Episodes

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...

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 ...

What happens when leadership becomes a way of creating opportunity for other people? This summer, Breaking Precedent is revisiting conversations that feel just as resonant now as when they were first recorded. In this episode, Leah Solivan sits down with Stacy Brown-Philpot to explore leadership, resilience, trust, and what it means to build systems that help more people participate in wealth creation. Stacy Brown-Philpot is a longtime operator, board leader, investor, and former CEO of TaskRa...

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 tw...

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 t...

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 ...

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 p...

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...

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 ar...

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 inves...

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 n...

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 on...

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 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 explor...

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 sce...

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, Nec...

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 perspect...

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 regula...

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...

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 serv...

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 trai...

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 im...

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 gymnasti...

Kicking off a brand-new season and launching our first-ever video episode, Breaking Precedent returns with a powerful conversation between host Leah Solivan and Christina Tosi, founder of Milk Bar. Christina traces her journey from baking cookies with her grandmothers in Ohio to becoming one of the most influential pastry chefs and entrepreneurs in the country. Leah and Christina unpack their shared experiences as introverts navigating high-pressure environments, the mentors who shaped their pat...