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Ep 96: Scaling Teams from 80 to 800 with Jordan Hatcher, Co-Founder, CLO, and COO of The Grid
15 Plays39 minutes ago
How do you make the move from building a legal career in the US to one in Europe, scale one of Europe's hottest unicorns, and transition to launching your own start-up?
Join Jordan Hatcher, co-founder, CLO, and COO of The Grid, a blockchain-based tech start-up, as he shares his experience as a Texas-born lawyer living and working across Europe in senior counsel roles at Optimizely, ARM, and Hewlett Packard before joining Staffbase as GC and ultimately co-founding his own cutting-edge Web3 company.
Listen as Jordan discusses his early work writing and advocating for open data licenses, offers advice to US companies looking to build or scale in Europe, explains the value of a well-timed career break, and much more.
Read detailed summary: https://www.spotdraft.com/podcast/episode-96
Topics
Introduction: 0:00
Living in Amsterdam: 3:08
Working in IP, Web3, civil liberties law: 5:54
Collaborating with engineers at HP and ARM: 8:14
Open source data and standards making: 10:37
A throughline from open source to Web3 Leading legal at Staffbase: 14:57
Signs that you’re overworking: 19:22
Dual perspectives on business culture in the US and Europe: 23:40
Building a business in Europe: 26:50
Biggest accomplishments at Staffbase: 29:58
When to leave a GC role: 31:38
Taking a career break: 35:38
Diving into Web3 with The Grid: 36:30
Reflecting on entrepreneurship: 39:40
Starting a non-profit: 46:16
Raising a child with a disability: 48:56
Rapid-fire questions: 53:39
Connect with us:
Jordan Hatcher - http://linkedin.com/in/jordanhatcher/
Tyler Finn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/tylerhfinn
SpotDraft - https://www.linkedin.com/company/spotdraft
SpotDraft is a leading contract lifecycle management platform that solves your end-to-end contract management issues. Visit https://www.spotdraft.com to learn more.
Recommended
Transcript
Transitioning General Counsel Role
00:00:00
Speaker
A lot of people would be familiar with that conversation around the board or an exec saying, we want a GC that's taken a company public before. Totally. Right?
00:00:14
Speaker
To be the GC. And that was essentially the conversation that started to happen after the Series E. Yeah. And I actually had told ah one of the co-founders who was my boss,
00:00:29
Speaker
that I reported into the whole time when they hired me that this might happen. And I said, look, it's a personal relationship really at the end of the day, being the general counsel.
00:00:42
Speaker
If you don't think I'm a fit anymore, just come and talk to me. and we'll figure out a way forward. It's part of, I think, the really at the end of the day, the professional ethics and responsibility as being a lawyer. Like if your client doesn't want you anymore, then you figure out a way forward.
00:01:01
Speaker
Yeah. And yeah, he at the time when I told him that, he said, it's never going to happen. And then it happened. And then we just kind of came up with a plan.
Jordan Hatcher's Career Journey
00:01:18
Speaker
How do you make the move from building a legal career in the U.S. to one in Europe? Scale one of Europe's hottest scale ups.
00:01:29
Speaker
Notice I use the term scale up and transition to launching your own startup. Today here in Amsterdam, we are joined by Jordan Hatcher.
00:01:42
Speaker
Jordan is a very cool and genuine guy, and he's the co-founder, COO, and chief legal officer of The Grid, an open, independent, and auditable reference dataset that powers Web3 directories and platforms.
00:01:59
Speaker
Before launching the grid, he took a sabbatical and spent time as a legal consultant to Airwallex. Jordan was also the first lawyer and the 80th employee at Staffbase, where he led six financing rounds and helped them grow the team to more than 800.
00:02:17
Speaker
His
Evolution of Tech Law
00:02:18
Speaker
early career, i think it somewhat defies easy categorization. That's what I think is cool about it um Worked on IP issues, open source, civil liberties, ah companies like Optimizely, HP, and Arm, and also at nonprofits like the EFF across the UK, and before that in Austin, Texas.
00:02:45
Speaker
Jordan? Thanks so much for joining me today for this episode of The Abstract. Yeah, thanks for having me and on such a beautiful day here in Amsterdam. Yeah, I'm very lucky to be here, I think, and I'm here for the weekend too. so Excellent. I'm going to get out on a bike.
00:03:01
Speaker
yeah Hopefully I come home in one piece. Yeah, it's the Olympics of city biking for sure. and Why Amsterdam? What was it that brought you here?
00:03:13
Speaker
Yeah, so I've been here almost 10 years and kind of going back on paper, what brought me here was Optimizely. So they had ah expanding into Europe, they had already set up and chosen Amsterdam as sort of their European headquarters. So they came from San Francisco, looking at Europe, chose Amsterdam.
00:03:35
Speaker
The team had grown to the point where they needed to hire a lawyer, and i was lucky enough to get the the job for the first legal counsel in Europe. um Why I applied for the job is ah my son was two years old or so. We were living in Cambridge in England where he was born, and ah small towns are not for me. i mean, Cambridge isn't even that small. It's a hundred and some odd thousand people.
00:04:03
Speaker
but uh and it was very lovely but i wanted to move back to the city and had already lived in london and london's not very livable and amsterdam's such a great place so kind of everything lined up the stars aligned yeah yeah i mean if you look back and reflect on that journey texas then the uk you were in the uk for a decade or yeah 11 years okay and then amsterdam i mean Was any of that expected?
00:04:31
Speaker
You certainly look the part of someone who belongs in Amsterdam today. Thank you. ah um It was not expected, but each step was kind of planned for, if that makes sense. um So, you know, I guess if you think about it, plan A, plan B, plan C, I'm all the way at plan Z, right? like Or beyond that, ah in terms of the things
Building Trust in Tech Companies
00:04:56
Speaker
that I thought I would do at various points of my life.
00:04:59
Speaker
um I came to Europe because I got into an exchange program at the University of Texas with the University of Edinburgh. And it was different than some of the other law school exchange programs in that it was the full 3L year and you got to double dip and get an LLM at the end of it.
00:05:19
Speaker
That's cool. Yeah. And i knew i was at that time, i was kind of a bit more, I was always interested in technology and the law, but i was a little bit more focused on potentially being an entertainment lawyer. So I really knew i wanted to do IP
Open Data and Tech Evolution
00:05:34
Speaker
related things, but I took every he me yeah soft IP course that UT had. And Edinburgh had this specialization in innovation technology in law and a really big IP program, including a lot of stuff on soft IP.
00:05:51
Speaker
ah So I got in and went One of the things that's interesting to me about your career, i think, um yeah, at least as i is I look at the different issue areas that you've worked on, whether it's sort of like civil liberties work or IP work or some of this open source, open data work, now Web3, think.
00:06:12
Speaker
um Those are all areas where I think some sort of like real intellectual engagement with technology is important. It's not to say that's not important with like, you know, sort of like typical commercial work or, but it's to me, it seems like, um yeah, like that's sort of like real, like I'm in it. I understand this. I want to go deep. I know I have to go deep to be really good at it is important. I don't know. Talk to us a little bit about
Lessons from StaffBase
00:06:41
Speaker
that.
00:06:41
Speaker
Sure, yeah. just an observation, but it's different than a lot of guests. Yeah, well, I think I've been reflecting a bit on this lately. So I've been in the legal profession since before law school. So that's been since 2001 or so. And then really tech law, I would say for about 20 years.
00:07:02
Speaker
And when I started technology, uh technology in the law at edinburgh um really in-depth and then kind of working on it the year after this i'm today what i think of is kind of a classical tech lawyer and that i know little bit across lots of different areas whereas today people really will specialize in um I don't know, online marketplaces and go super deep.
00:07:31
Speaker
um And, you know, kind of when I was starting out doing technology law, you had to know a bit of the technology. So you just mess around and find out and you experiment and you try things and you get lucky enough to work with engineers that are patient with you and teach you a bit about semiconductors, which I knew nothing about when I started at arm um And then you kind of just build on that and go from there.
00:07:55
Speaker
And ah you see all these patterns that start to emerge and how things get regulated. But at the end of the day, you've got to kind of love the tech side of it and see how everything's interplaying.
00:08:10
Speaker
And part of it might just be the way my brain works for this stuff. yeah Did you feel like... ah building trust with those sorts of engineers at a company like an HP or like an arm?
00:08:21
Speaker
Was that easy to do? mean, at an arm,
Company Culture and Work-life Balance
00:08:25
Speaker
I would just think like the people there must be sort of like so smart and so well-educated and yeah it would be almost intimidating, right?
00:08:34
Speaker
It's not to say that your line software engineer, like a SaaS company in New York isn't intimidating, but that's like a slightly different breed, I think. Yeah, for sure. I mean, especially you think 2010,
00:08:45
Speaker
twenty ten And semiconductor is people with a lot of math degrees, yeah many many math degrees in one person, um and you know ah really deep ah technology, right?
00:09:01
Speaker
and I think as a lawyer, you get access to people, ah particularly in-house within your company in a way that other people don't. Right.
00:09:15
Speaker
So part of it is they know that if you want to be super practical or, um you know, kind of look at it in a negative
US vs Europe: Work Expectations and Law
00:09:23
Speaker
way, they know they're going to need something from you in the future. And they want you to understand the thing that they're going to ask you about. Right. So at the beginning, um you know, they're a lot of the time they're very generous with their time in terms of like helping you understand how everything puts together.
00:09:39
Speaker
And then when they have a real need. Right. So if they have some in-depth question about is the license going to work this way? Can we do this or can we do that? um You just have to sit there and ask questions and be like, I don't know. Be really transparent about that. You have to teach me.
00:09:57
Speaker
um and the thing goes both ways, right? Like I think sometimes as in-house counsel in particular and often just as private practice lawyers, though I've never really been in private practice lawyer,
00:10:10
Speaker
um is ah you can forget that your job is to teach the other person about a bit, at least a bit, as much as they want to know about how the law works and how it's applying to them and the kind of reasons why you came to the conclusion.
00:10:24
Speaker
And I found generally, broadly speaking, working with developers and engineers of all stripes, they they want to know the why, right? And they respect that you also want to know the why.
00:10:37
Speaker
hmm. Yeah. Earlier in your career, you worked on sort of like open data. um right How important do you think that things like that and stand? I guess I noticed in your background a lot of standards making too and in a lot of standards making work.
00:10:54
Speaker
How important is a lot of that for how the Internet has evolved, do you think? And that appreciated enough? Yeah. Yeah, so open source software, free and open source software.
00:11:08
Speaker
So the GPL to the MIT license, BSD, et cetera. ah In terms of a model, if you think back, um you know, in the late 90s to the early 2000s, in particular, people were thinking about the war of the operating systems and everything else. sure Linux and open source software is definitely one in terms of ah raw numbers of compute powered by open operating systems, right?
00:11:35
Speaker
And the the ethos and the structure, if you fast forward, I think really um under my or under underpins under your buns underpins a lot of ah the...
00:11:50
Speaker
technologies with blockchain and web3 so it's really kind of been there evolving i think the attitude sometimes is is a bit different for it you know i think 20 years of people trying to have open source business models and thinking what they could do around it you know it's just kind of settled down a lot open data um you know some that really worked on open data at the beginning they've kind of ah backed out of the movement or the impact has been harder to see because it's harder to get that momentum for um having this similar pools of open data.
00:12:27
Speaker
But there's been, of course, some real successes. ah Two areas that I think of in particular is government information in general is for the people, right? It's funded by the taxpayers, so it should be available for the people. sure And you know in an American context, everybody thinks about the federal government and that, oh, the federal government doesn't have copyright. But ah states, cities, counties, they all collect a lot of data and they should be publishing it under open licenses because they have copyright over that information.
00:13:03
Speaker
And then OpenStreetMap, which I love in terms of the Wikipedia of map data. yeah And I'm super happy and and proud reflecting back that they've they've used and gotten some
Achievements and Challenges at StaffBase
00:13:14
Speaker
utility out of a license they'll help write ah quite a long time ago.
00:13:18
Speaker
do you see ah through line in retrospect i guess i mean you mentioned sort of like an evolution to web3 from some of that early work through the ip work that you've done to what you're doing now around crypto and web3 yeah so for for me personally the the open data element the open source uh after i had a kids um I had maybe like two or three years where I was still active doing that stuff kind of on the side from the day job.
00:13:52
Speaker
And it was part of my day job in terms of lawyering for every tech company I've worked for. But I haven't been the open source lawyer role the job.
00:14:04
Speaker
uh one of these companies i might have had it as one of my many hats but you have to be rather large to have somebody solely focused on that right yeah um and i kind of had to put it to the side and then i focused on learning a lot of other things you know b2b sas business models commercial contract negotiation and then when i made it to the gc suite um even your across everything you know i did more I was expecting to do corporate law, but I never really saw myself as a corporate lawyer. But you get involved into it employment law, cross-jurisdictional stuff, M&A, etc. You have to kind of have that broad range of skills.
00:14:47
Speaker
And then kind of since taking a break and then picking up with the startup, I've kind of been able to pick those threads back up and kind of reincorporate them. I don't want us to um pass over your time at StaffBase because I think it's really and think it's really interesting and I think you probably have a lot of lessons to share.
00:15:06
Speaker
um Where was the company at when you joined? That's probably a great place to start.
Transitioning Out of StaffBase
00:15:11
Speaker
Yeah, so um I interviewed in end of June or July and then started at the beginning of September.
00:15:21
Speaker
ah And even between that timeframe, I think they'd added 30 people so i was the 80th employee um they didn't have an office here in amsterdam and i was lucky enough that uh when they offered me the job and i said look i want to stay that we came up with a solution to stay here in amsterdam And it ended up working out. We had, I think at one point, 40 people or so in the office here in Amsterdam. Oh, wow.
00:15:49
Speaker
And that's a whole story in itself. like Basically starting the office here as the only exec at the time. um And yeah, they were just getting started.
00:16:00
Speaker
ah they it was the typical Wild West that most of your most of the listeners will understand and that you know AEs could effectively ah make up their own contracts, there wasn't any of the structures in place. I mean, you don't expect it, though. I didn't go in expecting to have a lot of that as the first legal hire in.
00:16:25
Speaker
And also, you know when you're at the very early stage of a company, which I also see even more now, the focus is keeping the company alive, right? And it's um closing sales, getting some momentum.
00:16:39
Speaker
You're not running a compliance organization. You're not trying to tick every box, right? you're um Of course, you're trying to do the right thing, but you know the structures that you have in place ah you know A 10 million AR business are different than the ones that you have at a 50 or 100 or about to go in public.
00:16:58
Speaker
And in the same way, you know when you're in that sort
Sabbatical and Personal Growth
00:17:01
Speaker
of one to 10 range when you start, um ah when usually they hire their first lawyer unless they're regulated, um it's it's just ah chaos in some ways, right?
00:17:13
Speaker
What lessons that you drew from your time there or maybe getting them a little bit away from chaos as they basically 10x in size yeah over the course of your tenure?
00:17:26
Speaker
Yeah, so while I was there, they went from, as you mentioned, from 80 people to 800 people. think one of the first things that I did ah in the first two weeks, it was, right, we're opening up a new office in London, do all the incorporation and sort it all out. so um One thing is, ah at the very beginning, if you're joining one of these smaller outfits as the the first lawyer, it's a moving train and you kind of have to run up and speed alongside of it and join it. Right. In the sense that, um, you can't just jump in and expect to make a lot of change. Right. So, uh, I didn't want to disrupt the quarter. I kept on with their negotiation processes.
00:18:13
Speaker
um They had a ah contract at the time that wasn't um easy to negotiate in the US, but we kept at it because it's the one that they had. And then we looked,
Venturing into Web3
00:18:26
Speaker
listened, I really heard from the team about where the pain points were and then tried to create something that was more global to go on forward. Right.
00:18:35
Speaker
um At the very beginning, you have to really get stuck in So, you know, when we opened the first, rented the first office, I found that office here in Amsterdam.
00:18:48
Speaker
I ordered the IKEA furniture. i helped build the IKEA furniture. you know, you kind of have to really dive in and ah into anything almost.
00:19:00
Speaker
um Because, again, is fast-moving train, right? ah But at the same time, you can't lose focus of what the core of your job is, right? i should have had better tools to either take care of myself or um to kind of handle the work in the right way so that reducing my own personal stress.
00:19:23
Speaker
Let's talk about that more. I feel like that's the sort of thing that... Not many people want to talk about even if they're experiencing it. Yeah. um I don't know. In retrospect, like what are some of the signs that you should have seen that you were over overworking? I'm not going to say overworking or yeah or using it as, you know.
00:19:44
Speaker
mean We all go through struggles in life and you can lean into exercise or you can lean into work or you can, you know i don't know, go on vacation and think that's going to – there's lots of coping mechanisms that folks have. um Yeah, what are some of the – and in retrospect, like now, are there are there different things that you do or do you approach your work in a very different way than than you might have at the time?
00:20:05
Speaker
Yeah, so ah there's definitely a lot of coping mechanisms that I was used using at the time and like just really and some ways using work as a distraction or an excuse. um But what I've kind of...
00:20:20
Speaker
trying to reframe ah for how I move forward. I just, I really realized when I need for me personally, I need downtime. um So just really being protective of that and not letting it encroach, I need to go and do some exercise regularly. Right. yeah um And if I don't do
Entrepreneurial Journey
00:20:40
Speaker
that, i just my performance is a lot lower anyway ah in terms of work. So it's kind of it's counterproductive not to do it. And it's just really hit me in the face for that.
00:20:51
Speaker
And then all the usual things like sleep, nutrition, sure ah ah those those kinds of things definitely help. yeah Do you feel like an exec team needs to set the right sort of culture around that or needs to create the space for employees to take care of themselves?
00:21:13
Speaker
Yeah, you have to have that culture. And i ah I hope that I built that in the team. So the legal team, i had 10 people in the team when I left.
00:21:24
Speaker
And I hope they felt that I really tried to have that for them. um In the GC role, it's difficult because you're an umbrella for the team, for the rest of the organization, right?
00:21:39
Speaker
And there's stuff that your team simply can't pick up, right? It's either because it's very sensitive or it's just not their skill set or it would divert them from some other important initiative that you have.
00:21:55
Speaker
And so you can really be this collection point for a lot, both from the top and the bottom. And ah that doesn't mean that you can't rely on the team, but you shouldn't push it down to them in an unhealthy way either. um Here in Europe, you know, the balance is very different in a lot of ways, right?
00:22:17
Speaker
So the salaries are lower than they are typically in the US, um but the expectations on work are also different, right? So you're not generally, you know, broadly speaking, Even in legal, though, here it is more overworked than most jobs. like you still you get You start out with 25 days holiday plus public holiday a year. You're expected to take the holiday.
00:22:43
Speaker
People do take the holiday. You know you you can really time box it um in And all all that stuff can help. As a manager... the key thing is to really look out for the signs within your team, making sure that they take a break, make sure they appreciate the rhythm of the business as well.
00:23:02
Speaker
um So if you
Nonprofit Involvement
00:23:04
Speaker
for commercial council teams, that they realize they're going to be very busy at the end of a quarter. There is no changing the hockey stick, right?
00:23:13
Speaker
But that at the beginning of a quarter, Right. When everything is kind of dropped off again, that's a really good time to really take it easy at work. Right. And you have to build in that rhythm and not just pile on all the other things that didn't get done. Right. And to that space. Right.
00:23:31
Speaker
and not feel bad about maybe you know going from 80 hours a week down to 35. thirty five Exactly. Right? um You do have that sort of ah dual perspective, I think, on what work culture, culture around sort of a regulatory environment, business culture is in the US and and in Europe.
00:23:55
Speaker
And I'm curious to hear sort of like both perspectives here, which is, you know I talked to a lot of folks were thinking about expanding into Europe. Anything that ah you think that American companies should know if they're going to come here? And then I'm also kind of curious for the vice versa, right? like Things that you feel like European businesses don't really understand about doing business ah in the in the u s Yeah.
00:24:22
Speaker
um So in a way, my entire career, my entire career has been in Europe really after I got my law license. And ah
Work-Family Balance
00:24:35
Speaker
most of it has been translating American into European and vice versa. yeah um And, you know, on the, for American companies, broadly North America, ah trying to expand into Europe,
00:24:49
Speaker
For continental Europe, you know there the civil law system, the way that it works, just as a ah broad sort of legal cultural perspective is is different for, at least for the legal frameworks, right? um Then ah it's a patchwork, right? Like there is, ah and I think the other side is true and that European companies don't necessarily realize how much a patchwork, depending on what they're doing.
Supporting Employees with Personal Challenges
00:25:21
Speaker
The United States can be. Sure, state laws. Yeah. Yeah. um Or even just like, you know, the different approach to ah work that might happen between different parts of the U.S. or to business or how much people in one part might appreciate in-person conversations versus other.
00:25:41
Speaker
You know, just doing things over the phone. Totally. um But yeah, the classic things that trip up American companies in Europe, of course, are ah civil law notaries. So it's a ah legal profession par with um just being a lawyer. Similar to in the UK, you have solicitors and barristers and legal executives, etc.
00:26:05
Speaker
And ah they're the gatekeepers for a lot of corporate stuff. And in some countries like Germany, there's a lot of formalities when you have to go to these civil law notaries.
00:26:18
Speaker
And it can be expensive. it can be time consuming. It can involve a lot of in-person stuff. um So that's definitely something that's new. And then employment law, right? Like employment law is very different in Europe um because the the whole structure is different.
00:26:33
Speaker
um And that's usually something that um American companies and even very experienced managers, people managers, when they're
Personal Insights and Advice to Young Lawyers
00:26:43
Speaker
managing teams in Europe, they can really trip themselves up over both both the law and the culture, right?
00:26:50
Speaker
I think it was on your blog that I was looking at. um i thought there was sort of an interesting post about not just ah thinking about growing a business internationally or growing a business into Europe, but also sort of growing a business within Europe being a real challenge.
00:27:08
Speaker
Yes. um Yeah, I mean, and I think when most American companies think about coming to Europe, they say, we're going to Europe. um Or maybe they pick one country. They're like, we're going to you know yeah London and also Germany or something. Right.
00:27:23
Speaker
But they're not necessarily thinking about that sort of patchwork across Europe. Would you agree with that? And what have you drawn from your experience actually sort of successfully building up staff base across Europe?
00:27:38
Speaker
across here Yeah, so um I, well, one thing like the new generation of PEOs or EORs or things like that, um yeah I haven't had a lot of experience with them at scale myself, but ah i I think in general that's pretty exciting for being able, in terms of just people, like if you need to employ people in different jurisdictions.
00:28:06
Speaker
um The other lawyerly answer is, of course, it depends, right? ah Because if you're shipping physical products, it may make a real difference. you know you Do you want to be where you are importing?
00:28:17
Speaker
and What your corporate structure is in terms of looking at um taxes and which one is the best fit for you? if you're in Europe and ah you you have a strategy that you need an entity in different countries, right?
00:28:36
Speaker
then, ah yeah every country is different. um And some of them are, it's a long slog to get an entity stood up, right? Like it's a lot of formalities that a lot of people will be really surprised with.
00:28:52
Speaker
um It can take a lot of time to do things. And there are a lot of trip ups there. um And then, you know, kind of one of the things with this EU Inc. petition that's going around about trying to simplify a lot of the that side of startups in Europe. um This is definitely the American in me looking at the system here.
00:29:16
Speaker
Like ESOP plans, you know, they're different in every country. And ah so there's some countries where you may be taxed at the time of grant.
00:29:27
Speaker
ah And so then it just doesn't make sense to grant employees ESOP. Because it's a tax penalty for them right away. yeah'll feel um So it's just some consistency there. like if you really want If we really want an employee ownership culture and ESOP culture in Europe, then you have to build that out in some way and not have it just specific to one country. Because...
00:29:53
Speaker
they're not going to have employees, especially in the tech sector, just in one country in Europe. Right. As you reflect on your sort of time at StaffBase, things that you were most proud of having accomplished.
00:30:06
Speaker
Yeah. um The financing rounds that we, ah in terms of professional accomplishment, uh, there was one year where we did the, uh, basically completed an acquisition and a financing round at the same time. Right. Wow.
00:30:21
Speaker
Uh, uh, it was an extremely busy month. Um, but we got it all done and it was a very, very exciting, um, in terms of both relatively new things for me, I had done, uh, some financing and some smaller M and a, but it was a sizable acquisition and, uh, yeah.
00:30:42
Speaker
Uh, sort of mix professionally and then personally. ah at that same time, um the team that I had really stepped up to take care of everything so that I could devote all my time to it.
00:30:54
Speaker
And that was really nice to see as well. I'm like super thankful for them. Yeah. um Yeah, on a personal level, I did make some great friends. um And just that seeing that journey is incredible. Like from, you know, a small startup in Chemnitz, which ah most everybody won't have heard of in East Germany, ah to becoming, I think, theyre like the 22nd German unicorn or something like that.
00:31:27
Speaker
Yeah, um yeah that that journey through the growth and everything and seeing the company change is really fantastic to see. um you left before, like relatively close to before they were getting ready to go public and and do an IPO.
00:31:47
Speaker
um Curious how like that experience of stepping back at that moment, like what that taught you about yourself and what stages of a company life cycle you like working during. um Also, you know, I think leaving a place gracefully is,
00:32:06
Speaker
and Not always the easiest thing to do because we don't always get tons of practice at it. Right. um So ah things you tried to do to make sure that that like handoff was really smooth.
00:32:17
Speaker
Yeah, so um a lot of people would be familiar with that conversation around the board or an exec saying, we want a GC that's taken a company public before. Totally. Right? To be the GC.
00:32:36
Speaker
um And that was essentially the conversation that started to happen after the Series E. Yeah. Yeah. And I actually had told ah one of the co-founders who was my boss ah that I reported into the whole time, um when they hired me, that this might happen.
00:32:58
Speaker
um And I said, look, it's a personal relationship really at the end of the day, being the general counsel. If you don't think I'm a fit anymore, just come and talk to me and we'll figure out a way forward. like you know it's um It's part of, I think, the really at the end of the day, the professional ethics and responsibility as being a lawyer. like If your client doesn't want you anymore, then you figure out a way forward.
00:33:27
Speaker
Yeah. um And yeah, he at the time when I told him that, he said, it's never going to happen. And then it happened. And then we just kind of came up with a plan.
00:33:40
Speaker
um At that same time, I had already booked to go to, ah as it then was, TechGC, now the L Suite, yeah their IPO conference. um So I did go to that and that same autumn while we were...
00:33:55
Speaker
discussing about me leaving and doing the transition plan. And I realized that somewhere in the back of my mind, I was really wanting to do IPO because I thought that's the next feather in the cap of typical lawyer, you know type a achiever yeah sort of behavior. And I went to the conference and it was great conference.
00:34:18
Speaker
I learned that I don't ever want to do an IPO. Mainly because I don't want to be a public company GC. it's not It's just not for me. just ah i like the earlier stages. i like the scaling, the growing.
00:34:31
Speaker
um I like private companies. ah the kind of As I see it, the more politics involved, the reporting, that kind of environment is just not my environment. And it's really...
00:34:48
Speaker
I think at the end of the day, a lot of public company GCs, it's more corporate law. And that's not my background and expertise. Like I'm a i'm a tech lawyer, right? um It would have to be pretty unique company to want to have a tech lawyer as their GC after going public.
00:35:06
Speaker
um So yeah, and then through that process, ah I was lucky enough to have the opportunity and the time to really try to transition things.
00:35:19
Speaker
So I made sure that everything was documented as much as possible. So I'm always very big on trying to document things, but I really went back through. i made sure all the files were organized.
00:35:31
Speaker
I even did a handover note for my successor, um those kinds of things. um Yeah. Why did you decide to take a sabbatical? after you yeah stepped away from the role?
00:35:43
Speaker
Well, I was like, here's an opportunity to take a little bit of a break, right? see ah The break ended ended up being a year. And I was like, it's been a long time since I've had this kind of break. I just had realized that I went straight from one job to the other. um i think maybe one time I took a one-week break between jobs in like 20 years or something.
00:36:10
Speaker
And I was like, it's time. And then it took me about six weeks to realize that it really was a good idea that I took the break. And it took me about six months to really feel like a human again, to really feel, i think, like myself.
00:36:25
Speaker
um So I'm very thankful that I was able to do that. What motivated you to start to learn about Web3 or how did how did that come up? Because I talk to people who seem to go deep, really, like they go down a rabbit hole and they go deep really fast. Is that what happened to you? Did this happen just somewhat organically? Yeah.
00:36:47
Speaker
Yeah, it's been organic for me. So I've followed it a bit. um ah I always have loved researching things, but um particularly ah being a GC and then my roles before that, I just didn't feel like i had the time to dive deep into it.
00:37:07
Speaker
Sure. ah And then with taking the break, ah my co-founder for the startup is actually my neighbor. That's how I met. i And he's had a he had a business in the Web3 space.
00:37:21
Speaker
He had exited it. It was more in the sort of about data, of course, and then around analytics of Web3 in terms of what's happening, report building and things like that.
00:37:35
Speaker
um And he found out about my past work with Open Data Commons and on Open Data. And he was like, hey, there might be something here. So we started talking and it was a thing. And then I was like, okay, that's cool. i Got really interested. in So then I started um going deeper and deeper into it.
00:37:54
Speaker
um Yeah. And I definitely have a lot to learn this space, but um you know I'm catching up. And there's a lot of it is, I don't know, my current thinking Web3 is kind of just the open source stuff.
00:38:11
Speaker
In terms of the culture, it's a lot of the open source conferences and the the vibes from a while ago that's just kind of been evolving since.
00:38:23
Speaker
And can you explain, I mean, I tried in the outset to use some of your language around what the grid does, but you'll explain it better than me, what the what the product is and what you're hoping to build. Yeah.
00:38:34
Speaker
Yeah, so ah we're live with our data right now. We're in ah essentially like a beta testing phase. But in broadly speaking, within blockchain and Web3, there's a lot of ah companies that will give you pricing data. So how much a thing costs.
00:38:54
Speaker
and sure And there's ah transactional data and analytics because it's a public permissionless blockchain. So you can see where it went. ah But there's nobody really answering the question, what is this thing?
00:39:07
Speaker
ah So if you think about all the the dApps, the decentralized applications that are in Web3 and things like that. ah there's not any structured data provider that gives you answers to that kind of metadata question. um Like what is the thing that, um what is it they're doing?
00:39:28
Speaker
who are they as a company? um So not ah personal data, but rather company data. sure And there's a lot of interesting possibilities with that. Interesting.
00:39:39
Speaker
um Has the entrepreneurial journey been what you expected, harder than you expected? yeah um I knew it was going to have fun, but I guess I didn't expect to have this much fun.
00:39:55
Speaker
um Yeah, it's been ah it's been really interesting. So ah way back at the beginning of my career, I knew I wanted to stay in Scotland after I did this exchange program.
00:40:08
Speaker
There wasn't a lot of jobs for a freshly qualified U.S. Texas attorney. um And so I had ah the good fortune to work for the university. And then one of those clients ah at the university or one of the projects that we were on ah needed some extra work. And so I formed a consultancy. So I had been doing some cul consulting kind of on my own and then with another group of consultants like early in my career. Mm-hmm.
00:40:36
Speaker
um But that's fundamentally different than building a tech business, right? But the parts about trying to um figure out what you're going work on every day, plan ahead so that you have money coming in the door, that kind of stuff, ah were all skills that you see other people doing in-house.
00:40:58
Speaker
And that I had done a lot a little bit like a while ago, but to really kind of get going on it, um yeah it it's challenging for me i did a lot of research i read a lot of books um you know all the startup uh books zero to one yeah the lean startup like all this stuff hard thing about hard things yes yeah um So yeah, read those or I do ah these Blinkist. I'm a big Blinkist user, which is like... ah What is that? It's like 10 to 20 minute summaries of ah books.
00:41:35
Speaker
I find it particularly good. It's like a It's like a mini podcast, but it's a a book summarized into 10 or 20 minutes. Interesting. And let's face it, a lot of business books have a lot of fluff.
00:41:48
Speaker
um And you can boil it down to an idea within 10 or 20 minutes. And I use it for a lot of ah business books. So I listen to ah one every morning when I get ready because it's like 10 minutes. Oh, that's great. Yeah.
00:42:02
Speaker
I might have to try that. I like that a lot. yeah And now I'm thinking, have you heard of these AI podcasts, which I hope won't replace something like this? I don't think it can replace something like this, but that seems like a perfect application for that.
00:42:16
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, I think they have started using AI to do the voiceover because you can read the summary or you can listen to it. Yeah.
00:42:28
Speaker
i mean you're the You talked about building IKEA furniture earlier in your career, it opening an office, yeah but your role just isn't legal within the grid, right? Correct. You're doing ops.
00:42:39
Speaker
I'm sure that you're in market talking to customers as well. um you know Is this something that you presumably were like really excited about and you said, hey, I really want this as a part of this role and this business that we're going to build together with your co-founder?
00:42:55
Speaker
Yeah, so my um my co-founder is amazing. ah And he's a real visionary. So if I really look at the core of what my job is, my job is to get as much off his plate right now as possible so that he can be amazing. um Because if you think about, like, um for us, like him being out in the market or driving the product and things like that.
00:43:21
Speaker
So what that means for me is... ah I don't do the bookkeeping myself. We have a bookkeeper, but I like that head of finance role in that I make sure people's salaries are paid.
00:43:33
Speaker
I do all the invoicing in terms of making sure that the invoices come in and that they're sorted, all the planning and the budgeting. So, you know, it's nice to be on the other side of the table setting the legal budget. Right.
00:43:48
Speaker
And then, you know, kind of beyond that for the operations, for the business, um, I'd set in on a lot of sales calls and I'd learned a lot from sales over the years for supporting sales teams, which I'm really thankful for.
00:44:05
Speaker
And yeah, trying to put it to use um myself, ah you know, of course, gives me a new perspective on all the sales humans out there and why they were chasing me so much for of those years. Yeah.
00:44:20
Speaker
It sounds like it's fun. Yeah. Do you feel ah different sense of responsibility, though, with it being your business, investors who have come and invested in something that you're building? I mean, you even talk about paying the salaries. right i mean, I've never run a business myself that I've started. Right. But. um paying people salaries on time is actually really important for them, even if it's just one of those things that you think should happen in the background. So I'm curious about that sort of mindset change too.
00:44:51
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, um that's an interesting question. I think. I'm not trying to put pressure on you, by the and say you should feel the weight of it. Yeah. No, I feel the weight of it because I i very much understand the importance of ah people getting paid on time. Yeah.
00:45:07
Speaker
for some of them getting paid even a little bit early, right? um In terms of the, I don't know, the exact invoice due date. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm ah happy to to to work with them on that.
00:45:21
Speaker
um Yeah, I definitely feel the responsibility. i mean, i and I'm aware of ah of those things. But in terms of the stress,
00:45:33
Speaker
For me, because you get so many stressful moments as a lawyer, particularly if you end up, ah as I'm sure any GC that's listening will have done with employment law issues, right?
00:45:48
Speaker
Like ah you when you're in the middle of and ah serious employment law issues, it has serious consequences, right? Potentially for lots of different people. And, um you know, i take the responsibility for sure for um ah towards the investors and everything else. But and to the employees, of course, but the um the weight is ah different. Right. Yeah.
00:46:17
Speaker
Okay, a different sort of question or no area to explore. um You've also stood up a nonprofit that called A Different Story.
00:46:27
Speaker
ah but Why don't you just tell us about that? Tell us about why you started it, um what it does. Yeah, so I can't take too much credit for it because it is my ex-partner's and the mother of my son.
00:46:41
Speaker
It's it's ah really her vision and initiative. um I'm very proud to have helped along the way and still be part of the board. um So I have a son that has an ultra-rare genetic condition. It's a mutation on the TRIP12 gene.
00:46:58
Speaker
And we went through, ah as parents, um many ups and downs along the the journey, but particularly around the diagnostic pathway for getting a genetic condition like this diagnosed because it's so rare.
00:47:17
Speaker
um It's not, um you know, there's not an immediate test. You have to get to the point of essentially full genome sequencing. And being expats, being foreigners essentially in Amsterdam and navigating that process as well, the ah real challenge is like navigating the system.
00:47:39
Speaker
But one of the things that we really discovered in navigating that system in terms of looking for schools, benefits, um you know the rights for uh us as parents of a disabled uh a children a child with a disability and um our child uh it's hard for the locals to navigate it's not an easy system yeah right uh and so what we wanted to do is
00:48:11
Speaker
um form something that can help other parents go through this process and access the resources that they need. So there was a real gap in terms of there are a lot of great foundations and charities in the Netherlands doing tons of great work.
00:48:31
Speaker
um A lot of them are really focused on either ah particular disease or condition or solving a particular problem. And kind of where we're hoping to sit is like a glue to um show people what's possible and connect them into it.
00:48:51
Speaker
we're sort of like the intake part of the getting the help that you need. what does ah What does the condition, like, what does it mean on, like, a day-to-day sort of basis? Or or how does the the disability manifest? um Because I also want to ask you a little bit about, you know,
00:49:12
Speaker
balancing like family life, yeah balancing life with a partner, and then your work is hard enough, and then you add children, and like that's also very challenging. And then you add a child with a disability, and that's, I would imagine, I don't know from any experience, more challenging.
00:49:27
Speaker
Yeah. yeah Yeah, you know, I get that question sometimes and I used to answer it with like kind of listing the things on the the medical condition page. But really, my son, his name's Iggy. yeah Iggy is not his disease. He's like, and really just take ah meeting him for about 10 or 15 minutes and you'd see how amazing he is as a person.
00:49:52
Speaker
yeah um and ah But, of course, it's had its own challenges for him and for us as his parents. um Balancing it, as I said earlier, I did not do a very good job. So I put...
00:50:08
Speaker
ah him first, which sounds great. Um, but at the end of the day, you really have to take care of yourself enough to be able to take care of other people. Right.
00:50:22
Speaker
And, uh, it's the same between trying to balance that between work and home life. It does get very busy. one of the things that, um, both being a parent and being a parent of Iggy in particular,
00:50:37
Speaker
um It has forced me on many occasions just to put the phone down, shut the laptop away and just really be present and ah be outside of work. Right. um And that that part is ah really great um in terms of just thinking of that work life balance. Like there's no multitasking and all the rest. Some of the time, like you just, you have to really be in the moment at that time.
00:51:07
Speaker
Yeah. Maybe one last question on that. you can tell me if this is a good question or a good way to put it. um having Having experienced this for however many, a decade or however many years you said, um yeah if you were a boss yeah to someone else who had a child with a disability, um what are some things that you would do or what are some ways that you would try to support them?
00:51:34
Speaker
Yeah. So I focus on but personally for people that I care about or that I manage. um I try to focus on like doing things and trying to find solutions, which is not always what everybody else wants. Yeah. um But really, you know, at the end of the day, just.
00:51:57
Speaker
Take the time that you need to take care of yourself. And um four if I rewind to just being in a B2B test business, right um it's not criminal law that we're doing. like Nobody's going to die at the end of the day. it's not We're not doctors. We're not surgeons in this sense.
00:52:24
Speaker
um Like if you are having a bad day and you need to take the afternoon off or um you know you can take that little bit of extra space, then do it, right? like And i for anybody through any life situation, um you know particularly in the team, like if they're having a really bad day, just take the rest of the day off or take the break, take the time that you need.
00:52:52
Speaker
Yeah. You know, some people prefer to work through um ah trying times, right? Because it gives them a sense of stability and normalcy. um And that's OK, too.
00:53:03
Speaker
Right? Actually, second, well, yeah That was the second to last question because the last question really should be if people want to learn more about a different story, how should they find out or how should they get involved?
00:53:16
Speaker
Yes. So for a different story, it's a different story dot NL is our site. I mean, we're focused here on the the Netherlands. It's very community driven, and particularly in Amsterdam. But we have online support groups that even people in throughout the rest of Europe are joining.
00:53:36
Speaker
um and yeah Cool. um I've got some traditional closing questions that I like to ask my guests that I want to ask you. ah The first one would be your favorite part of your day-to-day.
00:53:51
Speaker
Yeah. So the favorite part of my day to day in terms of work, I usually try to carve out quiet time, meeting free time in the morning. And it's just like, yeah it's also the time I'm the most productive, which is like just getting stuck in and ah actually doing something, not sorting email or catching up on Slack messages, but, you know, solving a real problem.
00:54:16
Speaker
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Do you have a professional pet peeve? ah Yes, I do. And if any of my former team are listening or former colleagues, they'll know exactly what it is. It's legalese.
00:54:29
Speaker
I cannot stand... overly complicated ah legal drafting. um Shall being the number one word that I dislike.
00:54:40
Speaker
ah That's a good answer. I like that answer. I've instituted a legal style guide at every place I've ever worked. so Do you take it with you from place to place? Yes. yeah Can people write you if they want to have you open source that?
00:54:53
Speaker
um I don't know I've put it up, but I will after the show yeah for sure. Check out the blog. Yeah. um Do you have a book ah that you would recommend? This does not have to be a business book, but a book that you would recommend to folks who are listening that you've enjoyed?
00:55:09
Speaker
ah Yeah, well, the most recent book that I've finished, I have a lot of books that have kind of half started. Oh, you and me both. Yeah. um is A History of Cruising by Alex S. Espinosa.
00:55:24
Speaker
I picked it up at the City Lights bookshop in San Francisco, and I really it. That's a good bookstore. I've been there. Yeah. Interesting. um Okay. Last question for you.
00:55:36
Speaker
ah Traditional closing question for my guests. It's if you could look back on your days as a young lawyer just getting started, maybe in Austin. Yeah. Something that you know now that you wish that you'd known back then.
00:55:52
Speaker
This kind of stumps me a little bit um because ah i reflect on like where I was then and I probably was way too sure of myself for sure. ah And ah ah probably a little too pushy on things.
00:56:09
Speaker
um But, you know, in the end, it's kind of all worked out. ah The thing that probably took me a while to realize about being a practicing lawyer is ah particularly for in-house and the kind of work I do in-house.
00:56:26
Speaker
It's about connecting the dots between things and ah you know making sure the left hand knows what the right hand's doing within an organization and um just really listening and understanding to people.
00:56:41
Speaker
It's that part of it that I think makes you a better and more sympathetic lawyer. it's not um Of course, you have to have the legal skills. You have to know how to write without legalese.
00:56:52
Speaker
ah those kinds of things. But just really understanding the people side of it is really key to, I think, being um what I would call at least a good lawyer.
00:57:03
Speaker
You don't seem stumped at all. yeah Jordan, thank you so much for coming me coming with me and and doing this episode here in Amsterdam. Really fun.
00:57:14
Speaker
Thanks. And to all of our listeners, thanks so much for tuning into this episode of The Abstract. Thank you. And we hope to see you next time.