Jess Ma studied CS at UC Berkeley and launched Indinero after Sam Altman encouraged her to apply to Y Combinator. When her boyfriend died unexpectedly, she fell into severe depression. The crisis forced her to ask what she'd attempt if failure didn't matter, shifting her entire approach to risk and ambition.
Jess Ma. She is the most impressive entrepreneur I've ever met. How did you have the confidence to go into a space like that? I studied computer science at UC Berkeley, and when I was a senior at Berkeley, I was running the computer science club and I brought in these speakers. And one of the speakers I brought in was this kid named Sam Altman. He was building a company called Loopd. And I'm like, hey, Sam, what should I do after college? And he said, oh, you should do YC. He helped review my application, and my first company was Indinero. And then a few years ago, I went through a really tough experience where my boyfriend who I was living with died very very unexpectedly and I was not able to work. I'd be super depressed and I didn't want to do anything. And I thought, what would I do if I was gonna die this year? If this was my last year here because I'm so depressed and I have to make myself happy, what would I do? What would I do if I wasn't scared of failure? And after my boyfriend died, I thought a lot more about that. I've seen rock bottom. My life can't get any worse than it is today. So I might as well try something.
