Leap Forward – Details, episodes & analysis

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Leap Forward

David Rusenko

Business

Frequency: 1 episode/9d. Total Eps: 11

David Rusenko interviews the founders of companies like Airbnb, Y Combinator, and Twitch, alongside the people who first believed in them. A mom. An early boss. A college roommate. Together, they reveal the intimate, unpolished stories of how successful companies actually get built, and why it rarely looks the way you might expect.

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Data updated on 13/08/2026

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Score global : 58%

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Airbnb: Nathan Blecharczyk & Their First Advisor

Season 1 · Episode 3

Wednesday, April 1, 2026 • Duration 42:44

Nathan Blecharczyk turned a social experiment into Airbnb: a company that would remake travel. But first, it had to survive.

Before it reshaped an industry, Airbnb looked like an idea that shouldn’t work. In this episode, Nathan retraces the moments that almost killed the company: convincing people to trust a stranger in their home, handling their first major crisis, and watching 80% of their business evaporate in a global pandemic. But with each emergency, he developed the philosophies that would engineer real trust in the company.

Alongside Sam Angus, the first advisor who believed in their idea, Nathan shares how they overcame one of humanity’s most instinctual fears and built something that refused to die.

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Mercury: Immad Akhund & His Mom

Season 1 · Episode 2

Wednesday, March 25, 2026 • Duration 42:15

After more than a decade of mixed success with tech startups, Immad Akhund decided to try something even harder: starting a bank.

Today, Mercury is valued at $3.5 billion and serves thousands of startups. But the road to get there was long and rocky. Immad shares how moving from Pakistan to the U.K. left him struggling to belong, how a string of failures nearly led him to leave entrepreneurship altogether, and what kept pulling him back. We also hear from the person who believed in him - really believed in him - long before anyone else: his mom.

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Y Combinator: Jessica Livingston & Paul Graham

Season 1 · Episode 1

Wednesday, March 25, 2026 • Duration 40:11

Y Combinator is the legendary startup program that has launched more than 5,000 companies, collectively worth over a trillion dollars. Household names like Airbnb, DoorDash, Coinbase, Instacart, and Stripe. And without Jessica Livingston, YC would not exist today.

In this episode, we dive into Jessica’s unlikely origin story. She and her husband and co-founder Paul Graham share never-before-heard stories from YC's founding: the winding career path that gave Jessica an unlikely but perfect skill set, how a husband and wife built one of the most important institutions in startup history, and the secret to what Paul calls "the magic of Y Combinator".

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Season 1 Trailer

Season 1

Thursday, March 5, 2026 • Duration 03:27

Leap Forward is a show about founders and the people who believed in them before anyone else. Each episode traces the real story behind a company you might know, both from the perspective of the founder, and someone who believed in them before anyone else, like a first boss, early investor, college roommate, or even a parent. Through candid conversations we uncover the story of how companies actually get built, and why it rarely looks the way you might expect.

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Leap Forward – Details, episodes & analysis

Podcast details

Recent rankings

Apple Podcasts

Spotify

Shared links between episodes and podcasts

RSS feed quality and score

Publication history

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Related Shows Based on Content Similarities

Related Shows Based on Content Similarities

Apple Podcasts

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Leap Forward – Details, episodes & analysis

Podcast details

Recent rankings

Apple Podcasts

Spotify

Shared links between episodes and podcasts

RSS feed quality and score

Publication history

Latest published episodes

Similar podcasts and content

Related Shows Based on Content Similarities

Related Shows Based on Content Similarities

Apple Podcasts

Spotify