Before
Four years trying to break into media before landing at LA Weekly and SF Weekly, then TechCrunch in 2010, where she became co-editor in 2012. Her beat put her with Uber, Instagram, Pinterest and WhatsApp while they were still small.
The move
She reframed her own job honestly: privileged early access to who was about to win, monetized by other people. Rather than assume the insight would transfer, she tested it. She left, took Stanford's one-year accelerated master's programme to formalize the transition, and spent the period afterwards building a thesis and converting journalism relationships into founder relationships.
The turn
She registered Dream Machine with the SEC in December 2017 targeting 25 million dollars, and launched publicly in May 2018 with seven investments already made.
Timeline
- 2010 joins TechCrunch
- 2012 becomes co-editor
- May 2015 leaves TechCrunch
- 2015 to 2016 Stanford MSx
- December 2017 fund registered with the SEC
- May 2018 public launch with seven investments
What this route asks
A seat that already gives you early sight of who wins, and the honesty to ask whether you are capturing that or handing it to someone else. No dated evidence of active investing after 2021 could be found, so treat the entry route as documented and the present-day outcome as unknown.