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Becoming a Customer-Centric GC: Adam Glick’s Mindset
154 Plays1 year ago
Join Adam Glick, a former litigator and Head of Legal at Intercom, as we discuss nonlinear career paths, hiring, building an authentic network, and evangelizing the value of a legal department to high-growth public and private tech companies.
Adam has decades of in-house experience, is a profound legal executive, and provides practical advice on becoming customer-centric, so legal serves as an “enabler” for the business.
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Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast and Guest
00:00:08
Speaker
Welcome listeners to another episode of The Abstract. My name is Tyler Finn. I'm Head of Community and Growth at Spotdraft. And I am super excited to be joined today by my friend Adam Glick, most recently Head of Legal at Intercom, and previously a member of the legal team at companies like Splunk and Nutanix. Adam, welcome so much to The Abstract.
00:00:35
Speaker
Thank you, Tyler. It's a pleasure to be here. I appreciate you having me and I'm looking forward to being one of your first interviews on the abstract podcast. Awesome. I think you're in good company with folks like Megan and Brenda and Doug. We've got a great lineup to kick off our podcast. Thank you so much for being here. To start today, I want to go back to the beginning and put your path to head of legal general counsel in context.
Adam's Path to General Counsel
00:01:02
Speaker
As we discussed when we were preparing for the podcast, there are so many highly skilled and qualified attorneys out there today who want to become GCs, who have that as a goal for their careers. And a good number of them went to top law schools and then began their careers in big law. But you took a little bit of a different path. You started your career working for a boutique litigation firm, had the intention of changing the world one trial at a time.
00:01:32
Speaker
I was hoping that we could begin by hearing a little bit about your journey to your first in-house role and what that was like. Absolutely. So let me start by talking about a show that I watched growing up. I don't know if you remember the show and I might be dating myself. It was called LA Lawn. Yes, absolutely. It was a courtroom drama set in LA. And I was absolutely mesmerized by what was going on in those courtrooms. And I thought that was going to be my calling as an attorney.
00:02:02
Speaker
I said, I want to litigate like these people. Look how wonderful that is. But ultimately when I graduated from law school, I started my career as a litigator and I went to a couple of small boutiquey type of law firms. In both criminal litigation, civil litigation, both plaintiffs and defense work. And after a few years of that, I just quickly realized that I did not want to litigate for a living. I just, I absolutely found the practice to be far too combative.
00:02:30
Speaker
It was a constant tug of war with the other side, too much motion work. I just did not see myself being a litigator for the next 30 or 40 years of my career.
Transitioning into Tech Industry
00:02:42
Speaker
I was trying to figure out what I was going to do, how I was going to get out of litigation, and where I was going to go with my career.
00:02:48
Speaker
And this was the early 2000s and there was the first tech boom was upon us and I'm in the Bay area and I figured I need to get into technology and I need to do it as an attorney. So I need to figure out how I can do that. And ultimately what I ended up doing was I transitioned into technology by taking a role at a very large software company.
00:03:11
Speaker
And I was a licensed compliance manager, which was a bit of a different type of position. It wasn't actually even on the legal team. It was on the finance team. And my role was to come in and start reviewing the licensing agreements with their customers to determine whether or not the customers were actually complying with the terms and conditions of the licensing agreements. And if they weren't.
00:03:33
Speaker
Were they not paying the appropriate royalties to use the software? So I probably wasn't the most appreciated person by the customer, but it afforded me an opportunity to get into a technology company and be part of that ecosystem. So I was working for a tech company and I was pretty happy.
00:03:51
Speaker
And then ultimately what ended up happening was about six, eight months later, I received a phone call from a friend of mine who was a senior leader at a tech company, a startup, and that company needed their first lawyer to help negotiate commercial contracts. And we said, Hey, you want to come on board, Adam? And I said, yeah, that sounds great. That's exactly what I want to do. That was my entree into being an attorney in a technology company. And that's how I made the transition.
00:04:17
Speaker
I, as a kid, I used to love also law and order. It was the thing originally that sort of inspired me around the law. I really wanted to be Jack McCoy. I think I'm well on the way to Sam Waterston's gray hair, but certainly not the trial experience or anything like that, or even the law degree.
00:04:36
Speaker
Yeah. That show has just withstood the test of time. What are they in season 28 or something like that? Or 34? Exactly. I still watch it on an airplane every once in a while. I really admire Adam, how open you are about your experience in, into the law and into in-house roles. And I know that you had to have a bit of grit to get that first job in tech. I'm curious how you managed that process.
Navigating Legal Careers in Tech
00:05:03
Speaker
emotionally and for those lawyers or even aspiring lawyers out there who want to start their career with a slightly more unconventional background, want to break into tech and can be a little hard at first. Any advice that you have for folks trying to break in?
00:05:20
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. I think finding that first legal job in tech can be very challenging. And it's a bit of an emotional roller coaster as well. Because what ends up happening is when you apply for a junior level role, there's going to be a lot of other people applying for that same role who probably have more subject matter experience, especially if you haven't been in tech, or just other applicants that may have contacts at the companies that you're applying for. And those people will assist those applicants in getting interviews at that company. So you're going to receive
00:05:49
Speaker
Just a plethora of emails, which states something to the extent of, thank you so much for applying, but the company is going to focus on other candidates at this time, something along those lines. You're just going to see those emails. And I think it's really important to not take that rejection personally, because it's not a direct reflection on your skills, your aptitude, or your ability to perform. It's just the way of the world at this point. And you just need to continue to persevere and really focus on potential new opportunities.
00:06:20
Speaker
and really keep your confidence up. So when you are called upon and discuss a job opportunity, you can present yourself as a qualified candidate who can excel in the role. And as I said earlier, Tyler, when I asked for coming in with an unconventional background, I would definitely recommend just being creative and looking for opportunities, especially at some larger companies that really might not be perfect fits, but will afford you the ability to grow and learn.
00:06:49
Speaker
And for those that just established themselves, be willing to take incremental steps to attain your goals.
00:06:54
Speaker
Growing your career is not always linear. Consider being flexible. And then once you have a chance to illustrate your skills, you can make sure that you shine. Because sometimes there's an adjacent path, right? And it's like the one that you took early on. You mentioned connections and how that can be important for finding new roles, especially early on, but even later as well. And I think that's something that's been crucial to how you've grown over the course of your career, which is your network.
00:07:23
Speaker
I also think sometimes the term networking can have a little bit of a pejorative connotation. How do you think about building relationships, networking, growing your network? How's that benefited you over the course of your career?
00:07:39
Speaker
I think it's been a huge benefit for me. And I wouldn't really be concerned about a potential pejorative connotation when it comes to networking. As a matter of fact, I really consider networking an essential professional skill. And if done properly with the right intentions of mine, it can be very, very beneficial. As a matter of fact, here's a quick story. When I was in college, actually, maybe it was in law school. I can't recall. My mother
00:08:04
Speaker
would tell me how I needed to start making contacts with other legal professionals to help jumpstart my career.
00:08:10
Speaker
And I remember saying, oh, come on, mom, come on, mom, I've got enough on my plate right now. And I just blew it off as I didn't think it was that important. And I was focused on just getting through law school. That was enough of a grind for me. But looking back, I realized how absolutely on point she wasn't her advice. And I wish I would have taken her up on that earlier. I have no idea whether it would have been helpful or not, but just the concept of it was something that I didn't really contemplate until I started moving forward in my professional career.
00:08:40
Speaker
I guess I can really not emphasize the importance of building and maintaining your professional and personal network. Because not only do you really meet interesting people and you develop some ongoing relationships, but your network is just a force multiplier for career opportunities.
00:08:56
Speaker
And as I just mentioned, sometimes your network will help you land that interview that you might not have been able to attain, but for having the professional relationship, or they might educate you on to what's some of the important criteria for that particular interview. It's just a critical component of your professional career is your ability to network and meet people.
00:09:17
Speaker
So moms are always right. That's the sort of like bottom line or mom knows best. We'll go with that. Absolutely. Do you have any very specific recommendations for folks just to make it practical on growing their networks? Curious what sort of tools or how do you actually have gone about doing that over the course of your career?
00:09:36
Speaker
Yeah, I think there's been a number of platforms that have come into play that make it a lot easier than it was when I was starting out. But I would just say that first and foremost, you must network authentically. You need to do it in a way that people don't feel like they're being used by you for their contacts and their network. Because people aren't going to feel good about that if you come at them with just the intention of trying to exploit their network.
00:10:01
Speaker
You should have some level of curiosity and real interest in meeting people and learning about their successes and learning about their challenges because it's going to be helpful for you moving forward as well. And as I said, use tools like LinkedIn or other industry groups or communities that you're a part of. And don't be afraid about setting up meetings for a coffee or for a lunch.
00:10:24
Speaker
Maybe a drink, if you feel so inclined, a walk, whatever works for you and the other person that you're networking with, just try to set up a scenario where you have some personal, if possible, interactions. It's just so nice to be able to look people in the eye and meet them and hear about their stories. And I really think if you just give it some time, you will find that people really enjoy helping others unlock their potential. Yeah. Because today's job environment, every advantage absolutely helps you.
00:10:54
Speaker
And having relationships and personal introductions can really create incremental progress when you're making that career change or that job change. And I guess last thing to remember, and this is really important, Tyler, networking is a two-way street. If you're going to network with people, you need to ensure that you're available for others that would like to network with you and cultivate your network. It goes two ways. Please make sure that you take advantage of other people's networks, but that you allow people to take advantage of your network as well.
00:11:24
Speaker
Absolutely. Yeah. I think that last point is so key because just as you never really know who's going to be the person who might provide you with that introduction that will change your career or change the trajectory of your life, right? Like you never know if someone who's knocking on your door or asking for a coffee is, if you might have the potential to like truly and meaningfully help them, or if it might be a little work together someday in a way that you did not expect.
00:11:53
Speaker
I've certainly had people reach out to me cold, just had coffee with them and have gone on later to make them job offers or make them a connection that led to their job. And I didn't even know that before they reached out. Absolutely. You just never know what's going to happen in today's world. And it also requires that you just treat people with the utmost respect and admiration, treat people kindly, because you just never know. You absolutely never know when you're going to come across someone that you've met.
00:12:22
Speaker
a number of years ago and how you're going to interact with that person and where there might be some alignment between the two of you.
Impact of Mentorship on Career
00:12:29
Speaker
Absolutely. Let's talk a little bit about almost the other side of networking or a deeper side of that, which is mentorship. How has mentorship influenced your career and how are you intentional, especially as you've gotten more and more senior, about mentoring others?
00:12:49
Speaker
Yeah, I'm a big believer in mentorship. As a matter of fact, when we started talking about this podcast and I was preparing for it, I did a little research on mentoring and I learned that the concept of mentoring actually goes back to ancient Greece, where young men were taught important social, spiritual, and personal values. I guess if it was good enough for the ancient Greeks, it's good enough for us today and our environment and world today.
00:13:14
Speaker
It's definitely a time-tested tradition that has worked for hundreds, it's not thousands of years. I would say finding a mentor to assist you in developing your professional skills is just such an advantage. Many people end up with a mentor who was a manager at one of their companies and they develop some form of relationship outside of the office where the mentor provides guidance or just acts as a sounding board to help you think through some of the challenges in your role.
00:13:42
Speaker
And if you can find someone or even maybe multiple people to mentor you over your career, you should definitely take advantage of the opportunity to sit and make sure that you're open and vulnerable. I think that's critical as well. Be honest and forthright with whoever you're mentoring or, I'm sorry, whoever's mentoring you, or even if you're mentoring them, allow the mentor to just advise you on how he or she is.
00:14:05
Speaker
tackle challenging issues throughout their career, overcome adversity during their career, or just how they've been successful in some of the decisions that they've made in their career. And it's funny, Tyler, here's an example of how I've been mentored recently. And I love this. It's just, it's so practical and it was so helpful. I was looking for guidance in how to prepare my company for a potential liquidity event. A law firm partner I knew introduced me to the general counsel of a public company.
00:14:34
Speaker
who has been through the IPO process already. And we had this introductory conversation over Zoom, and it was very business focused, had an agenda of what I wanted to talk about. But then during the conversation, we ended up realizing that we lived in the same city.
00:14:49
Speaker
So we hung up from our Zoom meeting and we decided to set up another coffee meeting and where we live. And then we ultimately ended up setting up some drinks at a dinner meeting one night, a few weeks thereafter, a month or so thereafter. And we ultimately, we ended up having a few other meetings where we just sat down and discussed the challenges of being a general counsel, building a team, of managing a team, managing personalities,
00:15:17
Speaker
career pathing, anything and everything just came up that just let your guard down and have those frank and open and transparent conversations. And I consider this GC to be a mentor of mine. She's helped me think through so many challenges of being a great legal leader. And I've also developed this nice friendship with her as well, which is still ongoing today.
00:15:38
Speaker
I guess with respect to mentoring others, I'm always available to mentor others as I've become more senior. I have people contact me and ask me for those coffees that I asked other people as I was coming up the ranks. And I'm always happy to sit down with people, obviously time permitting, but you have to make time to do that. I feel like whatever I can do to help those that are coming up in the ranks that are trying to become more senior lawyers, I'm happy to provide that information and happy to provide that mentorship.
00:16:07
Speaker
For me, it's just part of the concept of paying mentorship forward.
00:16:11
Speaker
It's a little bit of serendipity to it, which is cool. I think you never know exactly how one of those more formal Q and A's might turn into a friendship over time. Yeah. And sometimes the mentorship becomes a networking opportunity and vice versa, right? They they're crossovers because you just never know how the relationship is going to develop. You might start with someone who's a mentor and then ultimately ends up helping you through your networking opportunities or vice versa. You might start someone.
00:16:38
Speaker
You might start networking with someone and then ultimately they become a mentor. You just never know until you put yourself out there. I wanted to ask you a follow-up on this concept of mentoring and chat a little bit about the idea of peer-to-peer mentoring. A lot of folks on this call or who are going to listen to the podcast, I should say, are GCs, print house lawyers. They may think quite a bit about how they talk to more senior legal professionals than themselves or other attorneys, but
00:17:06
Speaker
How have you thought about mentors in slightly different spaces who are also at a peer level? Think like a CFO who's a friend or venture capitalist, who come at the world with a slightly different perspective, but are still operating in the same plane. How do you think about mentorship there?
00:17:23
Speaker
I think it's just as important and it's something that you should inquire if possible. I haven't done it as often with other functional heads, but I have been entering conversations with them. As an example, you mentioned CFOs, venture capitalists, some bankers that I've spoken to and just other professionals, as I said, functional heads of tech companies that I've spoken to who are just sort of part of the entire ecosystem. And I do that because I really want to learn their perspectives on how they perform their roles.
00:17:52
Speaker
or just help educate me on issues that I haven't had as much familiarity with in the past. And as an example, I have a very good friend who's a venture capitalist, and I've spent many evenings with him, and sometimes it's watching the Warriors, basketball games, and sometimes it's lunches, and sometimes it's literally having a beer somewhere or something like that, where we've just gotten together and we've just talked about what he does, and he's educated me on
00:18:19
Speaker
How he thinks through the world of venture investing because I want to understand how they're evaluating companies and how we're thinking about companies as I start thinking about companies in my career. What are they looking for? What makes a great company to the venture community? Because that will hopefully help me.
00:18:36
Speaker
evaluate companies in a bit of a different light than just thinking about some of the legal issues that the company might need to consider as it continues to grow. Sure, I think it's been really great. And those conversations have actually led to introductions through other networks, which obviously isn't out of the
00:18:52
Speaker
I want to get to your first head of legal role, which was Intercom. This is a big milestone for a lot of in-house attorneys. And I was hoping you could tell us a little bit about the process to get there and really how you made it happen with Intercom in particular. Sure.
Career Milestones and Building Legal Departments
00:19:12
Speaker
Yeah, it was a really big milestone for me, Tyler, becoming the head of legal Intercom.
00:19:17
Speaker
And I would stop actually, I would start by saying for those that achieve the milestone, I really recommend that you stop. This is harder to do than it sounds, but stop.
00:19:29
Speaker
Take a breath and really congratulate yourself for all of the hard work and dedication and perseverance that you exhibited in order to attain this type of role. If you become a head of legal, a GC, a CLO, or another type of legal executive in a company, you've done some phenomenal work in your career and you should really be proud of yourself. And sometimes you just need to stop and realize that and pat yourself on the back and be proud of yourself.
00:19:54
Speaker
I love that. That's like a precursor to, to my experience. And I don't know if I actually did that, but I really realized that I probably should have done that at the time because that was a big stepping stone for me. And I guess a little bit about my background since you asked is I started my career as a commercial attorney. When I went to that first company that I told you about, after I left the large tech company, I was a commercial attorney. And what I was doing is I was negotiating licensing agreements and other commercial transactions for various companies.
00:20:23
Speaker
that was my bread and butter. I came up in the ranks as a commercial attorney and over time I transitioned from, I guess it would be an individual contributor doing commercial legal work to a manager of a small commercial team and then a manager of larger commercial teams and obviously became part of management level teams in legal departments. And being involved in those legal management meetings would expose me to other issues within the legal department, whether it was
00:20:52
Speaker
something around intellectual property or product or what the privacy team was working on or employment issues that the company was working its way through, or obviously, corporate and securities and compliance issues were topical as well. So just by being involved in those meetings, I became much more familiar with the subject matter for those particular areas of legal departments.
00:21:18
Speaker
And those discussions just afforded me an opportunity to learn more about those areas of the law and preparing me to become more of a generalist in my role. But when I was approached by Intercom, they were looking for someone who had a great deal of commercial experience because that was first and foremost what they really needed. But they were also looking for someone with enough comprehensive knowledge of other areas to build a legal department from the ground up, which is exactly what I did when I joined.
00:21:47
Speaker
And I guess once I joined, it really required evaluating the legal needs of the company and then figuring out where and when to hire people. But almost as importantly, if not more importantly, actually, Tyler, it's educating and evangelizing the value of a legal department to a growing business that had not been exposed to what legal does and how legal can actually help the company
00:22:15
Speaker
build and grow and scale and be successful. I think that's just so critical. You're not just a lawyer at a company, you're helping educate the company as to what value you bring as a lawyer and then a legal team, because some companies just think legal is a bit of a blocker, but we're not quite the enabler if we do it right. So when I look back at my experience at Intercom,
00:22:41
Speaker
Some of the most important qualities I think about when building a team from scratch are first and foremost, you absolutely have to have confidence in your ability to handle the role. Because if you don't, people will see this from you. Confidence is just critical. And then you need to have that mindset of educating the company and building partnerships with the business and establishing a level of trust with your clients. And then obviously hiring and managing great people.
00:23:08
Speaker
And you should really go try to find talented legal professionals and just enable them to do their jobs, be there to help them be successful. And then as you've heard, stay out of the way, right? Let them go do what they do. Just be there to advise and assist, but let them flourish in their roles and do the work in a really, really productive way.
00:23:30
Speaker
You mentioned that you've had significant commercial experience. You've been building up a bit of exposure to other corporate matters before Intercom came along. Do you have a perspective for junior attorneys who are in-house or maybe even.
00:23:47
Speaker
some folks who are still at firms but think that they want to be a legal leader someday about how they can start to prepare themselves. Is it commercial? Are there really important skills to gain? Are there other pockets of experience that you think are super useful, preparation for the role? What advice would you have there?
00:24:08
Speaker
Yeah, I think from just talking to different people that have moved into legal leadership roles, most of them come from the background of either a corporate securities attorney at a big law firm helping companies work through the corporate life cycle of their growth, or commercial attorneys who understand the transactional aspect of the business and really can support
00:24:33
Speaker
The accelerated contractual negotiations that occur in a growing company and they just understand the mentality of commercial transactions. You'll see a view that come up through the ranks as litigators or maybe even
00:24:47
Speaker
employment attorneys, but it's usually either commercial or corporate securities attorneys that end up finding their way to these senior level roles. But I guess my advice is when you start your career and it's whether you're with a law firm or you're in-house, you will probably most likely focus on a particular area of the law. It could be corporate securities, it could be commercial, it could be litigation employment, it could be privacy, appliance, could be anything. And you're going to become pretty proficient in one or two of those disciplines.
00:25:17
Speaker
But over time, and obviously if available, you should really raise your hand and ask if you can get some more exposure to other areas of the law. If you're at a law firm, perhaps you move from the litigation side of the house to the commercial side of the house. And you learn how to negotiate commercial contracts for your clients. If you're at a large company with a good size legal department, perhaps you can move or just shadow another team in your legal department part-time to learn about what they do.
00:25:45
Speaker
Because the more visibility you could obtain to become proficient in different areas of the law, the better chance you have of being considered for a GC, had a legal role moving forward. I guess I would say, don't be afraid to just try something different. Take advantage of whatever opportunities are presented to you, raise your hand, continue to learn as much as you possibly can.
00:26:06
Speaker
I think a theme that we're hearing across at least a few initial episodes, and I expect that we'll continue to hear, is really around the idea that if there's something that's important to the business, if it's an opportunity, oftentimes for career growth, take it. As you're saying, your lane may be commercial contracts, but if you have the opportunity to take on as a 25% role, running the role out of
00:26:34
Speaker
privacy compliance language and really working closely with privacy counsel and take that opportunity because you don't know exactly how that's going to accrue and where it where am I lead exactly you never know the more opportunities you can get the more you can learn about all the different aspects of legal work the better chance you're going to have of achieving that general counsel head of legal clo roll down the road
00:27:02
Speaker
When we were doing some prep for this episode, we were talking a little bit about how you view yourself as in GC and sort of a phrase or words that came up time and time again was the idea of being customer centric. And I want to ask you what in your background do you think propelled you to try to view so much of what legal does through the eyes of the customer?
00:27:25
Speaker
And what are key areas where a GC really needs to be attuned to both the needs of the business, but also the needs of the customer in particular? Yeah, that's a good question.
Customer-Centric Legal Work
00:27:37
Speaker
And I guess I would start with the concept around, if you step back and zoom out, most of the companies that you're going to want to work for in your career will have a very customer-centric focus.
00:27:49
Speaker
they'll have some form of explicit value, which states that, quote, we are customer centric or the customers are North Star or something along those lines. Part of their mission and value prop, right? Is the customer, the customer, the customer. We build great products for customers.
00:28:04
Speaker
that kind of mantra. And frankly, this is the type of company that you really want to work for because it has a chance for great success because it really understands the importance of focusing on the customer. Customers, the lifeblood of the company. As I mentioned, I started out as a commercial attorney and was really focused on negotiating contracts with sales team and my BD teams to help drive revenue for the companies I was working at. And I'd really learned quickly that even during challenging
00:28:31
Speaker
or even sometimes even contentious negotiations with customers and their legal departments, you must remember that customer is the lifeblood of your company, right? That customer relationship needs to be built and managed over time because without customers and revenue, there is no company for you to provide legal services for. So you really need to make sure you understand that and the importance of onboarding customers into the company
00:28:58
Speaker
building those interactions with those customers, absolutely critical. Customers remember their interactions with their suppliers. They even remember their interactions with the legal department of their suppliers. And through those respectful interactions, you can help build long lasting relationships. I remember being at either, probably at Splunk, maybe it was New Dallas, and just having conversations with lawyers at these companies that we were selling to.
00:29:24
Speaker
And there were some difficult conversations pertaining to the contract terms. Well, sure, we were when we would have some sort of quote unquote sidebar conversations between lawyers. And we were just trying to develop relationships and talk about how our business needed to be a little more flexible at times. But building those relationships with lawyers just helps smooth out some of the edges. And I was able to leverage those relationships for
00:29:49
Speaker
subsequent negotiations with those customers and just build alignment with them, which I think was really helpful moving forward. And then you need to consider what your internal clients are thinking about as well, the people that you're representing in your company, right? They'll have so much respect for your work and your partnership if you're aligned with their desire to help their customers, especially salespeople, right? They need to get those customers
00:30:13
Speaker
in order to compensate for the work that they're doing. And a legal team really builds longstanding and productive relationships with its sales team by helping them facilitate those successful legal negotiations on a consistent basis. But I think that's really important. Don't forget about building relationships around customer success with your own internal clients as well.
00:30:33
Speaker
And then I guess lastly, another thing to consider is always consider the type of customer that you're negotiating with or that you're communicating with because not all customers are the same, right? Some are going to come from more highly regulated spaces and larger customers are traditionally going to be more risk averse. They're not going to be as flexible. They might want to use.
00:30:56
Speaker
their contract paper. So you need to consider how to apply different levels of risk tolerance to those discussions. You actually might need to acquiesce on some provisions that are important to you in an effort to get the negotiation completed.
00:31:11
Speaker
Obviously you need to clear that with your management team, especially if you're a junior attorney, but an experienced manager will really understand how you need to flex at times. And then once you get those larger enterprise customers on your platform, all that hard work. I remember there, I went through some negotiations that took three, four, five, six, nine, 12 months.
00:31:31
Speaker
back in the day. And even once you get those customers onto your platform or into your ecosystem, even if the terms aren't as optimal as you desire, they're going to continue to buy from you. Assuming you're providing them with good quality product and service offerings, they're going to continue to buy for you. They're going to be bellwether customers for you. So it's worth all that energy and effort you put in order to get that customer as part of your company, into your company.
00:31:57
Speaker
I love that point that you made probably through your answer around developing a little bit of a rapport, sometimes even a little bit of a relationship with the attorney or the BD person or who's ever negotiating on the other side. I think back on working in privacy and working with different sort of suppliers, and sometimes there were contentious conversations or difficult conversations around
00:32:22
Speaker
compliance terms or quality assurance or, and it's always easier if you happen to meet that person at a conference, industry conference somewhere. If you go out of your way to try to go and say hello to them, oftentimes you can get to, you can get to a much better place if there's a little bit of a
00:32:41
Speaker
personal relationship or it's that there's a human on the other side of the negotiation. It's not just two companies both trying to get to the best insurance or the best deal together. No doubt Tyler. Human relationships are so critical and I think we're going to touch on that throughout this podcast is relationships. I don't care what business you're in. You can be selling, you can be lawyering, you can be doctoring.
00:33:06
Speaker
doing anything and people need to be able to connect with you in whatever you're doing. It's just critical to continue to build those relationships with people in your career as you move through your career. The people that you're not necessarily mentoring or networking relationships per se. I'm talking about just relationships with people that you come across as you're doing your day-to-day work.
00:33:26
Speaker
When you started an intercom, it was just you. And over the course of time there, you were able to build on a team of five, which is decently sized legal work. But of course there are still always resource constraints. And we've talked about this sort of notion or thinking about being very customer centric and so much of what you didn't and with that as a North star.
00:33:49
Speaker
How did you prioritize even in repiring as you had a whole host of different competing needs and a fast growing business and a growing team, but always constraints around resourcing? Yeah, it's challenging. For me, what I've done in the past when I come into a new role is I really think about building out at some form of.
00:34:11
Speaker
what's called a 30, 60, 90 day plan. There's other terminology for it, but something similar like that, just to help guide and prioritize your time. Just have a list of what you want to accomplish during those time periods, because you're jerking through that proverbial fire hose and you need to stay disciplined. You can get pulled in so many different directions. So it's critical to stay disciplined and make sure you have a plan of attack.
00:34:34
Speaker
And I guess my initial focus when I started is really based on three different principles or three different concepts. The first one is make sure you delve deeply into the business and the product and understand the business and the product. It's just so important to understand where the business is trying to go and the products that they've built. And then number two, understand the strategic initiatives for the business, right? What is the business trying to accomplish? What are their goals? What are their objectives over the next,
00:35:03
Speaker
two quarters, four quarters, six quarters, whatever timeframe you can ascertain from speaking to other leaders within the business. Because you're going to focus your efforts and energies on ensuring that you're helping move the company forward with those objectives and goals. And then the third one that I think is really important as well is you need to focus on meeting people across the organization to start building relationships. We keep talking about relationships.
00:35:28
Speaker
As well as understanding what's working for them and what are some of the challenges that they're facing when they have legal issues to overcome. How have they successfully worked through legal issues in the past? Have they actually worked through legal issues or have they avoided them? That's something that you should know as well. Again, build those relationships. Take detailed and copious notes to the extent you can because there's going to be so much coming at you.
00:35:53
Speaker
And you need to really capture it and be able to recall it as you think through how you're going to even prioritize over those first few quarters that you're there. And then once you understand the business and where it wants to go and what you need to focus on in order to build those partnerships and provide those services, start to consider where you need to put resources. This is assuming you have headcount and hopefully you do because the business is growing and you need to be able to keep up. As an example, if the business is very transactional in its nature,
00:36:23
Speaker
Perhaps your first hire is going to be a commercial counsel to help you negotiate all those contracts. Or if the business is very product oriented and builds complicated products for large customers. Perhaps you consider someone with product and maybe privacy experience, especially if you're processing or you have a lot of data from your customers and you need someone that can help you think through the complexities of the product and all the privacy implications of the data.
00:36:49
Speaker
And you can hire that person and they can partner very closely with the product and engineering team. Or your business may be highly regulated and maybe you need someone that you bring in with applicable regulatory and compliance experience. You've really got to understand the needs and wants of your business and then determine how you're going to prioritize hiring. You may even be focused on a particular geo outside the US as an example.
00:37:13
Speaker
if you're doing a lot of business in the EU. Maybe you're first buyer with someone in the EU because I'm sitting out here in California. If we're doing 75% of our business in the EU, maybe I go hire someone to go sit in London or some other European country who could be there and give me the eight hours of time zone coverage when I'm sleeping to help accelerate all the work that we need to do. I think that's really important to think through as well.
00:37:39
Speaker
And then I guess one last thing to consider is be thorough, but be quick in your decision making as you're going through this analysis. Don't overanalyze and waste too much time deciding where to put your resources because it's going to take you a while to find the right person. You really want to find the right person that's going to sit within your culture and that you're going to mesh with.
00:38:01
Speaker
And if your business is growing quickly, you need to move fast. The last thing you want is to become a blocker because the legal work will just continue to accelerate for your company and you don't have enough people on your legal team to be able to support it. And you're slowing down the growth of the business. I think that's something you need to consider as well.
Hiring Strategies and Candidate Assessment
00:38:21
Speaker
Let's talk a little bit more about hiring actually, because I agree that perception of legal as solution oriented is working with the business, working with other stakeholders, able to take on cross functional problems. It's so important in high growth companies, especially tech companies and hiring for folks, not just in legal, but everywhere, hiring for folks who can be that type of culture fit can often be
00:38:50
Speaker
challenging. How have you, over the course of your career, but especially at Intercom, how did you try to identify those job candidates who might have been a little bit scrappier, who might have been willing to go the extra mile, who were truly really solution oriented? How did you go about finding the right people?
00:39:11
Speaker
Yeah, this is a pretty important issue to me, Tyler. I really focus on some particular criteria when I'm hiring people. First of all, do they have some level of subject matter expertise for what I've identified as a need? As an example, are they commercially oriented? Are they product oriented? Or, and this is a big or, or do they have the ability to learn it pretty quickly because they're interested in doing it? That's the first thing I think about. And then the next thing I consider is,
00:39:40
Speaker
Are they problem solvers? Are they solution-based lawyers? Can't they be creative and figure out workarounds for some of the sticky legal issues that are gonna come up over time as they advise and counsel the business? Because that is really important, especially when you're a small and nimble startup. Can they provide legal advice, but can they also evaluate creative ways to help the business overcome some of these legal hurdles?
00:40:08
Speaker
It's telling the business you just can't put down that path. It's against the law. That is not the right answer. And that's not going to be a successful answer. You're going to get a lot of blowback from your business if you're hearing that about people you hire. You need to think about risk. You need to think about creativity and helping the business figure out another path. That's just so vitally important. And then last, but definitely not least,
00:40:33
Speaker
For me, does this person have not just a high IQ, but a really high EQ? And what I mean is, can this person build relationships? We've talked about relationships throughout the podcast. Can that person build those relationships both personally and professionally? Again, they're building the professional relationship with their internal client, but can they build that personal relationship? Can they divulge what's going on a little bit in their personal life so they can bond with their internal clients?
00:41:02
Speaker
And they create a relationship that is going to help them accelerate their professional relationship with the client. Is the person relatable? And if you find someone that has experience or is hungry to learn and is a creative problem solver, I think that's just a great addition to your legal team.
00:41:19
Speaker
And it's funny, one of the things that I liked to do, it's a little bit harder now that we've moved to more of a remote environment. As I get through the interview process and I identify a candidate, I'm sure we've interviewed and we've had conversations and we've talked about, are you a value at risk? And we've talked about indemnities and we've talked about privacy or employment, whatever it may be. But then in the end, when I've identified a candidate I really want to hire, what I like to do is I like to tell that candidate,
00:41:47
Speaker
You're great. I'd love to meet you for a coffee. Let's go grab a coffee. Let's sit down and just see how we work. Let's see how we interact. Let's see how we talk. Tell me a little bit about yourself. Let me tell you a little bit about myself because we're going to be spending a lot of time together. It's a little bit harder now that COVID has come and people aren't working in the same area or going into the office. That's just a really helpful sort of last step in hiring or making a formal offer.
00:42:12
Speaker
I love that. I would add on to that, actually. You reminded me of something that I heard back when I was in college from one of the sort of college's most illustrious alumni who was in private equity and built a very strong firm. And she would take people out to lunch as the last step.
00:42:31
Speaker
And he would do it partially to get a further sense for how they were in person. But what he was really watching for was, how did they treat the person at the front desk at the office when they checked in? How did they treat the person at the restaurant when they checked in, the person who served them feeling he was really trying to evaluate whether or not they were basically like a respectful and kind and good person in their everyday interactions
00:43:00
Speaker
beyond just in the interview setting. And so I love that you take people out for coffee in person because there's so much that you can learn from something like that from just 30 minutes or an hour in person with someone. Yep, just to get to know your conversation. Do we like each other? Are we gonna each other enough to work well together?
00:43:20
Speaker
I want to start to wrap up, sad for listeners, but start to wrap up by talking a little bit about the job market today.
Taking Time Off for Personal Growth
00:43:28
Speaker
You took a bit of time off after the successful run at Intercom. Now, you know, it's the spring, you're starting to think about your next adventure. Any tips that you have for other folks who are looking for their next role right now?
00:43:47
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. It's funny when I left intercom, it's weird walking away from a company. You don't have anything planned, but it was time for me to leave the company for some various reasons. But I got some great advice from a few different people and it was the same message. It was take some time away from practicing law, Adam, just check out and give yourself some time to decompress a bit.
00:44:09
Speaker
And obviously there are some financial and personal factors to consider when making that decision, but if you set some ground rules with yourself that you intend to take two weeks or four weeks or two months or four months, whatever timeframe works for you, and just really go do something that you enjoy outside of the law.
00:44:28
Speaker
Whether that's spending some time with your family, whether that's going to the gym or going fishing or skiing or traveling the world or going to Hawaii, whatever you want to do, reading books, you can even write a book if you want. Just take that time and really give yourself a mental break because you only have so many breaks in your career and it's very easy to jump back in and find that next job and continue your career.
00:44:51
Speaker
But we all know that life just isn't about work. It's about being fulfilled in so many ways. So whatever will fulfill you, just go do that for a little bit before jumping back in. And then once you're ready to jump back in, focus on what we've discussed today, right? Know what you want in your next role. Be able to articulate what it is and why you want to do it. Be able to explain it. Leverage your network.
00:45:15
Speaker
Get your profile out there. Put some thoughtful posts on LinkedIn and other social media platforms you think would be helpful. Again, meet people for coffee, do some lunch, and don't be bashful about having conversations with people to help you figure out your next goal. Okay, one last question. What fun things have you done during your time off? You gotta let the listeners know.
00:45:38
Speaker
Oh, it's been a year and it's been a phenomenal enjoyable year. I started by doing some traveling. For some reason I ended up in Hawaii three times in about four months last spring and summer. Oh, that's right. One was for a legal conference. One was for a family vacation. And then the other one was just my daughter and I spending a week in Hawaii together, which we've never been able to just do a father-daughter vacation. So that was great. So I did a bunch of traveling where my wife and I and daughter were actually planning a trip early this summer to Southeast Asia, which I'm really looking forward to as well.
00:46:07
Speaker
So I did that and then I spent as much time as I could exercising, going to my daughter's soccer games, meeting friends for lunch, coffee, social events, sleeping a little bit more, not waking up to a ton of email and Slack, just enjoying the beautiful California weather and just taking a breath and doing some things that benefit me.
00:46:28
Speaker
And I guess last but not least, what I've done is I've actually focused on making myself better at everything, right? Just how can I be a better husband? How can I be a better father? How can I be a better friend? And even a better lawyer moving forward, right? There's so much to learn. But I've done some introspective work and done some executive coaching during the time, which has been really an enjoyable experience for me just to sort of think through what's going to make me a better human being in all aspects.
00:46:56
Speaker
That's a really wonderful way to conclude our conversation. Adam, thank you so much for joining me today for participating in one of our first episodes of this podcast. Thank you for being here. It was my pleasure Tyler. Thanks so much for having me and I really enjoyed our conversation.
00:47:17
Speaker
And to our listeners, if you enjoyed this, hope you join us next time on our next episode of The Abstract. Thanks for listening.