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Ep 77: Thriving Through Change: Insights from Ron Bell, Collective Health CLO and Former Yahoo! GC
85 Plays6 days ago
How do you help one of Silicon Valley's most iconic companies, Yahoo!, navigate years of change, stay engaged over almost two decades there, and make the move to health tech when you're ready for something new?
Join Ron Bell, Chief Legal and Administrative Officer at Collective Health, as he shares his journey from Chicago litigator and software programming hobbyist to in-house lawyer at some of the hottest tech companies in the world during the dotcom renaissance.
Listen as Ron offers his insights on how to navigate the constant and radical changes he’s seen in the tech industry over three decades, the importance of creating spaces of trust and transparency, establishing legal operations in legacy businesses, and why people are so afraid of lawyers.
Read detailed summary: https://www.spotdraft.com/podcast/episode-77
Topics:
Introduction: 0:00
Charting a career course after law school: 2:04
Leaving Illinois for the Bay Area: 3:44
Working in legal at Apple as a former programmer: 6:45
Leaving Apple for Yahoo!: 10:17
Growing and changing at the same company for 18 years: 13:22
Setting up legal operations at Yahoo!: 17:25
Becoming the second Chief Legal Officer at Collective Health: 21:30
Building a strong relationship with Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer: 23:04
Navigating constant change: 29:45
Coaching your staff to be more accessible: 35:00
Paying attention to stock fluctuations: 39:13
Reflections on the maturing tech industry: 42:59
Deciding to move into healthcare: 46:50
Being open and candid with your colleagues: 48:45
Rapid-fire questions: 54:57
Connect with us:
Ron Bell - https://www.linkedin.com/in/ronsbell/
Tyler Finn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/tylerhfinn
SpotDraft - https://www.linkedin.com/company/spotdraft
SpotDraft is a leading contract lifecycle management platform that solves your end-to-end contract management issues.
Visit https://www.spotdraft.com to learn more.
Recommended
Transcript
Perception of CFO and GC Roles
00:00:00
Speaker
you know We were talking about this all company meeting that we used to have and this the CFO had said, you know Ron and I don't often get questions. right So do we really have to sit up there? And she said, and I'd never forgotten it because it was such a good insight. She said, you know going to the CFO and the GC is like a trip to the dentist. You don't want to go very often. And when you go, you want a clean bill of health.
00:00:23
Speaker
Yeah, I was like, wow, shes she's one of the smartest people I know. So that was a a really good insight into how people can perceive you.
Introduction to Ron Bell: Career Highlights
00:00:38
Speaker
How do you help one of Silicon Valley's most iconic companies, Yahoo, navigate years of change? Stay engaged over almost two decades there and make the move to health tech when you're ready for something new.
00:00:57
Speaker
Today, we're joined on the abstract by Ron Bell. Ron is the Chief Legal and Administrative Officer at Collective Health, which is a leading health benefits platform that brings together medical, dental, vision, pharmacy, and partner programs into an integrated solution.
Early Career at Yahoo: Challenges and Insights
00:01:16
Speaker
Before joining Collective Health, as I mentioned, Ron spent almost 18 years at Yahoo, culminating in a tenure as general counsel during a transformative time for their business. He actually started his career in-house at another iconic company, which we'll talk about, Apple, maybe slightly less iconic at the time, i and practiced at a law firm in Chicago before making the move to the Bay Area.
00:01:43
Speaker
Ron, thank you so much for joining me on this episode of The Abstract. Thank you so much for having me, Tyler, and for letting me don these ridiculous Princess Leia headphones. I love them. I think you look like a like a pro. i mean I feel like I might need to get some. I'll i'll send you this air after the recording.
Career Path Uncertainty: From Law School to Tech
00:02:04
Speaker
Okay, so Ron, when you went to law school, did you actually think that you were going to practice law or was law going through law school a step on the path to something else? Take us back to sort of the the start. I like to think that my career is sort of a ah great example of having no idea what you're going to do and clearly no clue and yet somehow being able to find your way because I had no idea idea what I wanted to do when I graduated from college. um I thought what I wanted to do i was use my skills in writing, my interest in the law, get a law degree. And and in my 22-year-old mind, this was a great plan, become like the Supreme Court reporter for like NPR. And if it makes absolutely no sense. like the same people First of all, there's like three of those jobs.
00:02:55
Speaker
And the same people who are doing them then are doing them now. Nina Totenberg is fabulous and earned the right to be there. It's not like you're going to give it to a 22-year-old with no experience to to do that job. So I think it was a bit of a Hail Mary trying to figure out what I wanted to do. But it did lead me to really an appreciation and and love of the law and communication and persuasion. And that eventually led me to to working in areas that were sort of media-adjacent, you know being at a law firm which had a media law practice, doing some First Amendment works, some IP work, general commercial litigation, which is how I got my start. and No one could say that you weren't like intellectually curious or ambitious, right? I mean, wanting to be a Supreme Court reporter, that's pretty cool. Intellectually curious, we check. Clueless, we also check, I'm
Fascination with Technology: Moving to Bay Area
00:03:39
Speaker
afraid. I have have nothing but hats off to people who do that work, and they've they've earned it.
00:03:44
Speaker
Yeah, when you decided you wanted to move to the Bay Area, so i mean maybe like also set the stage for us a little bit, the Bay Area wasn't quite what it is today and tech wasn't quite what it is today. But what inspired that move and was it an easy transition or yeah, how did it go?
00:04:00
Speaker
Well, it's funny. you know It actually it started, in a way, if I look back on it, although I didn't know it at the time in my teens. My my brother and I ah used to create software for the Apple II. And one of them one of the things we created was and what's called an electronic bulletin board system. So for folks who didn't grow up in this era, in the days pre-internet, you could write software that would run on your personal computer, that other people would dial into your personal computer one to one, like one at a time,
00:04:30
Speaker
And then they would email each other, leave messages for each other, play games and so on and so forth. And we wrote the software that would mediate that. There were a lot of these examples out there at the time. And so I was fascinated with all of that. I was just fascinated with how software could be used to build communities and how little tweaks to what we were doing um would influence how people interacted with each other, how they built relationships online and all of that.
Joining Apple: A Turning Point
00:04:54
Speaker
So comes around, you know, the the mid 1990s, the commercial internet is taking off, the dot com era is taking off. And because of that experience, I feel like I saw the potential almost instantly. Like I had this instant sense of the opportunity. And I felt like remaining a litigator in Illinois as as great as the firm was and as good as the experience was, was be like sitting out the Renaissance. Well,
00:05:20
Speaker
And so I wanted to get out of the Bay Area. I want, and I mean, sorry, I want to get to the Bay Area. I want to be a part of it. And, you know, gamely, I applied. And with just as much success as my Supreme Court career ah ran into a wall almost immediately. and No one wanted to hire a litigator from Illinois. People were hiring, you know, the associates from Wilson Sansini, the transactional lawyers, the people who could do that work, which is what was needed at the time, um and maybe some of the product work. And I wasn't one of those people yet, right? So I had to find an opportunity to build my bona fides. And eventually that caused me to find my way to Apple, which was this amazing institution that had introduced, you know, the Apple II, and it had all that early success, ah but which was going some through some really hard times. And they were having trouble
00:06:11
Speaker
hiring people and and frankly, we're we're losing some folks as well. So sometimes you know opportunity and opportunism meet. i don't I don't frankly think Apple would have hired me or even considered doing that if they hadn't had some of those challenges at the time. and I might not have found my way to them, honestly, if if they hadn't. But it was a good marriage because I had i had done all that work, as I said, on the on the Apple II. I knew their platform, the Macintosh. you know I was very interested in technology. So it was ah it was kind of a win-win opportunity. I mean, in some ways, I would think once you got there, folks must have respected that you had programmed yourself and that you knew their sort of ecosystem and you knew their ecosystem and liked it. but
00:06:57
Speaker
You tell us like joining Apple at that time. What what was it like?
Apple's Transformation: The Steve Jobs Era
00:07:01
Speaker
What was the company like? Well, it was going through, as I said, a lot of transition. I mean, my the day that I joined Apple was the day that Wired magazine came out with a kind of a famous cover, which was the multicolored then multicolored Apple logo surrounded by a crown of thorns. You know, Allah, Jesus of Nazareth and a single word underneath. Pray.
00:07:23
Speaker
ah ah Which is really auspicious, by the way. like great Great start to my career there. But like um but the reason they they came out with that headline was was Apple really was struggling. um there Steve and Jack not yet returned to the company, and you know there was the possibility of a bankruptcy. So it was this in ah in some ways a strange time to join.
00:07:43
Speaker
But I've actually found you know over the years that there are two great times to join a company. One is obviously what is doing really, really well. And they're hiring like crazy. And they they can't get the talent fast enough. And there's opportunity galore. And the other time is when it's going through some challenges. But not so many challenges that it's pretty clear that it's all over.
00:08:03
Speaker
But yeah enough challenges so that it has the potential to
Yahoo's Peak: First Impressions and Passion
00:08:06
Speaker
see its way out. Because in both situations, there are those opportunities to do things that you might not otherwise get to do. And that was absolutely the case for me. And I found, you asked what the climate was like. I found that despite what the external perception was, you know people often you often hear that about companies in distress, the common thinking is you know when the going gets rough, you know the good get going. Absolutely not.
00:08:31
Speaker
absolutely I mean, there are some people obviously. yeah But i I have found that there were many exceptional people working there to to try to drive success. And they're always and in companies that are going through challenges, true believers who believe in the company, who believe in the team, who believe in the mission, and who will stick through it. So I found a really receptive, great group of people, not just the engineers who you mentioned and the marketers, but the legal team. I love my team. I love the mission of the company. I love the idea of sort of building the world's best, and then personal computers because the iPhone hadn't come out yet. ah huh And it was just, I couldn't have asked for a better place to work or to get that experience early on because I i got to work on the first flat panel display in the US, which was an Apple product to work on.
00:09:18
Speaker
ah the iBook, which was they follow on to the to the iMac, which is the laptop, which was one of the first computers with Wi-Fi in it. So um just an amazing chance to be at a company just beginning its transformation, but also to watch Steve Jobs' return and the energy that he brought to that.
00:09:35
Speaker
And of course, I'm recording this on a MacBook Air with an iPhone in my pocket, glancing down at an iPad here or there for the script, right? And and in 1997, or you know when I was there, you could not possibly really confidently have predicted that. In fact, the laptop division was, the in some ways, the the biggest struggle for Apple, because they one of the key markets was education, and laptops are not cheap.
00:09:58
Speaker
So everyone would buy the IBM PC, but that migration eventually to Unix based operating systems and so on and so forth helped them to build credibility and and grow that business. And so now the laptop Apple laptops are bestseller. And i'm yeah I'm doing the same here and always have. I've always been well.
00:10:17
Speaker
Okay, so you talk about companies joining companies at maybe two different stages in their life cycle when you decided to leave Apple and join Yahoo. where was Where was Yahoo? And can you tell us sort of the story of how you got there and interviewed for the job and and got the gig? Yeah. So Yahoo, when I joined eventually joined in 1999, was one of the hottest companies in the world.
00:10:42
Speaker
It was one of the fastest growing internet companies. It had an international brand. It had brought news, sports, weather, finance, message boards, auctions, instant messaging, email at a scale that we hadn't really previously seen right to to the masses. and so everybody wanted to work there. It was, it was the company, um you know, maybe open AI would come close today, but even then not maybe as broad as offerings. So I totally wanted to go there. i I saw it as the union of three of my
Growth at Yahoo: Roles and Engagement
00:11:16
Speaker
longtime passions, you know, technology, which I mentioned, media and law. And I thought working in that legal department was going to be a dream come true.
00:11:24
Speaker
I was lucky enough to get an interview and in keeping with the theme of this, which is if he can do it, you can too. hi I think I started my interview with the worst interview ah ever given in the history of American law. I mean, I came in, I was over prepared. I'd really done a lot of work to get ready because I really wanted the job.
00:11:43
Speaker
but i got there and i was so nervous i'd psych myself out and i walked in and i was just because i was tense i was hunching over a little bit and you know my voice was getting very you know kind of high pitched and squeaky and i literally turned into steve irkle like while i was talking i found myself saying these ridiculous things like you know the job would afford me the opportunity to master the display who talks like that And so like halfway through the interview, I wanted to show myself out and I looked over at the interview and I had the disturbing interviewer and disturbing sense that he wanted to do the same. And somewhere, I don't know where it came from, I just looked at him and I said, Hey, can we just cut through the interview BS? And I'll tell you why I really want to work here.
00:12:26
Speaker
And he just looked at me like, you know, well, okay, things at least got interesting for him. And I said, I believe this company and this technology are going to change the world and I want to be a part of it. I've been doing all this work to get ready. And I think you've got some amazing things that you're doing, but I think you can do them better. And he said,
00:12:43
Speaker
Really, like how? And they're followed about an hour and a half of just whiteboarding and talking about stuff. And wow, I felt like I don't know how to put it, but I felt Tyler like I had suddenly come home. It was like all of my passions were suddenly like right there, unified and a chance to to work for this amazing place that was was transforming the world at the time.
00:13:06
Speaker
And a week or two later, I got a call and an offer to to to join. And it was like like getting a golden ticket to visit Willy Wonka. you know yeah Wow, I'm going to own a chocolate factory. right I'm going to make chocolate. It was amazing. It was amazing. I talked to a lot of folks on this podcast, and not many of them have spent as much time as you spent at Yahoo, like a huge chunk of their career in in one place. And um maybe you knew that at the start, or i mean you know you're talking about being so inspired when you join, right?
00:13:42
Speaker
But I also feel like in order to spend that long at a place, um it has to also sort of like grow and adapt and change with you and create opportunities for you to grow and adapt and change. Can you tell us about like how that was made possible or how you helped make that possible, that you were able to sort of like stay curious at Yahoo long enough to want to keep going to the next thing and the next thing and the next thing, right which ultimately led you to being GC?
00:14:10
Speaker
Yeah, well, I mean, to to start with ah one of your suppositions, no, I had no master plan. Sure. Certainly for not for that long. I'm a curious person, and I always have been. And one of the great things about working in a young company in an industry that's growing is there's always a plethora of opportunities to grow and explore. So I never really ran into in the same way some people do, like you can only go this far or there are no more opportunities or the company is not you you know looking at new things to do. You'll have to look elsewhere to find that. um so That's great. That's a gift. It is a gift. and As the company kept growing and trying new things, as it moved into mobile services and payment services and you know online auctions and telecommunications. you know I kept volunteering.
00:14:59
Speaker
Not like out of some you know political ambition to elbow people out of the way, but because I was curious and I wanted to learn and I wanted to contribute and I thought, I thought I could, and I ended up with something resembling, even though I was at one place, what I would call the ragu spaghetti sauce of careers, you know, like the their theme is it's in there. I mean, i've worked on technologies I've worked on technologies that have ranged from search engines and mobile applications to music and auctions, person-to-person payments, I mean, you name it.
00:15:31
Speaker
In my career, I've been a litigator, a product attorney, a tech transactions attorney. I ran ah Yahoo's patent portfolio for three years. I instituted legal operations. I managed lawyers domestically and internationally. um Eventually, I became general counsel, right? um And even later at at at at Collective Health, in the same way I became for a time, ah thankfully a brief time because it's a very hard job, the chief people are outside of health.
00:15:57
Speaker
So I found that if I put myself out there and got to see the industry, the legal function and our place in it from many different perspectives, it would keep things fresh and interesting. and it would create new opportunities to contribute. The more I understood all of the different constituencies and angles of the better able I was to serve in any one role that I was in. Now you got to be able to humble yourself a lot to do that, right? um Sure. As you have to be willing to admit when you don't know how to do things and to talk to people who do and many of the kate things we were doing at the time we were doing them
00:16:38
Speaker
were cases of first impression. No one had done them before. So you've got to be willing to put on your creative hat and say, what are the risks here? What are the things that are to be disclosed? What do we need to figure out? And really try to be willing to ask for the opportunity, seek out the opportunity, you know, project yourself into the future and try to understand what the implications of this technology are.
00:17:01
Speaker
um And I've always been able to do that, at least, you know, be able to to take that step back and not, you know, i' sort of stop myself and say, no, no, this is this is not something this is not a territory where I should be able to to explore and I've mentioned it to have managers who have always been really supportive and said, hey, you know if if you want to if you want you want to hang yourself, here's some rope, go ahead. Let's talk about legal ops. yeah I think it's cool. I mean, we're big fans of legal ops on this podcast. I like having folks on who lead legal ops or built legal ops teams and functions. I think it's super important. talk Just take us through maybe a little bit of like,
00:17:41
Speaker
What inspired you to want to stand up a legal ops
Legal Operations at Yahoo: Establishment and Impact
00:17:45
Speaker
function? Was it an easy thing to do or a hard thing to do? Did everybody think it was a great idea? i mean like just you know Being the first one to sort of push for that is not always easy in my experience. yeah Yeah, well, it was a change in thinking, and I wish I could say I came up with the idea all by myself, well sure but I didn't. I actually had a breakfast meeting with with Connie Bretton, who is then at NetApp, um who but who went on to found the Corporate Legal Operations Consortium, and is very well known in legal ops circles.
00:18:19
Speaker
Yeah, of course. And she was like, I think there's going to be this this new opportunity for companies to develop this type of expertise and and really run legal like a business. And I could just see that she was right. I mean, it it was it was instantly obvious, even though I hadn't thought of it, as I listened to her, that we should we should be one of the first companies to do that.
00:18:40
Speaker
and um I saw the potential of running legal like a business, changing the there were so many changing dynamics in legal teams and departments at the time. I mean, if you just think about this, go back to this era for a moment, we were just talking about the commercial internet, cell phones in the hands of lawyers, you know online storage and cloud storage had already transformed legal practice and the expectations of legal practice in ways that had not previously existed. um You add in their shareholder activism, which was really pushing for companies to constantly be moving forward. And many companies were finding they couldn't stand still. They had to take a certain amount of smart risk, go international, put their business on the internet in order to succeed. right And that that required a certain amount of expertise, which was often, as had not been the case before, more cost effective to bring in house. So you had more specialization to bring, more specialized attorneys coming in. And this was also the era a little a little before, but just moving into the era of Enron, where you then had the function of the GC as as gatekeeper and this need to not only be permissive and let the business be able to explore and grow in smart ways, but also to be sort of this voice of ethics and you know thou shot, not pass if you're going into great things.
00:19:57
Speaker
So legal ops is is a key part of all of that, right? Because it helps you to manage the teams, manage the function, manage the operations, manage the budget, manage the outside council resources in a disciplined organ and the work in a disciplined, organized and thoughtful way.
00:20:14
Speaker
and It really wasn't that hard to sell folks on it when when when you looked at where we were. We were we used to have a, and this isn't in the days before e-billing, we would pass around the department. There would be a litigation bill that would come in and and different departments had different aspects of litigation. So the corporate department might have share and the litigation, department an IP litigation.
00:20:37
Speaker
There was one bill that would come in from a law firm, not multiple bills, right, by a matter, one bill that would say legal Yahoo, and it would be passed from father to son, not unlike the Talmud, right? and And it would go from office to office. And then if anyone went out, you know then we would sort of go back to start again. And so at one point, one of my one of my outside counsel said, are we going to get the the annual payment from Yahoo for all the work that we've been doing?
00:21:04
Speaker
And so it was obvious we needed to do better, but also the opportunity to do better and the chance to sort of bring some of the tools and technologies that have been that we as a company were developing and then say, hey, how can we use cloud storage and search and you these technologies to make us better? It wasn't that much of a hard sell, i but it was a change in behavior and that took time.
00:21:28
Speaker
Sure. we come we'll We'll come back to you in a minute. But while we're on the legal ops topic, I'm curious. you know Then you you go to collective health. um I can't remember, but I think you were the first sort of GC, CLO. I was this i was the second. The second? Yeah. The second? OK.
00:21:43
Speaker
um Was there already illegal ops function at collective health? Was this something that you sort of brought with you that was new? And and I don't know, and where did that fit in your sort of priority matrix as you were coming in and and leading the function here? So there was already illegal ops function when I got there. yeah um i know And and not only yet like not only lucky me, but but but also, you know it's one of those things you reflect on. you know I have had a long career and i've seen a lot of changes in our technologies in our industries And the change from legal ops being something that connie brenton would would take me out to A bakery in the morning and try to persuade me with something we should continue to this industry where there are thousands of people that show up for conferences and certifications and you can go to a new company and the function already exists. That in itself was amazing. But yeah, we we had a form of legal ops and someone who was designated as a legal ops person already to look at our billing, our our contract management, some of our processes. And so we were able to
00:22:48
Speaker
to take ah some of that and and and build on it. I think we have focused a little bit more on on some of the the necessary attorney side skills skill sets that we needed to fill in in our department over the last couple of years, but it's it's never far from our minds.
00:23:04
Speaker
When you were at Yahoo, Marissa Mayer, who it is a you know very well known sort of figure in Silicon Valley, was
Building Trust with Leadership: Marissa Mayer Era
00:23:13
Speaker
hired as CEO. And and her hiring as CEO almost exactly or or very closely coincided with your elevation to to being general counsel.
00:23:23
Speaker
To me, that's an indication that like you were able to and then you stayed in that role for well until really the sale of the company for five years almost, right? You were really able to win over her trust very early on. I was wondering if you could take us back to that and take us through how you went about building a strong relationship with her and and building that trust. Sure. Well, um Again, to provide context, Yahoo had had a ah GC before me. Mike Callahan is now at Rivian, who had been my boss for about 10 years. and When he decided to move on, I was made the interim general counsel under another executive ah that I had served for served for a number of years, who was expected, anticipated to be the next CEO.
00:24:09
Speaker
Uh, oh interesting he wasn't but So, uh when when marissa joined, uh, I didn't know her i'd never met her before. Uh, I ah read some things about her on online as many people had she was One of the early employees at google, uh, you know big driver behind search and and and gmail and other products there um so had an excellent, uh technical, uh reputation but she was she she knew and She was the first CEO to come in into Yahoo who really understood, I would say, i the business we were in and the internet. and I say that not as a negative on any of the prior CEOs, but um because it took a certain amount of time in the industry for there to be people who had been executives at companies like at internet companies right and who had done this work before. So, Yahoo in the past had hired from enterprise software, had hired from entertainment when that was more of the focus, um ah you know had hired from different areas. And these were all very competent, thoughtful, smart execs in their own right, but um they hadn't necessarily grown up on the internet in the same way that Marissa had. so
00:25:19
Speaker
yeah It was at first of all, I felt like there was in that sense of kinship. She had been at Google for 13 years. I had been at Yahoo at that point for about 13 years as well. um And I ah thought that what she most needed was somebody who understood the teams, understood the company's business, understood the industry and was and was interested in understanding her vision and helping to make it a reality and provide you know some color on things that she didn't know. For example, how have we done things before and why? right What are some of the yes one is sort the kind of the cultural norms around here and why? right you know and You can decide to change those things, but it's super helpful to know about them. so How would I go about earning trust? I think it was about engaging fully
00:26:08
Speaker
and really thinking about who are all of her stakeholders, the board, the shareholders, the employees, her direct reports. As these issues are coming up, new issues are coming up, how can I be a partner to her in helping her think through how she can best not only make use of those resources, but also communicate to them. That's set expectations. you know When you're going managing a business that is going through a lot of change,
00:26:36
Speaker
It's important to be really clear about the how and the why and lay out what you know and what you don't and what the opportunities and the challenges are. And I provided a lot of context for her and really tried to adapt to bring some positivity and energy and help the legal team to provide substantial value and demonstrate that. And I think.
00:26:58
Speaker
you know That's all very abstract sounding, right you know but yeah um i I think in some ways it really is as simple as you get to know the person, you get to know their inner circle, you keep circling back and saying, am I checking the boxes? What boxes need to be checked? What are we missing? What's important for her to know? What can I handle? What does somebody else need to handle? and Constantly acting as almost this ah network switchboard operator ah connecting yeah connecting the wires. right That's a big That's a big part of being in-house counsel. Having the skills to know the job, that's that's important. But a lot of a lot of what we do is is counseling people and helping them to think through problems. And that isn't really the essence of what's taught in a lot of law schools.
00:27:42
Speaker
I mean, absolutely, to your second point there, that in-house counsel or legal functions more broadly oftentimes sit in a very at the center of a lot of different functions and are able to identify problems other people can't see. The other thing that your comments sparked for me though, or or and maybe this is obvious,
00:28:02
Speaker
But it's that, you know, when CEOs come into businesses or CEO start businesses and run businesses, they also are responding to a bunch of incentives and a bunch of different stakeholders. They're not sort of like, you know, they have their vision and they're on high and they, you know, you just have to win them over individually, right? Like they're actually sitting amongst a bunch of other people facing, as you say, right? Like, it's public company, they've got shareholders, there's pressures there, the board and the independent directors might have different ideas about where the business should go. you know i mean like that's That may seem obvious, I guess, but I think people forget that sometimes about CEOs.
00:28:39
Speaker
it It is a hard job. and i And I think, you know, one of the things that my experience at Yahoo in different roles before this, right, being the person for a while and, you know, a product lawyer and a transactional lawyer had done is helped me to think about what those stakeholders were and to see how things worked or didn't work and yeah what was important. And so it was, ah in a way, um one of the things that I always try to do now very naturally is just think about who are the stakeholders for any decision, who needs to know, be informed, how can I connect the dots, what do they need to have on their radar.
00:29:21
Speaker
That's a big part of it, especially when the stakeholders may have different interests, right? They're not always aligned. um And they do compete for resources, especially internally. So um just making sure that you're able to be a confident ah confidant from all of them and a help them to be better, whatever their goals are, that's ah that's a that's a big part of this.
00:29:45
Speaker
We've referenced, both of us, sort of that this was a very transformative time for Yahoo, that that five or so years. um you know I mean, parts of the product were discontinued or or sold off. Tumblr was acquired by Yahoo. Ultimately, the business was sold to Verizon and became Oath. i mean So there's a lot happening there. And and please correct me if I'm um misstating any of the
Leadership Visibility: Importance and Impact
00:30:10
Speaker
history. um But how did you help her and how did you help the business sort of more broadly navigate a time where, I mean, a lot of that would be very exciting, right? But like where there is just a lot of change constantly happening.
00:30:23
Speaker
Well, I think one one of the lessons, not just of Yahoo, but of my career is change is constantly happening. I don't mean just corporate love. I mean, even the technologies we were rattling off as we went along, right, ah have all ah come about in the last 30 years, which for some of your listeners may seem like an attorney and for others they're nodding and going, yeah, like like it's amazing, right? But we often underestimate as tech companies and as people is the need for change management.
00:30:52
Speaker
So at at times when things get tough, yes, there are many things, particularly the public company, you can't say to people, right? You have to do your disclosures and your actions. But what's really important is not to hide in your office.
00:31:09
Speaker
and and And it's the first thing people naturally do. Executive teams go into like huddles and everybody wonders what's happening and they fill it in with their darkest fears. When things get particularly tough, you have to be even more visible. You have to be even more clear about the objective. You have to be even more positive.
00:31:26
Speaker
And I used to take, every day I would get my cell phone out. I'd do my calls because I had a lot of them, as you can imagine. And I i would walk the halls, you know, being sensitive to privilege, of course, right? Like not talking. Sure. I would walk the halls and wave to everybody, just at every floor of every building in our our campus, I'd make a cycle. I'd also gotten in a lot of yeah steps that way, which was really great.
00:31:52
Speaker
But I would go around and I would just wave to somebody or give them a fist bump or, you know, cover the phone. Hey, I really love your poster or whatever. Just to let them know that they're seen, right? Because whether you're answering all the questions or not, they want to know their leaders are out there. They want to know that they're seen. They want to know that they're on your mind in some way, right? And for my team, I would make a particular effort um to spend that time on the floor and go around. Because even if people weren't meeting with me,
00:32:21
Speaker
I wanted them to know I was there, to know that I was working hard, to to know that I appreciated them and could see them. So that even if I didn't have all of the answers that they wanted, where's the company going? Will it be sold? What is the board going to do? You know yeah you you can't share all of that, even if you know. But they would they would have a sense of you as a personality and what they could expect from you. And that made it easier then later.
00:32:46
Speaker
to be able to deliver whatever message you had to deliver because you had established a relationship, right? You had established yourself as who you were, you're present, you're visible, you're not that person off on the side. And I think you asked, like, how do you help the company? Part of it is is being visible in that way and for the function, right? um We used to have a a weekly company meeting that we would do, and I would sit up there along with all the other execs, and we would field questions from the from the company. And you know to the extent i I didn't look like a Jack Russell Terrier jumping up and down at every question, um I would try to fill it in because I realized I had a unique opportunity given that format to put a face on the legal team.
00:33:29
Speaker
ah to put a face on the efforts that we were making legally to explain context i and thereby hopefully to use people's um hopefully ease people's minds. But even if it didn't ease their minds, make legal approachable and accessible.
00:33:45
Speaker
And um when times are tough or things are happening legal team is almost always very active doing things either on the sheriff's front or otherwise People get intimidated by lawyers, right? They're very intimidated by us. So making us The people that you felt good but about professionally but who were also we used to call ourselves yahoos that was the the employee who were also great yahoos and culture carriers and um Uh, engage in everything and visible and truth tellers and authentic. Um, that's not often the brand, uh, of legal teams. People tend to think of them as a little bit more cloistered, but um we, we really felt that was a really important thing. And I think it was in, in, in many ways, what, what has got us through, uh, some, as you said, some, some real challenges are CFO used to say to me, you know, one of the things that really struck him when he came to the company was how resilient.
00:34:37
Speaker
the employees were, how much they had been been through, and how they would adapt to change. But he always added, um nobody sets out to commit an act of resilience. So while you're doing that, you have to be respectful of the fact that this is ah this is tough. People have their livelihoods, their families, there's so much involved in it, and they want to believe. And so you have to help them believe.
00:35:00
Speaker
I loved that first thought around like getting out of your office, walking around, demonstrating not blind sort of positivity, but demonstrating that you're there and you're present and you see people and hey, how's your day going? If you don't see other execs doing that or members of your team doing that, I mean, to what extent do you feel like as either a general counsel or just as a member of the leadership team,
00:35:28
Speaker
It's your responsibility to to coach that a little bit or encourage more of that. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think as a member of the leadership team, you owe ah your colleagues, you know, candor, right? Sure. If you see an opportunity, share it, probably in private, not not in a big public. Yeah, sure. Yeah. um and And same, right? Like the same back. Like if if we're messing up, I expect that one of them will call me and say, hey, you know, I'd like to see something different.
00:35:57
Speaker
Because you're not just leaders of the function, you're also leaders of the company, right? And so that component is important. But even as a, whether it's leader to leader, were I had one direct report who was very, very frustrated because his his he he would get these, we would do these version of um you know culture reports, right? And one of the things that people would write in on his his survey was that They thought he was inaccessible and he was like, I'm not inaccessible. I have an open door policy. I tell people to come see me all the time. Right. You know, so I thought I would try to help them with that. So, you know, I went by his office and yeah, he had an open door policy except the door was closed.
00:36:39
Speaker
he liked work He liked to work with the door closed. And inevitably when people would come there, they would see the door closed and they would think, I'm not going to bother. right He's probably on something, blah, blah, blah. So even though he was he's just closing the door so he can get something done. and he he you know And I was like, why don't you leave the door open or put a little thing, please, please come in on the door.
00:37:02
Speaker
shock Please knock, please knock, or please come in, you know i you know, whatever, just crack the door. Changed everything for him. And huh it's it's little things, right? Because when you're in a position of authority power, whether you're the general counsel or the CEO or whatnot, people always react to position power.
00:37:21
Speaker
in some way. And that's an opportunity in some ways because you can yeah you know make things happen or tell people to do things. It can also be a liability because people may not tell you things. They may not ask you things that they want to ask, that they need to ask you, that they want more than anything to know.
00:37:39
Speaker
and I would always, like when I was doing a team meeting, I had limits on what I could say, again, public company, but I would always try to anticipate what do we think people are worried about right now? What do they want to know? And I would say like, I'm going to take questions from the audience. But before we start, I've come up with 10 questions I think you probably want to know the answers to. Let's go, right? like And and but get that out there, right? Because ah if you don't, the questions are there. They're still there, right? Yes. And so you have to create the space for people to interact with you. And so whether you're counseling a friend, a colleague, a direct report, or just taking stock of the fact that people always are taking cues and making judgments, um often not the things you intend. like yeah we We did a trip not long ago at Collective Health. A bunch of us went out to one of our offices. um we did We thought, hey, we'll do we have to do an exact offsite every quarter. Let's do it in one of the offices so we can get to know people there.
00:38:35
Speaker
And it initially caused panic because people are like, what are they doing here? right and and but you know But knowing that, we were then able to turn around and go, OK, we're here because blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. We're here because this. And yeah you can expect to see us again, and we'll be back. And here's when you know and let's do a whole meeting with the leadership team here here. But it's really, really easy to miss those opportunities if you're not you're not thinking of them. and and And I think one of the gifts of Yahoo, because it went through so much change,
00:39:03
Speaker
um was that constant awareness that what you intend and what people perceive can be so different. Here's a question that I haven't asked a guest before, haven't had quite the opportunity to. OK. Yahoo is public. Yahoo is public. So the stock price goes up and down. right um And as a member of the leadership team, and one, you probably know that like some of your employees are looking at that.
Stock Price and Company Narrative
00:39:31
Speaker
But two, you almost probably feel a little bit Well, I'm not going to say responsible, right but it's it's it's an indication of the sort of like leadership team and the business's performance in some senses. How do you stay sort of like energized and motivated? i mean Should you really just like not look at the stock price? I've never asked one of our guests that before, but I'm curious how how you thought about that. Well, you know if you're an executive public company, unfortunately, you do have to look at the stock price. Almost everybody else, it probably isn't a great idea to look day to day because it goes up, it goes down, it goes left, it goes right. We went through a lot of change. I mean, because as I said, we were an internet darling very early on. And when we were added to the Fortune 500, which was very early in my tenure at the company,
00:40:17
Speaker
All the index funds had to buy us, right? Because they had to hold a Fortune 500 company. Stock was going up $50 to $70 a day for like a week. Oh, my God. I mean, it got up, I think, as high as it may have gone. I'm operating on 20 years of memory, but it was like $500 a share or something. I mean, it was crazy. And then it obviously, you know, ah years later when it was sold, it was not at $500 a share. There was there there were a lot of changes.
00:40:42
Speaker
So when companies go through change and when they go through turmoil in the public markets, there's always a lot of people writing about them, speculating about them, sometimes academically, sometimes out of curiosity, sometimes because they want to make things happen for themselves. They've got a plan or an investment or an opportunity or in mergers and acquisitions they want to make happen.
00:41:06
Speaker
sure And so people are constantly talking. And so it's important to provide a narrative for the company, right? Like, this is what we're doing. This is why we're doing, yes, I saw that. Here's how I think about that, right? Here's here's how we approach that. Here's what's important. um You have to know it, what's going on. You have to acknowledge it. You have to respond to it. But you can't let it distract you.
00:41:31
Speaker
in the end from what needs to be done. And that means you know really laying out, this is why I believe, this is what I think we need to do right now. This is how what we're doing fits into the framework of of of what's possible. And reminding people also, I think that stock price is a measure of, ah a a measure of value and it's an important measure of economic value, right? um But it's only one measure. It doesn't tell you the passion of the people that that work there. It doesn't tell you ah immediately the value of the vision, at least the vision they haven't shared yet publicly. um It doesn't tell you about their depth of commitment to each other or or their passion for the mission, all of which are essential in any company, whether it's it's it's doing quote unquote well or going through a struggle time.
00:42:22
Speaker
to make the needle move. And so it's important to remind people that while things can happen and are happening and to provide some context for that, how we react to those things really dictates our course, right? Other people can write the the the stories, but we're the ones in the end that write the books. They're writing the stories about what we do and the impact of what we do. So the best path forward is to focus on what you can do and the value you can add.
00:42:50
Speaker
um And even in the case of an acquisition, an acquirer is somebody who sees a real opportunity and sees value in what you've built. So there's a lot of positive in that as well. We've been talking about sort of a 20-year period of time and in the tech industry where it feels like the industry really matured in a lot of ways. And you also had the opportunity to mature as a leader over that period of time.
00:43:17
Speaker
yeah Any reflections on sort of what that experience and what those years taught you and shaped in you as a leader? Wow. It's a big question. yeah Thanks for the the softball question, Tyler. You can handle it, though, Ron. I've got this. I would say one thing is change is constant. I mean, it is constant. i the companies Many of the companies that I worked for, two at least two of them, ah didn't exist when I graduated from law school.
00:43:53
Speaker
Right? Some of the technology could have been fundamental to how we all interact. Wi-Fi, right? The internet, commercial internet, you know phones with applications on them didn't exist when I graduated from law school, didn't exist during my first job, started to didn't exist even in my second job and came around somewhere in the middle.
00:44:13
Speaker
The amount of change and the pace of change we have gone through as a as societies and as professionals over the past 20 or 30 years is really almost almost unprecedented. you know I use the term renaissance, but maybe even more so than that. and um that you know I type my my college application essays on an IBM Selectric. What I've learned from that is is a couple of things. The first is technology companies Often had this vision like they have this almost a messianic ah Vision, you know, if I if I if I build it they will come great things will happen because I have built it and yeah and not always enough attention is spent to the human side of it um what are the consequences of this tech of this technology and socially, economically, what change in behavior has to happen for the new legal ops tool to be adopted, even though it is better and greater and and and sure and so forth. It means people have to change their pattern of behavior. And so I think one of the things that I've learned is
00:45:17
Speaker
You have to explain change. You have to contextualize it. You have to expect some resistance to it because every there's always somebody who who does that, especially in a legal team because, man, we are great at finding all the flaws. Whatever your plan is, like there's always a lawyer who can point it out. And if they don't, somebody on the other side will, right? um And you have to be flexible and adaptable. you know um I think that My career has had been a straight line. I've done a lot of different things and I've moved to a lot of different opportunities and technologies. And I think that in in many ways, looking back, it looks like this, you know wow, you know started you started as the the the lowest of the low guy, the 10th lawyer on the team. like Even took a good motion actually in my title to to to join Yahoo because they didn't have anybody yet at the at the level that I was at Apple.
00:46:08
Speaker
And it looks like a path, but only in retrospect. Many times you can only connect the dots looking back, right? So I think the key the key to survival in tech is to be super adaptable, to expect the change, to contextualize
Tech Focus vs. Human Impact: Need for Better Communication
00:46:24
Speaker
change. And, you know, it sounds very Gandhi-esque, but more or less to be the change you want to see in the world.
00:46:29
Speaker
um you know um A lot of companies don't think about that, and I think it's often to their detriment. I think it's it's one reason that people have negative views of of tech. things haven't been There may be very good reasons why companies need to collect X and Y data, but if they don't explain what those reasons are and they don't make it clear that they're doing it, um it undermines trust, and that's a big part of it.
00:46:50
Speaker
When you decided to leave Yahoo, join Collective Health, um what motivated you to make the switch to
Joining Collective Health: Personal Motivations
00:46:59
Speaker
to healthcare? care and And why did you feel that was right for your next act?
00:47:05
Speaker
Well, there was a couple of things. First of all, I knew the CEO. He had been um yeah one of my early clients at Yahoo, and had he he, unlike me, left and and had a life. and went on to everything So i I kind of knew that the one of the players. um More importantly, I love the mission. One of the things I loved about Yahoo, especially in the early days, was there was it seemed like there was this fertile open field and so much opportunity to build tools and technology that would transform how we communicate and interact and and get information. Healthcare is a pretty well established field, but man, there's a lot of opportunity to do better. um any any oh yeah Anybody who's gone through open enrollment and does not raise their hand and say, that was a fabulous process, couldn't be changed, let's do more of that, right?
00:47:57
Speaker
you know um or tried to get an insurance bill paid, right? or Or tried to take care of an elderly relative and realized how easy it is to fall between the cracks in the system. um So I felt a ah real passion.
00:48:13
Speaker
intellectually for the mission. I also had ah a parent who had had a series of, you know, health care, bad, poor health care experiences, unfortunately. And in my father, who was a physician, but then eventually, as, as, you know, some of his ailments got the better of him became the patient, right? And I watched you know, but this provider suddenly go to be the provided for and I wanted to be a part of helping to make the system better so other people wouldn't have to go through something like that.
00:48:45
Speaker
I think as and this has come out in a number of other questions, but I think when we're talking about in preparation for this sort of your tenure at Collective Health so far, one of the things that you're really passionate about is being seen as more than the lawyer. so That way people aren't scared to come to you. That way they want to be open with you. That way they feel like you're being candid with them.
00:49:10
Speaker
um Yeah, any reflections on you know in your current role, how you've gone about building that sort of trust across the business and and maybe also you know encouraged your team to to do the same.
Approachability in Legal Counsel
00:49:23
Speaker
Yeah. Well, I mean, just to underscore what you said, people are afraid of legal. um Legal has a lot. No, really. I mean, i mean not, yeah we we we joke about, sometimes we don't joke about like them talking about legal as a cost center and so on and so forth. And sure everybody listening to this podcast now is groaning and nodding their head. um But they're afraid of us. We have knowledge they don't have. They often see us when they need to have something done or when something has gone not so well.
00:49:49
Speaker
right? Yeah, they're scared. You know, we stand up there like the wizards that we are and you know, utter these, you know, Harry Potter like incantations, we've had us with pandas, you know, whatever, and and try to make the problem better and and make it go away.
00:50:04
Speaker
yeah Marissa Meyer said to me once, you know we were talking about this all company meeting that that we used to have. And this the CFO had said, you know Ron and I don't often get questions. right So do we really have to sit up there? And um she said, and I'd never forgotten it because it was such a good insight. She said, you know going to the CFO and the GC is like a trip to the dentist. You don't want to go very often. And when you go, you want a clean bill of health.
00:50:32
Speaker
And i was yeah I was like, wow. you know that's that the she's She's one of the smartest people I know. So that was a a really good insight into how people can perceive you. And as a legal team, it's important to be curious.
00:50:47
Speaker
to really be interested and invested in the company and its products and its goals, in the human beings that you are, that are, you know, the companies you're playing, but the human beings who represent the company and their goals and to communicate with them as a human being in a regular way, you know, yes and provide, often only there's nothing that frustrates people more, you know, I find in lawyers that like, I've told them the advice 40,000 times and they do the same thing.
00:51:15
Speaker
you know ah If you're a lawyer, you got to expect that. That's just part of part of the process is is people are going to ah make mistakes and the next person is going to come along. And even though if you explain it to the group 200 times, they're going to make the same mistake. But take it again, be visible, explain it to them, provide the context, provide the tools to to move on, and also use your power wisely.
00:51:38
Speaker
I think that is, um you know because legal does have the power, we don't try to say no very often, but when we speak and say something like, you of course you can do that, but if you do, you'll be you know in a cell at Riker's and you're going to be wearing orange. People take that very seriously as as they should. yeah so You shouldn't say that too often. right You should be trying to find the opportunities for people and provide the insights so that they can be their best selves and and move forward. And that means using that power wisely, using your voice wisely, using it not just to point out all the flaws, but sometimes to point out the things that were really good. I love the way you blah, blah, blah, or I love the ambition behind what you're thinking about doing. I love the idea of such and such. There are some things I would change. You know, let me give you some things to think about and try to bring a positive energy to it because nobody likes the seagull that that sort of, you know,
00:52:30
Speaker
It flies overhead and poops on the parade and feels separate from it, right? They want to know you're a trusted colleague. And I think the biggest mistake I hear, not at Collective Health, but that I've heard people make over the years, is when somebody sort of gets into that the mindset of there's us and there's the business.
00:52:48
Speaker
Right. You hear yeah like, how do we serve the business? How can we learn more about the business? And there is a separation that has to occur when you're an advisor. Of course, you have to be separate enough. it Privilege requires it. But you're also part of the business if you're in-house and companies have choices. They don't have to have an in-house legal team. So if you're there, you know, um um my friend Brian Martin at Nutanix likes to say, you know, if you're there, you have to show the value. If the if the company was going to have an ah RFP tomorrow,
00:53:18
Speaker
why would your team win it? and And how do you bring that value? So it's it's being someone they can communicate with, understanding and anticipating their needs, being visible, using that power wisely, and bringing a positive energy. um And I think you also have to be the culture carrier. It's hard, but I think as a legal team, knowing that people are scared of you, you have got to be front and center in all the corporate events,
00:53:41
Speaker
You got to go there. right i I am the guy, this is very embarrassing, so but I've been admitted on this podcast, so it's memorialized. We have a tradition at Collective Health ah that started some years ago where an executive who is usually me ah will don a turkey costume and deliver an annual Thanksgiving message to the employees dressed as ridiculous turkey. Um, and I have no problem doing this not because I want to embarrass my colleagues or my department or or myself, uh, which i've just exceeded doing Um, but because okay, you know the guy dressed like a turkey he was out there now i I can invite him to the meeting. He's a human being and then you're a yeah professional. Of course, you're a professional You're not like this, you know, this isn't a stand-up. There's a real job to be done
00:54:29
Speaker
But you don't you can put a human face on it. You can show you're a part of the culture in the company. And that is incredibly empowering to all the real work, the real counseling, the real advice giving um that has to be done.
00:54:45
Speaker
you I love that. And you're clearly willing to take one for the team. Yeah, I definitely am. i not I've got a few fun questions for you as we start to wrap up. The first is what your favorite part of your day to day is.
00:55:06
Speaker
Oh, there's no question. It's working with engineers and business people who are creative and passionate and committed to our mission at Collective Health and who want to transform healthcare care and just seeing the energy that they bring and the optimism and the positivity and then turning it around and working with my team members and other team members to make those things a reality. I mean, one of the great things about being in-house is you're not just giving advice. The business of the company isn't like the business of a law firm, which is to give advice. It is to take that advice right and more or less productize it and make things happen. And there's nothing, I think, more satisfying than seeing the results of that process and knowing that you've contributed to it and you've made something better in the world. That's just an amazing, amazing feeling.
00:55:58
Speaker
The flip side? Well, maybe not the flip side, but I think this is a funny one. Do you have a professional pet peeve? Oh, man. i yeah We could spend an entire podcast on professional pet peeve. I have to say, there is one that just comes to mind, and that is besides, it's the intersection of dictation and autocorrect.
00:56:19
Speaker
where you're di yeah you're dictating to the phone and you're trying to do it, then Autocorrect is kicking in. And I have this great story that illustrates this. I had a colleague at Yahoo who was doing a deal. ah And he texted the the young CEO of this potential acquisition company, and he texted him. He got his dictation out, and he said, I look forward to getting to know your team better, OK? OK. But he didn't read it afterwards. He just sent.
00:56:47
Speaker
and what What auto-correct and dictation heard was, I look forward to getting to know your teen daughter. um Which, unfortunately, this is a young guy, you know the young CEO, he didn't have a teen daughter. It was pretty clear, and he was able to explain it. But I just thought, oh, man. you know ah That could have gone south. Yeah. Our technology is wonderful, but the human element, maybe with AI that would go better. But but but it's always fun but but boy, that when it goes badly, it can go really badly.
00:57:16
Speaker
yeah Okay, so if you work for a company where Ron's UGC, don't use auto dictating. Just read it. said Just read it afterwards. Just read it.
00:57:28
Speaker
and A yeah ah last question for you. This is sort of my traditional closing question for guests. It's if you could look back on your days of being a young lawyer just getting started, maybe at the firm in Chicago, something that you know now that you wish that you'd known back then.
00:57:53
Speaker
Well, I won't give you a skills based one because I think many of the lessons of the law come only with experience, right? You have to go through things, um, experience things to be able to, to advise them. You can't teach them. Um, and you need the perspective to do that. But I think that the thing that stands out to me, honestly, if I could go back, I was.
00:58:17
Speaker
always trying to find my way and always struggling with a little bit of imposter syndrome. I mean, you couldn't possibly not. and Having tried so many different things along the way, right? I was always, as I said, and or very frequently in ah in a role where I was having to learn and humble myself and and learn what that meant um to be in that role or to be an attorney with that perspective.
00:58:42
Speaker
and And that was was hard, but if I could go back in a time machine right now to my younger self, what I would say is if you do the things that you're you're passionate about and you stick with it and you make the best judgments you can at the time,
00:58:57
Speaker
And you'll learn as much as you can from the mistakes along the way. Inevitably, you're going to build a life and a career that you're really passionate about and where you can make a difference. Maybe, maybe you won't be a GC. Maybe you'll do something else. It doesn't really matter what it is.
00:59:13
Speaker
But if you can give yourself the freedom to take the chance and try those new things, the sky really is the limit.
Advice for Young Lawyers: Passion and Risk-Taking
00:59:21
Speaker
Most people place limits on themselves. I was always pretty good about not doing that, but that didn't mean that I i didn't have a lot of this a lot of those feelings. So if I could go back to my younger self, I would say, you know,
00:59:32
Speaker
just do it because as much as you have that anxiety sometimes about trying something new and that fear born not just of malpractice, but but also but also of letting other people down, there's nothing worse, I think, than than meeting somebody and i and and we've all met people like this who say woulda, coulda, shoulda. There's no one that you it's worse to be an imposter to than yourself.
01:00:01
Speaker
And so um if I had advice for myself, I don't know that I would change too much along the way, but I would say enjoy it, right? Enjoy it. You're at this amazing time in these amazing companies with these amazing opportunities. And i someday you'll be on a podcast with Tyler and he'll be they'll be asking you about them. So i enjoy them as you go along.
01:00:25
Speaker
Well, it wasn't a podcast about what the Supreme Court's gonna do next term, but hopefully. And I have no idea, I can honestly say, I do not know. ah Ron, thank you so much. This has been a fantastic conversation. and Anybody who's writing a book on Yahoo or sort of like the history of the internet should talk to you. ah This has been really great. Thank you so much for joining me today. And thank you for
Closing Remarks
01:00:54
Speaker
having me.
01:00:54
Speaker
And to all of our listeners, thanks so much for tuning in and we hope to see you next time. but are