‍Intro Music 

Tyler Finn 

What's it like to be the first European legal hire for a fast-growing tech company? How do you build out the European legal team? And where is the European tech sector headed? Today, here in Amsterdam, we are joined on the abstract by Volker Weisshaar, General Counsel for EMEA and member of the Board of Directors at Sonos. Volker's been with Sonos for more than 12 years. That's a pretty good run, helping them grow their business not just in Europe, but Japan as well, I noticed. Before joining Sonos, Volker was in a similar role, General Counsel for EMEA and member of the board at NetApp. And at both companies, you were the first legal hire in Europe. Earlier in his career, he spent time working at tech and telecom companies in Switzerland and Germany. I'm going to ask you a little bit about why Amsterdam and why the move here. Volker, thank you so much for joining me today for this episode of the abstract. 

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Volker Weisshaar

Thank you for having me. Let's actually start there.

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Tyler Finn 

Yeah. Why, why Amsterdam? And is there something about the city? Like why do you think it attracts companies like a Sonos or a net app that's thinking about expanding and growing the business in Europe?

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Volker Weisshaar

Sure. Yeah. Why Amsterdam? Firstly, because it's a beautiful city. And it's, it's, I think it's, it has the best of all worlds for me, because you have culturally, with regard to nightlife, music, art, it is like a big city. It can compete with a lot of big cities at the same time. It's also actually a village in the sense it's still small. I mean, Amsterdam is not huge. It's not very hectic. Everything is closed within 10 to 15 minutes. You get bicycle. I love that. And I love the, yeah, the mindset of people in Amsterdam, which I think is very liberal and open. I think it's also the history of the Netherlands and welcome people from everywhere. Everybody was welcome. It didn't matter in times when that was really different. And I think you still feel that. And that I think is the main driver. 

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Tyler Finn 

Is there, I know there's like booking.com as well. Are you seeing the emergence of more of sort of like a homegrown tech scene here, right? Like VC funding? Yeah.

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Volker Weisshaar

Absolutely. It has changed actually quite dramatically from my perspective. I would say 10 years ago for sure 20 years ago it was not like that. There were a few headquarters of multinational companies which were based in the Netherlands and Amsterdam but that was very limited at the time. I think L'Oreal would be a company or I can think of I think Disney, Buena Vista, they had their European headquarter here. There were a couple but you could be, you would know them, would like a handful of companies. But now that really has exploded. So I mean the Netherlands and Amsterdam attracts a lot of multinationals. And you just see that in daily life. If I now I live on Vondelpark, if I now walk into Vondelpark with the dog in the morning, it is, I mean, I hear the different accents and different languages from, I mean, everywhere. And that is a big change. So it really has changed.

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Tyler Finn 

Yeah, spending some time here. I've been surprised, I guess, by how many expats there are or how many folks have even moved here from other countries across Europe I guess like you as well. It really seems like a very multicultural but also kind of like multinational city.

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Volker Weisshaar

Absolutely. And it is a bit different for me in that sense. I am born in Germany but I did already grow up in the Netherlands. So not so far from here. In a small place on the coast, on the Northern Sea. So that's why, yeah, Netherlands for me is also home in that sense. And what also played a big role in moving to Amsterdam is that my wife is from Hamburg and for her mentality and style, I mean the way daily life in Amsterdam is similar in that sense to Hamburg. She felt home here also right away.

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Tyler Finn 

Let's talk a little bit about your career. What was it that motivated you to become a lawyer?

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Volker Weisshaar

Very good question, because when I first started off thinking about that, I actually was convinced I wanted to work, wanted to be educated as a vet. Then for a couple of reasons, I changed my mind and then I my first studies were economics. And then I bumped into a group of lawyers who very quickly convinced me that this is the best thing you can do in life is to be trained as a lawyer. And then I switched and changed to law and I never regretted it. I think in the end if I think back why do I like it so much I think it is I love to work with people. In the end the law is about people. It's people that make the law and that apply that have to live with it. You have to find solutions and it is something which plays a role almost everywhere in society. So I think that in combination with being able in my profession to really work with people from all over the world. I can also have that in other professions but for international legal work I think yeah that is really the thing that that's, that's, that attracts me.

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Tyler Finn 

Did you always have an interest in technology? Or was this sort of tech sector, tech law, something that you fell into more?

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Volker Weisshaar

I could say I always had it, whereas the beginning is a little bit different. And that was not so much voluntarily, it was a bit forced upon me. And that happened because I did not go to a regular Dutch school. I went to one of the European schools. I don't know if you're familiar with that concept. We have a couple of European schools where you have your final exam is a European exam that is recognized in the whole European Union. And there was one there, a couple of big ones in Belgium and in Luxembourg. And there's this one small European school here where I grew up in Bergen. And at the time those schools, they have been founded by the European Union. And they have, they originated from the first corporations within the European Union. And they originated from the first corporations within the European Union, which was on steel and then on science and nuclear energy.

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Tyler Finn 

Interesting.

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Volker Weisshaar

Because of that, they were very much orientated towards science.

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Tyler Finn 

Sure.

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Volker Weisshaar

And at the time when I was there, you actually only had two choices. There were two sections. That was the only choice you could make. You either have the language section or the science section. And it was also very traditional. Almost all the boys were in the science section. I think I'm actually more a language person. So I ended up there. So for me, the major topics were physics, mathematics, biology, chemistry. At the time I sometimes was not so happy with that, but I started and grew, I mean, started to enjoy it and to like it. And I think since that I have an affinity with science and with technology. I think that's how it all started. And then yeah my first serious job was in telecommunication. From there I went into IT and so on but then always in technology. And I do I feel very comfortable in getting things done together with people who have a technical background, with engineers.

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Tyler Finn 

Sure. 

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Volker Weisshaar

I like that. Yeah. And I like to learn from them. I like to really get deep as far as I can to really have a good understanding of how technology works. And yeah, and since then, I couldn't imagine doing anything really something totally different anymore.

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Tyler Finn 

With Sonos, I mean, it's hardware too, which is very cool. Do you enjoy that aspect of it? Like the opportunity to work not just with sort of software engineers, but folks who are actually building, you know, physical things, devices?

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Volker Weisshaar

Yes, no, of course that too. That is also that is fascinating for me with Sonos because there we have both. Sonos produces hardware but at the core the founders of Sonos are software people. Which I think is also one of the reasons why Sonos is so successful because it has a very it has a solid unified platform which makes that all the products talk to each other. They're all intelligent. You don't have to think about that. It doesn't matter which product you buy at Sonos. They all communicate with each other. It can be bundled, unbundled, stereo paired and so on. So yeah, it's both and yeah, I like both. Sometimes I think back at my time at NetApp and think how wonderful it actually is to just have a pure software product because everything related and around hardware and logistics is always a nightmare. It's so complex and so difficult, but it's interesting at the same time.

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Tyler Finn 

I'm a big fan of Sonos. I have a number of like one of the sound bars under my TV. I have a couple of the speakers in my living room and in my kitchen. Yeah, they really are great products, actually. 

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Volker Weisshaar

Good to hear.

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Tyler Finn 

What's it like being the first? Let's just talk a little bit about sort of your journey with NetApp and your journey with Sonos. Both places, you were the first European legal hire. What's it like to step into that role? What's your experience been there?

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Volker Weisshaar

I think one of the characteristics is that you really have to like, if you do that, you really have to like to just, I mean, get your hands dirty and just whatever that needs to be supported that you really do that and dive into it. And I like that because I believe as in-house counsel you can be the only chance to be really good is that you have a very deep understanding of the organization. But in any aspect you need to really understand how the business works, how is the money and where do you make and how do you make the money, what are the factors that really influence your business, you need to understand the logistics, the operations, the financial aspect, just everything. And if you join at an early stage like in that scenario you have to do that, but there's also the chance to do it so that's I think that for me is that that plays a big role mm-hmm and I also like this scenario where yeah you really if you do that also at the moment you start hiring people and to grow but you already have basically seen more or less everything and done everything in the company with regard to the legal support of whatever the activities are. And that for me is a nice way to really then also start building and growing a team. Because that really puts you in a position that allows you to really lead by example. And I very strongly believe into that. I think in modern organizations this is becoming even more and more important. I think that's the belief that this is a very good way to also grow a team rather than, you know, from the background. I mean that also part is of the game that you need to help people to grow and to lead and to work together. But if you can lead by example, I think that that has a very, it helps a lot to build a strong rapport and camaraderie within the team. I think that's a little bit the factors that influenced those decisions to join at an early stage.

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Tyler Finn 

How big are the teams that you've built respectively at both NetApp and Sonos?

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Volker Weisshaar

At NetApp we were, we had a team of around, it was yeah, 30 lawyers. And I have to say NetApp was a bit special. I did not only lead that team, but at NetApp I also built a commercial function which we call D-Life Cycle Management. This was another team of 30 people which were a mix of economists and engineers. And there the role of that team was to prepare all large proposals with all the elements financial, legal, technical, apart from the pricing. We did not do that. That was the commercial teams. But it was a commercial operational function. Sonos were much, much leaner and meaner than Sonos were now. In Europe, we're five.So that's a small team.

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Tyler Finn 

What's the approach that you take to building out a legal team here? Like what do you look for? Who do you feel like the first or second hire really needs to be? How do you motivate people to come and join you and get excited about building something new?

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Volker Weisshaar

Yeah. Yeah, I think in to build a team like this and where at that stage when people start joining it is still is pretty much such that yeah a lot of things are not very organized and not structured so you still have a bit of that startup way of doing things and then you get into the phase where you, yeah, the company is such you could compare it with still behaves a bit like a child and you need to become a young adult and have to be a bit more organized and have to think a bit more about the future and how you communicate in a different way, things like that. So I think, I mean, my experience is that this mostly suits a lot those people who have a very strong customer focus. So I think that's the mentality in that environment helps a lot where whatever is being thrown at you that you try to find a solution that of course applies to all in-house counselors. But I think there it's even more extreme that your colleagues really experience and have the feeling in the sense that the lawyers they really try everything. And if they ever hear a no that should be so rare that if they get a no, that they accept it. So that they think, okay, if this person says no, I believe it. It must be no because I hardly ever hear it because they always try to find a way. So I think that type of mentality I think plays a very big role.

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Tyler Finn 

I like to ask my guests, and you offered a great example here, about experiences that they've had, sort of serving more as like an operator in the business, right? Not sort of doing just strictly legal work. Like a NetApp, when you stood up that additional team, how did that come about? Was that an idea that you had? Or was that, you know, the CEO said, Volker is going to be good at this, he should do this? Or how does that, how does that happen? 

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Volker Weisshaar 

Nobody said you have to do this. It happened more in a bit of a different way. I saw that there was a desire in the business that my team takes an even more commercial role. Again, I still personally always try to be really act, I mean, to be very commercially oriented and the people at a higher voice similar and there were a couple of people on my team also started to think in this way. So it kind of like evolved from within, from within the group to the point where I thought, okay, I think we have enough skills, desire, appetite for that and we're in a very good position to play that role. But that's how that's how it evolved. So there was some there was some need from the business and there was within the team where people had a desire to to do this and we felt like that we have been because this is because we try to be very very close to the business we were in a good position to give also that strategic insight and to help to prepare those bids because we are in negotiation we were really yeah very close to all the different facets the operational the financial legal and so on yeah so that we thought okay this this is a good idea. And then, yeah, we got lucky, and actually our CEO loved it.

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Tyler Finn 

Yeah.

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Volker Weisshaar

I said, yeah, this is exactly what I was looking for. And yeah.

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Tyler Finn 

And did you keep owning that team? Was it sort of like you incubated it and then you handed it off to someone else?

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Volker Weisshaar

No, while I was NetApp, I owned that part, yeah.

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Tyler Finn 

Cool. Where was Sonos when you joined? Because, I mean, 12 and a half, 13 years ago, trying to think of where the product was at that point in time. What was the business like when you joined?

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Volker Weisshaar

When I joined Sonos, give an a bit of an example that maybe helps understand how it was at that time that was the first time that Sonos started to do real marketing. So it already existed at that time for like yeah almost 10 years in the US and maybe five years in Europe. The founders were still around.

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Tyler Finn 

One of the founders was a lawyer actually, right?

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Volker Weisshaar

Greg Shelburne. Yes, that's the guy who hired me. And the other one was John McFarlane was the CEO. So when I joined, so that for me was very interesting to see that because it was still from the founders was still the mentality why would we need to do any marketing because people who hear who use the product they get it. There's no need to do marketing. That was an interesting approach. But it was also great to see and we had a great guy who joined that, who I think just before that, I don't know, you know, maybe the brand Silverquick? 

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Tyler Finn 

No, what is that? 

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Volker Weisshaar

Quicksilver. 

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Tyler Finn 

Oh Quicksilver, oh sure, yeah. 

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Volker Weisshaar

He's the guy who made that, turned that into a real great brand. So with a very commercially consumer focused marketing. That was a bit new to Sonos because Sonos was still, I mean, technical with a bit of an engineering approach. The idea we built the best products that should be good enough. Yeah, and from a mentality of otherwise and how people work, yeah, it was still, yeah, there was hardly, I mean, the belief of the people still was, and I think that's good to keep that as a kind of like a normal start. We don't want to run, there was a strong, how should I say, bias to say we don't want to run a company with policies. That's not how we work. We want to hire the best people that can just cope with any situation and we take it from there and then we can just build the basis and so on but not work with policies and a lot of approval processes.

So that was good. I think that's great. But also sometimes challenging because people started to realize things just change if you get bigger. It starts with communication. You have bigger teams, you will not always see people in the hallway or at lunch or whatever. You need to start communicating in a different way. But that for me is exactly the phase that I really, that's the phase I like the most, where you can really start to do things a bit differently. And then the art is, I think it's more an art than a science, and not to kill this entrepreneurial mindset. Because you will always lose people on the journey for some people at some point who initially thought, oh, young company, successful, growing like crazy. I must always love that. But also some of those people at some point it gets too much. They say this is not my company anymore. I can't have that for me, it's already too bureaucratic and so on or there's too much change. For once give me like six months and just let me get something finished in six months and don't change it all the time. So yeah, that's a bit how that game goes. You find a way how to maneuver through that. Yeah, and I think that's really that for me, that's if I think back of all the different jobs, that phase for me always is the one that I like the best.

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Tyler Finn 

Do you feel like you've had to sort of evolve as a leader in the business as the business has grown?

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Volker Weisshaar

Yes. Yeah.
Yeah, absolutely. I think when I was younger, I always believed, you know, if you do the right thing, and if you and the people that you work with, if you you know if you always show them respect and have empathy and help them if they need you which I still think is a core piece. That's it. If you start to work with larger teams even more diverse teams that's also challenging right I mean we also have these virtual teams who had people basically and that have all over the world that That makes it tougher. You need more discipline in communicating. You still need to be even more open-minded how things do things in the different parts of the world. Yeah, I've learned that you, first of all, there's no way around tough conversations. They just need to happen. When I was younger I thought why? I mean it will not be needed. People will get it and if we understand each other and we all have the same goal. But I learned that and I have to say that was difficult for me. One of the things I learned a lot about it and also I did read a lot about this topic and I was fascinated to see in the research from Harvard Business Review whatever you know they say they say that 67% of the managers try to avoid the tough conversations. And I at the time also thought of myself I thought I'm really bad at it because I also saw with new behavior where I tried to avoid it or kind of like drag it out and just see you are next week will also good enough will be good enough this is not the right moment but I learned to in the end have those conversations and it was also learning curve because if I look back and I always make notes of all these conversations, I look back and I thought, oh my goodness, it's really horrible the way I did that. But because I understood it is so important, and I started to learn that it, or to see that it also improved the relationship I had with the people that I work with. Because of those conversations. So there's a bit of pain you sometimes have to go through. And don't get me wrong, I don't mean anything where you kind of like have these, you hear these stories where people or managers have a culture where they, I don't know, once a month they have a conversation with somebody in the team where they kind of like really destroy them and do things like tell them. That's not what I'm talking about. No, I understand. I think that it has to be in the right way with respect and everything. But the things that don't work have to come to the surface and need to be discussed. So that's for me one of the big, I think it's one of the biggest learnings actually.

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Tyler Finn 

One of the things I was curious to ask you a little bit about is how you manage the sort of relationship with the GC who might be abroad, right? Or who's looking globally, but maybe is like a little more US focused because that's where they are. Like, how do you get that right? I'm sure there's not an easy answer there, but I am curious about that because you want to run sort of Europe independently in some ways. There's also probably a corollary here, right? If you're like the general manager for a continent for a company or president of a business in a region. Yeah.

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Volker Weisshaar

Right. No, of course. I mean, first of all, I have to say I've been, at least that's how I feel, I've been very lucky always in that respect. I always, in the the end had a situation where the relationship with the global chief legal officer was such that it was a strategic one and combined with lots of support, empathy, trust, which I think is the right way. And yeah, I have to say for me that was always possible. In the end I always had that type of relationship where that we work together in a way it was really to really talk about what is the strategy, where do we want to go and also what is the strategy to build a team and what are the skills that we want to have in-house, what do we have that we buy from outside. Yeah, and how do you get there? Of course it has to come from both sides. I think if so to say my chief legal officer globally has to trust and sees that we have things under control that the feedback from the businesses well we get the right support from these people we really happy with how they do the work. I think yeah that brings you far I mean that really gets you very far because then you can really focus on not so much on the daily stuff, the nitty gritty things, you can focus on the bigger topics. Yeah I think that's probably the most important part, that you have that, that there is the trust that you need for that, and then the rest more or less comes a bit automatically, I think.

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Tyler Finn 

When I think about, let's say, an American company hiring, building out a team in Europe, hiring lawyers here on the ground. One of the things that I think is so important about or so necessary for having that is navigating this sort of unique regulatory environment here and also navigating some of the cultural aspects of that regulatory environment. Does that make sense? In. In the same way that, you know, if you're going to go and spend time in Washington, D.C., like you might want someone who's actually worked with the staff at the FTC or at the SEC or depending on who your regulator is. Yeah, I mean, to what extent has that been a big part of your career and your time helping businesses like NetApp and Sonos grow here? Yeah, I think that's actually quite interesting one because conceptually and now I'm simplifying things a bit. For me, if you look at the regulatory landscape in US versus Europe, simply put, you could say in the US you have less regulation, but the regulation that is out there, some of this is being seen as something which is very black and white. There is this, I mean there are certain things where you totally need to stay away from that. I think that is more often the case, also because you have fewer regulations. I think in the EU it is different and in Europe in general we're much more regulated so there's much more regulation out there. So I think for people with the mindset from US or what they do who are used to how it is in the US and that's a dialogue you need to have to make them understand that even though we have so much regulation out there you need to learn and you need to know =, which are the ones where you really have to, where there is zero tolerance, they also exist here, but then you have this enormous vast gray area and to maneuver that, I think that is, and to help people understand how that works. And I think that's an interesting one because I've seen different types of behavior. I've had colleagues from US, you then said, yeah, well, I don't get it Volker. They're telling me there's all these regulations out there, but actually I have the impression basically you can ignore lots of them because if you violate those rules, well, nothing really happens. And that of course is not the case. It's much more differentiated. But I think that's a very important learning from both sides to kind of like to help each other to understand how you maneuver that. Apart from that, I think this is also a very good question because I think that is conceptually is a challenge which is getting in Europe at least in the phase we're in now, it's getting more and more difficult and it's a big task for in-house teams, this horizon scanning.

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Tyler Finn 

Yes.

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Volker Weisshaar

Because it is super tough. I mean, if you, okay, if you have unlimited budgets, but nobody has that, but if you have huge budgets, you could say, okay, well, we outsource that to outside counsel, to law firms, and we want them to monitor that,and then let us know if something is on the horizon we should be watching out for. That is extremely expensive. Because in a lot of those technical areas, if we talk about product compliance and the law firms also don't really do that because what they then do, they have young or senior associates to start going and reading through all these EU directives and regulations at an hourly tariff of 300 or 500 euros. That is insane. And then honestly very often they will not even be a super expert on it either. So that makes it very difficult. And I'm actually, that's if we think about AI, that's one I'm thinking about a lot. To what extent AI can help. And I think AI can help, but it's not, I think at the moment, it's not of the most prominent and best use cases. Because if you think about it, that even with AI is still challenging because a lot of the information will not be available digitally. And if you don't have the data, that also, I mean, then AI is not working. So this is a big challenge. And I think today, I mean, the way we maneuver through this is a mix of things. We try to be connected, which I think is a great source for that, and help those industry associations.

They're mostly very good at that. And they are informed, and you you can try and see what they can do for you. Some of these engineering organizations like in Europe you have this German one TUV, TUV, they're also actually quite active in the US. They can help you. You can say look these are the products we have, those are the rules that we know of today that regulate products you have to give us alerts if something is happening there. Then you try to kind of like squeeze a bit of so to say free advice from your from your from your main legal providers from the law firms. But it's it's it is very challenging and that if you think about what is something which could make me nervous or, you know, make me keeping from sleeping at night is this one. Because in the US we know at the moment they're a bit hyperactive. I think from my perspective I think they go a bit too far. But it is what it is. So it's yeah, it's not an easy one. There's no easy simple answer.

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Tyler Finn 

Do you have a perspective personally, like not on behalf of Sono, sir, do you have a perspective on how the startup scene is evolving in Europe and this question of regulation? I mean, this is something that you hear a lot in the United States, of course, which is like, you know, Europe has so set that the, their sort of like regulatory scheme here is so all encompassing that it's burdensome to businesses, right? And I think there's also there's a very different social compact here between the government and the people than in the US. And so if you don't understand understand that or if you're not willing to sort of understand that you're kind of you know you're sort of prejudging this I understand that piece right but yeah you're actually here I'm curious whether or not you you agree with that characterization that like the regulatory environment is stifling say like venture-backed companies or that's one of the reasons why a Berlin or an Amsterdam or a Paris or a London is not quite yet at the level of like a Silicon Valley, let's say.

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Tyler Finn 

Yeah.

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Volker Weisshaar 

It's a good question.

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Tyler Finn 

Yeah, no, of course.

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Volker Weisshaar

No, it is. No, for sure it plays a role. I think we can say that. I do not know if how big the impact is. There is an impact and my personal opinion is that the EU is overdoing it at the moment. I think they're overreacting. There's too much focus on privacy and intellectual property and I think it is good. We need to keep that on the radar for sure. But at the same time I actually do think that something else probably is the reason for having a totally different landscape in the US and that I think is this really unique ecosystem that has been developed in the US. Between the academic world, the financial world and the industry. I don't think that it's, I mean, it's not a coincidence that US in that sense is so extremely successful in technology space.

That is something that does not exist in that way yet in Europe. And we have a startup scene. I think Amsterdam is developing in a nice way. There's a lot going on here with a bit maybe more focus on FinTech than on other tech. But Berlin and is also good is playing a bigger role. I think purely in numbers. I think Berlin is the biggest startup scene in that sense in Europe today. But it's nice to see that also Paris is, France is back, right? And also if you think about AI with Mistral, the large language model, there's a lot going on there. But I think this US ecosystem and the whole mentality around that. And I find that fascinating always because I mean I've worked with companies in California for many many years and a lot of my friends and colleagues also within my family, people are building startups in the technology space. It's always fascinating to see that in the, the moment there is something where there's a slightest chance that this could develop into something, you have this extremely powerful system that, you know, kind of like kickstarts that. And it's fascinating. I mean, if you think about Y Combinator, and they're not the only ones, the other ones too. But the way they do that and also this mindset of that this in the beginning is about investing in people and how they do that and they kind of like give these people the help in doing that and train them and that is really unique. And that's something we don't have here. It's coming and then again but it's mostly I mean it's also I mean US companies that come over. I mean Antler to talk or give an example you see that they're really coming over to Europe and are being very active. So but still as such in Europe we don't have that in place. The financing and the way people invest and how they think about it, I think people are generally still much more risk adverse. That plays a big role. I think the way things have been financed, I think we're catching  up in Europe now. I think the way why Combinator is doing this is starting to become a model. 

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Tyler Finn 

Yep. 

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Volker Weisshaar 

Why Combinator is doing this is starting to become a model, which I think is also good development but I think that also plays a role in what's going on in the US. I have been working with venture capital a long time ago and at that time it was done in a much different way. It was, I think the way it's being done now it creates even more incentive for people to start something new because it's being financed in a much more flexible and I think in a fairer way and a better distribution about I mean risk and reward. So in that sense I don't know if that answers your question but I think that we again, I think there's too much regulation, I personally think that and we still don't have a good way to bring those main stakeholders, to really bring them together. I think there's still too much fiction or it takes too long. That keeps us just still, I mean, staying behind substantially. 

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Tyler Finn 

Yeah, it feels like there's maybe more opportunity, though, as you're alluding to, than there might have been 10 years ago.

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Volker Weisshaar 

Yes.

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Tyler Finn 

Yeah. Or like an awareness, or maybe, you know, maybe also an awareness that if you've been somewhat lagging behind for 10 or 20, that more investment is needed and governments need to focus on this and need to focus on having homegrown tech companies. It seems like there's more of a focus on this maybe now than there was. A couple more questions for you about sort of your journey with Sonos. I guess what's been sort of the most challenging issue that you've had to tackle or what's been most challenging about building and leading the team? 

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Volker Weisshaar 

I think the most challenging for leading the team and building and growing the team was to find a good way of getting all the work done, supporting the business in a smart way and at the same time just always keeping it interesting for everybody. Yeah. I think that is that probably is structurally a challenge for all in-house teams. But if I look if you look at the company as Sonos at that size and just also still moving quite fast. So you need strong focus. There is no way around it. So there's a kind of like automatically you get a process where people get more and more specialized and focus on always more narrow area of law and business that they support. And my observation is and belief is in a scenario like at Sonos you have to find a way that people also still have the possibility to just do new stuff and to do something different. But that's not so easy because it's not a large team. It's also Sonos is not a small organization anymore but it's not like Unilever or like Uber. I mean it's a different size. So you don't have, there are fewer opportunities to just, you cannot just say oh why didn't you just join the legal team in Japan for half a year and do something different. There's no legal team in Japan. half a year and do something. There's no legal team in Japan. So we always needed to find a way where we can collaborate in a way that people structurally have the possibility if they want to, to work in a totally different area. And the way we try to do that is to keep each other kind of like informed about what's going on. So we're just trying to find a good way where we get together and people talk about what they do so that you know what is going on. And then if there's something that you find interesting that we also enable them to say, I mean to give a concrete example that you would say that a lawyer in the US would support a deal that is going on in Europe. So you would have a lawyer who's not qualified, I mean it could be a deal in France, that's a lawyer who's not qualified in French law, under French law, but would be able to do that because we have created a system where if they wanted to, they could already have learned enough about that so that they could also at some point in time jump in and take over the negotiation with the French or European lawyer in the background and doing a sanity check and things like that.

And I think this is also a way we need to evolve if you really think further. Further in my mind, if you think about AI and how the law is gonna evolve, I think we're gonna to have kind of like central really truly global law to some extent I think that's going to happen. I think this is even more important. But that has been a challenge or is a challenge but also it's yeah it's also an opportunity but it's quite difficult to do that. And then technology I think is helping us with this now, because you can collaborate in a much in a very different way.

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Tyler Finn 

Have you started to leverage AI on your legal team? Or do you see a lot of potential there, even if it's not something you're using all the time today?

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Volker Weisshaar

I mean, I personally use it all the time. I use it every day but it's not in that sense Sonos has not really deployed a lot of AI tools. We work with the Google suite which also has AI. So and that helps in working together in a more efficient way. I think the potential is big. But again I think it's always important you need to look at very concretely what are the tools or what are the capabilities of AI that really give you a real boost. And that is very much different really from company to company I think. Because it's actually I find that fascinating. There are a lot of things which are very common. I mean you have challenges with contract management or with knowledge management, with the regulatory landscape, all those kind of things. But then again each company has its very own way of how you do things. And for AI, I think it's like with any other software deployment, you really need to think about that very carefully and need to really understand what are the workflows and what are the decision making mechanisms in your organization to be sure that the AI tool you think about is really going to help you. Because my personal experience is very often most cases those deployments actually are not super successful. So that doesn't mean that you should not do it. But I think so that's the approach we have been we have been taking at Sonos OS. Okay before we do this it's very tempting, okay, we're going to buy this wonderful suite for the life cycle management and then you have everything and then everything will be so wonderful. And then the second thought of it is, whoa, whoa, wait a minute. But actually, what of this are we really going to be using? And what exactly are we trying to achieve with this? We want to make the lawyers happier that they feel like they have more data or actually is it the sales people or what does finance think about it?

So in that sense I think it's still, this is still, those fundamentals are still very important. But no, I'm absolutely convinced, I mean, AI already plays a role today. It's more on a collaboration side, but I think it will become more and more important for all the different aspects of the business.

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Tyler Finn 

What are you most proud of having accomplished over your time at Sonos?

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Volker Weisshaar

I think that that probably is the setup of defining a new model of how we distribute the products. I mean Sonos works with a lot of distributors and retailers, thousands in the EMEA region. And the distribution model there is somewhat complex because we have to navigate through the quite challenging and complicated EU competition law challenges. So how you set up that distribution network that is quite challenging and yeah I'm actually proud of the model that we developed. So the legal team was the one who triggered really a new selective distribution model where we made use of the new developments. They have been some new developments in the European Union which opened some more flexibility on how you work together with regard to online sales and e-commerce. So and we really designed a new model and rolled that out and changed the rules around it so yeah, completely new setup. Yeah that's something I'm actually quite proud of.

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Tyler Finn 

I've got a few of my traditional closing questions for you that I think are kind of fun. The first one is what's your favorite part of your day to day?

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Volker Weisshaar

The call with the team on Monday to first to just chat and see how everybody is doing and then starting to strategize about what are the priorities for the week, what are the priorities for the next six months. That's something that gives me lots of energy. 

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Tyler Finn 

Do you have a professional pet peeve? 

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Volker Weisshaar

I think it is the scenario where I'm in a meeting, it could be any type of meeting, and I have the impression that people that have something to say are not being heard. I think that is something that kind of like it that really makes me mad. It's a bit of a thing I have.

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Tyler Finn 

How do you fix that?

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Volker Weisshaar

I mean if I have the possibility I would address it directly. I would say I think I heard Joanna or Mark say da da da and it just somehow didn't, it got lost. We didn't pick it up at all. And I think it would be, let's hear a bit more about it.

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Tyler Finn 

Yeah. That's a good one. I like that one. Do you have a favorite book or a book that you would recommend to our audience? It doesn't have to be a business book. I just think it's interesting to hear about what people are reading.

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Volker Weisshaar

That's difficult I have to say. I have an ambivalent relationship with these business books. I like them also, I read them, but then I also have these phases where I've had enough, I feel like, okay, no, this is too much. If I should have to…Yes, then I have one and that is Philosophy and Life from an English author. I think he's an Oxford professor for philosophy. And this is a pretty thick book. But he writes about philosophy in a very entertaining, modern, light way. But it gives you really the fundamentals of philosophy. And then building on that goes into different areas. And about the crucial question of philosophy, what does it mean to lead a good life? And then you can apply that in all, I mean, different ways that you're interested in. I find that fascinating. And also what I love about philosophy is, philosophy is the one that gives you, I mean, you have to complete clean sheet, right? You have the liberty to think about anything in any way you want. And I think that is so refreshing and you can apply that to whatever you want to.

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Tyler Finn 

That's great. That's a great recommendation. My last question for you, my traditional closing question for guests, it's if you could think back on your days as a young lawyer just getting started, something that you know now that you wish that you'd known back then? 

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Volker Weisshaar

I think that is the phenomenon that not everybody in any situation always thinks that the lawyer in the team or in the discussion actually only wants to help and find a solution and get it done. There I think it was naive as a young lawyer. I thought that people, they would know that this is how I am, that's why I'm here. And then had to learn that there were people had totally different assumptions. I thought, oh, there's this annoying, stupid lawyer killing everything. Whereas I was trying to be devil's advocate, for example. But that is something where today if I do that, I say, just to be devil's advocate. I support your case. We want to get to the best solution, but to do that I just ask you a few annoying questions. That I think is a major learning.

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Tyler Finn 

This has been really great, Volker. Thank you so much for joining me here for this episode of The Abstract.

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Volker Weisshaar

Well, thank you. 

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Tyler Finn 

And to all of our listeners, thank you so much for tuning in and we hope to see you next time.

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