A new wave of origins-of-life researchers, fed up with the tradition of bickering, have unshackled themselves from the idea that a single type of molecule started it all. Their open-minded approach has coincided with a change in scientific understanding. Experiments have shown that the precursors to many of life’s ingredients may have formed easily under the conditions on early Earth. What is harder to explain is how these molecular processes became a stable evolutionary system continuous with the vast diversity of life we see on the planet today. During life’s earliest days, these processes came together to store and pass on information, both consistently and imperfectly enough to allow the same living lineage to persist for billions of years on an ever-changing planet.