Sandy Lerner

Sandy Lerner, co-founder of Cisco Systems and creator of Urban Decay cosmetics, shares her incredible journey from tech entrepreneur to beauty innovator. She discusses the early struggles to secure funding for Cisco and the challenges of being a woman in tech. Lerner candidly reflects on her transformative childhood and the emotional toll of leadership changes. Her adventurous shift to Urban Decay illustrates a rebellion against beauty norms, coupled with a commitment to sustainability, revealing the multifaceted passions of a true visionary.

In the pre-Internet 1970's, Sandy Lerner was part of a loosely-knit group of programmers that was trying to get computers to talk to each other. Eventually, she and Len Bosack launched Cisco Systems, making the routing technology that helped forge the plumbing of the Internet. But when things turned sour at the company, she was forced to leave, giving her the chance to start something entirely new: an edgy line of cosmetics called Urban Decay. PLUS in our postscript "How You Built That," how Justin Li created a solution for staying cool and hydrated in the heat with IcePlate. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.