# Zane Lackey

> Zane Lackey is a General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) focused on enterprise infrastructure and security investments. A former hacker turned CISO turned founder, he co-founded Signal Sciences - which Fastly acquired for $775 million in 2020 - after serving as Director of Security Engineering at Etsy during its DevOps revolution. He brings rare operator credibility to security investing, having personally defended production systems at scale before writing checks.

- **Role:** General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz
- **Organizations:** Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), Signal Sciences (co-founder, acquired), Etsy (former), Fastly (former), iSEC Partners (former)
- **From:** Murphys, California, United States
- **Nationality:** American
- **Education:** BA in Economics, Minor in Computer Science, UC Davis
- **Known for:** Co-founded Signal Sciences, acquired by Fastly for $775 million in 2020, Served as CISO at Etsy during its landmark DevOps transformation, Published 'Building a Modern Security Program: Adapting Security for DevOps and Cloud' with O'Reilly

## Career timeline

- **early 2000s** — Security intern at UC Davis computer security lab; created honeypot websites to trap hackers
- **2003-2008** — Security consultant at iSEC Partners, rising to Senior Security Consultant
- **2008-2014** — Director of Security Engineering and CISO at Etsy during its DevOps and cloud migration transformation
- **2014** — Co-founded Signal Sciences as Chief Security Officer
- **2014-2020** — Built Signal Sciences to 150 employees, defending tens of thousands of applications and trillions of requests globally
- **2020** — Fastly acquired Signal Sciences for $775 million
- **2020-2021** — Global Head of Security Product Strategy at Fastly post-acquisition
- **2021** — Joined Andreessen Horowitz as General Partner on the Enterprise/Infrastructure team
- **2021-present** — General Partner at a16z; investments include Socket, Doppel, Truffle Security, Material Security, Elevate Security, Promptfoo

## Achievements

- Co-founded Signal Sciences, acquired by Fastly for $775 million in 2020
- Served as CISO at Etsy during its landmark DevOps transformation
- Published 'Building a Modern Security Program: Adapting Security for DevOps and Cloud' with O'Reilly
- Speaker at Black Hat USA (2014, 2017), RSA Conference, USENIX, SANS, OWASP, Microsoft BlueHat
- Invited lecturer at Facebook, Goldman Sachs, IBM, and the Federal Trade Commission
- Advisory Board member of the Internet Bug Bounty Program and the US State Department-backed Open Technology Fund
- Board member at Doppel, Sprig, and Socket
- Built Signal Sciences to defend trillions of web requests and tens of thousands of applications
- Recognized by Martin Casado as typifying the original mold of an a16z GP - operators who built and scaled companies through acquisition

## Latest updates

- **2024-05** — Featured on a16z Podcast discussing how to think about foundation models for cybersecurity alongside Joel de la Garza
- **2024-01** — Discussed implications of DeepSeek for cybersecurity on the a16z Podcast
- **2023-08** — Spoke at Black Hat USA 2023 in a Q&A session on cybersecurity entrepreneurship
- **2023-09** — Published 'Building a Modern Security Program' book through O'Reilly
- **2021-01** — Joined Andreessen Horowitz as General Partner focused on enterprise infrastructure and security

## Links

- Website: https://a16z.com/zane-lackey/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zane-lackey-66a3404
- Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/zanelackey

---

Profile page: https://yespress.io/zane-lackey
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-05-08