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Ep 87: Building a Culture of Integrity with Rob Chestnut, former Airbnb Chief Ethics Officer
53 Plays1 day ago
What role does integrity need to play in your company's culture? How can legal teams and corporate leaders foster it? And where do you get started if you want to write a book on it?
Join Rob Chesnut, author of Intentional Integrity: How Smart Companies Can Lead an Ethical Revolution, as he discusses his path from prosecutor at the Department of Justice to tech industry legal leader at eBay, Chegg, and Airbnb, and how integrity and ethics became the cornerstone of both his career and his personal philosophy.
Listen as Rob discusses scaling global legal teams for some of the biggest disruptors in the world, embedding integrity into your company’s corporate culture, transitioning from general counsel to author and thought leader, and much more.
Read detailed summary: https://www.spotdraft.com/podcast/episode-87
Topics
Introduction: 0:00
Transitioning from prosecutor to tech counsel: 2:12
Joining eBay in the early years: 4:13
Building eBay’s trust and safety functions: 5:01
Making the leap to general counsel: 7:21
Reflecting on mentorship: 9:13
Knowing when to move on to new opportunities: 13:13
Leading legal at Airbnb: 15:50
Signature interview questions: 20:56
Developing the “Chief Ethics Officer” role: 23:04
Writing Intentional Integrity: 32:10
How a company can start their integrity program: 34:31
The changing integrity landscape: 41:13
How to contact Rob: 42:50
Rapid-fire questions: 44:07
Connect with us:
Rob Chesnut - https://www.linkedin.com/in/robchesnut/
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.
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Transcript
Trust and Safety as a Math Problem
00:00:00
Speaker
What I learned early on was that trust and safety is a math problem. It's about ah gathering all the data about all the transactions and defining the good ones and the bad ones.
00:00:12
Speaker
We're going to take all the good transactions, we're going to them this pile. We're going to all the ones that went wrong for what reasons, and we're going to code the different reasons, and then we're going speak. How do the good ones look different than the bad ones?
00:00:25
Speaker
And then we're going to build models to help us recognize those patterns and then iterate on models. And so it was ah it was a fascinating learning experience really for me because I wasn't a math person.
00:00:39
Speaker
But what was able to do was I was able to draw on an incredible pool of talent at eBay.
Introduction to Rob Chestnut and Integrity in Culture
00:00:50
Speaker
What role does integrity need to play in your company's culture? How can legal teams and corporate leaders foster it? And where do you get started if you want to write a book on it?
00:01:03
Speaker
Today, we are joined on the abstract by Rob Chestnut, author of Intentional Integrity, How Smart Companies Can Lead an Ethical Revolution. Rob has a little bit of a leg to stand on here. he was previously the chief ethics officer and before that, the general counsel of Airbnb, where he grew the legal team from 30 to over 150 legal professionals all around the globe.
00:01:30
Speaker
He was also the first legal hire and general counsel at Chegg, where he helped lead them through their IPO. And earlier in his career, he was the third legal hire at and leader leader of eBay's North American legal team, where he founded their trust and safety org.
00:01:47
Speaker
Earlier in his career, Rob was in a USA in the Eastern District of Virginia. And this is pretty interesting. I don't know if you've been asked about this on many podcasts. We handled the prosecution of ah folks in the intelligence community around espionage, including Aldrich Ames.
00:02:05
Speaker
Rob, thanks so much for joining me for this episode of The Abstract.
Career Transition to Tech Industry
00:02:10
Speaker
It's Tyler. Thanks for having Okay, I mean, let's let's actually go back to like that time when you were working at DOJ and and in the, you know, in the the Eastern District's office of DOJ, um prosecuting some of these espionage cases.
00:02:26
Speaker
i mean, that seems to me like a fast track to being general counsel of the FBI or CIA or NSA or something like that. um Why did you decide to transition to the Bay Area at a certain point and and and make that move into tech? Being a prosecutor is a hard work emotionally.
00:02:49
Speaker
It's the people that you prosecute are going away for the rest of their life. Sure. You see the families in the courtroom. It's sad. And you it's important work.
00:03:03
Speaker
But after a while, you know, I did. and over a hundred bank robberies and drug dealers, armored car robbers and all that as well as the S-Mobile. Wow. And I think it wears on you a little emotionally. you want to do something possible.
00:03:17
Speaker
You want to feel as though you're not sort of coming in at the very end of of a troubled life. You want to feel like you're bringing people's lives up and helping.
00:03:30
Speaker
So I always liked business. I was the kind person that walked into a store and wondered why they had a display game. Why they price things this way?
00:03:41
Speaker
So I thought that business was a really great opportunity to have a positive impact on a lot of different people's lives and therefore decided i was going to try to make the transition.
Building Trust and Safety at eBay
00:03:53
Speaker
from being a prosecutor to go to the business world. You the problem I found when I started shopping my resume around is that the businesses looked at me and said, hey, Rob, you're a really good prosecutor, but you know, prosecuting people.
00:04:07
Speaker
It took a little selling and a little creativity to help show how I could bring value to a business environment. And you mean you were early at eBay. Where was eBay in its journey when you when you joined? And how much did it grow while you were there?
00:04:22
Speaker
Well, I was employee 107. Oh, wow. Now's when I left. So it grew like crazy. We were on. I remember when I started, we were at one building on like two and a half floors of one building.
00:04:35
Speaker
Uh huh. Small group of folks, but it was fun. Yeah, it was. yeah We were changing the world. Yeah. and And doing it a positive way. And i felt like I was you know enabling commerce.
00:04:47
Speaker
Among strangers yeah connect across the world or around common passions. yeah It was it was exactly what I was looking for when I was a federal prosecutor and feeling like I wasn't doing anything positive.
00:05:02
Speaker
You ended up, as i as I mentioned in the intro, standing up the trust and safety function there and and running that. I mean, number one, doesn't sound like there were a whole, there wasn't a whole lot of that happening at tech companies yet at the time. Like you were standing up one of the sort of first trust and safety orgs that was out there. Yeah. I'm wondering what you drew on to to think about sort of like, what are our principles? How are we going to design this? How are we going to build this culture of compliance or trust into the org?
00:05:32
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, let's start there. I'm really curious about that. I mean, that's really building something, right? Yeah. Trust and safety. we We actually, there were three of us sitting in a room and we came up with the phrase trust and safety is the name of the department. So I think this whole but this whole world of trust and safety that all the companies have now, I think it started with three of us in a room at eBay in the early days.
00:05:54
Speaker
And you're right. When Meg Whitman came to me and asked me to do it, and I looked at her and said, I'm a lawyer. i Yeah, but I think you you can figure it out and we'll give you ah we'll give you the people you need and we'll give you an unlimited budget, which I then... That's
Career Path Insights and Opportunities
00:06:10
Speaker
pretty good.
00:06:14
Speaker
and i what I learned early on was that trust and safety is a math problem. It's about ah gathering all the data about all the transactions. and ah defining the good ones and the bad ones.
00:06:28
Speaker
We're going to take all the good transactions put them in the spot. going to take all the ones that went wrong for what reasons, and we're gonna come we're going to code the different reasons, and then we're going to see how do the good ones look different than the bad ones, and then we're going to build models to help us recognize those patterns and then iterate on the models.
00:06:49
Speaker
And so it was ah it was a fascinating learning experience really for me because I wasn't a math person. But right what was able to do was I was able to draw on an incredible pool of talent at eBay.
00:07:02
Speaker
ah There were a lot of really smart people and we built a great team of data analytics folks. And people that really just enjoyed working in an open kind of creative environment, we were we were the first ones building something. you know they were There were no third-party companies that offered tools. We had to build our own. And that was a great ah it was a great environment to work Was there a point in time at eBay where you started to think, hey, I'd love to be a GC of a company someday, or this is going to be an important step for me in my career? Or do you feel like that happened more organically?
00:07:39
Speaker
I thought I might want to look whenever you're a lawyer, everybody kind of looks at the career path. So you either want to be a partner you would be a general counsel. And I ah think i you know, of course it crossed my mind.
00:07:51
Speaker
We had a great general counsel at eBay. His name was Mike Jacobs. And it was very clear. Mike wasn't going to leave anytime soon. If I was going to be a general counsel, I do. I'd have to go elsewhere, which is, know, which is great.
00:08:04
Speaker
And also our great friends to this day, we're, we're having lunch this week together. Yeah. And he taught me a lot. So but the trust the trust and safety job, you sometimes careers aren't a ladder. They're a jungle job.
00:08:19
Speaker
And you they go in different directions. And if you if you had your eyes just fixated on what you see is the next rung of the ladder, you may miss a really cool opportunity. hmm.
00:08:31
Speaker
Ultimately, what I did in the area of trust and safety got me into the know the executive suite and and gave me training that I never would have had if I had just been a pure lawyer during that period.
00:08:42
Speaker
And it actually advanced my career quite a bit. So, you know, my lesson from all of it is be open minded. Don't. don't have Don't be fixated on know what you think is the career, ah the next
Learning from Diverse Experiences
00:08:54
Speaker
step.
00:08:54
Speaker
Be open to different paths because often the the ah the different path, the side path, can actually get you more experience, can diversify your background and open your career more than if you're just slogging it out waiting for the person ahead of you to retire.
00:09:12
Speaker
Yeah. I'm curious if during this time frame, there were any mentors that you had that were important in helping shape your view around this.
00:09:25
Speaker
And also, if you know if those were maybe the same mentors you had back when you were in government as a prosecutor, or if you... as you moved into the private sector and started to think more about corporate law, if you felt like you had to make new ones, right? It's not to say that the the national security partner at the law firm isn't going to give great advice, but it's probably thinking about things through a slightly different lens, maybe than someone who's going to mentor you in the Bay.
00:09:48
Speaker
I look at the phrase mentor a little differently than most people. so Mentors for me or yeah everybody I work with is a mentor in a way, you know, junior know that they may be junior to me, know, on an org chart.
00:10:02
Speaker
I'm always curious and trying to learn from everybody that I work with. So um there are, yeah literally hundreds of mentors for me um the in the sense that there are hundreds of people that taught me things I didn't know should it be a different way to do things or approach a problem that I never would have come up with on my own?
00:10:27
Speaker
I mean, they're natural. I know i mentioned Mike Jacobson as a general counsel. There was Maynard Webb, who was the COO of eBay. or Dan Rhodes, CEO at Shegg. so A lot of people who were my bosses who taught me a lot, and I'm very grateful to them, but I'm also really grateful to people that worked ah in departments for me in that sense, or people who worked in other departments cross-functionally.
00:10:51
Speaker
You learn from everybody.
Influence of Innovative CEOs
00:10:53
Speaker
Yeah. and and And I think if you're not learned if you're not open to learning from a lot of different people, regardless of what their title is, you're missing opportunities.
00:11:02
Speaker
Yeah. Just an observation, I guess, there. I feel like a lot of the, we'll say product people or founders that I've had the chance to work with, they've changed my sort of perspective on what it means to lean in and create something from scratch, right? Or outline a vision. I guess I'm curious how maybe some of the CEOs that you've had a chance to work with, a lot of whom are really fantastic product people,
00:11:29
Speaker
may have evolved your view of what's possible, even as being a GC in terms of building programs or creating new narratives in the industry. Anything there that's interesting?
00:11:40
Speaker
mean, look, I came out of government. morning and go work I have a lot to learn. So, next it po for example, I have tremendous respect for her.
00:11:56
Speaker
yeah know Dan Rosenzweig at Shag and like Brian Chesky. The interesting thing about Brian Chesky at Airbnb, a founder of Airbnb, CEO at Airbnb, and Brian never went to business school.
00:12:08
Speaker
Brian, i I could be wrong. I think the Airbnb job founding CEO might it might have been his first real job. Something like that. Yeah. Design school. He went to the Rhode Island School Design.
00:12:22
Speaker
And What's interesting is, in my observation of Brian, I actually think that that's his strength in that he didn't have a traditional background.
00:12:33
Speaker
He viewed problems with an eye with a design eye. So he always would encourage us to imagine or design the ideal solution to a problem.
00:12:46
Speaker
Don't get caught up in how things have always been done or how they are usually done. Take a step back and create the ideal vision and try to get there.
00:12:58
Speaker
And so even though I had learned from some other great CEOs and learned a lot of business stuff, I learned with new eyes, I think, when I went to work for Airbnb and for Brian because he had ah such a different approach to business.
Career Progression and New Challenges
00:13:12
Speaker
That's super interesting. I want to talk more about Airbnb in just, just a second, but one other question for you about these sort of GC roles broadly, how do you know when it's the right time to, to move on to the next thing or because you've had some amazing jobs and um you've been GC of some amazing businesses.
00:13:29
Speaker
How do you, how how have you tried to, to think through when it's, when it's the right time to do something new or go on to what's next? Well, I, I'm a little bit, I'm the kind of person they that operates, I think, in five-year cycles.
00:13:44
Speaker
A little bit is different. well they can They can stay in the same place and do you know sort of the same job for 20, 25 years, and that's fine. What I find is that um usually when I take on a new job, I'm um'm not qualified for it.
00:13:59
Speaker
At least half of it, I don't no idea what I'm doing. And then I learn it. And that takes several years. And, and, but when you get out to around five years of doing something, hopefully by then you've made, you've made a mark.
00:14:16
Speaker
You've taken your background, your skills, your life experiences, you've imprinted them on that organization and you've had an impact and hopefully you've been successful. um But you also don't want to get stale. You want to push yourself again.
00:14:29
Speaker
You want to you want jump into another situation where you feel as though you don't know what you're doing. man but the growth I think the growth comes from the new challenge. So it wasn't intentional. It wasn't like anybody ever said, you there's no book out there called The Five-Year Cycle.
00:14:47
Speaker
I think just for me, I've seen in my career, every five years I've done something different.
Expanding Airbnb's Legal Team
00:14:53
Speaker
Whether was for the Justice Department, even at the same company, at eBay, you know i was five years trust and safety, but also five years running North America Legal.
00:15:02
Speaker
um You know, five, six years in Airbnb, five, six years at Chegg Justice Department. I was a line prosecutor and then became supervised the major crimes unit and did espionage cases completely different. So I just for whatever reason, it seems to me that it it seems to come up in a cyclical way with me around five years.
00:15:24
Speaker
Maybe that should be the title of your next book. thea the five year The five-year career.
00:15:31
Speaker
Really great. but I'm afraid that it's it's individual to each person. I think for different people, there are different signs or different things in their career that they look for when they move on. Yeah.
00:15:46
Speaker
it just I think just maybe it's coincidence, but oddly enough, for me, it's just been five year cycles. Joining Airbnb, what was that business like when when you joined and and stepped in? and And where was the legal org at?
00:16:00
Speaker
And yeah, where where did you want to take it to? Well, talk about the legal org. First, the legal org was about 20 people when I took it. And when I left, it was about 150. Mm-hmm.
00:16:12
Speaker
here and So I think when I took it over, you know, the company was really exploding and legal function needed to be scaled to to match the scale of the business.
00:16:25
Speaker
And it needed to be scaled in a global way. So, you know, trying to operate everything out of one building in San Francisco legally wasn't going to work.
00:16:39
Speaker
it had worked well in the past. It just wasn't going to work for the new era of Airbnb. So, i mean, the, the, the most important thing I did while i was general counsel at Airbnb was I hired, um, you know, three terrific regional general counsel, uh, one for Asia, one for Europe and one for, uh, you know, uh, central South America, Mexico.
00:17:02
Speaker
And, and and And if you hire a great leader, then they can you can work together with them to scale out an organization within your region.
00:17:13
Speaker
And so that was, I think, what it was. you know There was also a there work that needed to be done you know in North America and in the U.S. But I think it was or there was an exploding amount of legal work.
00:17:26
Speaker
ah The business was generating not just work, but work that was legal intensive. And so it was ah it was a scaling job, in love which which I love. I love, again, at $170,000 to $15,000.
00:17:40
Speaker
I enjoy the process of taking something that's that's rolling, um but needs a legal department that can support the growth, not hold it back.
00:17:51
Speaker
Mm-hmm. It seems to me that one of the toughest nuts to crack in scaling an org like that is prioritization, like deciding what to focus on and when to focus
Prioritizing in a Growing Business
00:18:03
Speaker
on it. And especially with a business like Airbnb that was sort of exploding, what can be kicked down the road, like what sort of risks need to be dealt with today?
00:18:11
Speaker
do you have an approach that you take to that sort of thing? Or is that too cute of a question? Plus the power of ants.
00:18:20
Speaker
Which means you do all five of whatever. yeah um yeah you You may not have the luxury of kicking certain things down the road, or kicking things certain things down the road may make the problem a lot worse.
00:18:32
Speaker
Mm-hmm. Look, yeah you yeah, sure, there's prioritization, you ah but you can you can't yeah have to be careful that you don't get caught up in the tyranny of the urgent.
00:18:46
Speaker
Mm-hmm. so Because if you're if all you're dealing with is today's problem, um you're you're going to miss opportunities to prevent tomorrow's problem.
00:18:56
Speaker
So um it it sounds like a cop-out answer, but um i prioritization, yes, but you you don't always have the luxury of being able to put things certain things, some things maybe, but...
00:19:12
Speaker
But a lot times you can't put these things on the shelf, which may mean you've got to do ah number of things at once. I love that phrase, tyranny of the urgent. That's good. I'm going to use that elsewhere. i think
Developing Chief Ethics Officer Role
00:19:24
Speaker
there's... That could be a book too. like and who but fla The five-year career and the tyranny of the urgent.
00:19:32
Speaker
Look at this. It's a brainstorming session. One more question for you on the on the GC role itself. don't know. What are you most proud of having accomplished while you while you were there? If you look back at your tenure as as GC before you became chief ethics officer...
00:19:49
Speaker
For any leader, it had better be the people. Because yeah if if it's about if it's about an individual accomplishment of mine, in a sense, that it won't last.
00:20:00
Speaker
Sure. And it starts to dissipate the moment you walk out the door. I think the legacy, you know my legacy is the the people that were in that 200 to 150.
00:20:14
Speaker
Because oh each of them, in a way, i've either directly or indirectly, played a role in bringing them in, either through interviewing, recruiting um myself, but ah or laying a a philosophy or a framework for how we were going to operate, and therefore the type of person that we wanted to add to the company.
00:20:35
Speaker
So I think it's, and and and look, a number of those people are still there. And I talked about the re those regional people, um, had coffee with all of them recently. They're all still there at the company.
00:20:46
Speaker
here And therefore the, I think the lasting legacy of what I did were the, you know bringing in really talented people who are passionate about Airbnb.
00:20:56
Speaker
I guess you're not on the interview panels anymore, so it doesn't have to be a secret. or there Are there any yeah signature Rob Chestnut interview questions that you like to ask that others might be able to steal and and use as they're building out their own legal teams?
00:21:12
Speaker
that's um Yeah, i would I would never want to answer that question while I was still general counsel because don't want get one of the why questions um You know, I always liked um like to to ask people to imagine a conference room where um the in the conference room I had 20 people in their key people that worked for you and with you and your bosses, a blend, oh over over the course of your career.
00:21:43
Speaker
And I asked them to imagine the conversation that would go on in the room when I threw your name out. ah no and And I'd say, yeah, give me phrases of things that you would hear. not Not that they're right, but what would they say about what you're really good at?
00:21:58
Speaker
And what would they say about things that you needed to grow and do better? And would there be arguments in the room between different people? What I found is that it's a version of the question of tell me what you're good at and what you're not good at. But I got more honesty and more reflection by putting it in the third party.
00:22:16
Speaker
of hearing what other people in in your different organizations would say about you. I got, i got interesting candor because what I really wanted, I didn't, I didn't want to be sold in an interview because everybody's got all the points, ah but I wanted, I wanted self-awareness.
00:22:34
Speaker
I wanted, I wanted to demonstrate self-awareness and authenticity and candor. I felt like I got more of it when I phrased it in the imaginary comfort room set. That's really interesting. ah It, it requires introspection.
00:22:49
Speaker
i like that. Yeah. almost Almost distract people from trying to sell themselves by forcing them to get to get their head inside that comfort room. and authenticity that one.
00:23:03
Speaker
That's cool. Okay. So, you know, chugging along as GC, maybe you're five years into GC or so at at Airbnb. um Where did the idea for creating a sort of chief ethics officer position come from?
00:23:18
Speaker
and And I will say, I think what's unique about the way that you took it over too is you had You had stature, right, alongside all other members. This isn't like a compliance officer who sits under the GC who runs internal investigations, right? that There's a difference, I think.
Compliance vs. Integrity
00:23:34
Speaker
The roots of it came from Uber and the problems Uber having far before that. If you remember the Susan Fowler blog post, it really tore Uber apart. the The Me Too movement was starting.
00:23:49
Speaker
I remember, i you know again, that trying to um get ahead of problems. I went into Brian and talked to Brian about Uber and the the um the various issues they had because Uber, like it or not, Uber and Airbnb were often compared. They were right down the street from each other in San Francisco.
00:24:10
Speaker
um both you know yeah young founders, and started at about the same time. And so I looked at it as, i like to learn from other people's mistakes. How can we do something so that we don't fall into the same ah trap that Uber fell into? Because that is a huge, you know, just a ah huge moment for Uber. It derailed the company and they never have completely recovered, I think, from that.
00:24:38
Speaker
It's obviously ended up leaving the company as a result. So I went to talk to Brian and Brian and I had the conversation. How do you drive integrity into the culture of company? It's an interesting question. And again, Brian, Brian's not going to let me get away with all the traditional answers. Like the traditional answer is, well, you have a code of ethics.
00:24:55
Speaker
Sure. And when you think about it, well, the code of ethics is something that actually your law firm probably... had on their computer and they put your company name in it and then they sent it over to you and you sent it out to all the employees and asked them to click a button certifying that they read it. When of course they probably didn't read it.
00:25:12
Speaker
Right. Somebody comes to and says, Hey, we hit a hundred percent. Let's check that box. That's not, that doesn't change cultures. So Brian looked at me and said, ahll go, go out and go big, which is very broad.
00:25:26
Speaker
So, um I went out and started really thinking about this issue of how you could make integrity part of the culture of a company. And we actually developed an integrity program. Different, not a compliance program.
00:25:38
Speaker
There's a difference between compliance and integrity. Some people mix it up. Compliance is doing something because you've got to do it. Sure. But lawyers tell you have to do it. um And, you know,
00:25:50
Speaker
Nobody likes to be told that they got to do something. it and And the fact that lawyers tell them to do it, they look at it as a a chore that they do only because they must. Integrity is doing something because it's the right thing to do, because it aligns with your values.
00:26:04
Speaker
It's far more inspiring. So we developed a program to drive integrity out into the culture, to do the right thing because it was the right thing, not because the law required.
Creative Integrity Training Approaches
00:26:18
Speaker
And we we tried a number different programs. i based it actually on some science. I went and met with a behavioral psychologist at Duke University and did some reading about it and really thought deeply about this idea.
00:26:30
Speaker
And what shocked me is that, look, i'm umm I'm old compared to a lot of people. I'm thinking, well, all these are these young people going to look at People loved it. I was shocked.
00:26:44
Speaker
We he did a number of things. we We did an integrity talk as part of Orientation. And people, you know, were a little like surprised. There were 25 units as part of orientation at Airbnb. Everybody, every new employee had to go through it.
00:27:01
Speaker
And they did evaluations. So I thought, well, we'll try an orientation section. I'll do it myself. I'll come in and I will teach it. It was 90 minutes. he But the review said, after two months,
00:27:15
Speaker
the or The integrity class ah was ranked number one by participants. 25 classes. And what it taught me was that people were hungry for this sort of thing.
00:27:27
Speaker
People want to work at a place that has values aligned with their own. I had one woman come up to me in tears after the integrity class, literally in tears. I'm thinking, oh, my God, what did I do?
00:27:38
Speaker
And she said, well, I was just working at X big tech company in the Valley. My boss kept coming on to proposition. i wouldn't see And I knew that the company wasn't going to do anything about it if I reported it.
00:27:55
Speaker
I had to leave by job. She said, you have no idea what it means to walk into my new company and to have the general counsel come in and talk about ah what sort of behavior was not going to be tolerated.
00:28:08
Speaker
And he was available anytime, anytime, day or night. If so you're experiencing a problem that he wants to know because he's not putting up with.
00:28:20
Speaker
And, know, I think people kind of appreciated the fact that, look, we we wanted to stand for something, not just follow the law, but trying to do the right thing. And it resonated with people.
00:28:30
Speaker
um I'll give you another example of something we did that was very popular. Sure. My everybody, you know, everybody has these compliance videos you watch right on sexual rap.
00:28:43
Speaker
Well, you're smiling. You know what I'm talking Unfortunately, yes. yeah Everybody resents it. Everybody. yeah i ah So I go home. I'm talking to my kids and I'm about the problems at work. and My kids are you know teenagers, 18, 19, 19.
00:29:01
Speaker
And they look at me and say, a 90 minute video? You're making people watch a 90 minute video? We don't watch a video that's longer than five minutes. And that hit me. I'm like, huh.
00:29:13
Speaker
Why do we need 90 minutes to make this point? couldn't make this point in a much shorter period of time. And then the woman told me the story of a video that she watched while she was at a college summer program.
00:29:27
Speaker
And she, it was about sexual harassment. And she started describing the video to me in detail, animated five minute long video. And I went online and looked at it and it had humor.
00:29:40
Speaker
It was captivating and it was thought. I'm like, you know what? If it's stuck with my daughter a year later, yeah ah younger people want to watch these short videos.
00:29:52
Speaker
Now we may still have to do the 90 minute video under the wall, but but why do we have to hop there? So what we started doing is we started making our own integrity video. One a month, five, our rule was it had to be under five minutes.
00:30:07
Speaker
And if you're thinking, oh, well, my company doesn't have the production value. yeah we don't know that Here's my camera. we And the only rule was it had to it had to have humor and it had to be for a leader.
00:30:23
Speaker
Because what I learned about the psychology of this is that leaders are the carriers and integrity is contagious. ah So,
00:30:34
Speaker
we started doing these videos and people and we, and we said, you know what? They're not required. They're not required. Watch it.
Impact of Integrity Program and Book Writing
00:30:42
Speaker
If you want to watch it, throw it out by, um, within six months, two thirds of the company is watching an integrity video, uh,
00:30:51
Speaker
volunt Wow. Right? And they were laughing and they were sending in suggestions. They couldn't believe that the general counsel or the head of marketing was doing this, but people were watching it. it was They were paying attention. So I guess my point behind all of this is,
00:31:08
Speaker
It started organically with a challenge to do something creative and different. And it ended, it sort of came to the realization of this is really making a difference in the culture.
00:31:20
Speaker
And so we basically, we added the title chief ethics officer to my title ah to reflect the fact that this was so important to the company that a leader is taking. That's great. um What a story.
00:31:33
Speaker
Yeah. And by the way, that led to my book. yeah While we're here, the book's called Intentional Integrity. It's about by Macmillan, available at fine bookstores everywhere. And the book is the story of all the things that we did to drive integrity into the culture and how we really believe that it was didn't cost money. It actually made us a better company.
00:31:54
Speaker
And actually, I think attributed financially to the bottom line. And the book tells the story. And I've read the book and it's good. Although I will admit, I read it like two years ago after you gave a talk at Fullstack GC, one of the Tech GC conferences on this topic.
00:32:10
Speaker
Let's talk about the book for a second. When did you decide that you wanted to write it? Was this as you were starting to leave Airbnb? Did you think it would be a great thing to do there? Like, yeah. How how did this come about? But my wife, my wife wanted me to write a book.
00:32:24
Speaker
And my wife really early was a ah book agent. That was earlier. her grand She was actually the book agent for College Santana, Kamala Harris's book. wow I mean, a number of ah of, you know, big league books. So she knew the industry.
00:32:40
Speaker
And I started telling her the story of what we were doing in Airbnb. She said, no other company's doing this. This is a story that needs to be told. I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah. I got a day job. It's a general counsel thing that's keeping all path light as it is. no and But she wouldn't let it go.
00:32:55
Speaker
And she said, I'll get you a ride. And I'll get you a major publishing deal if you'll do this. I'm like, yeah, you give me a writer and a major publishing deal. I'll do the book. And of course, months later, had a writer and a major publishing deal.
00:33:09
Speaker
And i I so I did it while I was general counsel. And I did it not really thinking about um anything beyond just getting the book done. I gave the writer every Monday night for a year.
00:33:22
Speaker
And I every day with the writer doing it. And the writer was terrific. She captured my voice really well. and And then the problem really came up was that I really loved the project and really realized that it could make a difference.
00:33:38
Speaker
And then I also realized that ah publishers don't market books. The author has to do it. So if I was going to do anything, I was going to have to go out, do podcast, book tour, i'll do speaking in order to make the book go.
00:33:55
Speaker
So the book was either going to die because I was going to go back to my, you know just be the state being a general counsel. um Or i' look, I'd been a lawyer at that point. I'd been a lawyer for 30, 35 years.
00:34:08
Speaker
And it was, I've been killing. I've been killing myself working in the long, long, long, long I'd like to spend a ah little more time with my kids.
00:34:19
Speaker
Why not make the book the next ah chapter? Because again, I've been doing the Airbnb thing for a little over five years. So why not make the chapter of my life?
00:34:30
Speaker
So that's what I did. Let's talk a little bit. I mean, you you set out in the book sort of a variety of six sort of main themes or steps that companies can take. I guess what I'm what I'm most curious about, maybe for my audience, is let's say that people don't have an integrity program yet. They're a general counsel. They have a compliance program.
00:34:50
Speaker
What's some low hanging fruit here? How do people get started? what What might they be able to take away and start doing as soon as next week after they listen to this episode? wont You know, the the thing is, it doesn't cost a lot of money.
00:35:03
Speaker
hu and So that that's a big barrier. um I think the first thing we started with was um a code of ethics. and yeah And I know you've got a code of ethics.
00:35:15
Speaker
I'm like, yeah, you got a code of ethics. yeah you You probably went online and copied it for another company and substituted your company's name. and
00:35:24
Speaker
ah So what we did was i the first thing I did with ethics and integrity was I gave it a while. um I hate to admit it, but people aren't crazy about lawyers are going to talk to lawyers at companies.
00:35:39
Speaker
Sure. And why does the legal department have to own it? um the Everybody should own it. So what we did was we created this program called Ethics Advisors. And the goal was find one person in every group or every office who's senior enough to be respected, thought of as knowing integrity, but not so senior that they're skilled.
00:35:59
Speaker
I to these people individually and said, we'd like your help in being ah an integrity officer. And it's something you can add to your yeah to your professional career. It's volunteer and it's your job.
00:36:13
Speaker
But basically what you will do is you will be a voice in helping us put together an updated code of ethics. And you'll also be a resource for anyone on your team who has a question. Um, and people saw the benefit of this, felt that it was integrity was something they wanted to add to their brand and they could add it to their resume.
00:36:34
Speaker
Uh, they took on the volunteer job and we worked with the group to help update a code of ethics that was more authentic and in the company's voice. And then announced that they were the ethics, they were the, um,
00:36:46
Speaker
the ethics officer for their for their team. And we told the team, if you've got an ethics question, you can use the hotline. You can go to the legal department. You can go to HR. Or you can just ask this person right here on your team.
00:37:00
Speaker
And what we learned in the next year is we tracked all of those. We got ethics questions and input, you know, and we would track where it came from.
00:37:12
Speaker
the number one way that ethics questions came into the company, guess what? It was through these ethics officers. could People were very comfortable to walk over to somebody's desk and ask a casual question.
00:37:24
Speaker
They weren't quite so eager to become a whistleblower or go to legal. So what was the case that we had a lot of good questions and a lot of interesting, we learned a lot of interesting things just by having somebody on the ground in the department that cared about it and thought about And free to do.
00:37:43
Speaker
um i was a great group that would we had our own Slack channel. And as the general counsel, i oversaw it and coordinated to make sure that we were all providing consistent advice and all along.
00:37:55
Speaker
But I also learned a lot about ethical issues that were going on inside the company that I wasn't really even aware of. I learned what pushes were on people's mind. In other words, the more you kind of broaden this and make it something that you get bigger participation in, the more valuable it is.
00:38:12
Speaker
So I think that's one element of an integrity program. Well, it's relatively easy to do, but can really start to change the culture because it it gets its tentacles out throughout the conference.
00:38:24
Speaker
I love that because i think that it's true. People are a little bit scared to call up the general counsel or the AGC for investigations or when they have a question.
00:38:34
Speaker
and obviously there are things where there are bright lines where certain behavior is but like you have to say to the company, you cannot do this. Right. You cannot bribe foreign official or as one example. Right.
00:38:46
Speaker
That being said, you want people to buy in and and feel like this isn't a sort of hunt that's out to get them. it's It's in everyone's interest and it's about building the right culture for the place.
Implementing Integrity Programs
00:38:57
Speaker
but case and close to Brock, who's going to know about it? Well, probably the person on the team is going to have, or who's on the ground working with her, or aware that this might go on.
00:39:08
Speaker
And now they understand that they've got a responsibility to speak up and, and, you know, be a resource here as opposed to remaining silent in fear. Mm-hmm. If they stop, they might not have to.
00:39:20
Speaker
I understand if some of it's privileged. I don't know. Was there any category of questions or that came to you that was really surprising to you or you really learned something? I mean, FCPA or I mean, that's sort of like an obvious example or sexual harassment like you've brought up or yeah anything that was surprising and in that. All of these topics of interest. If If you're a company, I mean, I've heard people say, well, ra I'm glad you did this integrity stuff, but we've got a hotline and we are, we don't get any reports. i don't think we got any issues. I'm like, dude, that's the first sign that you've got a problem.
00:39:55
Speaker
Interest issues, for example, everyone. And if you aren't getting any questions about conflicts of interest, it's because people don't even recognize that there is a potential conflict of interest.
00:40:06
Speaker
And this is, Right. So I would say all kinds of conflicts of interest around gifts, for example, ah take gifts to vendors, or vendors giving gifts to you. Sure.
00:40:19
Speaker
There were or even romantic relationships. Can you have a relationship with someone you work with? Um, you know, the answer that is maybe and on the the relationship, right?
00:40:32
Speaker
So there, there are lots of different, interesting gray kinds of questions that can come up. Um, That, you know, like my my brother-in-law wants a job at the company.
00:40:44
Speaker
i And I can I recommend him for a job? Can I tell him where to put his resume? Can I be on the interview panel? So right all different flavors of these things.
00:40:56
Speaker
But I think um I viewed it as a positive when we had an increase in the number of ethics questions that came in the door. I view an absence of such questions to mean that people are not thinking about it, not sensitive to it, and or scared to race.
00:41:12
Speaker
here as As you now sort of like seeing people read the book, begin to consult for companies around integrity, Do you feel like there's more awareness now than there there was before? and And you feel like GCs care more about this maybe than than they did before? They're not just thinking sort of strictly in a compliance sense, and maybe in the way that they might have been 20 ago?
00:41:38
Speaker
i ah The best thing about writing this book, the best thing is you you get the email, the LinkedIn, the phone call from somebody who said, I read your book. Wow, we implemented yeah these three things and it's been so successful.
00:41:53
Speaker
I just want you to know how much i appreciate our grapevine. that That's like, okay, it was all work. It was all work, those sorts of things. So I know that the that there are a number of places. And by the way, I get these things from all over the world. Like you get this thing from, I get one of these from Argentina, or I'll get one from Brussels, or I'll get one from Norway. I'd be like, wow, this is crazy.
00:42:14
Speaker
but So I know it's had an impact, and i and i that that that makes all the work worthwhile. That said, not everybody's read the book. there are a lot or They're thinking we've got a compliance program, so we don't need to do anything else. And my point is your compliance program will be a lot more effective if you layer an integrity program on top of it, and it won't cost you any money to do it.
00:42:37
Speaker
And it will it will ultimately save you headaches down the line. So um I keep talking about it because I think a lot of companies still aren't thinking about this sort of thing and aren't doing it.
Resources and Career Advice
00:42:49
Speaker
And I think it's a mistake. Besides reading the book, are there other places that people can find you or sort of your site insights and and content that you would encourage people to to navigate to?
00:43:00
Speaker
um I'll show up at my house. That would be cool. You could go to LinkedIn and find me on LinkedIn. There's a website, believe or not. Intentionalintegrity.com is another good way to find me. But, but yeah look if you know, look, if you like what you hear, go click ah click on me on LinkedIn and connect with me, and I'm happy.
00:43:22
Speaker
ah I enjoy jumping on even a quick call and happy to chat with the people who are interested in this because I think it's just it's really important work. And I've read some of your articles in Bloomberg Law as well. I've enjoyed some of those because I think you bring bring sort of cases that are in the news or in the media and then put them in this lens of of and or view them through this lens of integrity, right? Like what might have been done differently? but It's almost like putting on integrity glasses. Yeah.
00:43:51
Speaker
way. um And yeah, there's a, my writer, Colin, called Good Counsel for Bloomberg. I think it's even outside the paywall. They should make you pay for this stuff, but they, but think it's great. So you can, you can also check out, check out my articles there.
00:44:07
Speaker
A few fun questions for you, Rob, as we we start to wrap up that I like to ask my guests. mean, your day to day is a little bit different now that it once was when you were a GC, but your favorite part of your day to day?
00:44:20
Speaker
Well, my daughter's an actress. And so there are times where she has me read lines. she I hope her read lines for auditions. Yeah. My son's a senior on the, on the high school golf team.
00:44:32
Speaker
So going out and playing nine holes of of golf with my son at the end of the day. So those are two things I didn't get a chance to do not very much at all before when it was crazy. So those are my favorite parts of the day right now. Those are great.
00:44:46
Speaker
I think this one's kind of funny. If you have a professional pet peeve, what is it? Professional pet peeve. I think it's, I know, think maybe it's people who aren't, lack self-awareness.
00:45:05
Speaker
People who don't, who take who take constructive feedback negatively. Mm-hmm. people who fight you on it. Cause I think feedback is a gift.
00:45:15
Speaker
no And, and when you get feedback about your work, that, that is less than ah hundred percent complimentary. um It is actually the only way you're going to get better. If all the feedback you ever get is, is that how fabulous you are, you'll never get better.
00:45:31
Speaker
And it's not true because everybody's got things they can work on. So a pet peeve is somebody who fights you on it. And so, you know, my response is the more you fight, the more uncomfortable you make it for me to give you feedback like this, which means you're going to get less of it, which means you're less comfortable.
00:45:48
Speaker
And even if you disagree with it, which is totally fine, um what you ought to be asking is, why does Rob see this? It's not what I think is accurate, but clearly Rob's seeing it.
00:46:02
Speaker
Right. So you need to ask the question of why what I do is giving off this vibe or giving off this ah misconception. he So my pet peeve is people who fight it instead of explore it, because I think ultimately we all lose when that happens.
00:46:18
Speaker
That's interesting. I like that answer. That's good. Okay. Besides your own, if you have a book recommendation for our audience, it doesn't have to be a business book. It could just be something fun, but whatever you've got.
00:46:31
Speaker
So many greatpe i great, great ones. Anything by Adam Grant. If you can go read Adam Grant's Give and Take. Yes. like again for example a wonderful book um there's a book called the culture code by daniel coyle that's really wonderful if you're thinking about how to build a culture inside of a company um and the that that it gets the most out of people uh i mean i've got um There's a great book on career.
00:47:02
Speaker
If you're thinking about your career, if you're feeling a little lost in life and you're trying to think about, know, what should you do next? ah There's but called ikiga i k i g a It's a Japanese concept around your purpose in life that I think really helps provide a framework for thinking about what you would like to do.
00:47:23
Speaker
Hold on, I'll give you two more.
00:47:27
Speaker
I'm looking at my bookshelf for those of you. There's a book called Multipliers. It's by Liz Wiseman. um And it's about this idea of...
00:47:39
Speaker
um as a leader, you're either getting a fraction of someone's abilities or you are actually making them even better, greater than they thought they could be. And Walt Whitman for me pushed me and challenged me to do things i didn't think I could do.
00:47:56
Speaker
So she was a multiplier. um But there are a number of leaders who I think don't get the most out of their people. Liz Weisman's multipliers is I think an outstanding book to to help you become a better leader.
00:48:09
Speaker
And yeah, The last one I'll pick is Matthew Syed, S-Y-E-D, a book called ra Rebel Ideas. So a really great thinker about in today's world where diversity, equity, inclusion has sort of become a bad phrase.
00:48:25
Speaker
What does diversity mean? um And and the how like how can it be? um i think there's actually not that much difference between hiring people hiring with a diversity in mind and hiring with excellence and merit in mind. I actually think the two concepts are, are in many ways synonymous. So his work will help you think in that regard.
00:48:50
Speaker
You've given me enough books to take like all my work flights between now and the end of the summer. This is fantastic. Yeah. what Last question for you, Rob, my, my traditional closing question for my guests.
00:49:07
Speaker
It's if you could look back on your days being a young lawyer, just getting started, maybe at the department of justice, something that you know now that you wish that you'd known back then.
00:49:20
Speaker
um well, I think I'll, I'll just reiterate an earlier point that, um, it's very hard to map out where you think you're a great career will be.
00:49:31
Speaker
If you do that, if you think, Oh, I want to be X job one day, you may miss a lot of fascinating things along the way. You know, a career is, is like a long, a long journey with a lot of side paths.
00:49:47
Speaker
And you, you, you just don't know what opportunities are going to come your way. um But, but, um, I, I was a little shy, I think, and a little, I was an only child, a little introverted, uh, and that will kill you in life you, you, if you don't dominate.
00:50:06
Speaker
So I think a key is, a get out there. Um, trouble things. Be curious. Um, if, yeah If you're, if you're watching a a lot of, um if you're binge watching a lot of television shows, you're spending a lot of time watching television and the like, um you, maybe you need some of that to unwind, but I would suggest getting out, meeting people, exposing yourself to new ideas, ah take up a new hobby. You never know when a new hobby or is going to lead in an interesting direction.
00:50:40
Speaker
Or when you go to a seminar and you meet a particular person or hear a concept and where that's going to take you. So be open to different things on your journey and get out um and b act be an active engager with the world.
00:50:56
Speaker
I love that. Great, great answer. And especially the first part of that, really one of the main themes of this podcast. There's no one right path in in the law or legal adjacent roles in the profession.
00:51:09
Speaker
And you can have really meaningful careers full of twists and turns, just like you've had. Thank you, Rob. Thank you so much for joining me today for this episode of The Abstract. This has been a lot of fun for me.
00:51:19
Speaker
Well, I had a great time. Thanks for an interesting conversation, Tyler. And thank you to all of our listeners. And we hope to see you next time.