Tell us a bit about what you love about the product regulatory practice area or your role in general. Two things. First, the common thread running through most of my hobbies and passions is problem-solving. Whether it's woodworking, electrical engineering, or photography -- my brain is just built to diagnose and evaluate. (It's probably a sickness.) In my initial interview with a former boss (and a fellow builder), he asked me if I "ever just bought a woodworking tool to try it out and figure out how to work with it." I'd never felt so seen in my life. Product counseling is a way to connect an arcane thing that I happen to know about (reg) with people actually creating valuable things. Second, I'm a former software engineer and tried (and failed) running my own startup, so it allows me to partner with Product and dip my toes back in. There are few things I enjoy more than a whiteboarding session. I love how much lawyers are expected to lean in on that side now, and how there's been a blended "Product Counsel" niche that's sprung up over the last decade. It's probably what's kept me in the legal profession.

What do you feel are the most interesting developments in the product regulatory area and for the fintech industry as a whole or for your specific business/industry? Well, the last few weeks have been a slow-motion fintech nightmare, but so that's been interesting. But setting that aside, the evolution of fintech tooling has been especially interesting. There's an old adage that if you want to get rich in a gold rush, "don't dig for gold; sell shovels." Plaid was one of the first big fintechs to take that approach, and they unlocked a generation of services. We've now seen the banking industry get slowly deconstructed and broken into building blocks. It used to be that your bank rented real estate on every corner, paid you $300 to sign up for a deposit account, and had tens of thousands of employees building fraud models and a la carte solutions, reviewing transactions, processing data, etc. Now, ~100 people at a startup can plug in and leverage companies like Sardine, Unit21, Galileo, and Column and launch a bank account in a year. And while banks used to have this massive advantage in solving big, scalable, complex data problems, we now live in a time when those companies I named sell to dozens of players and have as much (if not more) data as the bulge brackets. It's kind of like mobile phones -- Apple realized that the key to success wasn't building a bloated operating system. It was building an open platform where everyone else could build all the things that make their phone so useful. That's becoming a strategic advantage for the challengers (at least in the short term).

What advice would you give to someone in the legal field trying to evaluate a role at a startup? Legal at a startup is a unique animal. Things I'd focus on:

1. Do they believe in the value of Legal/Compliance? If there's already a lawyer at the company, do they manage their own budget? Do they have headcount runway? If you're the first lawyer, who will your manager be? Have they worked with legal before?  Why are they hiring a lawyer? You want to make sure you're seen as a valued strategic partner, not a lawyer that they're reluctantly hiring because their bank partners or investors told them to.
2. What are the company's metrics? Don't be shy. Lean on your friends and mentors to help you evaluate the business model, growth prospects, etc. One shortcut: ask for the last 2 board presentations (offer to sign an NDA if you need to, or to view only). The truth is far more likely to be in there than it is in a recruiting pitch deck.
3. If you're the first legal hire, ask to talk to their investors (and be prepared when you do). They're going to be believers (they have lots of money riding on it), but find out why. Who are the competitors? Why will they win? What will success look like in 6 months (don't bother asking anything much longer than that; they won't really know)?  
   

What are the top 3 things that you think will define your industry in the next 5 years?

1. An enormous fight in fintech among well-funded B2C companies all going after the same customers (e.g., crypto investors, digital millennials who make $X per year and are open to switching banks) at a time when paid advertising is a money sink. How do you transition from a time when it was fine to burn $2M/mo on advertising (pre-COVID) on speculation ("if you get X users, you can just find a way to make money later!") to a time when you actually need to show unit economics? Who will break out of the pack and focus on a unique, underserved market? Who will figure out how to advertise creatively and cheaply and hit the right people? Who will survive the market and price compression?
2. How will regulators approach fintech? Will they be supportive of innovation, or continue pushing a pro-big-bank agenda? I think people have grown complacent with 'existing bank problems' (e.g., overdraft fees, long wait times, hidden charges) and yet are overly sensitive to similar problems at new challengers (crypto, fraud at neobanks, etc.).  
3. How will institutional players respond? Will they build out data science and user experience teams to plug the leaks in their boat leading customers to challengers? Will they allow generalized risk-aversion and fears of 'being disintermediated' lead them away from partnering with innovative new players? Or will they hitch a ride and take advantage?
   

Who are your mentors, how did you connect with them, and what are the top 3 things you learned from them? (a) a partner at a law firm who hired me out of law school, (b) a partner I used to work with and who got me into fintech, and (c) a business exec who hired me. I learned:

1. Be a student of the business you work in. Read everything you can get your hands on. You cannot come to meetings bringing exclusively legal reasoning. Sharpen that intellectual curiosity. Make your default question "why?" Why would we build this feature? What is the business trying to achieve? Why are we structuring the product this way? You'll be a superior lawyer if you are half businessperson. They'll also believe you're in their corner if you're relentlessly curious about their why.
2. Do everything you can to become a people manager. It's an unlock to a more satisfying and impactful job.  
3. Find commonality with the people you work with. Don't just make small talk about the weather and where they're from. Find out what drives them: family, the role, success, metrics, adventure, travel, education, art, appreciation/respect, gifts, the salary? Legal is a tough job. It's magnitudes easier if you and your coworkers feel like you're in it together. Don't just treat people the way you want to be treated; treat them how they want to be treated.