CZ and Friends

Navigating Innovation & IP at Scale: Tina Patel on Building Legal at Amazon

• Cecilia Ziniti • Season 1 • Episode 4

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How do you guide legal strategy for groundbreaking products like Alexa while managing risk and leading at scale? 

Today’s guest, Tina Patel, is a retired VP & Associate General Counsel at Amazon Lab126, where she oversaw legal strategy for products like Alexa and Kindle. She unpacks her journey from Big Law to in-house leadership at one of the world’s most innovative companies and shares lessons on smart risk-taking, building ecosystems around transformative products, and applying Amazon’s leadership principles to create resilient, high-performing teams.


You’ll hear:
– How to navigate the transition from Big Law to in-house counsel
– Lessons from building legal frameworks for Alexa and other innovative products
– Why taking smart risks is critical for legal teams in fast-paced industries
– Insights on continuous learning, team management, and leadership in tech
– Reflections on retirement and lessons for the next generation of legal leaders


Follow Tina Patel:

@Tina Patel on LinkedIn

Show notes:

– Transitioning from Big Law to in-house counsel for dynamic, high-impact work
– Legal strategy for Amazon’s innovative products like Alexa
– Smart risk-taking and balancing innovation with legal guardrails
– Building strong ecosystems around product development
– Leadership principles from Amazon and how they apply beyond legal
– Continuous learning in a rapidly evolving tech landscape

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⁠@Cecilia Ziniti⁠ on LinkedIn

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⁠@GC AI⁠ on LinkedIn

⁠gc.ai⁠ website

Tina Patel:

Be a lawyer at a company that's willing to take smart risks is so fun. You get to be creative, you get to, you know, think outside the box. You get to come up with solutions. Other companies, not so much. There's some companies that just say, you know what? We'll, you know, we view the lawyers as the cleanup. Like, you know, and then those teams tend to have a lot of litigation attorneys, right? Amazon had a pretty small litigation team. They were, they were more about, hey, let's do this right, you know, from the beginning as well as we can. And we maybe won't have all that litigation risk on the backside.

Cecilia Ziniti:

Welcome back to CZ & Friends, the podcast where we talk with legal leaders, technologists, and operators driving innovation and excellence inside their companies and beyond. I'm your host, Cecilia Ziniti. Today's guest is Tina Patel, one of the most respected legal voices in tech. She spent nearly a decade at Amazon Lab 126 serving as the vice president and associate general counsel for the devices and services business. Before that, she led intellectual property deals as a partner at Sherman and Sterling, to a dear friend and a former colleague. I honestly say she was one of my favorite bosses ever. We worked together on Alexa at Amazon, and I can tell you firsthand, she brings warmth, sharp intellect, and incredible sense of purpose to everything she does. One of the best lawyers with whom I've ever worked, and I'm thrilled to have her as a guest today. In this episode, we're going to talk about what it takes to scale a legal organization in-house, alongside a fast-moving product like Alexa or Kindle or any of the devices we supported at Amazon. How to lead through invention and then what Tina has learned reflecting. Tina, welcome to the show.

Tina Patel:

Thank you. Thank you. I feel like I should just be silent because you said such wonderful things about me. As soon as I started talking, people were like, what?

Cecilia Ziniti:

That doesn't sound like her. Amazing. Welcome, Tina. So you spent a decade in private practice before joining Amazon. Tell us about your practice and what pulled you towards an in-house role. And then specifically why Lab 126.

Tina Patel:

Yeah. When I was at the law firm, I was doing a mostly tech transactional work, but it was a mix of supporting broader deals on the tech side as well as some specific, you know, tech only work. And uh frankly, I was just kind of getting bored. The deals were starting to look the same. Law firms had these really high rates. Uh, you're getting the same clients over and over again. And I thought, and I remember when I got the call about the lab 126 role, and I went home and talked to my husband. I said, well, you know, this role sounds really, really cool, but it's a big pay cut. I said, you know, if I think I only have to work for a couple years, I should just stay at this law firm. That's what I should do. But if I think I have to work for another, you know, decade or so, I really want to do something more interesting. And at lab 126, when I joined, you know, there's just a handful of lawyers. I think there's only like four or five down there. Um, and they were working on really cool new innovation. So that's that's how I ended up there. Amazing.

Cecilia Ziniti:

And what did that transition feel like from kind of partner level, very detailed tech trans work to then helping shape what ended up being Amazon's crazy ambitious bets?

Tina Patel:

Um, that job, that Amazon job, best job I've ever had. I loved it. Loved it, I loved the work. The transition was interesting. You know, you go from being a partner at a law firm to, I don't know, like my first week, you know, maybe I was doing some NDA work or something, and you're just kind of like, huh, you know, but then uh, you know, they really want to pay me to do NDAs. As time went on, you know, you you figured out like every day was different. And that's exactly what I was looking for. You actually, throughout the entire time at Amazon, all 10 years I was there, I couldn't ever say any two days were the same. Issues would come up, new products, new innovations. It was super exciting. But you know, it's different. Law firm, now all your colleagues are lawyers. Everyone understands what you're saying. It's it's easy to speak legalese from the beginning. When you move in-house, you're really more with the business people, and they have different levels of understanding of legal. And you have to figure out how to get them to, you know, understand what you're trying to communicate without insulting. That's a good one.

Cecilia Ziniti:

So you just any any particular stories. So you you have a lot of great threads to pull there. You mentioned, you know, you had this realization that, you know, my colleagues are not all lawyers anymore. Anything in that vein, any stories around that, or did you ever have a moment they're like, oh my gosh, I'm not in big law anymore?

Tina Patel:

Well, you know, we can you I mean, you know very well what Alexa was all about. And when they first came to us with it, it was kind of a funny approach where, you know, the the coolest thing about that was that we were brought in early. So right, right from the beginning. So we actually got to influence product design. But the way they brought us in, which I don't know if you I don't think you were you were there for that, but was an initial call, like, oh, I hear you're our lawyer. We're thinking about a product that would they described it as a music speaker. Um, they said, but it would listen to you and play the music you like. And I'm like, oh, okay, that sounds pretty cool. And like, yeah, but it would always be listening for you to add. I'm like, what? And then they were like, we think there might be some legal issues. It was, you know, it was it was okay. All right. At least they knew enough to get a lawyer involved early, which was amazing, right? But then after that, they, you know, weren't quite sure what were the real legal issues or not. And and, you know, different clients are different, right? Some, you know, some companies, they don't bring their lawyers in until late. And then it's like, well, you just clean your job is to clean it up. You know, I don't actually care about trying to protect myself down the road. I feel, you know, your job as an in-house lawyer is just clean up whatever I want to do. And then there's some companies where the lawyers are the the no people, right? The business and everyone just relies on the lawyers to say no to things. So I feel like I went off track from your question. I'm I'm really sorry.

Cecilia Ziniti:

No, no, you're good. I mean, it was like kind of this like non-big law moment. I I think Alexa is a very, you know, I've used it as a almost like an indicator of is someone business forward enough to work in-house? Because you're right, that phone call of like, so it's a hot mic in your house. You can imagine, you know, this is pre-GDPR, and this is like, okay, FTC, and and sort of thinking about like 50 states of wiretap laws, which we did look at. Right. We did literally did, we did that, right? And like, you know, dual consent and all these things. And you know, you can imagine that someone not in-house would hear that and be like, is this a good idea? And the answer is just like not.

Tina Patel:

Yeah. Oh, no, law firms are so worried. I don't know if it's changed. You know, they they were not comfortable helping the business find ways forward, right? It was easier for them to just lay out all the risks and say, well, here are the risks, you decide. And the business people would be like, Well, I I'm not, you know, well-versed enough to decide. And I think one thing about going in-house is don't be shy about just making the call, you know? No one's gonna come back and say, Well, you've said we were probably gonna be okay and now we're not. Well, you know, that's what I thought. Yeah, okay. No one's gonna like say you're you're the worst lawyer ever. I mean, you do the best you can. I remember I was in a meeting with some of our execs, and they were really pushing, it wasn't my team, it was a different attorney, but they were pushing them for a response on, well, how likely, you know, are we gonna get sued over this? And the person kept saying 50-50. And and the executive was like, Well, basically their feel was like, Well, why are you even here? Like, I could have said 50-50 without you being here, right? I need you to tell me ways to make it better than you know, less of a chance or things like that. So the in-house lawyer really has to be well versed at doing oh, Elizabeth.

Cecilia Ziniti:

Okay, all right. So um, so basically, this idea of being this prognostication machine, I'm I'm really into that. So basically, so it sounds like what happened was there was this risk call, and it's like, okay, I could flip a coin. Yeah. But so where how did how did the attorney in that situation or how would you like answer that?

Tina Patel:

I don't think the attorney in that situation did a really good job because I could see the executive getting frustrated. Unfortunately, it wasn't my bailiwick, so I couldn't actually weigh in more because I hadn't even looked at the issue, but um, it was a litigation issue from our IP folks. So what I ended up, but you to your question of how would you do that differently? Yeah, you would not be scared to give an opinion, right? You are hired because you have more expertise than others in that room. When you're the lawyer in a room of business people, you are the most person with the most expertise. So I don't care that in the law firm you were like a fifth year and you didn't get to make a decision. In this room, you are the expert and people need you to give the opinion. That's what you're getting paid to do. And I think there are, you know, a lot of people were just nervous and scared and they didn't want to make the wrong call. But what they didn't realize is by kind of wavering and, you know, not wanting you, you give up on opportunities, right? Like, what if on you know the Alexa stuff, if we had just said, nope, nope, this is just impossible, you know, never you're, you know, gonna get sued and you know, that would have been really tragic.

Cecilia Ziniti:

Yeah, exactly. No, I I I I love this. Anything so sort of pulling this thread of like this business enablement, how did you when did you start to think about Alexa as an ecosystem versus one device? And is there anything unique about Amazon or how you practiced law there that score on that question?

Tina Patel:

I'll answer your first one. Alexa's an ecosystem was, I don't know when when you started thinking about it. You might have actually, you've been very, you've been a forward thinker and you see that's like one of your superpowers, is you can see where things are coming. You probably saw it before I did. It was relatively early when we were talking about Alexa apps, right? It was fairly early after we kind of nailed down the voice deals. You remember those? Worked with RJ on those, those were fun. Yeah, yeah. But it was fairly early. But I do think at a large company at like Amazon, you probably have to view everything more as an ecosystem than a product, right? Because I don't think a company like Amazon actually just puts out a single product, right? You know, the Kindles came with the ebooks, the tablets had their app store, right? It's just that's the way Fire TV obviously has a whole ecosystem, right? That's kind of the way it is. It's not it's not really product focused as much. And then your other question was how was Amazon different than Yeah, so I alluded to this just a second ago or a minute ago. If you're looking for your in-house place to go, right, you can get a good feel from the legal department and who's running it and what it's like. And what Amazon was about was smart risks. And to be a lawyer at a company that's willing to take smart risks is so fun. You get to be creative, you get to, you know, think outside the box, you get to come up with solutions. Other companies, not so much. Like I said, there's some companies that just say, you know what, we'll we view the lawyers as the cleanup. Like, you know, and then those teams tend to have a lot of litigation attorneys, right? Amazon had a pretty small litigation team. They were, they were more about, hey, let's do this right, you know, from the beginning as well as we can. And we maybe won't have all that litigation risk on the backside. Even on the Alexa, you know, I've thought about this. I'm sure maybe you have too, but if we had done it wrong, like we would have killed an entire product category because we were the first ones out there, right? This whole smart speaker, voice in the house. We could have killed it if we had, you know, creepy privacy stuff, if just anything. Um, so our, you know, and ours, not just legal, obviously, the whole team, but all that thoughtfulness. We actually didn't launch a product. We didn't even launch an ecosystem. We launched a whole category. And what was cool about Amazon was most companies only get like maybe, maybe, if you're lucky, you might get a product category in the life of a company. Maybe. While we were there, we launched two. Well, I guess Kindle was slightly before our time, but two product categories. It's just pretty cool.

Cecilia Ziniti:

So the the Alexa smart speaker and then the Fire TV basically.

Tina Patel:

Well, the Kindle is what I was talking about. That was a whole category, but you're right. The Fire TV, I think technically Roku was out before the TV and things.

Cecilia Ziniti:

Yeah, yeah.

Tina Patel:

But the Kindle and the Alexa, I think would be undisputed as two categories introduced by Amazon in the in the span of a decade.

Cecilia Ziniti:

It was a fascinating place to work. I mean, I think like this idea of like, and now we're seeing the same thing with with LLMs, right? So this idea that this copyright question, the Betamax question of our era around, you know, is training on data out there. I remember we used to do deals, and now it's actually been super interesting. Tina and I supported the computer vision and other teams at Amazon on AI. And as we all know, AI is uh data and training data. And now this question around can you scrape the whole internet? You know, Tina and I, I still remember. She had guidelines of like, okay, the team wants to scrape, here's what we're gonna look at, here's how we're gonna do it. And it's not, I think, a surprise that years later Amazon is not litigating those questions, it's others because they've done it in a in a smart way. But nevertheless, I mean, I think you have this moment of really seeing a lot of aspects of Bezos and Sam Altman around like, hey, you know, this is this is how it's gonna be, it's best for customers, the technology is different. Any any predictions on that? My you're my my fellow copyright tech trans. How do you think that's gonna shake out?

Tina Patel:

I I I don't know. I mean, I will tell you that if you don't want your data scraped, your best bet is to come up with technical, you know, positions on your on your sites, right, to block it. Uh you can always everyone has the legal terms. I you know, whether how well they're going to be enforced, I'm not quite sure. Um, and you probably know that better than me, but the but you know, technical barriers are what is going to really Yeah, I remember.

Cecilia Ziniti:

I remember, I mean, this is one of it's funny, I I told Tina in the prep for this podcast that um there's a bunch of kind of Tinaisms that I think are very helpful for folks in-house. And this idea that engineering wins, right? So Tina and I, one of the things we looked at was privacy and security for Alexa. It's very good, it's bank level, et cetera. But there were a variety of things where it's like, no, no, this is the security team. Like the technical measures are what make the difference. We can write whatever we want in the contract. But once you're, you know, if you really want to prevent something. I mean, we even did crazy things. I remember Tina helped um launch a uh like effectively a satellite type of service, something like that. It was like, yeah, and and that was kind of that that thing as well. So yeah, uh fascinating. So let's see.

Tina Patel:

All right, so so no predictions from Tina on how but that again, I've been retired now, so my my predictions would be weak at best.

Cecilia Ziniti:

Well, so that's good. The humility, I love that. Okay, so get so you talked about humility. Uh, what does success look like for your legal team at Amazon and any principles or values you tried to instill in the junior lawyers who came in and others who came in on your team? And for context, Tina grew a pretty big team of I think 25 plus, maybe even 50 attorneys at Leg 126.

Tina Patel:

Yeah, it was um, I can't remember how large it was when I left, but you're right, it grew pretty big. Uh, you know, we always tried to hire, I looked for three qualities in people we hired. I wanted people who were who were smart, but who were willing to work hard also and who were just nice people. And so if I could find those three qualities, that person was going to be successful. And the reason you needed all three was, you know, if you're smart but not willing to work hard, it's really not fair to your colleagues. And if you're, you know, frankly, if you're not that smart, you can only go so far. It sounds so mean. I don't know, but you can only go so far. You need a certain level of brain power, I think, to make it, you know, for long term. And then just nice, you know, you work with these people a lot. You don't want, you do not want to have to be looking, you know, are they gonna take credit for this or are they gonna try to scoop this out? Now, the thing about Amazon was we had no shortage of high quality work. I could imagine at a company where, you know, the good stuff was in high demand, it can get tricky. I and you know, I had the I had the luxury of never having to manage in that situation. Literally, there was no shortage. You know, people wanted this, great, I can give you that, I can give you this, I can, you know, and it's not made-up work. It's like we had that much to do. So, yeah, in terms of how to manage the team, I think one of the um important things that I did, which I felt made me a good manager, was trying to understand what people wanted, right? So I think too many managers maybe just kind of assume that their uh wants exactly what they wanted. Like X was important to me. So of course it's going to be important to this person. Well, no, not necessarily. Everyone has different, you know. So taking the time to listen and understand what motivates a team member, what, you know, and for some it was, you know, they wanted a fast track to managerial responsibility. Some people were more content as long as they were having, you know, really challenging work. But for some people, they wanted to be in very senior meetings and wanted that you know visibility so they could grow as a leader themselves. Um, you know, some people's cop was their number one thing. And there that's nothing wrong with that. I mean, you know, everyone has their own personal life. I mean, whatever you need. So so I think listening to that, I think helped. And then, and then just like you said, you just training people, really trying to explain why we did things the way we did. I know that sometimes people were kind of like, well, that, you know, it seems like even I think you, Cecilia, I think at times would push back and be like, really? It seems like there's better ways to do this. And but, you know, it's it's it's fine. It's fine to get the challenge. And sometimes there were better ways. And then sometimes, you know, you would just be like, I get that. I see why we did it that way now, you know. So it's it's it's being willing to listen and teach, I think, is is both. Listen because there are always better ways to do things, and you have to, you know, you'll be surprised where they come from, the ideas.

Cecilia Ziniti:

Yeah, I mean, that's one thing that you know, having since left Amazon, I'd be curious if this plays in your personal life too, is like the there's this concept of the leadership principles, right? The 14 things, now they've added a few more, but among them was learn and be curious. This idea that, you know, at every level, every job, everything, the world is changing fast enough that, you know, a key part of it is continuously learning, continuously being better, continuous curiosity. How has that you sound, I mean, the the the passion for learning new things and learning what makes makes people tick? It sounds like it's part of you, but how have you how is that carried through in your life since?

Tina Patel:

Yeah, I mean, I think I try to teach those skills actually to my kids. I mean, uh, you you probably have too. I've brought up Amazon leadership principles to my children ever since they were like seven years old. I remember when they were like in early middle school, I made them read the principles and pick one and then write like half a page about why they thought it was interesting. So I think those principles go well beyond the work. I think they go, you know, at home. In terms of bringing it the people who really are willing to learn and be curious are the ones who are going to survive. I mean, this, you know, I left the workforce before AI became huge. And the people who are ignoring it are going to be so sad. They're going to be, I don't even know what what they'll be doing in five years. I really don't. I'm my perspective again, unfortunately, is outside the workplace, but like I look at what our schools are doing, right? And, you know, for schools that are saying, hey, you know, no AI, period, that's a lost opportunity. That's not good for our kids. You know, I understand how you don't want a student to write, have AI write the paper and then turn it in. But there are ways that the teachers can avoid that happening. And we need to get our students comfortable because you know what? If you if you're not, others are, and you're going to be so out of luck. So the same thing with our attorneys today. I mean, you know, you impressed me greatly as, you know, getting a company in this in this field and so early your start and having, you know, the vision to realize, okay, this is completely changing the legal field, and I want in, and I want in now, which is, you know, there's still, you know, there's still a lot of lawyers who I don't think use it. And I was at a conference, I was at a a school where a junior attorney was with me. Um, and you know, they were asking the audience how many people use AI. And again, I'm not working, but I'm like, oh yeah. And they're like, how many, you know, I use it every day, like plan my vacation, pick me out the restaurants, whatever. And she wasn't raising her hand. I'm like, really? And she's like, no, no, people don't really. And you know, the big firm in the South. And I was like, wow. And this was only two years ago. And I was like, okay, I'm like, well, you need to get on that because that is, you know, even if you're just using it as like a first round of something, you know, I'm not telling you to use AI to submit your projects, but so yeah, no, great, great themes there.

Cecilia Ziniti:

I think it's it's been interesting because you know, you and I saw these other categories getting created and this like early adoption concept. But this idea of like, I literally remember you mentioned schools, so little story. I had an English teacher, Mr. Sites, rest in peace, best English teacher ever, you know, it's fourth year, senior year, and you know, I think it was English literature. And for our final project, instead of just, you know, writing a paper on Chaucer or whatever it was, he had us do it in Microsoft PowerPoint, which at the time, in the late 90s, was like the new technology was creating slides. And so that was the final project. I don't remember much about Chaucer, but I remember that my first two or three jobs as a paralegal athlete, I was weirdly good at PowerPoint, and it was like a career asset for me for life. So like turning colors and cropping images and all this stuff. So I think that your your story about AI is apt. And we see this, and I'm actually quite proud of the legal profession. I think we've seen, I think I had the latest polls that we did, and I can put them in the show notes, we've got like 80, 85% of in-house lawyers are using AI at least once a week, which is great. And I do think this is a transition from the firm, which is which is fun.

Tina Patel:

I think you're right. I think in-house, I'm not surprised they pick it up faster than law firms. Law firms are a little slow on the upkeep. I mean, on the picking up, you know, new technologies.

Cecilia Ziniti:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Any um, so any memorable war stories from your time either at at Amazon or at the firm that you that you think would be would be instructive in some way?

Tina Patel:

No. I don't know if it's war stories. I I have I do have one about Cecilia.

Cecilia Ziniti:

No, okay. Go, go, go, no, it's just like it's a good thing.

Tina Patel:

So Cecilia, do you remember the most stressed you were ever with me? I do, I remember.

Cecilia Ziniti:

It was the We might have different memories. C BAA. Yeah, it was it was the Computer Video uh Communications and Video Accessibility Act of 2010 signed into law law by Obama, and it had a uh or maybe it was 2015, but anyways, it had rolling deadlines. And essentially my memory of it is that the team was gonna blow a deadline and we're gonna launch effectively a an arguably non-compliant product. And I actually use this for training, actually, so it's a great example. I was product counsel for a variety of products. I think it was Kindle, Fire TV, a few others, and this particular compliance with the law was like the big thing that I was working on. And I got questions from different parts of the business of like, hey, what is that date again? Is it March 25th? When is it, you know? And and it was a realization that like there's a question behind the question. So they were asking what the date was because they were gonna blow it. And so essentially I'm like, oh no, this is gonna launch. And so I literally, I think I ran. It was like a the we had a separate hallway at Amazon where you know, Tina was a was a fancy exec and a beautiful, you know, view and so on. And I was with the sort of uh uh uh other folks at the junior levels. And I I went across the hallway and I'm like marched over there. I'm like, oh my god, we're gonna miss this deadline. So anyway, she's like working on something else, probably doing an acquisition, probably something fascinating. And uh, and and my little deadline was not the thing. So that that that's what I remember about the story, but would would love would love the other, the other. But from a leadership standpoint, yeah, I mean we we did what we could. The one other advice I will give, and I give to other product council is just kind of management of if you're gonna have a non-compliance, which you will have. What I remember was we had JIRA or some kind of bug ticketing system, and you could tag if you were gonna fix the bug or not. And what I remember was they changed a whole bunch of accessibility bugs to won't fix. Like literally, that was the moniker was won't fix. And I was like, no, no, no, no, no, do not do that. So I kind of basically advised, and it was like, it was like deferred, and then you know, and they got fixed about a month or two later. They got fixed. And and to be fair, I mean, to your point about strategy, I think Amazon Legal did a great job on strategy because at the same time, I believe Amazon was the first set top box or the first uh entertainment system to provide um audio display. That's right. That's right.

Tina Patel:

Yeah, I forgot that you were so huge on the accessibility features and supporting that group also, which was tough because you know, if a feature were to get dropped, it was always going to be an accessibility feature. And over time it got better. But yeah, yeah. No, I think, yeah, and I think another learning from that is, you know, nobody likes panicky lawyers, right? It's you know what, it can always be fixed. We can work it out. Do not, you know, you don't like when you go see a doctor, you don't want them, oh, this is so bad. Immediately you're like same thing when your lawyer's like, you want a lawyer who's like, okay, well, let's let's see what our options are. And, you know, internally you can be like, why did you put me in this situation? And now I've got to clean up your mess. But, you know, that calmness, I think, is really important. Unfortunately, that sometimes just comes with years of of practice, but I think that that's exactly what we're gonna do.

Cecilia Ziniti:

Yeah, no, it's it's amazing. I mean, I I do say since I get a lot of questions, listeners asking about, you know, I liken the transition from the firm to Amazon in terms of, you know, risk tolerance and the ability to not panic, collaboration, et cetera. Very similar to the transition from being a lawyer to being a business person. It's like it's just been it's been fascinating. And I think that ability to, you know, I love my lawyers now, right? So we have a fractional GC that helps us out, and that ability to be like, here's how it's gonna be. You know, I've negotiated against XYZ companies, the results are probably gonna be this. And me now I'm on the revenue side and I'm like, I don't want to lose this deal. And she's like, You don't want to lose this deal? You want to give up $20 million of liability? The sum total of everything you've raised. She's like, they're they're still gonna sign. It's fine. Chillax, wait, wait a week. And then you know, the deal got done.

Tina Patel:

I have other people to do that now, and I need to have other things to focus on. It's been it's been incredible.

Cecilia Ziniti:

So, all right. So um, you've been retired a couple years from now, uh, a couple years now. But what's it been like to reflect from from the from the outside? Do you miss the lot? Do you is it fun? I mean, a lot of people literally, I get people that are like, okay, well, actually a little story. I had a retirement fantasy so badly in my last GC job that I was like, it is not normal to have a retirement fantasy. And I realized sort of like you did that like it was time for something new. And that was part of but the impetus for starting GCAI. But I'm putting the question on you. So you've been retired a few years.

Tina Patel:

What's it with the so you know my story? So you were gone when I retired. You had already left Amazon. But basically, you know, I have twins and they're 18 now. I was, you know, my husband and I are both lawyers, a lot of long hours travel, especially at the law firm. And so we had a nanny, you know, 50 hours a week, like a lot of families do. And we kind of, you know, stepped back and looked at things and said, you know, kids are going to be off to college in five years. Do we want any more imprinting to do on them? Like, do we want to, you know, influence? And the answer was yes, we do actually. So that was it. So I just said, you know what, we're done. And so we moved down, quit. We both quit our jobs. I gave Amazon like a year notice, so it was plenty of time. But quit, moved down to San Diego area. And then the, of course, then the pandemic hit. So we got a lot of time with our kids, a lot more than we expected. Um, but you know, we got to, I got to focus on that, that part of that I had missed out on on the parenting part. And the and I feel like the timing was right. You know, they get challenging, different challenging when they're older, but I feel like I could influence more things these last couple of years than I would have if I took the time off earlier. So for everybody, it's a different story, but for me, that was how we ended up retired. Absolutely miss the people. I miss um, I miss the issues. I miss solving problems, right? Solving problems is just so fun. And I really miss that. But what I don't miss is having to be anywhere at any time, like having to be somewhere at a specific time. I don't miss that at all. Like this was probably like my only firm commitment I've had this whole month, I think. Amazing.

Cecilia Ziniti:

Well, it's funny because now, so so in startups, we're deeply influenced by Paul Graham. So he's the founder of my combinator and you know, led to Airbnb and uh, you know, Stripe and other companies, but he has this concept of the maker-manager schedule, where this idea that engineers and builders having anything on your calendar, like literally any commitment on your calendar, kind of wrecks the creativity of the whole day. And so it's been interesting because I always, Tina, I always did think part of the reason for your success um at Amazon is you are you are an engineer almost at heart, I feel like, and and kind of have that relations. A couple stories. So Tina, sometimes she was so quick to answer a question that that me and the more junior attorneys were like, she's like an ATM. It's like, should we do this? Hey. I took a job, you know, CEO where 250 emails a day and there's just no difference. It doesn't matter. Like it's literally super human to do that. So awesome. All right. And then anything on what piece of advice would you give? So go so look back in time and you're leaving the law firm to go in-house. What advice would you give?

Tina Patel:

I would I would tell attorneys making the move to in-house to, you know, be ready, be open to work, you know. Obviously, you're working with a lot of non-lawyers now, depending on how large your in-house department is. Don't be shy about making the calls. Well, I, you know, I think I've said this a little earlier, but you are now the expert in the room. You should make the decision, make the call. There's no one to really run back to often. And that's okay, and it's okay. And also, you know what? You'll make mistakes. So it's as important as it is to try to do everything perfectly so you can avoid mistakes, realize you will make mistakes, and how you handle them is just as important as trying to avoid them. So don't go in saying, being so scared of making a mistake that you're just you're frozen. You can't do anything. That would be actually a really that'd be a bad album, right? Take, you know, just it all it really does work out. You know, as if you're if you're trying hard, you're putting the time in, it will all it will be okay. Don't just get so scared that you don't, you know, that you just don't really show what you have to offer. I love it. What's a book or podcast you recommend? You know, so this is a tricky one because I I really, again, retired life, all I ever do is I prepare for my next vacation. So the the the the you know what I just read, we just got back from Fiji in Australia. So I, because I'm type A, I knew every like restaurant, every location, every activity, what to do if the weather was this or that. And so I would read a bunch of travel blogs, you know, to to really prepare myself. I would use AI also, but the travel blogs still add that something special that I can't get from from AI answers. So so I don't have anything that I read regularly except preparing for my next fun activity.

Cecilia Ziniti:

So good, so good. Of everything you've achieved as an attorney, as a person, what are you most proud of?

Tina Patel:

You know what? It's it's you. You know, I I can't give all the names of the people because I will leave someone out and I'll feel bad. But it's these teams and these people that I got to influence their development when they were relatively junior, and then they came out so successful. And I'm not, I mean, uh that's like a tiny fraction, maybe I had to influence, but it's it's like it's like when your kids, you know, when your kids succeed.

Cecilia Ziniti:

No, T Tina's being very humble, but her her kind of N of folks that have become GCs and have become, you know, incredible leaders leading teams who were influenced by Tina. I think I think it's uh maybe it's a Tao proverb or something like that, essentially saying something to the effect of like leadership is when the men look around at each other and and say we did this ourselves and not the leader. So that was always very that was Tina's leadership style. So I'm I'm so excited to hear her to that that you said that. That's lovely. Um we've got we've got you know uh tenured professors, we're on Tina's team, we've got, you know, people at you know at OpenAI and elsewhere, it's the seeds of of technology law, like the her the N from Tina is pretty is gonna be small.

Tina Patel:

So what happens when they negotiate against each other, you know, they're all used to it.

Cecilia Ziniti:

Exactly. So I've done that. So funny enough that you should say that. So so Kathy Zoo is um the founder of Streamline AI, which we have some shared customers. And I was opposite her on a deal when I was at Cruz, and I was so inspired that she became a founder that it was, you know, a pretty big impact on deciding to do that. So awesome. All right, and so any closing thoughts, Tina, for for our listeners or just it in general?

Tina Patel:

I don't know. You know, I am very I am an outsider now, but I am really, really interested to see how, you know, the influence of AI and everything, not not just in the legal field, right? Well, this way, how far can I get away with blaming AI for you know bad outcomes on things? And I don't know, just there's just so much. I didn't I didn't see this coming six years ago. I really didn't. So I am excited to see how this how this progresses. I, you know, one of my friends who's like at a a VP at a uh, you know, one of the investment bank companies was saying like they're, you know, almost all their interns are now just more training on AI, right? They're not doing the the traditional stuff anymore. Another MA partner friend of mine said the AI puts out a much better first draft of of uh you know a stock acquisition or or even an asset purchase agreement than the junior associate. And that actually makes me nervous too, right? Because you still need senior attorneys. And how do you get senior attorneys if they're not getting properly trained? So I what makes me nervous is well how the legal field will look. And I'm nervous for selfish reasons because you know one of my kids who he wants to go to law school. Yeah, he's he's amazing. Best intern we've ever seen. By the way, he's going to Vanderbilt next year for yeah, he's starting there, and then he, you know, he wants to go to law school. So, but I d you know, I've told myself I have no idea what that field will look like in five years.

Cecilia Ziniti:

So get him in, we'll do we'll do some prompting. All right, goodbye. Thanks so much. You are really enjoying it. That was my conversation with Tina Patel, legal architect behind one of the most iconic tech products and multiple product categories launched at Amazon. And she's a mentor to so many people. I'm so inspired by her being proud of having her kind of seeds planted around all the Silicon Valley. Super exciting. So if you're building legal frameworks that scale or looking to lead with more confidence, I hope this episode gave you something to take with you. You can follow CZ and Friends wherever you get your podcast. You can subscribe to our newsletter at gc.ai slash newsletter for behind the scenes insights, guest announcements, and practical tips. Have a great afternoon. Thanks for listening.