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

Jul 7, 2025

Ask episode

Chapters

Transcript

Episode notes

(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 Waterhouse
Irwin Federman, the Chairman of Mellanox
Bill Elmore, Founder Foundation Capital
Andy 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