Introduction: 0:00

• Introducing Andrew Woods, General Counsel at PubMatic.
• Formerly serving as Director, Legal & Associate General Counsel at Twitter; Corporate Counsel at Turn, and more.

Starting your career as a professional poker player: 1:33

• Getting involved in poker at a young age and developing a fascination with the mechanics of the game.
• Choosing to attend law school after the online poker explosion in 2004.
• Recognizing the importance of storytelling in poker and connecting it to the legal profession.

How poker gave him the skills required to succeed as general counsel: 6:10

• Identifying poker as a game based on balancing information asymmetry.
• Dealing with information asymmetry in contract negotiation while understanding that inconsistency breeds suspicion.
• Meeting your mentor at Harvard Law across the table at a poker tournament.
• Founding the Global Poker Strategic Thinking Society with other poker players at Harvard.

Taking an unorthodox path after law school: 13:02

• Realizing that the traditional trajectory at a large law firm wasn’t right for him.
• Moving to New York City and taking a job working for another poker-playing lawyer, Steven Donziger.
• Litigating a news-making legal claim in Ecuador against an oil company responsible for decimating the Amazon rainforest.

Transitioning to in-house roles in tech: 17:12

• Gaining unique experiences like working with Congress and the media and attending a documentary premiere about your case.
• Coming out of the first phase of your career without basic experience like writing motions or leading a discovery process.
• Moving to California and joining a start-up early in its development.
• Undergoing a humbling process of recognizing your own strengths and weaknesses.
• Joining Turn as corporate counsel and gaining experience in essential fields.

Moving away from skill questions in the hiring process: 22:52

• Asking questions about career goals instead of past work experience.
• Viewing a job’s subject matter as the easiest thing to teach.
• Ensuring that all new hires actually want the job they’re accepting.
• Identifying an aptitude for mastery over tasks and topics.

Developing mastery over fields like privacy and ad tech: 29:05

• Recognizing that privacy isn’t complicated at a macro level.
• Understanding the story and seeing it from legislators’ point of view.
• Closely reading every single word in your own company’s contracts.

Breaking into privacy: 33:18

• Identifying separate paths for lawyers and non-lawyers, including thought leadership, blogging, and reading online resources from trade groups.
• Asking yourself what it is that you’re trying to do in the field.

Considering the future of AI governance from a privacy perspective: 36:37

• Moving away from manual processes is similar to the introduction of e-discovery tools.

Making the jump to Twitter and PubMatic: 39:21

• Taking on military-style tours of duty as a tech lawyer and learning about understand operational processes and executive leadership skills.
• Acquiring mastery and autonomy in your role but losing significance at your organization.
• Isolating the times in your career when you were happiest and looking for a job that embodies that work.
• Four considerations for lawyers interviewing for general counsel roles.

Book recommendations: 54:23

• 1812 by David Nevin

What you wish you’d known as a young lawyer: 57:23

• Acknowledging your own naive and self-centered views about your future.
• Identifying the types of work that motivate you and building your career towards them.

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