicineResources
The Emergency by Thomas Fisher
Redesign Health
MiSalud Health
Medicare
MedicaidConnect with Leah
Website: breakingprecedent.com
Instagram: @leah_solivan
X: @labunleashed -
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 | SpotifyHalle 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 broken
00:25 – Welcome to Breaking Precedent
00:35 – Halle Tecco: growing up on Medicaid, the haves and have-nots
01:10 – Where you live predicts how long you live
02:13 – It's not effort: the incentives don't match
02:28 – "Death by pilot": an implementation problem, not innovation
03:40 – The system is rigged: incumbents, PillPack, and the DC lobby
04:33 – From the iron triangle to four aims: follow the evidence
05:23 – Founders carry the full stack
06:00 – Venture timelines vs. healthcare, and the uBiome cautionary tale
08:01 – Nobody knows what anything costs
08:25 – Built for emergencies: why inefficiency is a feature
08:56 – Dr. Thomas Fisher: "working as designed"
10:13 – The story that keeps him up at night
12:33 – Health is economic
13:03 – Misinformation, vaccines, and losing sight of the stakes
14:48 – Juking the stats, and using metrics to close the gap
17:02 – Lynn Jurich: from sick care to health span
17:43 – Neck surgery at 41 and the women's-health research gap
19:45 – Precision, prevention-first care for women
21:22 – Kevin Caldwell: prevention at the cellular l... -
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.
Timestamps00:00 Coordinating the episode with Eric's book release
00:38 Welcome to Breaking Precedent
00:58 Leah and Eric's early connection through Floodgate and TaskRabbit
Eric Ries on Voluntary Exchange, Lean Startup Lessons, and Building the Long-Term Stock ExchangeHost 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 Magic
00:31 Meet Leah and Eric
02:02 Old Friends and Investors
03:15 Downturn Business Ideas
05:17 Barter and Fair Rules
07:24 Recession Policy and Power
08:56 Early Life and Family Roots
11:08 Programming and Internet Escape
13:26 Yale Choice and Dotcom Era
16:24 First Startup Failure Lessons
19:46 IMVU Pivot Births Lean
23:49 Minimum Viable Learning
25:33 Building the Lean Framework
27:12 Explaining Lean at IMVU
28:48 Truth Over Convention
30:09 Lean Startup in AI
31:59 Why Build LTSE
37:10 How LTSE Works
39:36 Incorruptible Mission Companies
43:27 Examples That Break Rules
51:01 Kroger vs Costco Governance
54:43 Closing Reflections
About the GuestEric 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 Ries
Incorruptible
Long-Term Stock Exchange
ResourcesIncorruptible by Eric Ries
Simon & Schuster: Incorruptible
The Long-Term Stock Exchange
The Lean Startup
IMVU
TaskRabbit
IKEA
Novo Nordisk
Costco
Connect with LeahWebsite: breakingprecedent.com
Instagram: @leah_solivan
X: @labunleashed -
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.
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.
Key Insights
Timestamps00:00 Access versus talent
01:34 Welcome to Breaking Precedent
01:48 Paige's early lesson about relationships
03:36 Growing up in a family built on humor, support, and ambition05:57 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 GuestPaige 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 LinkedIn
All Raise
ResourcesAll Raise
Paige Hendrix Buckner on LinkedIn
Founder Gym
Teach For America
Urban League of Portland
TaskRabbit
Floodgate
Stitch Fix
Sunrun
Forbes: All Raise CEO Paige Hendrix Buckner On Why Investors Should Bet On Women -
What does it take to chase an impossible dream for sixteen years without becoming someone who cannot let it go?
Dr. Eiman Jahangir has spent his adult life inside two systems that rarely sit beside each other: medicine and spaceflight. A cardiologist, professor, and commercial astronaut, he applied to NASA five times across sixteen years, was rejected each time, and finally flew with Blue Origin in August 2024 when commercial space cracked the door open.
His first book, A Heart for Space, is now available for preorder. You can also preorder through Eiman’s author site and get a free first chapter.Eiman returns to Breaking Precedent for a follow-up conversation with Leah Solivan, with new updates from his time as an astronaut trainer at Blue Origin and the release of his first book, A Heart for Space.
What emerges is not a story about luck or grit, but a clearer framework for pursuing seemingly impossible goals: be firm on the vision and flexible on the details, treat every rejection as feedback you can act on, and recognize that stability is both the platform that makes risk possible and the gravity that keeps most people from taking it. Eiman and Leah unpack the immigrant calculus of risk, the difference between persistence and delusion, why we are finally returning to the moon, how AI will reshape engineering and deep-space life, and what an astronaut does when the dream he organized his entire adult life around finally happens.
Key Insights
• Playing safe is rarely the conservative choice it pretends to be. For high-performers, it can be the slowest form of opportunity cost.
• Vision and execution are different layers of a goal. The vision should be rigid; the path should be a draft you keep editing.
• Markets create doors that institutions cannot. Commercial space made Eiman’s flight possible because NASA’s gatekeeping no longer defined the category.
• Immigrant stability is double-edged. The same foundation that lets a person take a public risk also makes that risk feel disloyal to the people who built the foundation.
• Persistence without feedback is delusion. Eiman kept applying because he kept evaluating why he was being passed over and adjusting what he could control.
• Achieving the dream is not the end of the work. After the flight, the question becomes who else you can pull through the door behind you.
• The most durable goals braid identity and craft. The book title is not a metaphor. He is a heart doctor with a literal heart for space.
Timestamps00:00 Welcome back to Breaking Precedent
01:00 When playing safe became the bigger risk
03:00 Firm on the vision, flexible on the details
04:30 What A Heart for Space actually means
05:11 Pursuing space wholeheartedly
06:30 Why we are finally going back to the moon
08:00 How AI will accelerate space exploration
10:30 Immigrant stability and the right to risk
13:00 Telling your parents about your dream
14:00 Persistence, stubbornness, or delusion
15:00 The post-flight mission and Blue Origin chapter
17:00 Where to preorder A Heart for Space
About the GuestDr. Eiman Jahangir is a cardiologist, professor, and commercial astronaut. After applying to NASA five times across sixteen years, he flew to space with Blue Origin in August 2024 with the endorsement of the MoonDAO community. In 2025, he joined Blue Origin as an astronaut trainer, supporting research projects, payload work, and crew preparation. His first book,
A Heart for Space, is a memoir and field guide for pursuing seemingly impossible goals and includes interviews with eight astronauts, including NASA administrator Jared Isaacman. He speaks internationally on persistence, leadership, and breaking precedent.
Eiman’s Website
Eiman’s LinkedIn
Eiman’s Instagram
ResourcesA Heart for Space — Author site preorder, with free first chapter
Blue Origin
NASA
MoonDAO
Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
Artemis II
Jessica Meir
Jared Isaacman
Scott and Mark Kelly NASA Twins Study
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 is General Partner at Fuel Capital, where she invests in early-stage companies across consumer technology, hardware, education, marketplaces, and retail. Leah 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 founded TaskRabbit, the leading on-demand service marketplace in the world.
Connect with LeahWebsite: breakingprecedent.com
Instagram: @leah_solivan
X: @labunleashed -
This is a replay of one of our most extraordinary conversations, recorded just before and immediately after Dr. Eiman Jahangir’s journey to space.
What does it mean to pursue a dream so relentlessly that you’re willing to rewrite the path entirely?
Dr. Eiman Jahangir didn’t become an astronaut through NASA. He applied multiple times, made it to the final rounds, and still didn’t get selected.
So he found another way.
In this episode, Leah sits down with Eiman, cardiologist, professor, and one of the few civilians in history to travel to space, just days before his Blue Origin launch, and again immediately after he returns.
The result is something rare. A before-and-after look at a lifelong dream in motion.
You hear the anticipation, the doubt, and the improbable chain of events that led him there, from repeated NASA rejections to Web3 communities, DAOs, and a literal lottery ticket to space. Then you hear what happens after, the physical experience, the emotional impact, and the shift in perspective that follows.
This is not just a story about space travel. It is about persistence, identity, and what happens when you refuse to let the approved path define the outcome.
Key Insights
The dream doesn’t always change. The path often has to Rejection is not always a signal to stop. Sometimes it is a signal to reroute Systems are built to filter, not necessarily to find the most committed The “overview effect” is real. It begins the moment you leave Earth Extreme experiences amplify who you already are Risk tolerance is often shaped by upbringing, not ambition Decentralized systems are creating entirely new access pathways Some of the most meaningful breakthroughs come from non-traditional routesTimestamps
00:00 Introduction and why this story matters
01:40 Growing up between war and possibility
03:00 The origin of a lifelong obsession with space
03:30 Applying to NASA and getting close multiple times
05:20 Inside the astronaut selection process
08:30 When rejection turns into fuel
09:40 Discovering alternative paths to space
10:30 NFTs, DAOs, and the unexpected opportunity
12:00 The lottery that changed everything
15:40 Getting the call. You’re going to space
17:00 Preparing mentally for the mission
18:30 Writing goodbye messages before launch
21:00 Risk, family, and choosing to go anyway
22:00 Breaking precedent vs maintaining stability24:20 Launch and liftoff
25:30 Returning to Earth
26:00 Training and preparation for the flight
28:00 Emergency scenarios and safety protocols
30:00 Zero gravity and what actually happens inside the capsule
32:00 The reality of space vs expectations
35:00 Crew dynamics and the “Blue Steel” team
38:00 The emotional weight of liftoff
41:00 Seeing Earth from space
44:00 The darkness of space and the intensity of the sun
46:00 The overview effect and perspective shift
48:00 What the crew experienced differently
50:00 Re-entry and physical forces
52:00 Landing and returning to Earth
53:00 Gratitude and emotional processing
54:30 Would he do it again?
About the GuestDr. Eiman Jahangir is a cardiologist, professor at Vanderbilt University, and one of the few civilians to travel to space. After applying multiple times to NASA and reaching the final rounds, he ultimately found a non-traditional path through decentralized communities and a lottery-based selection tied to a Blue Origin flight.
He is also the author of A Heart for Space: An Astronaut’s Guide to Achieving the Impossible, a memoir and practical guide that traces his journey from immigrant beginnings to spaceflight, offering a framework for pursuing ambitious goals despite rejection, uncertainty, and unconventional paths.
Resources
Get the book: A Heart for Space
Eiman's WebsiteSpace for Humanity
MoondaoAbout the Host
Leah Solivan is the host of Breaking Precedent, a podcast exploring the stories of innovators who are pushing boundaries and setting new precedents in their fields. She is a General Partner at Fuel Capital and the founder of TaskRabbit.
Connect with Leah
Website: breakingprecedent.com
Instagram: @leah_solivan
X: @labunleashed -
What does it take to build institutions that scale without flattening the people inside them?
Stacy Brown-Philpot has spent her career inside systems that shape markets, culture, and opportunity, from Goldman Sachs and Google to TaskRabbit, SoftBank, and now Cherry Rock Capital. In this conversation, she traces the throughline from her upbringing in Detroit to leading one of the defining companies of the gig economy and then stepping into venture as an investor focused on underinvested founders.
What emerges is not a career retrospective but a leadership framework: resilience is built by doing hard things before you have language for them, trust must be designed into both culture and product, and capital still misreads too many founders by treating them as impact stories instead of return engines. Stacy and Leah unpack the painful TaskRabbit model shift that saved the company, the difference between scale and commoditization, and why the next generation of leaders should reject burnout as a badge of seriousness.
Key Insights
Resilience is not abstract. It is formed by repeated exposure to difficulty and learning you can survive it. In rooms where you are underestimated, legitimacy comes less from approval and more from contribution. Strong culture is not perks alone. It is shared rituals that create trust across teams. Platform businesses built on human trust break when efficiency starts erasing uniqueness and accountability. The harder strategic decision is often the one that preserves the company’s future, not the one that feels best in the moment. The gap for underrepresented founders is not a pipeline problem. It is a market structure problem, especially at Series A. Great investors do more than allocate capital. They provide candor, accountability, and operating judgment. Leadership should not require self-destruction. Burnout is not proof of seriousness.Timestamps
00:00 Welcome to Breaking Precedent01:44 Boardroom karaoke and Detroit energy
03:29 Detroit Roots And Family
05:42 Owning Your Seat
08:49 Love Of Learning
11:24 Choosing Wharton
12:44 Goldman Vs Google Culture
14:59 Resilience Meets Perspective
17:03 Dont Shortchange Students
19:36 Leadership Before CEO
21:06 Scaling TaskRabbit Early Days
23:03 Culture Building With Food
25:53 Trust In The Gig Economy
29:07 Rebuilding the Model
30:10 London Launch Gamble
31:11 Conviction Under Fire
32:43 TaskRabbit 3.0 Vision
35:09 IKEA Sale Vote
38:59 Operator to Investor
41:06 SoftBank Opportunity Fund
45:10 Cherry Rock Strategy
47:02 Investing With Values
50:36 Backing Great Founders
54:49 Leadership and Legacy
56:53 Closing Reflections
About the Guest
Stacy Brown-Philpot is a trailblazing tech executive and investor. Raised in Detroit, she earned degrees from The Wharton School and Stanford GSB before building her early career at Goldman Sachs and Google. She is best known for her leadership at the gig-economy pioneer TaskRabbit; joining initially as COO and later becoming CEO, she guided the company through a critical business model pivot and its ultimate acquisition by IKEA.Stacy's LinkedIn
Cherryrock Capital Website
ResourcesHomegoing by Yaa Gyasi
TaskRabbit
SoftBank Opportunity Fund
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 is General Partner at Fuel Capital, where she invests in early-stage companies across consumer technology, hardware, education, marketplaces, and retail. Leah 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 founded TaskRabbit, the leading on-demand service marketplace in the world.Connect with Leah:
Website: breakingprecedent.com/
Instagram: @leah_solivan
X: @labunleashed
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What happens when the systems that define ownership are designed to exclude most people from participating?
Austin Allison, founder of Pacaso and former co-founder of Dotloop, has spent his career inside one of the most entrenched and resistant industries: real estate. From growing up in a household where ownership was aspirational but constrained, to building and exiting a $100M+ proptech company, his perspective is shaped by both lived experience and system-level insight.
This episode explores the structural barriers that make real estate slow to change, from incentive misalignment to regulatory friction and cultural inertia. It also examines what it actually takes to shift an industry where participants are independent, resistant to control, and deeply tied to legacy processes.
At the center is a deeper tension: ownership as both a wealth-building engine and a gated system. Austin unpacks how Pacaso emerged from this tension, aiming to expand access without eroding value. The discussion moves beyond entrepreneurship into power, incentives, and the hidden mechanics that determine who gets to participate in wealth creation.
References & Resources
• Books: Switch by Chip and Dan Heath
• Companies: Dotloop, Pacaso, Zillow, Keller Williams
• Concepts: Network effects, change management, ownership as wealth creation, independent contractor incentives
• Platforms: DocuSign
Show Notes00:00 Introduction to breaking precedent
03:16 Ohio Roots and First Deal
05:56 Ownership and Second Home Epiphany
08:45 Ambition and Vulnerability
12:50 Selling Homes at 18 Lessons
16:34 Dotloop Breakthrough and Passion
19:34 Changing Real Estate Adoption
29:28 Zillow Exit and Picasso Calling
32:40 Retirement Reality Check
33:40 Eleven Month Problem Study
35:01 Beating Timeshare Stigma
36:35 Venn Diagram Conviction
41:10 Second Home Magic
43:32 Fixing Underuse And Hassle
45:11 NetJets For Houses
46:16 Housing Affordability Impact
49:43 Reframing The Ownership Dream
54:26 Policy Fixes For Mobility
58:22 Ownership And ROE
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 is General Partner at Fuel Capital, where she invests in early-stage companies across consumer technology, hardware, education, marketplaces, and retail. Leah 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 founded TaskRabbit, the leading on-demand service marketplace in the world.
Connect with Leah:
Website: breakingprecedent.com/
Instagram: @labunleashed
X: @labunleashed
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What does it take to build something meaningful when the system is designed for most efforts to fail?
Rachel Sussman is a Broadway producer known for bringing socially driven, culturally relevant work to the stage, including the Tony Award winning musical Suffs and the play Liberation. Raised in a family immersed in the arts, she developed an early fascination with storytelling, eventually shifting from performance to producing after discovering the power of shaping creative work behind the scenes.
This conversation explores producing as a systems discipline. Rachel breaks down Broadway as a high-risk startup model where only about 10 percent of shows recoup their investment. She shares how meaningful art is built at the intersection of storytelling, capital, and cultural timing, and why hope is not passive optimism but a strategic choice that requires action. The episode reveals how great producers do more than create shows. They design systems that influence how audiences think, feel, and engage with the world.
Show Notes
00:00 Welcome to Breaking Precedent!
02:11 Books That Shaped Her
03:53 Family Theater Roots
07:05 Competitive Dance Years
08:37 From Performer to Dramaturg
11:05 NYU and Finding Producing
13:03 Producer as Show CEO
16:08 Broadway Risk and Recoup
17:47 Suffs Origin Story
22:16 History That Haunts
24:25 Great American Bitch
26:56 Truth Over Whitewash
28:00 Ida B Wells Spotlight
29:22 Breadcrumbs For Research
31:18 Designing For Action
33:16 Art Shapes Politics
35:38 Clinton And Malala
37:54 Liberation On Broadway
40:29 Motherhood And Rights
43:01 Hope Requires Action
43:55 Broadway Money Pressures
49:50 Audience As Participants
51:48 Stories Still Missing
52:50 Next Gen Engagement
55:30 Beyond Female Labels
56:44 Closing Reflections
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What happens when the identity that defined your life suddenly ends?
Ryan Nece grew up surrounded by greatness. As the son of NFL Hall of Famer Ronnie Lott, competition, discipline, and excellence were part of everyday life. But living in the shadow of one of football’s greatest players came with its own pressures. In this episode, Ryan shares how those early experiences shaped his perspective on leadership, resilience, and personal responsibility.
After building his own career in the NFL, Nece faced a challenge that many athletes struggle with: redefining identity after the game ends. Drawing on lessons from his father, his upbringing, and a life-altering car accident at seventeen, Ryan developed the mindset he now calls the “Next Play.” Today he brings that philosophy into the world of entrepreneurship, venture capital, and mentoring athletes transitioning into life after sports.
Show Notes
00:00 Introduction
03:12 Growing Up Ronnie Lott’s Son
05:31 Embracing the Legacy
08:27 Betting on Yourself Early
09:24 Wisdom From Strong Women
12:12 Kickball Leadership Lesson
16:54 Serious Teen to Team Leader
17:52 UCLA Setbacks and Breakthrough
20:39 Car Crash Perspective Shift
23:10 Calling Dad for Football Advice
24:58 Next Play Mindset
26:18 Processing Between Whistles
27:15 Injuries And Mental Rehab
29:59 Life After Football
32:15 Building A Startup
35:23 Founding Next Play
38:03 Venture Reality Check
42:00 Spotting Great Founders
47:26 Next Play U Program
49:46 Legacy Plus Sign
51:12 Next Decade Vision
53:16 Final Takeaways
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How do you change the narrative when the system was never designed to include you?
In this episode of Breaking Precedent, Soledad O'Brien joins the show to discuss her illustrious career in journalism, covering critical events from wars to hurricanes, and sharing the humorous contrast between her on-screen cooking segments and her real-life kitchen skills. O'Brien delves into her upbringing as the daughter of an interracial couple in a time when such marriages were illegal, shaping her perspective on education and resilience. Her journey from a production assistant to starting the Starfish Media Group highlights her commitment to centering authentic stories and challenging traditional narratives in media. The conversation covers the impact of storytelling in crises like Hurricane Katrina, the shifts needed in journalistic practices, and the importance of representation in media.
Soledad O’Brien is an award-winning journalist, producer, and media entrepreneur known for centering truth, context, and underreported voices in American storytelling. A former CNN anchor and correspondent, she led groundbreaking documentary series including Black in America, Latino in America, and In America, reshaping how media covers race, policy, and power.
Listeners can learn more about Soledad O’Brien at SoledadProductions and on Instagram @soledadobrien and LinkedIn @Soledadproduction
Resources:Matter of Fact with Soledad O’Brien
Show Notes:
00:00 Welcome to Breaking Precedent + Introducing Soledad O’Brien
01:38 Icebreaker: Myth and Mom Life
03:17 Growing Up in the 60s
06:17 Early Storytelling Instincts
07:36 Dual Identity as a Reporting Superpower
11:10 Outworking Everyone: First Jobs, Low Pay, and Learning Fast
14:37 2005 (Katrina) and Re-Centering Crisis Coverage
18:09 Why People Don’t Trust the News Anymore (Opinion, Clicks, AI)
21:31 CNN ‘Black in America’ Clash
24:43 How to Push Back on Leadership Without Losing the War
25:58 Finding Your Voice: Standing Firm as You Rise
27:07 Handling Disrespect on Assignment: ‘Get Out There and Kill It’
30:10 Starting Starfish Media: Breaking the Gatekeeping of Stories
33:21 Reinvention, Motherhood, and Building a Life You Want
36:02 Work, Guilt, and Raising Awesome Teens (and Twentysomethings)
39:38 Owning Your Schedule: From CNN Chaos to Horseback Riding & Ballroom
41:31 Why Conflict-Driven News Wins: Cheap Panels, No Context
44:13 A Better Future for News: Streamers, Deep Dives, and Expertise Over Opinion
46:58 Docs as Policy Storytelling: Stand Your Ground, Roe, and Creative Structure
48:59 Representation Matters: The Legacy She Hopes to Leave + Final Wrapd
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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 is General Partner at Fuel Capital, where she invests in early-stage companies across consumer technology, hardware, education, marketplaces, and retail. Leah 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 founded TaskRabbit, the leading on-demand service marketplace in the world.
Connect with Leah:
Website: breakingprecedent.com/
Instagram: @leah_solivan
X: @labunleashed
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What would it take to make healthcare massively better?
In this episode of Breaking Precedent, Leah Solivan sits down with Halle Tecco, founder of Rock Health, to unpack why the U.S. healthcare system remains so hard to change—and what it will actually take to fix it.
Drawing from her upbringing in the Midwest, decades of experience across healthcare, investing, public health, and education, and her new book Massively Better Healthcare, Halle explains how incentives, power dynamics, and regulatory capture shape outcomes far more than technology alone. From Medicaid disparities and data misuse to venture capital timelines and the myth of “innovation solves everything,” she challenges founders and leaders to see healthcare as a system—not just a product opportunity.
Together, Leah and Halle explore why healthcare resists scale, how evidence differs from proof of impact, and why founders must often become advocates—not just builders. Halle shares lessons from Rock Health, insights from teaching at Columbia and Harvard, and hard truths about incumbents, misaligned incentives, and what meaningful progress actually looks like.
Halle Tecco is a healthcare investor, educator, and author focused on improving outcomes, access, and equity across the healthcare system. She is the founder of Rock Health, an early-stage venture firm supporting digital health startups, and the author of Massively Better Healthcare: The Innovator’s Guide to Tackling Healthcare’s Biggest Challenges. Her work spans investing, public health, teaching, and policy advocacy, with a mission to make healthcare meaningfully better for more people.
Massively Better Healthcare (Book): https://www.halletecco.com/book
Rock Health: https://rockhealth.com
Cost Plus Drugs (Mark Cuban): https://costplusdrugs.com
Epic Systems (EHR): https://www.epic.com
Cleveland Clinic: https://my.clevelandclinic.org
National Academy of Medicine (Social Determinants of Health context): https://nam.edu
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS): https://www.cms.gov
Menlo Ventures – AI in Healthcare Report: https://menlovc.com/perspective/ai-in-healthcare/Shownotes
00:00 Welcome to Breaking Precedent
02:10 Icebreaker: A Personal Moment That Changed Halle’s View on Healthcare
06:30 Growing Up in the Midwest and Early Healthcare Experiences
10:45 Fairness, Access, and Social Determinants of Health
15:20 Questioning Systems from the Inside and Outside
19:40 Founding Rock Health and Early Digital Health Investing
24:10 Why Healthcare Resists Scale
28:30 Data, AI, and the Future of Healthcare
33:10 Incentives, Power, and Misalignment
37:20 Writing Massively Better Healthcare
41:00 What Needs to Change and What Innovators Can Do Next
44:30 Final ThoughtsLeah 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 is General Partner at Fuel Capital, where she invests in early-stage companies across consumer technology, hardware, education, marketplaces, and retail. Leah 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 founded TaskRabbit, the leading on-demand service marketplace in the world.
Connect with Leah:
Website: breakingprecedent.com/
Instagram: leah_solivan
X: @labunleashed -
What happens when difference becomes a competitive advantage?
In this episode of Breaking Precedent, Leah Solivan sits down with Samara Hernandez, founder of Chingona Ventures, to explore how identity, constraint, and culture can shape leadership in venture capital. From growing up in Mexico to building a venture fund in the United States, Samara reflects on how limited resources, discipline, and an early love of math forged resilience and clarity—and how being underestimated became a source of strength.
Tracing her path from engineering at the University of Michigan to finance at Goldman Sachs, and ultimately to launching her own fund, Samara shares how she learned to turn difference into a competitive edge. Now a venture capitalist and engineer backing bold founders, she brings a philosophy of doing more with less—working to close access gaps, expand opportunity, and redefine leadership in an industry built on pattern-matching.
Samara Hernandez is a venture capitalist and engineer focused on backing bold founders building the future. Born in Mexico and raised in Chicago, her career spans engineering, finance, and early-stage investing, shaped by a philosophy of doing more with less. Through Chingona Ventures, she works to close capital gaps and expand opportunity for underrepresented founders across the innovation economy.
Learn more at chingonaventures.com, and follow Samara on Instagram @chingonaventures and LinkedIn.
Resources
National Venture Capital Association (NVCA)
Venture Forward
SAFE (Simple Agreement for Future Equity)
Show Notes
00:00 Welcome to Breaking Precedent!
02:03 Icebreaker: Turning Differences into Superpowers03:43 Samara's Childhood and Education
06:59 From Mexico to Chicago: A Family's Journey
07:21 The Significance of Qana Ventures
08:32 Celebrating Hispanic Heritage
09:59 The Power of Community and Upbringing
11:48 Discovering a Passion for Math
13:30 Navigating Education as an Immigrant
17:39 Choosing Engineering and University Life
24:13 From Engineering to Wall Street
26:08 Learning and Growing at Goldman Sachs
30:39 The Intensity of Sales and Moving On
31:12 Mentorship and Business School Journey
32:18 Discovering Venture Capital by Accident
34:13 First Steps in Venture Capital
35:37 Building a Venture Firm from Scratch
36:48 Challenges and Opportunities in Venture Capital
40:31 Scaling Chingona Ventures
44:44 The Power of Representation and Impact
51:07 Investing in the New Majority
57:01 Redefining Success in Venture Capital
01:03:16 Final Thoughts and Advice for Founders
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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 is General Partner at Fuel Capital, where she invests in early-stage companies across consumer technology, hardware, education, marketplaces, and retail. Leah 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 founded TaskRabbit, the leading on-demand service marketplace in the world.
Connect with Leah:
Website: breakingprecedent.com/
Instagram: leah_solivan
X: @labunleashed -
What happens when culture becomes a form of leadership?
In this episode of Breaking Precedent, Leah Solivan sits down with Derrick T. Jones, better known as D-Nice, legendary DJ, photographer, and cultural connector, to explore how music, joy, and shared experience can shape communities and create belonging at scale. From his early days in hip-hop to the global phenomenon of Club Quarantine, D-Nice reflects on the responsibility artists carry, the power of gathering, and how creativity can serve as social infrastructure in fractured times.The conversation spans art, entrepreneurship, cultural stewardship, and what it means to hold space for people, not just entertain them.
D-Nice is a world-renowned DJ, photographer, and cultural curator whose career spans decades at the intersection of music, art, and community. Rising to prominence as a pioneering hip-hop artist before becoming one of the most influential DJs of his generation, D-Nice is widely celebrated for creating Club Quarantine, a global virtual gathering that redefined connection during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Through his work, D-Nice demonstrates how culture can be a unifying force — building bridges across industries, generations, and identities.Timestamps:
00:00 Welcome to Breaking Precedent!01:00 Introducing D Nice: A Multifaceted Innovator
05:40 Early Life and Hip Hop Beginnings
16:52 The Influence of Scott La Rock
32:34 Stop the Violence: A Call to Action
35:49 The World and Democracy
37:17 Political Involvement and Personal Reflections
39:02 The Birth of Club Quarantine
40:53 The Evolution of Club Quarantine
49:39 From Club Quarantine to Carnegie Hall
53:12 Breaking Precedents in Entertainment
01:03:35 The Role of AI and Technology in Creativity
01:07:01 Final Thoughts and Reflections
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 is General Partner at Fuel Capital, where she invests in early-stage companies across consumer technology, hardware, education, marketplaces, and retail. She founded TaskRabbit in 2008 after beginning her career as an engineer at IBM.
Connect with Leah
Website: breakingprecedent.com
Instagram: @leah_solivan
X: @labunleashed -
In this episode of Breaking Precedent, the host Leah Solivan is joined by Lynn Jurich, co-founder and former CEO of Sunrun, to discuss her journey from growing up in Tacoma, Washington to leading one of the largest residential solar companies in the U.S. They explore the challenges and triumphs of scaling Sunrun, including innovative financing models and negotiating with utility companies. Jurich also shares personal insights on the impact of sports on resilience, the importance of strength training, and her foray into women's health through the establishment of the Female Longevity Institute. The conversation highlights Jurich's persistent optimism, innovative mindset, and commitment to transforming entrenched industries.
Lynn Jurich is an entrepreneur, investor, and visionary leader who co-founded Sunrun, the nation’s leading residential solar and energy services company. Under her leadership, Sunrun grew from an idea pitched beside a county fair pumpkin stand to a publicly traded company with over a million customers, $2 billion in recurring revenue, and a $20 billion market cap. Named one of Fortune’s “Most Powerful Women,” Lynn has pioneered clean energy innovation by championing rooftop solar, distributed batteries, and consumer-driven energy independence.
Listeners can learn more about Lynn Jurich at Sunrun.com and on LinkedIn .Resources:
Berkshire Hathaway EnergyDOE – U.S. Department of EnergyLunar EnergyShow Notes:
00:00 Introduction to Breaking Precedent
00:21 Meet Lynn Jurich: Solar Pioneer
01:30 Personal Reflections and Icebreakers
03:40 Lynn's Early Life and Competitive Spirit
04:29 Lessons from Sports and Leadership
07:59 The Journey to Stanford and Beyond
10:41 The Birth of Sunrun and Solar as a Service
13:02 Challenges and Triumphs in Solar Energy
17:28 Navigating Financial Crises and Growth
21:12 Breaking Energy Precedents and Future Vision
25:25 Consumer Demand for Solar and Batteries
25:56 Taking Sunrun Public with a Newborn
28:07 Battling Utilities in Nevada
29:43 Sunrun's Growth and Future Innovations
31:54 Founding the Female Longevity Institute
33:54 Challenges in Women's Health Research
37:26 Precision Medicine for Women
42:35 Breaking Precedents in Energy and Healthcare
47:57 Advice for Breaking Through Entrenched Systems
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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 is General Partner at Fuel Capital, where she invests in early-stage companies across consumer technology, hardware, education, marketplaces, and retail. Leah 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 founded TaskRabbit, the leading on-demand service marketplace in the world.
Connect with Leah:
Website: breakingprecedent.com/
Instagram: @labunleashed
X: @labunleashed
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In this episode of Breaking Precedent, the host, Leah Solivan interviews Dr. Thomas Fisher, an emergency medicine physician and political candidate. They discuss Dr. Fisher's career, including his experiences growing up on the South Side of Chicago, attending Dartmouth, and his work in emergency rooms. He shares insights from his book, 'The Emergency,' and how it reflects the systemic inequities in healthcare. Dr. Fisher also touches on his motivations for running for Congress, his vision for improving healthcare, and the importance of public service. Through personal anecdotes and policy discussions, the episode delves into the intersections of medicine, social justice, and political activism.
Dr. Thomas Fisher is an emergency physician, author, and public servant dedicated to transforming America’s healthcare system from the inside out. Born and raised on the South Side of Chicago, Thomas grew up in a community of working families and changemakers who showed him both the promise and the inequities of the world around him. The son of a physician and a social worker, he learned early that service isn’t just a calling—it’s a responsibility.
Listeners can learn more about Dr. Thomas Fisher at ThomasFisherForCongress.com, Donate to his campaign at https://secure.actblue.com/donate/fisherlaunch1000 and follow him on LinkedIn @ThomasFisherMD.Resources:
University of Chicago
Civil Rights Act of 1964
Affordable Care Act (ACA)White House Fellows Program
Show Notes:
00:00 Introduction to Breaking Precedent
00:21 Meet Dr. Thomas Fisher
01:17 Icebreaker: Superpowers
04:22 Growing Up on the South Side of Chicago
06:21 Influence of Parents and Education
14:15 Journey to Dartmouth and Medical School
20:28 Choosing Emergency Medicine
23:23 Writing 'The Emergency'
27:46 Patient's Decline and ICU Struggles
28:58 Emotional Impact of Patient Loss
30:03 COVID-19's Systemic Impact
33:03 Challenges in the American Medical System
38:46 Entrepreneurship and Healthcare Innovation
42:23 Running for Congress: A New Chapter
48:18 Vision for Healthcare and Public Safety
53:48 Legacy and Inspiration
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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 is General Partner at Fuel Capital, where she invests in early-stage companies across consumer technology, hardware, education, marketplaces, and retail. Leah 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 founded TaskRabbit, the leading on-demand service marketplace in the world.Connect with Leah:
Website: breakingprecedent.com/
Instagram: @labunleashed
X: @labunleashed
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In the second episode of the brand-new season of Breaking Precedent, Leah Solivan sits down once again with Olympic legend Nastia Liukin — and the conversation hits deeper than ever. They revisit their first encounter and trace the arc of Nastia’s extraordinary career, from the early days in the gym to the unforgiving expectations that come with being one of the world’s top athletes.
Nastia opens up about what the pursuit of perfection really cost her, the pressures and politics behind gymnastics judging, and the emotional toll of constantly performing at an elite level. She and Leah dive into the highs, the heartbreaks, and the hard-earned wisdom that came from both.
Beyond the medals, Nastia reflects on rebuilding her identity after competition, the ventures and creative projects that now drive her, and her commitment to guiding and inspiring the next generation of athletes.
Nastia Liukin is an Olympic gold medalist, entrepreneur, and broadcaster who became one of the most decorated gymnasts in the world at just 18 years old. After retiring from competition, she transitioned her passion into building a brand, founding the annual Nastia Liukin Cup, and inspiring the next generation of athletes through mentorship and community. Today, she’s a sought-after speaker and role model, sharing lessons on resilience, identity, and redefining success beyond the podium.
Learn more about Nastia Liukin at NastiaLiukin.com and on Instagram @NastiaLiukin.
Resources:
Marie Claire Power Trip (San Francisco event)
USA Gymnastics
Show Notes:00:00 Introduction to Breaking Precedent
00:05 Reminiscing Old Memories
00:52 Icebreaker: Sacrifices and Reclaiming Life
01:49 Balancing Career and Personal Life
02:58 The Journey of Self-Discovery
07:38 The Foundation of a Gymnastics Legacy
10:40 Immigrant Beginnings and Family Sacrifices
16:57 Overcoming Physical Challenges in Gymnastics
19:43 Mental Strength and Focus
25:53 Defining Success Beyond Gymnastics
29:00 Breaking Age Narratives in Gymnastics
34:30 Reflecting on Personal Struggles and Resilience
35:36 The Defining Moment: 2012 Olympic Trials
36:53 Lessons from Falling and Getting Back Up
41:05 “We will never be defined by a salary, a title, a relationship, a company, or even a gold medal. Those are things we’ve done, not who we are.”45:26 Navigating Subjectivity in Gymnastics
53:00 Life After Gymnastics: Embracing Imperfection
01:11:22 Inspiration and Future Aspirations
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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 is General Partner at Fuel Capital, where she invests in early-stage companies across consumer technology, hardware, education, marketplaces, and retail. Leah 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 founded TaskRabbit, the leading on-demand service marketplace in the world.Connect with Leah:
Website: breakingprecedent.com/
Instagram: @labunleashed
X: @labunleashed
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