bio

Sonal Chokshi is the editor in chief at a16z crypto, where she leads the editorial team, and also runs (and hosts) the chart-topping web3 with a16z podcast. Prior to that, Sonal was the Editor in Chief for Andreessen Horowitz (aka ‘a16z’), which she joined in early 2014 to build the editorial operation — overseeing all content products from written pieces to email newsletter to websites to multimedia. This included editing, assigning, and co-writing many viral, industry-defining hit pieces on tech trends and company building — as well as producing, hosting, and showrunning the popular and influential a16z Podcast (and network). Sonal grew the fledgling show into a top show — in the top 1% of all shows in the world by several industry benchmarks — with top episodes getting over 200K listens per episode.

Before being recruited to a16z, Sonal was a Senior Editor at Wired, where she built up the expert opinion/ ideas section into one of the top sections there. She was one of the first mainstream editors to feature several then-nascent trends such as Ethereum, e-sports, the sharing economy, and many others. Her work also started or shaped important conversations around tech policy including the future of the internet, encryption, software patent reform, and other tech policy. Sonal also managed a network of book publicists/ book publishers for excerpts as well, some of which she brought to a16z, convincing book authors to come on the a16z Podcast very early on (before book podcasts were a thing); later, she met with publishers to help ensure the podcast was one of the select/ exclusive few book-launch podcasts for leading authors.

Prior to joining WIRED, Sonal was responsible for content and community at the infamous innovation center Xerox PARC — for several years, she dove deep with top experts on various domains such as AI & automation, bioinformatics, cleantech, flexible electronics, natural language processing, networking, optoelectronics, ubiquitous computing, usable security, and others (including briefly bitcoin ~2011-2012). She also helped manage the “PARC Forum” expert speaker program there, including curating special series on Innovation 10 (2012), The Entrepreneurial Spirit (2011), OPEN (2010), and Going Beyond Web 2.0 (2007-2008); and she facilitated on behalf of PARC their hosting the inaugural MAKE Hardware Innovation Workshop. Later, while at Wired, she focused on hardware innovation including following part of PCH’s San Francisco-based hardware startup accelerator Highway1’s inaugural cohort.

Before moving back to California from NYC, Sonal was doing graduate work in developmental and cognitive psychology at Columbia University's school of education, where she also worked as a researcher on multiple NSF grants (around early numeracy and teacher professional development). Sonal completed her undergraduate degrees in English and Psychology at UCLA, where she also briefly worked in a pioneering lab for autistic children and later taught in LAUSD classrooms.