Sonal ChokshiThe editorial effort at a16z.
Description
The throughline of my career so far -- which has spanned education, tech, and media.
I direct the editorial effort (which is part of the marketing team) at Andreessen Horowitz. Since early 2014, this includes everything from setting the content strategy to producing (and also co-hosting) the a16z Podcast; curating the a16z newsletter; managing our online presence (website + social media); and editing/co-writing op-eds, primers, Q&As, listicles, decks, and more. Many of these pieces are drawn from or inspired by the ideas and domain expertise of the general and other partners at a16z; I'm proud of what we've built together.
Before coming to a16z, I was a Senior Editor at WIRED. There, I built up the opinion section, which had been struggling until then and soon became one of the consistently top performing sections on wired.com. Much of my job involved editing non-professional writers -- researchers, business leaders, academics, politicians, others across various domains -- who were rockstars in their fields with lots of expertise to share but limited experience doing so outside a captive audience. Together, we started or shaped conversations through big-ideas essays, themed series, adapted book excerpts, assigned/pitched/contributed (always edited) pieces, first-person/insider perspectives, and even some experimental formats (such as napkin sketches and narrative maps).