Breaking Precedent

Breaking Precedent

Dive into the stories of innovators pushing the boundaries of social norms, challenging precedents, and setting new ones in their fields. In each episode, Leah uncovers the motivations, struggles, and triumphs of these pioneers, along with the groundbreaking ideas shaping our world. From technology to art to social justice, you'll hear untold stories of how precedents are broken and new paths are forged.

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Recent Episodes

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Oct. 22, 2026

Break the Backboard: Festus Ezeli on Championships, Reinvention, and Life After the NBA

What happens when the kid who scored his first basket on his own team becomes an NBA champion, and then has to start over again? On Breaking Precedent, Leah Solivan talks with former Golden State Warrior Festus Ezeli about a journey nobody could have scripted. Festus grew up in Benin City, Nigeria, finished high school at 14, and moved alone to Yuba City, California, to live with his uncle and chase a dream of becoming a doctor. Strangers kept asking the 6'4" teenager if he played basketball. He
69
Oct. 15, 2026

Breaking Up the Boys' Club: Stephanie Cartin on Building the Entreprenista Movement

What does it take to quit your job, skip venture capital entirely, and build two seven-figure businesses on relationships alone? On Breaking Precedent, Leah Solivan talks with Stephanie Cartin, co-founder of Socialfly and Entreprenista, about the day she and co-founder Courtney quit their jobs, May 4, 2012, after ten months of building a social media agency on nights and weekends. Stephanie traces the thread from performing as a child actress in the Washington, DC area, to a Disney Vacation Club
68
Oct. 8, 2026

Breaking the Feed: Kass and Mike Lazerow on Building, Selling, and Betting Together

How do you keep going when your biggest success comes with losing almost everything along the way? On Breaking Precedent, Kass and Mike Lazerow discuss their book Shoveling Shit: A Love Story and what happens when entrepreneurship and marriage collide, especially while raising three kids. They recount their early entrepreneurial roots, meeting in the mid-โ€™90s internet era, and building Golf.com. They sold it to Chipshot during their honeymoon period, lost access to everything when Chipshot ran
67
Oct. 1, 2026

Breaking the Capital Ceiling: Erin Harkless Moore on Who Gets Funded and Why

What happens when a $648 billion market goes uncounted, and who decided it wasn't worth measuring in the first place? This episode follows Erin Harkless Moore from the breakfast table in San Antonio, through Goldman Sachs, Cambridge Associates, and Princeton's endowment, to Pivotal, the organization founded by Melinda French Gates, where she builds an investment program aimed at the people and markets capital has overlooked. It's a conversation about who gets funded, who gets to decide, and wha
66
Sept. 24, 2026

Breaking the 9-to-5: Gary Swart on the Future of Work, Freelance Nation, and Betting on Founders

What happens when you turn down an early job at Netflix, back when it was still just an idea about mailing DVDs, and then spend the next decade proving that work doesn't have to happen in an office? This episode follows Gary Swart from running a parts middleman business in New Jersey to leading oDesk for nearly ten years, the company that later merged with Elance to become Upwork. He explains the criteria he now uses for big career decisions, why weighing the people differently might have sent

About the Host

Leah Solivan Profile Photo
Leah Solivan

Engineer, Entrepreneur, Venture Capital Investor, Public Board Member

Leah is the Founder of The Precedent Collective, Managing Director of Precedent.vc, and a General Partner at Fuel Capital, where she manages high performing funds boasting top quartile performance. With a portfolio of over 150 companies that span a variety of sectors including consumer technology, hardware, education, marketplaces, and retail, she is an investor in Figma, Flexport, Lattice, Upwards, Bark, Pacaso and more. Sheโ€™s passionate about finding founders and teams who are taking on world-changing ideas, and providing the support they need to maximize their potential.

Leah relates so well to founders because she is one herself. She created one of the most widely recognized new consumer technology brands of the past decade with TaskRabbit, the pioneering on-demand marketplace company she founded in 2008. TaskRabbit became a revolutionary concept that transformed the future of work and laid the foundation for the gig economy. As TaskRabbitโ€™s CEO for eight years, Leah scaled the company into an international business with operations in 44 cities and more than $50 million in venture capital funding, from many of the top firms in Silicon Valley. In 2016, Leah transitioned into the role of executive chairwoman, and in 2017 oversaw TaskRabbitโ€™s successful sale to IKEA, the multinational home decor corporation.

Prior to founding TaskRabbit, Leah began her career as a software engineer at IBM, where she worked for seven years on products including Lotus Notes and Domino. She earned a B.S. in Mathematics and Computer Science from Sweet Briar College, where she has served on the Board of Directors.

Leah serves on the Board Directors for PetMeds (NASDAQ: PETS), the San Francisco Ballet, and is Chair of the Board for the YPO Pacific US Region.

Proud of her Latina heritage, Leah is devoted to increasing diversity in technology and business. She has been a frequent speaker on topics such as entrepreneurship, the future of work, and women in technology at events such as the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland and Tina Brownโ€™s Women in the World Summit. Leahโ€™s achievements have been featured in publications including the Wall Street Journal, Wired, and Time, and Fast Company named her one of the โ€œ100 Most Creative People in Business.โ€ She's a frequent guest on nationally ranked podcasts, top media outlets, and an in demand keynote speaker globally, represented by the Washington Speakers Bureau.