Sonal Choksi
Editor-in-Chief, a16z crypto · 1 appearance on the record.
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Sonal Chokshi is the Editor-in-Chief at a16z crypto. She previously served as a senior editor at WIRED and directed content and community at Xerox PARC.
18statements → 2claims → 2claims resolved → 4.06/5average certainty → 1.94/5average debate potential →
1 supported 1 partly supported 0 contradicted how the 2 claims stand · each chip opens the sources
2 assertions · 15 insights · 1 disclosure · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertions are the 2 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 2 are resolved. Everything else (opinions, insights, what ifs, disclosures) can never be settled by the record, so it carries no assessment.
The record, in short
What the tape says about how Sonal argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.
Their most notable supported claim
Choksi: Connie Chan's a16z WeChat piece won a 2015 Sydney Award
“In the New York Times, David Brooks does these annual Sydney Awards, and it was chosen in the 2015 Sydney Awards as one of the best pieces of long-form writing, and the best part is, it was the first time a non-media outlet had been included in it”
Expressed certainty vs assessment result
weighted support: a fully supported claim counts one, a partly supported claim counts half. Each filled bar is clickable and opens exactly those claims; "none yet" means nothing said at that certainty level has resolved yet
Everything Sonal Choksi said on the Y Combinator Startup Podcast that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →
Choksi: Trying to engage interactive social communities is a strategic mistake
“I think a lot of people kid themselves into thinking like, oh, we're going to interact with our community and grow it this way and that way, and I actually think that's a real mistake because then you don't prioritize or know where to prioritize your effort be…”
Chokshi: Podcast hosts must interrupt guests to maintain listener engagement
“Unfortunately for better or worse, especially when it comes to voice medium, you do have to interrupt because people can't listen to one voice for a very long time.”
Choksi: Repurposing the same content across every platform is a mistake
“I think people make the mistake of thinking marketers love this dream of repurposing. I'm gonna repurpose it on every platform, and it's like, actually, no, because what you do, what works on YouTube, what works on SoundCloud, what works on Twitter, what works…”
Choksi: Editors must keep readers hooked through an article's first third
“And I think that data Literally informed how I think about writing and editing and how I think about being an editor. Because you really pay attention to keeping people hooked for every turn, at least in the first third of a piece before they're committed.”
Choksi: Argument pieces must include a nut graph by the third paragraph
“And for argument pieces, I really strongly believe you need an argument nut graph. Like the argument is not conveyed by having a very provocative headline and just assuming people are going to read. And I like to have a rule of thumb that I like the nut graph …”
Choksi: Explainer articles succeed because of built-in arguments, not the format
“It's not the explainer that worked well. It's a fact that it was an explainer with an argument built in.”
Choksi: Writer Dan Wang built an audience by targeting Tyler Cowen
“One of the things that he told me is that early on, he sort of got the attention of one influencer, who's Tyler Cohen, and his strategy in his head sort of became, is this a piece that I'm writing that Tyler will pay attention to and read, and he only targeted…”
Choksi: Great content is 80% about killing bad ideas
“Because a lot of people don't realize that really good content is like, 80% about killing crap.”
Choksi: Content strategies fail by getting trapped in the 'dead zone' middle
“We want to be starting the conversation. And if we're not starting the conversation, then we want to be the one adding a lot of really good value to the conversation. What we don't want to do is being the middle where it's noisy, and no one's listening to each…”
Choksi: Every content effort needs a de facto editor-in-chief
“I think when people take it too far, it becomes crowdsourcing editorial, which is the worst thing ever, which I think you have to have a point of view, which is why I think you need like an editor-in-chief, a de facto editor-in-chief in every content effort, T…”
Choksi: Connie Chan's a16z WeChat piece won a 2015 Sydney Award
“In the New York Times, David Brooks does these annual Sydney Awards, and it was chosen in the 2015 Sydney Awards as one of the best pieces of long-form writing, and the best part is, it was the first time a non-media outlet had been included in it”
Chokshi: Interviewers must push book authors out of comfort zones
“Some of the other things that we do is try to break the script. This is especially true of book, book authors that come on our podcast, because A, they're doing, they're going on everyone's podcast, so we're not getting them exclusively. They're just so into t…”
Choksi: a16z continuously records podcast guests from arrival to prevent stiffness
“And one of the things we do is we start the recorder before they even enter, and we don't turn it off until they leave. And of course, we're not putting things on without their permission, but you're absolutely right. That's exactly what happens. The minute yo…”
Choksi: Edit podcasts by balancing energy, content, expertise, examples, and stories
“The key, and I always tell like our folks at A-Six and Z-II when we're working on editing and how to think about it, is you have like five levers. You have energy, You have content, you have expertise, you have examples, you have personal narratives and storie…”
Choksi: Data-driven narratives are the biggest untapped startup content opportunity
“We always counsel people this, to think about data, and data narratives as a great place to start. It's, A, it's instant differentiation, because you have data that uniquely no one else does, and that makes, it forces you to make sure you're having different t…”
Choksi: Compelling opinion pieces require at least three turns of nuance
“One of the things I used to do at Wired is we had this, I had this rule of thumb that I learned the hard way on the opinion section that you need to have at least three turns of nuance. Because people, the classic op-ed is like an argument, like, I believe thi…”
Choksi: Compare writing to software development when explaining workflows to founders
“When you're in the tech industry, drawing parallels between writing, editing, and creative with development, People actually get it then.”
Chokshi: Precise terminology and definitions demystify tech innovation
“Definitions and terminology go a really long way in our case, because we're talking a lot about new technologies and new innovations, and so you'd be surprised at how people obviously don't agree on definitions, and so getting people to ground themselves about…”
Appearances (1)
| Episode | Date | Speaking time |
|---|---|---|
| Content Marketing Tips from Experts at First Round Capital and Andreessen Horowitz · Y Com | Oct 13, 2017 | 41m |