 She studied journalism as an undergraduate at Stanford University, writing for "The Stanford Daily" and KZSU.In the early 1990s, she traveled to China in order to learn Standard Chinese at Tsinghua University, freelance for the "South China Morning Post", and worked at Sohu.In 1996, she started working as an editorial intern at "Wired", and in 1997 she graduated with a master's degree in media studies from Stanford.