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
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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