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Ep 32: From Product Counseling at Apple & Meta to the Crypto World: Nguyen Vu, DGC, OKX
96 Plays9 months ago
How do you realign your legal career in order to break into the tech industry and product counseling? What are the major differences between headline-grabbing big tech companies and ambitious start-ups? And should the goal of every in-house counsel be a GC title?
Nguyen Vu, deputy general counsel at OKX, leveraged his persistence, skills, and showmanship to redefine himself as a tech attorney. Starting off as a lawyer working in telecoms regulation, Nguyen was able to land a major product role at Apple, become the “mini GC” of digital currency at Facebook, and lead international product teams at successful fintech and crypto startups.
Hear Ngyuen as he shares the valuable lessons he’s learned about regulation, consumer protection, motivating your team, steering your career in the direction you want to take it, and more.
Read detailed summary: https://www.spotdraft.com/podcast/episode-32
Topics:
Introduction: 0:00
Beginning your career during the Great Recession: 3:21
Moving beyond telecoms law: 6:10
Landing a dream role at Apple: 9:07
Coming into your own as a product attorney: 11:44
Defining the role of a product counselor: 18:45
Joining Facebook’s digital currency project: 20:10
Getting off of career plateaus and joining Bolt: 25:06
Navigating the difficulties of managing a legal team at a start-up: 28:43
Encountering “Big Company Bias”: 31:34
Becoming deputy general counsel at OKX: 36:33
Book recommendations: 40:10
Advice to your younger self: 41:36
Connect with us:
Nguyen Vu - https://www.linkedin.com/in/nguyentvu/
Tyler Finn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/tylerhfinn
SpotDraft - https://www.linkedin.com/company/spotdraft
SpotDraft is a leading CLM platform that solves your end-to-end contract management issues. Visit https://www.spotdraft.com to learn more.
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Transcript
Challenges in Landing a Job at Apple
00:00:00
Speaker
Yeah, when? How do you get a job at Apple? I had a few friends already in the legal team at Apple. And so I went through one of them, you know, you look at the job description, you see all the bullet points. And I was like, wow, I'm a match for, you know, 90% of these bullet points thinking, all right, I'll at least get a recruiter screening nothing, you know, radio science weeks gone by and nothing.
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Speaker
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Speaker
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Career Path of Nguyen Vu in Crypto and FinTech
00:01:23
Speaker
Want to break into product counseling? Interested in how product counseling differs at large corporations and smaller startups? Wondering how to apply your lawyering skills to help the business tackle new markets? I'm excited to be joined today by my friend, Nguyen Vu.
00:01:39
Speaker
Deputy General Counsel at OKX, one of the largest crypto exchanges in the world. And he has a long history in payments and FinTech before that. He was DGC with Purview across product, privacy, compliance and IP at Bolt. And he also spent a number of years working for large companies like Meta and Apple in senior product counseling roles.
00:02:05
Speaker
Wynn, I'm super excited to have you on the podcast. This one's a long time coming. It is a long time coming and I'm excited to be here.
00:02:12
Speaker
Well, I'm lucky to have you because you have a new gig. Congratulations. Tell me a little bit about the new role. Yeah, indeed. As you mentioned, I'm a deputy general counsel at OKX. It is a cryptocurrency and Web3 company. I'm DGC. I'm managing a legal team of six lawyers, mostly international based. And in particular, I'm charged with leading the local markets
00:02:36
Speaker
retail and marketing legal functions. What drew me to OKX was a variety of things, but I'm really excited just to learn about a new industry, you know, especially one as dynamic as crypto has been. And especially since, you know, I've had some fits and starts in the crypto and web three space, Apple and at meta Facebook over the last few stops in my career, which I'm sure we'll, we'll get into as well.
00:03:04
Speaker
We will get into, yeah, I've got a couple of questions for you on, on meta. You know, today, a big theme is going to be product counseling, but I want to go back actually a little ways because you didn't start your career necessarily thinking that's where you were going to go before you were a product counselor. Once upon a time, like many of the guests, you were a law school grad. And I think there may be some parallels for younger folks who are listening today because you graduated into the teeth of the great
Career Transition to Tech Law
00:03:32
Speaker
recession.
00:03:32
Speaker
Tell us about what happened, how you found your first job. Yeah, I actually graduated without a job. You know, as you would imagine, my parents were quite proud of that accomplishment.
00:03:43
Speaker
But I will say it was a couple years before the recession. So I don't even have the recession to blame for that. But it was a few years before the recession. But you know, through persistent networking, you know, someone would argue perhaps annoying network levels of networking, but persistent networking, having people point me in the right direction, giving me, you know, sage advice, meeting the right people.
00:04:06
Speaker
you know, I was able to get my first job and start that fall when all the other lawyers who had graduated were starting. But, you know, I got to give a special shout out to an early mentor of mine, Tony Lin, who's a partner at DLA Piper now, but he really, he was very instrumental in those early days and remains a mentor of mine, but he was very instrumental in helping me get that first job.
00:04:29
Speaker
By the time the Great Recession did hit, I found myself at a big firm in DC. I think I was probably a second year at the time, second or third year, doing telecommunications regulatory work.
00:04:44
Speaker
you know, working at a large firm during the recession was nerve writhing, right? You know, billable hours, challenges. I mean, those can be challenging, you know, in a steady state year, but when there's a massive recession going on, it just, it certainly heightens those challenges. And, you know, there's a, I recall like it was yesterday, there was very much a tension in the air, it was almost palpable, right? I remember one morning actually,
00:05:11
Speaker
you know, I went to swipe my key card, and I guess I had swiped it too fast. And it made my it wasn't centered, but it didn't work. Oh, no, this is it. This is the day, I guess. It is having it ended up working. And I know staying at the firm, you know, things settle down, of course. And I end up staying at the firm for about five or six years.
00:05:31
Speaker
And it was a great experience. There was focus around telecom regulatory work, Federal Communications Commission touch. Sure. And that's, I mean, it's a pretty niche area. I suppose you can probably build a whole career in that, but you build your sort of expertise or early expertise in an area like telecom or communications law. Did you feel stuck? It's not that it's not interesting, right? But did you feel like you wanted to get out and how did you do that?
00:05:59
Speaker
It's definitely focused in the DC area, to be sure. I think the lion's share of all telecom regulatory attorneys tends to be focused in the DC area.
00:06:11
Speaker
You know, but the work I was doing for the firm was super interesting and definitely impactful for the clients that we represented, you know, helping at the time these large internet companies set up, you know, data centers, procure to offer their services, you know, server farms, procuring undersea cable licenses. So it was actually really neat, but ultimately I wanted to explore a different practice area. I, you know, I fancied myself a tech attorney.
Breaking Through at Apple
00:06:39
Speaker
without knowing exactly what that means. And I still don't know what it means to be honest, but I fancied myself to be a tech attorney. And I wanted to ultimately be working, you know, if I wanted to be in finance, I would probably want to work in New York, right? But as someone who wanted to be in tech, I wanted to venture out to California and in particular, you know, Bay Area.
00:06:59
Speaker
Silicon Valley. And so, you know, just based on my sort of early research, telecom regulatory jobs weren't that prevalent in the Bay Area and Silicon Valley at that time, and it's probably still not a ton. And so I put together a plan, a rough plan of trying to change practice areas into one that would be more marketable for tech companies. And so because I had this strong telecom regulatory background, I ended up getting a job at a telecom company.
00:07:27
Speaker
I spent, which is not part of T-Mobile, but not doing their telecom work. I was put in onto a very talented team of marketing and advertising lawyers and again, learned the time. And I did a variety of pretty neat things, but part of my job was to review the company's tweets, which was, you know, back then was, was, you know, kind of graduating doing this, you know, Twitter-based advertising and Instagram-based advertising. Can you still call them tweets, by the way? I don't know.
00:07:56
Speaker
Yeah, I'm not sure about the new vernacular for tweets. But yeah, and so it was great. You know, a lot of, at the heart of it was consumer protection, right? So, you know, a lot of FTC, FTC Act type of work. And so I was there for a few years and was able to make it out to California.
00:08:17
Speaker
maybe a little, you know, less now. I know there's various sort of antitrust suits and the big tech companies are seen a little differently. But you eventually worked your way into a job at Apple. And I think a lot of listeners probably want to know, even still, like, how do you get a job at Apple? It's still one of the best companies in the world to work for. So yeah, when how do you get a job at Apple? So I had a friend, I had a few friends already in the legal team at Apple. And so I went through one of them.
00:08:47
Speaker
So I found a job that you look at the job description, you see all the bullet points. And I was like, wow, I'm a match for 90% of these bullet points. It's a pretty strong fit, at least in my eyes. And so I applied through my friend thinking, all right, I'll at least get a recruiter screening, nothing.
00:09:05
Speaker
you know, radio signs weeks, weeks gone by and nothing. And and then I saw another job open up on Apple's website and I was like, oh, it's it's similar. But I only check maybe 60 percent or 50 percent of the of the bullets. But in a normal situation, I would have applied on my own. But I was like, well, shoot, if I if I applied through an internal referral where I matched most of the requirements, you know, I don't want I don't want to keep bugging my friend to have him apply.
00:09:34
Speaker
every opening. But two, I was like, well, I didn't even get an interview for the first one. Why would I get an interview for the second one when, when the, you know, when the matches weren't as strong. And so, you know, I went about sort of interviewing at other other companies here in Silicon Valley was actually was fortunate to get an offer. And then out of the blue, I get a note from an internal recruiter at Apple says, Hey, we have this
00:09:57
Speaker
We see that you applied for the first job, but the second, we have this other job too with a lot of the similar skill sets. Would you be interested in talking to us? I'm like, heck yeah. And so, you know, one thing led to another and I was fortunate enough to get a job there and work for an incredible team. And it was definitely one of the highlights, you know, sort of looking back now, it was definitely one of the highlights.
Role of Product Counseling at Apple
00:10:22
Speaker
Working at Apple has definitely been one of the highlights of my career for sure.
00:10:26
Speaker
It's not exactly your takeaway, but there's probably a lesson in there about applying for jobs even if you don't fit. I think we've all heard the studies about men apply for jobs if they check three of the 10 boxes and women don't apply for jobs often if they check eight or nine of the 10 boxes. There's probably a lesson in there for everyone about throw your hat in the ring because an internal recruiter might be the one who finds you otherwise.
00:10:52
Speaker
Yeah, so yeah, you know, credit to him for sort of going through resumes that had been submitted to Apple for other roles and sort of picking mine out. So yeah, again, incredibly fortunate to have him do that and incredibly fortunate to get that job.
00:11:08
Speaker
And this at your time at Apple is really when you start to do some pretty interesting product counseling work, right? Or you come into your own, I think, as a product attorney. Tell us about some of those launches that you worked on that I think probably can only happen at a company that's operating at the scale of an Apple.
00:11:26
Speaker
Yeah, and that was the biggest thing was, you know, sort of guidance you give has to be looked at at a worldwide lens, right? It's not just obviously, it's a US company. But you know, when you when you think about, you know, the legal guidance you give, you had to think about it from from a worldwide aspect. And so that was something that was new to me, and something that ultimately, I really enjoyed. And so sort of learned, obviously, very talented attorneys across the globe that I that I partnered with and sort of
00:11:55
Speaker
you know, learning from them, getting their insights into their sort of unique jurisdictional specific issues was again, real was a real eye opener. And so, so yeah, it was it was just that, you know, I joined right around the time. So I joined in 2015. And so recall, I think this was around iPhone six or seven. And so sure,
00:12:18
Speaker
All of you recall, but essentially almost every iPhone that launched prior to that, people buy every year, right? They trade in their own one, or they just buy a new iPhone every year, and then... Well, remember the transition from like 3G to 4, so it was a whole new design, or, you know, from 2G to 3G, it's like, oh my God, my email actually loads, or websites actually load.
00:12:41
Speaker
The company just got used to people buying them every year. So right around the time I joined, the upgrade cycles were just getting longer and longer. They're getting further away from that 12-month mark. Some of the earlier products that I helped launch, or a certain part of the team that helped launch, were some of the ones around making iPhone more affordable, the monthly payments.
00:13:05
Speaker
You know, a lot of the consumer credit, a lot of the consumer credit products that Apple offered for buying iPhone in hopes to again shrink that upgrade cycle down to perhaps what it was. And so yeah, you know, when I was at Sprint, it's funny because when I was at Sprint, we launched a lease program to buy an iPhone. I think it might have been the first of its
00:13:31
Speaker
kind back then. But it was a lease program. And so, as I mentioned, I reviewed the company's tweets. And so we would tweet about these leases. But under the various financial regs, there are very prescriptive advertising requirements when you talk about a monthly payment or an APR or anything like that. They're called trigger terms, right? And so, well, how do we fit all these trigger terms, these required disclosures in, you know, at that time was a 64 characters, I think.
00:14:02
Speaker
And so that was sort of my exposure to sort of consumer financial services. And when I joined Apple, again, we were getting ready to launch this monthly, we started working on launching this monthly consumer finance product, you know, you pay for your, you buy an iPhone on monthly, on monthly payments. And so I sort of raised my hand, I was like, well, you know, I advise on how to tweet about monthly payments.
00:14:27
Speaker
And then so I ended up working with my manager at the time. So we worked together on just sort of learning about this new space that was new to Apple. And so it was ultimately called the iPhone upgrade program where it's essentially you take out a loan with Citizens Bank who was the partner at the time. And you pay back that loan X amount every month for 24 months.
00:14:50
Speaker
At the 12 month mark, you can trade it in, get an upgrade. And so I like to think, though, that that product was quite successful. We had some copycats. I think Volvo announced a similar sort of car upgrade program. And I think buy a car like you buy an iPhone or something like that. And so I forgot about that.
00:15:10
Speaker
Yeah, quite proud and to support some of those copycats. And then, you know, some of the carriers followed suit. And so so that was really neat to see sort of that impact. And obviously, you have a company like Apple, you do something that it's going to have a leave a pretty big imprint on the market.
00:15:26
Speaker
And so that led to a variety of other programs around the world, working with banks around the world. It's similar to offer these monthly payment programs. And then that ultimately led to, I was a part, a smaller part to be sure, but a part of the legal thing that helped launched the Apple card. So that was really neat to learning about credit card regs and
00:15:51
Speaker
all the various things, that impact launching of a co-branded credit card. And so, yeah, that's where I really got the background and certainly consumer finance. And so, yeah, it was an incredible experience, one that I wouldn't trade for anything.
00:16:10
Speaker
At its core, I guess, what do you think the role of a product counselor is? How does it relate to the ambitions of the business? Yeah, I think that's the great question. And I think a lot of people will probably approach it differently. But I try to act as, you know, I try to bridge the gap between the business goals, the business ambitions, and sort of the legal regulatory landscape, right? And depending on what
00:16:37
Speaker
what industry you're in that that that climate legal climate can change dramatically. And so I try to take a wide angle lens at approaching sort of looking at a product and sort of thinking about the legal issues. And there's a lot of it's similar to the sort of the skills that we learned in law school, you know, a lot of issue spotting, like, you know, I wasn't
00:16:55
Speaker
Certainly, I wasn't resolving every legal issue that came across a product, but I would know enough to be like, oh, that's a privacy issue. Let me loop in my privacy college. Oh, that's probably an IP issue or whatever issue it may be. So I would be smart enough to at least identify those issues and then get the right people in to resolve them. And so, yes, you sort of sit at that intersection because you're working so closely with the product team that their goals become your goals, right? Their success becomes your success.
00:17:23
Speaker
Yeah. So it is a balance between, again, helping the business fulfill their ambitions and sort of understanding the legal climate. And then also at the same time, sort of the brand climate as well. Because even if things were legal, like, hey, this is legal to do, we would often think about, especially at a company like Apple, you often think about the impact of the brand, if it could be a potential negative impact to the brand. So that often outweighed whether or not we could do something legally.
00:17:52
Speaker
Is it wise? Yeah. I've done a lot over the course of my career. We can do this under the law, but is it good for our reputation? Is it going to lead us in a direction that we really want to lead the business over the next few years? Exactly.
00:18:08
Speaker
I guess at this point in time, having been at Apple for a few years, do you think of yourself as a product counselor? Is this now the lens that you view your career through or do you see yourself as something slightly different? How do you view yourself? I certainly did, personally. That's the direction I wanted to take my career when I did come to that very hard decision to
00:18:33
Speaker
to decide to leave Apple, but that's the direction I wanted to take my career because I've heard people refer to product counselors as the mini GC for your product and I like being in that type of role.
Challenges at Facebook's Cryptocurrency Initiative
00:18:49
Speaker
I like learning the product equal to or better than the product for the product managers themselves. I love knowing
00:18:56
Speaker
you know, in my case would be the data flows, the funds flows, you know, all the inputs and the outputs of the product. I really, really, really, you know, that that's something that interests me. And so, you know, I would experience a product as a user extracting, you know, try to the proverbial, you know, grandmother, what she know, understand these terms, understand that the general UX and right, and certainly keeping in mind, like how legal guidance impacts the product, right, impacts the user experience, impacts onboarding or,
00:19:23
Speaker
what have you. Being able to look at legal issues through a variety of lenses was something that I relished. You mentioned that it was a difficult decision. You decided to leave Apple and move to Facebook. Was it known as Facebook or Meta at the time? It was Facebook then, yeah.
00:19:43
Speaker
And still Facebook, yeah. And your remit is helping work on the currency project, which ultimately didn't quite make it. I guess when you joined, I assume there was a real belief that it would take off. Where did maybe some of those lofty ambitions go awry over your time there?
00:20:06
Speaker
Yeah, sure. So yeah, so when I decided to leave, I wanted so I had this sort of consumer credit experience, and I wanted to run sort of that FinTech experience. And so what was appealing about Facebook is similar to their scale, right? Everything they do is right worldwide impact.
00:20:22
Speaker
But also, it would give me a chance to learn a new industry. To your point, there was the digital asset, the digital currency, but also more traditional payments, money transmission, P2P type payments, payment processing, dealing with payment network rules and the like. And so that's what really appealed to me.
00:20:40
Speaker
again, learning a new area, rounding out my skills. Because as I mentioned, I graduated without a job. And so I still carry that with me through my career. I'm constantly thinking about ways that I position my experience so that if I find myself without a job, what sort of basket of skills would help me get that new job that much easier?
00:21:07
Speaker
And so, so yeah, you know, payments and FinTech was heating up at that time. It was, you know, it was white hot and I wanted to just learn more about the space. And so Facebook, I was able to, again, fortunate enough to get a job at Facebook. But yeah, it was, so I started Facebook in 2020 and the company had announced their crypto endeavors the summer of, before summer of 2019, right?
00:21:33
Speaker
And I was at Apple at the time, and I remember reading about it thinking, wow, that actually is pretty neat. I mean, just coming to the scale of Facebook, I think there are probably only certain companies in this world that could really make an impact that large, that fast. And certainly Facebook was one of them. And so that's what sort of drew me sort of to those ambitions. It was very ambitious for the company to
00:21:55
Speaker
to want to do that. And so, you know, combining all the millions of people with Facebook accounts with crypto and payments and money movement, right, that's that's just it was incredibly fascinating to me. But I will say you mentioned you asked how the company got tripped up. And this is not the official word of Facebook, even though I'm no longer there, you know, and this is all public information as well. But you know, a lot of the regulators, certainly folks in DC, and then regulators around the world just really, you know, had issue with a company like Facebook,
00:22:26
Speaker
getting into this space, right? Because a lot of it is, you think about money and how it's regulated today as well. There are central banks all over the world that people close eye on their money, their financial regulations. And so for a company like Facebook, who's again, coming off the heels of Cambridge and all the other things, right? You know, misinformation. I even think, I recall President Biden, who was a candidate at the time running for president
00:22:54
Speaker
in 2020, like in 2019, made a comment that he wasn't a big fan of Mark Zuckerberg, you know, it's just, they had a political climate was not. And so the idea I thought, again, I'm certainly biased, but I thought the idea was great. I think just sort of these sort of external challenges the company was facing as a whole, not not necessarily specific to the at the time called Facebook financial team, but just as a whole, they, you know, they all they, they lumped all of it together. And so it was just a challenge.
00:23:24
Speaker
With no real regulatory buy-in, it just made it that much harder to do. But I will say, I would argue that given Facebook's ambitions in that space, it helped launch. I think it was a boost for mainstream recognition of crypto. And I'm sure it's probably spawned a lot of regulations around the world.
00:23:48
Speaker
for better, for worse, but it did. And so there was definitely an impact. But but yeah, it was it was it was it was a great time to be there. And again, similarly, worked with some incredibly whip smart colleagues, yeah, and business folks that I supported. And I just learned so much every day. And that's really what I try to look for is I like being, you know, the dumbest person in the room, because I can learn from everybody.
00:24:14
Speaker
I doubt that happens very often. It's a nice sentiment. But you know, I love learning from people. And so, so yeah, it was still despite the sort of those challenges, it was still a great place, a great place to be.
Management Experience at Bolt
00:24:30
Speaker
As we started to talk about what led you to bolt, there was an interesting phrase that you used in our prep call, which is this idea of getting off of career plateaus. Expand on what you mean by that. And also, you know, advice you might have for people who are intellectually curious like you are as they think about
00:24:54
Speaker
what they want to do next after having good runs at company. So up to that point, I've been in IC, individual contributor. I mean, I've managed one person kind of at Facebook. I managed like a summer intern at Apple, but by and large, I was an individual contributor. And so
00:25:18
Speaker
And the way it is, and at least certainly in a lot of tech companies, I'm sure it is in a lot of companies in general, the way to be promoted is to be a manager and to lead a team. And I just, again, thinking about how to round out my experience.
00:25:33
Speaker
I didn't have that. And I wanted it and it was sort of, you know, sort of hard to come by it takes time and it sort of right place at the right time or if your team if the business unit you're you're supporting expands right there. There are sort of organic ways to grow out a team certainly but but but at that point in my career, I wanted to have that larger experience. So I wanted to round out that. So to break through that IC plateau.
00:25:58
Speaker
And when you got the job at Bolt, DGC, you found that, right? You found a larger team. What was sort of the most challenging part of stepping into a management role? How do you think that you've grown over the past few years? Having hard conversations, right? Yeah.
00:26:16
Speaker
I don't think that they're necessarily easy for most people, but just having those candid conversations in a way that, and I'm far from perfect at it, but having those candid conversations in a way that it's meant to be like, I want you to be a better lawyer. I want you to be a better worker. And here are the things I think.
00:26:36
Speaker
what might make you be better. And, and it's hard to, I think it's oftentimes hard to give that it's hard to receive it. And so there there is a delicate balance there. And so, you know, I learned a lot, initially working with Ryan Lowe, you know, a friend of ours, sure, was general counsel at bolt at the time.
00:26:54
Speaker
on sort of having those hard conversations. I saw how he managed his team. And so, yeah, I wanted to just, again, to round out that experience. But that's probably the biggest thing, is having those conversations. And what I tried to do, and I didn't come up with this term, I had recently heard it, but instead of trying to give feedback, I heard referred to it as feed forward, right? So feedback is like, hey, this has happened, here's how it went wrong.
00:27:23
Speaker
Here's how it should go in the future. But so I think it's more like feed forward. So I'm trying to think about that, especially as I'm leading a much larger team at OKS. And then the difference here, too, is at OKX, I'm leading a lot more senior folks, like director level folks at OKX. And so obviously that management style is going to have to evolve and adapt as well.
00:27:53
Speaker
Well, you know, very similar in seniority to me. And so, yeah. So yeah. So that, so my measurements, I will have to evolve and adapt to be sure. Almost folks who are, who are peers, um, in a, in a way, uh, bolt is startup that, that grew really fast. I mean, I think it's, it's one that a lot of people have, have read about in the news. Uh, when you joined, I'm sure it was really an exciting place to be.
00:28:16
Speaker
over the past year or two, not always probably the easiest place to be a people manager or either though.
Legal Teams in Startups
00:28:24
Speaker
My characterization would be there's been a big shift in the markets and among a variety of other startups was hit pretty hard by that.
00:28:36
Speaker
I'm interested to hear from you, you know, how you navigated those difficult moments individually, and also how you navigated them as the leader of a team, trying to keep a team motivated.
00:28:51
Speaker
Yeah, you know, like any good in-house lawyer, any lawyer for that matter, I think you just you got to roll the punches, right? You have to adapt to the new normal and, you know, again, really understanding the business priorities.
00:29:07
Speaker
and then trying to align yourself. So, you know, thinking about how I can enable those business priorities, whether that meant, you know, perhaps adjusting our risk appetite, for example, or, you know, or thinking about how legal can be used as a marketing tool. Like, oh, look at all the, you know, set the house protecting your data, right?
00:29:31
Speaker
How can we leverage that? At the risk of sounding trite, you have to be entrepreneurial. These startups are generally entrepreneurial by nature, but the legal teams certainly are forced to be entrepreneurial as well.
00:29:48
Speaker
So yeah, just really, you know, I knew what the goals were, the company-wide goals were at Bolt. And so, all right, how do I align myself to that? How do I help my team align themselves in service of meeting those goals? You know, I was incredibly fortunate at Bolt to have a team of
00:30:09
Speaker
very eager folks. And so they were giving me ideas that I hadn't even thought of myself, ways to look at things, ways to leverage a lot of stuff that we're doing in a way, really ways to just showcase.
00:30:24
Speaker
you know, what you're doing in a way that that I hadn't thought of. And so I was very, very grateful to them for that. But but yeah, it's just, you know, you got to roll the punches, you got to be flexible. But what helps at least for me was really understand what's what is what does success look like for the business at this quarter, six months, 12 months from now, what is success? And then, okay, now that that's been clearly defined, what are the X amount of steps I need to take to help the company?
00:30:54
Speaker
meet those goals. The word entrepreneurial is kind of interesting because another turn of phrase that you used as we were preparing that I thought was interesting is that you've encountered some big company bias over the course of your career. The idea may be that
00:31:11
Speaker
Folks who've mostly been in startups might think that those who come from really large companies are not maybe as agile or adaptable. Tell me about, where did you hear this? Do you think it's fair?
00:31:29
Speaker
Well, I probably experienced many biases in my career. This one was a new one. I had assumed, you know, working at Apple, working at Facebook meta, you know, working at those types of places would be seen as, you know, sort of a feather in my cap, right? And so, especially, you know, as I started looking at jobs and at startups, and so
00:31:52
Speaker
You know, to my surprise, I did learn that there are some perhaps biases out there within the startup community about lawyers that have exclusively worked at large companies. And the thinking there is that, you know, and I'm not saying it's the wrong thing, but the thinking there is that, well, you get hired at a large company, you're hired to do this one thing.
00:32:16
Speaker
And you can't sort of get out of your swim lane because there's already a group of lawyers that do that other thing. And so the thinking is that as a start, you're not going to have as many resources and you're not going to have as many other practice groups to reach out to to get their take on it.
00:32:33
Speaker
that, and as a result, you perhaps you're maybe not as nimble, or perhaps aren't able to work with, you know, fewer resources. And so, yeah, I think there's some of that thing, just that big company thinking where everything has to be perfect, or essentially unlimited resources to make things right.
00:32:51
Speaker
And so obviously, at startups, it's not like that. And so I think there was a there was a perhaps a trepidation generally about, you know, can can big big company lawyers show some of that nimbleness and resource. It was what I actually got one of my first during, you know, the annual review season at Bolt.
00:33:12
Speaker
someone written me a review and my boss, my manager at the time shared it with me. It was a positive review. It said, you know, I like working with Wynn. He's great. I can't believe he used to work at Facebook or Apple. I can't believe he used to work at big tech company. And this person meant that as a compliment.
00:33:36
Speaker
And that, you know, and I've heard it, you know, even when, even when, you know, I know others at startups that are looking for for new talent, and they're like, Oh, well, you know, so and so was was only has only been a big time. I don't know if they're gonna be right for this role, maybe, or maybe they're afraid that they'll, they'll get frustrated at the lack of resources. But that was something that that I had heard enough to sort of make me raise and raise an eyebrow about it. So
Career Fulfillment and Leadership Goals
00:34:03
Speaker
Yeah. As you were looking for your next role this time around, I mean, I suppose you have bolt under, under your belt. Uh, so, so you've proved in a sense, you have accomplishments to speak of at a, at an organization that requires that you're a bit, uh, maybe a bit more nimble. Um, but this is also a challenging job market. Uh, you know, how did you find success in, in the search for your new DGC role?
00:34:29
Speaker
Yeah, again, I count my lucky stars. I got fortunate, you know, an internal recruiter reached out to me, even though I was keen on when I decided to leave bolt, I was keen on getting into crypto. And so I had the good fortune of reaching out to some folks getting some some positive feedback and, you know, connecting with a recruiter at OKX and
00:34:54
Speaker
and just sort of took off from there. I think, well, one thing that was appealing about OKX is that a lot of folks here, at least some of the folks I've encountered, don't necessarily have full crypto backgrounds, but there are definitely crypto areas that helped. And also when I was, the last few years, I've taken on speaking engagements in the web three and crypto space.
00:35:20
Speaker
you know, I was at, I spoke at the IEPP in San Diego, NFT NYC last year, you know, just talking about, you know, blockchain technology and sort of the legal implications around their metaverse technology. And so, so yeah, so I kept sort of I was always adjacent sort of to the space. And so, yeah, it came up. And we had, you know, I had some great conversations. And, you know, as they say, one thing leads led to another. And I was fortunate enough to
00:35:49
Speaker
to get the role. And again, what was appealing is that leading that larger team, having this international scope, what was definitely appealing. Maybe one final question for you on the job search. And when you were deciding to jump at this opportunity,
00:36:06
Speaker
You know, it's another DGC role as opposed to the GC role. Has your thinking changed at all over, uh, or around what you've, what you want out of your career or what you find fulfilling and rewarding where you see your career headed that led you to decide that this was the right opportunity as opposed to maybe finding a head of legal VP of legal GC job.
00:36:30
Speaker
I think this could be a complete podcast on its own because it's something that I struggled with, right? Like when I was at the law firm, they're like, well, what do you want to do? Yeah, I want to work up to be a partner one day. And they're like, well, why? I didn't really didn't have a good reason except for that sort of path up. So, you know, you go in house. So what do you want to do? I want to be GC. Why? Well, it's just sort of the path up without really without really thinking about it.
00:36:52
Speaker
And so, so when decidedly bold, I did consider a couple other roles, GC slash head of legal at some startups, you know, a VP role at a, at a very large public company. And then the one, the one that I can, one that I took at, at OKX. And that's the thing I don't, I always thought that
00:37:15
Speaker
I would work my way up to VGC somewhere somehow. And maybe that's still in the cars for me. But I started thinking about the other things that give me enjoyment and professional enjoyment. And again, to get to that next step, whether that is general counsel or large public company,
00:37:40
Speaker
I still thought I needed to lead a larger team, among other things. And so I haven't decided completely what if, I just started this job, I don't want to start thinking about what's my next job. I guess this is a long way of saying, I don't know what I want to be when I grow up.
00:38:04
Speaker
I'm happy doing my role. I'm extremely happy doing my role. But yeah, my priorities have changed a bit in the last, call it six months, a combination of probably getting older, a combination of sort of acknowledging that perhaps I've been on this, what they call it, a hedonistic treadmill.
Career Advancement through Relationships and Self-Promotion
00:38:25
Speaker
A lot of my career, but not knowing how to reconcile all of that. So yeah, I don't know what I want to do when I grow up, but I'm hoping again that I will have options. I won't have closed as many doors as I have.
00:38:47
Speaker
Sort of have opened and so so that's what I'm hoping but but only only time will tell me we'll have a have a have a follow-up to Knowing exactly what we want to be when we grow up So
00:39:04
Speaker
So yeah, but I will say it is funny that when we were sort of prepping for this, it is something that was just something that was weighing on me. Six months and you know, I talked to a lot of my friends who are many of whom are lawyers about it, you know, reached out to mentors. And yeah, it's something that I sort of internally am dealing with.
00:39:27
Speaker
Yeah, just a couple of more, hopefully fun questions for you. One, you know, I'm a big reader. I like to ask a lot of our guests if there's a good book they've read recently. Maybe you get to take off a little bit of time between Bolt and the new gig.
00:39:47
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I read one, not because now I'm in crypto, but I was always, I followed the FTX saga, followed what was happening with, with Sam Bankman free. So I wrote, I just recently read things called Going Infinite. Michael Lewis book. Yeah. And one, I like Michael Lewis.
00:40:08
Speaker
It was entertaining and it was insightful and I thought it was a great read and I don't know, I would argue that the misdeeds of Sam Bagman Fried perhaps weren't necessarily crypto specific, it was just mismanagement of consumerism that could happen if you were...
00:40:26
Speaker
at a consumer bank that can happen at any place where you have custody of a customer's funds. But yeah, it was really interesting. It was a great read. I would recommend it. It's fascinating. I can't wait for the movie to come out.
00:40:42
Speaker
Yeah, I'm sure there'll be a good one. We can take comments from listeners on who they think will be cast as SBS. Jonah Hill, I don't know. One final question for you as we start to wrap up.
00:40:58
Speaker
If you could look back on your days of being a young lawyer just getting started, what's something that you know now that you wish you'd known back then? Yeah, this is a this is a great question. I definitely earlier in my career, early on in my career and.
00:41:15
Speaker
Perhaps even to this day, I thought that if I put my head down, I did the work, I did the work well, I would be recognized and sort of rewarded for that.
Discussion Wrap-up and Engagement
00:41:28
Speaker
Since come to learn that that's only part of the battle, right? You have to have strong relationships with folks that can move the needle in your career.
00:41:43
Speaker
You have to do a right or wrong, and in practice this isn't the right term for it, but you have to do a little bit of self-promotion. Obviously not bragging, no one wants to hear that, but a bit of self-promotion. So I will say earlier in my career, I didn't get
00:42:02
Speaker
a promotion that I felt I deserved. And when I asked about it, I was told the people that needed to approve the promotion didn't feel like they knew my work well enough. Again, I had assumed I only needed to do good work and my manager would sort of take care of the rest.
00:42:20
Speaker
And I initially felt that my manager hadn't pushed hard enough for me. That was wrong. I later learned that my manager actually went to bat for me. He tried. But the process, like many other things in-house, required buy-in from others. And so I realized it was on me to make sure that key people knew what I did and more importantly, why it mattered.
00:42:45
Speaker
So no one really doubted the work I was doing was important, but they didn't necessarily appreciate my role and contributions to that work. So I learned that if I didn't want my work to be that proverbial tree that falls in the forest, that no one eaters, I needed to build better relationships with key people.
00:43:09
Speaker
who had, who could have that impact on my career and make sure they understood what I did now. That's a lot easier said than done and it is something I work on, I try to work on, you know.
00:43:22
Speaker
through every job, every day. It's something I have far from perfected, but it's at least something that I now recognize as, in my view, important. And again, earlier in my career, it was just, I'm going to work, I'm going to build the hours, I'm going to do the good work, and check all the footnotes, right? And that was certainly part of it, but that wasn't the whole picture. So that's something that I've definitely learned through the years.
00:43:51
Speaker
That's fantastic advice. I hope people listen all the way to the end. And I kind of wish I'd asked you that question a little earlier. Uh, well, when thank you so much for, for joining me today on this episode of the abstract. Yeah, this was great. Thanks for having me. This was a lot of fun. And, uh, to our listeners, thanks so much for tuning in and, uh, we hope to see you next time.
00:44:19
Speaker
If you enjoyed this episode, I'd recommend that you give my interview in Season 1 with Janessa Stout, Chief Operating Officer of Tally, a listen. We talk about transitioning from being a financial services and fintech specialist to taking on broader generalist roles. You can also subscribe so you get notified as soon as we post a new episode. And if you liked this one, I'd really love to hear your thoughts, so leave a rating or a comment.
00:44:43
Speaker
If you'd like to reach out to us, our LinkedIn profiles are in the description. See you all next week.