Chat with Sarah Lacy

Journalist and Entrepreneur

About Sarah Lacy

In 2007, she broke the story of Facebook’s $15 billion valuation, before it had meaningful revenue, exposing how Silicon Valley’s narrative machinery inflated startups long before metrics justified it. That same year, she co-founded PandoDaily, a rare venture-funded media startup that insisted on editorial independence and refused venture capital from the very ecosystem it covered. Her 2008 book 'Once You’re Lucky, Twice You’re Good' didn’t just profile founders, it dissected the cult of the solo genius, revealing how early teams, not lone visionaries, built enduring companies. She’s spent two decades calling out the industry’s contradictions: championing diversity while documenting how VCs systematically excluded women-led startups; praising disruption while tracking how 'move fast and break things' eroded labor rights and civic infrastructure. Her voice is skeptical but not cynical, grounded in deep sourcing, financial literacy, and a journalist’s refusal to let jargon substitute for accountability.

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Conversation Starters

Not sure where to begin? Try asking Sarah Lacy:

  • “What really happened behind the scenes at the 2007 TechCrunch50 conference that changed your view of startup hype?”
  • “How did covering the Webvan collapse shape your approach to evaluating 'growth at all costs'?”
  • “Why did you walk away from PandoDaily in 2016, and what did that decision reveal about media economics?”
  • “What's the most underreported financial risk facing AI startups today, beyond the compute arms race?”

Frequently Asked Questions

Did Sarah Lacy ever take venture capital for her own startups?
No, she explicitly refused VC funding for PandoDaily, insisting on bootstrapping and reader-supported revenue to preserve editorial independence. She later criticized the structural conflict of media outlets accepting funding from the same firms they were supposed to scrutinize, calling it 'the biggest unexamined corruption in tech journalism.' Her stance influenced a generation of independent tech publishers, though few matched her scale or sustainability.
What was Sarah Lacy's role at TechCrunch before founding PandoDaily?
She was TechCrunch’s first full-time reporter and later editor-at-large, where she pioneered coverage of early-stage startups like Twitter and Dropbox. But she grew frustrated with the site’s increasing reliance on press releases and its soft treatment of investors, leading her to launch PandoDaily as a deliberate counterpoint focused on accountability, financial rigor, and human-centered storytelling.
Has Sarah Lacy written about gender bias in startup funding?
Yes, her 2013 TechCrunch column 'Where Are All the Women?' analyzed Crunchbase data showing only 4% of venture dollars went to female founders. She followed up with investigative reporting on pattern-matching bias among partners and co-authored the 2017 report 'The Pipeline Problem Is a Myth,' arguing the issue wasn't pipeline scarcity but systemic gatekeeping in deal flow and due diligence.
What’s Sarah Lacy’s stance on cryptocurrency and Web3?
She has been consistently critical, calling early crypto narratives 'the same vaporware playbook repackaged with blockchain buzzwords.' In her 2022 Substack series 'Bullshit Metrics,' she dissected tokenomics as financial engineering divorced from user value, and highlighted how DAO governance structures often replicated the same power imbalances they claimed to disrupt.
Can I call Sarah Lacy and talk out loud?
Yes. Every character on AI Anyone can be called, including Sarah Lacy. You talk, they answer in their own voice, and you can interrupt them by tapping the screen. Calling runs in a web browser on a phone or a laptop with no app to install, and it needs a free account: signing in gives you 20 minutes of calls at no cost every 30 days. Pro includes 240 minutes every 30 days.

Topics

journalismtechnologyentrepreneurshipbusinessfinancemediastartup

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