Jack Lazar: A Silicon Valley Journey from Finance to the Boardroom

(0:00) Intro (1:30) About the podcast sponsor: The American College of Governance Counsel (2:16) Start of interview (3:09) Jack's origin story (4:11) The Accounting Foundation. His time at PriceWaterhouse (1987-1992) (5:45) His Startup/Executive Journey. Electronics for Imaging => Apptitude => NetRatings => Atheros => Qualcomm (12:15) Transitioning to Board Service. His start with Silicon Labs (2013) (12:26) His time as CFO at GoPro (2014-2016) (13:55) His focus on boards since 2016 (~10 public boards, ~15 overall since) (14:41) Differences between public and private company board service. (18:55) The Current IPO Landscape plus staying private for longer vs going public. (24:45) Founder Dynamics in Governance and the Dual-Class Share Debate. "In general, I don't like dual-class shares (...) I blame the banks for this." His experience at Casper and ThredUp. "I don't believe in sunset provisions above 7 years. Frankly, I think 3 years is long enough" (32:10) Navigating Shareholder Activism. His experience with Mellanox (sold to NVIDIA for $6.9B) and Box (won proxy fight). (37:27) His support for Classified Boards (40:27) AI and Semiconductor Future. His board position at NatCast, a non-profit entity designated to operate the National Semiconductor Technology Center (NSTC) by the Department of Commerce. Reference to his TEDx talk: "Why Technology is Not Silicon Valley's Real Innovation" (2016) (48:40) Geopolitical Challenges in Tech (53:04) The Importance of Risk Planning by the board (downside plans, "defcon processes", etc) (54:54) Books that have greatly influenced his life:The Goal, by Eliyahu M. Goldratt (1984)Good to Great, by Jim Collins (2001)  (55:49) His mentors:Chuck Robel, from Price WaterhouseIrwin Federman, the Chairman of MellanoxBill Elmore, Founder Foundation CapitalAndy Rappaport, August Capital (57:39) Quotes that he thinks of often or lives his life by. (59:12) An unusual habit or an absurd thing that he loves. (01:00:41) The living person he most admires. Jack Lazar has more than 30 years of Silicon Valley experience with a focus on finance and operations. He currently serves on the boards of Astera Labs (ALAB), Box (BOX), GlobalFoundries (GFS), and Resideo (REZI). He also consults with a variety of private companies, including Tonal, where he is chair of the board.  You can follow Evan on social media at: X: @evanepstein LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/epsteinevan/  Substack: https://evanepstein.substack.com/ __ To support this podcast you can join as a subscriber of the Boardroom Governance Newsletter at https://evanepstein.substack.com/ __ Music/Soundtrack (found via Free Music Archive): Seeing The Future by Dexter Britain is licensed under a Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License