The a16z Show · Thursday, October 1, 2026
Internet infrastructure pioneer Barrett Lyon recounted a harrowing experience where his plane lost power shortly after takeoff, forcing an emergency landing. This incident, combined with his broader concerns about online privacy and censorship, significantly influenced his drive to develop new technologies like DocsNet.
“And I started flying. So your daily driver was a daily flyer. Right. Yeah. So I put 1300 hours on a Cirrus. And yeah, one day after a meeting here, I left and got in the plane, took off from San Carlos and somewhere over Oakland airport, engines started fuel or something, but I climbed up, cleared the Bravo and felt like it was okay. And then right after that thought, lost pretty much all power.”
“And I declared emergency and just tried to think, okay, where do I crash and not hurt people?”
“And I kept the plane for a while and ended up ferrying it out to Las Vegas and selling it.”