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CZ and Friends
CZ & Friends is a podcast about what it takes to lead and evolve legal in an era of exponential change. Hosted by Cecilia Ziniti, former General Counsel turned founder and CEO of GC AI, each episode features candid conversations with legal and business leaders who are building for scale, taking bold bets on technology, and leading with humanity. Whether you're a GC, operator, or in-house counsel, this podcast is your front-row seat to the future of legal.
CZ and Friends
Culture as Strategy: Bill Berry (Chief Legal Officer) and Ariana Goodell (Sr. Counsel) of Verkada on Trust, Boundaries and Better
High performance without ego - that’s the playbook at Verkada. General Counsel Bill Berry and Senior Counsel, Privacy & Policy Ariana Goodell join Cecilia Ziniti to share how they build a legal org people love to work with—one that ships products, earns trust, and stays close to the business.
They get tactical on product launches, privacy-by-design, and how to “be in the boat” with engineering and marketing. They also break down AI’s real impact on in-house work: faster first drafts, sharper research, and more time for creative lawyering. If you lead product counsel, run a fast-moving team, or want a culture that scales, this one’s for you.
Follow Bill and Ariana:
@Ariana Goodell on LinkedIn
@Bill Berry on LinkedIn
Books, Authors & Thinkers Mentioned:
– How Google Works — Eric Schmidt & Jonathan Rosenberg (hiring “divas” as an anti-pattern lesson)
Other References:
– Google, Tesla, Verkada (career path and operating tempo)
– Product launches, naming, and marketing review cycles
– Privacy by design; federating legal guidance to product teams
– VerkadaOne conference cadence vs. launch-readiness
– AI literacy for lawyers; contract review and first-draft acceleration
– FTC “reasonable expectations” concept (privacy)
– “First principles” approach to process
Follow us on all social platforms to get each new episode when it drops.
@Cecilia Ziniti on LinkedIn
@CeciliaZin on Twitter/X
@GC AI on LinkedIn
gc.ai website
So I think that's one thing that's definitely shaped me. It's like I I really intentionally try to hire the people because I don't think you need an ego to be ambitious. I don't think you need an ego to be driven. I don't think you need ego to drive things to completion. You can do all that without without an ego. So I don't know, Ariana, but I I feel like did you get that? Because I definitely feel like didn't need a diva.
Cecilia Ziniti:Welcome back to CZ & Friends, where we talk with legal leaders, technologists, and operators about leadership, the future, and hear their wisdom. I'm your host, Cecilia Ziniti. Today I'm joined by Bill Berry, the general counsel at Security Technology Company Verkada, and Ariana Goodell, Senior Counsel for Privacy and Policy at Verkada. Together, they help lead one of the fastest growing legal teams in tech. They're known for pairing high performance with a culture of care and trust and for being a legal team the rest of the company loves. And I can attest to this because I went and visited them at their offices in San Mateo just a few weeks ago. And the number of sort of high fives, great to see you, that I saw in just my short walk from their in-house coffee shop to their offices is a true guide to that. Bill's path runs from Google to Tesla to Verkada, where he guides the company through complex regulatory and commercial challenges. Ariana's background comes from privacy, data policy, and it starts at Reed Smith at the law firm Reed Smith, then on to FinTech Branch and on to Verkada. Fun story, Ariana was my best outside counsel associate on privacy. I was so delighted when she went in-house. Um, and just even more delighted now that she's at a company I admire in Verkada. All right, today we're gonna talk about building teams that trust each other and thrive under pressure, and we'll get into AI as well. So let's dive in. Bill, Ariana, welcome to the show.
Bill Berry:Thank you.
Cecilia Ziniti:Thanks for having us. Truly full circle. Exactly. No, I I remember, I think GDPR had not even come out when we first met, which is how long how long we know each other.
Ariana Goodell:I remember walking over to your office and just trying to game plan all of the compliance requirements with you and thinking, wow, this is like early days. Amazing. Yeah, 55 Second Street for those of you historic building.
Cecilia Ziniti:Smith Building is just a just a few a few blocks away on mission. So amazing. All right. So, Bill, you've led legal teams at Google, Tesla, Bricotta, three pretty different companies, some common threads. They all move fast. What's been the through line for your leadership across across companies?
Bill Berry:This four, I don't know if there's a through line necessarily because I feel like my path, my career path has been pretty jagged and unplanned. I didn't start out thinking I wanted to be a GC, much less a, you know, a legal leader at those those companies, much less a lawyer until I kind of was further along because I I had an undergrad degree in electrical engineering. Then I went in the Navy for a bit, had no idea what I wanted to do, went to business school, still had no idea what I wanted to do. I have an identical twin brother who was doing the joint program with law. So he said, Hey, why don't you, while you're here, do the law program too? And I was like, I didn't want to be a lawyer, but I did that. And it just one thing led to another. It just was kind of taking advantage of opportunities as they presented themselves. So I don't know if I followed like a through line could say this was a path I planned and thought through. This is not a good example of career planning at all. I am not a model for career planning. And I just kind of took advantage of some opportunities and had a lot of luck, honestly, to kind of get the path I I landed on.
Cecilia Ziniti:Any lessons? Well, all three companies, Google Tecata. So for reference, I think Verkcada is it's a private company, but it was um, I mean, maybe you can tell us a little a little bit about the growth, but maybe your Navy experience or anything in your background that you're like, all right, high growth, strap-in, kind of kind of thing. What's the any any any like set of experiences or approach or anything? Like clearly you've been drawn to this kind of company.
Bill Berry:Yeah, I think if there was a through line, I think I have gravitated towards um being more attuned, enjoying kind of like a thousand different things going on. You think back to like college days. And you had some classes that, you know, you had a semester-long project and that's all you had to do. And then you had other classes where you just had daily things that were just popping up. So you had a lot of little things to do, and then maybe something big at the end. And I found if I did this semester-long class where you had one project, I procrastinated and waited to the very end and then was just painful, painful, painful. And I found I thrived more when I had a lot of balls up in the air juggling rather than one big thing to work on. Like if my career path was to be a novelist and write books, I would be horrible at it. Because I just would not be able to do that. But if I'm like in an environment which I think if I had to look back on it, those kind of career points all involved like juggling a lot of things at once and kind of chaos, I guess. So I guess I think maybe maybe if I was being, you know, introspective looking at this, I I am drawn to that that chaos, I guess.
Cecilia Ziniti:It's interesting the chaos aspect of like, you know, I've even I I've said on the show and more generally that I I've taken sort of screeners and everything almost for like ADD, where it's like wanting to have that stimulus of, you know, you're doing a stock option plan in the morning, in the afternoon, you're you know, advising on a privacy consideration, and then right after that you're doing a big commercial deal. Ariana, you nodded. Does does that resonate? The the kind of like in-house experience of of doing a lot of things, and and how does it contrast with your firm experience?
Ariana Goodell:I feel like working at a startup or even in like a just a busy tech company that's emerging, you're constantly, you know, prioritizing and multitasking. And that's just something I always thrived off of. But I feel like it just took a different form when I was a younger associate where I was getting work in the commercial litigation department, but desperately wanted to work in tech. So I was like also trying to go to the different partners that had tech clients and ask them if I could help them. So I ended up having like a ton of different uh projects that I was trying to maintain and always kind of like working on the things that were going to show that my contribution to the firm was there, but also, you know, really focusing on the work that was sustaining me. And I feel like my entire career path has really just kind of been to draw myself to the work that's really fulfilling me and sustaining me. And so I think about like my career path. And one of the things I think that's consistent about it is that it's not like this very linear progressive path that's just based on a role. Um, and if that was the case, you know, I would have gone from my VP of legal role to a GC role. And that just wasn't my path because I think I've always wanted to feed my curiosity about, you know, being a better lawyer, being a better thinker, being a better, better problem solver. And, you know, sometimes your linear career path from a role perspective doesn't line up with your personal fulfillment. And you really have to follow that with, you know, a through line of like what's going to sustain you for the next four years to get the equity package, right? So yeah, I think that's really returned dividends to me, but it wasn't something I, you know, kind of thought with intentionally every step, but it was it was a value judgment I had to make at my last career change. You know, are you gonna give up the title to ultimately be more fulfilled? And you know, for me it was kind of clear, like based on my value sets.
Cecilia Ziniti:And so what did you do? And that's actually since we have Bill here, like, so what do you do as a as a leader of a of a of a legal team? Obviously, having you've got the business needs, you've got to support, you know, you have global operations, you have, you know, a sales team in the hundreds. How do you motivate lawyers as good as Ariana to join the team? And then how do you how do you think about fulfillment across the team?
Bill Berry:Well, it's funny because um I just met with our legal recruiter because we're hiring still, and it just to me, I feel like this is true everywhere you are. And it's also true, I mean, I'm sure Ariana, you saw this at at Branch. It's just hiring is like one of the most important things you do, if not the most important thing you do. And it's it's a lot of faith, unless you really have a a tie and you know you know the person, there's a lot of just a leap of faith to see if this person is going to be a uh a fit. Because obviously you kind of start like the table stakes are smart and they bring the experience you to bear that you need for that role. But I feel like it's so much more than that. If that was just all that you had to deal with when you're trying to hire somebody. And I think Ariana is a good example. We needed a we needed somebody really steeped in privacy, but we're fast moving as crazy, and we need somebody who's gonna be you know comfortable in that kind of chaotic environment. And I I kind of equate it to if you've ever gone like house hunting or looking for an apartment and you find the place that just fits, you just know. Like you just know that instant you're walking, like this is it. And I feel like that happens sometimes. It definitely happened with Ariana when we were interviewing her, like Elizabeth Davies, who's our chief privacy officer. We kind of both walk with like she's it. Like, I don't know if we have to interview anybody else. We'll probably have to interview people just to like say we interviewed other people, but Ariana is who we want. It was just something that clicked. You knew, obviously, super sharp, super smart, very steeped in privacy law and regulations. So she had that experience, but just her presence and her kind of um her humility and her uh demeanor, just like this is a great fit. This is gonna be exactly what we're looking for. I don't know, Ariana, if you got that. Were we bad at holding our cards close to our chest as we're nervous? We were gaga over you the minute we started talking to you.
Ariana Goodell:I feel like you know, it's funny. My first time interviewing at a tech company and then ultimately getting that role, I I think back to like the questions I asked, and they were so shallow compared to after having lived and breathed at a startup for five years, you start to realize what is critically important to make this next career jump worth it for me, whether it's the quality of the leadership or the experience of the leadership or like the type of team that you know the leader wants to build. And for me, I feel like I'm always really curious about, and I I do this too when I when I was in a hiring, um, when I was in a hiring mode trying to find rec reports, I was always trying curious about like what motivated people? What are they looking for and trying to build out a team? Um, because I felt like that was really insightful and in understanding, you know, when you find people that are thoughtful and they're trying to thoughtfully build a team with intention, usually that kind of speaks volumes and it's a proxy to so many other positive qualities that you can kind of, you know, bundle a bunch of questions just in one kind of loaded question. But I mean, if you think about it in the reverse too, I also feel like it's important to not just ask the right questions, but also to understand like, think about like what kind of questions the interviewee is asking you. Because I feel like when I was interviewing candidates, I was always really struck by the candidates that tried to ask questions that got to motivations. And you could tell those are the people that are really trying to find understanding or motivation in understanding people. And because that's ultimately what makes you successful. You can have all the skill sets in the world, but if you can't translate that in a way that's gonna motivate somebody or speak to what they empathize with or speak their language, like you're really not gonna be successful. So when I was interviewing, I remember asking Bill like what he looks for in team members, like, you know, 10 years from now, what kind of legal team does he want to build? What are the qualities that he wants kind of shine through on top of all the people? Um, and I tried to talk to as many people as I could in the team too, because I feel like, you know, the proof is really in the pudding. The more people that you get to meet and talk to, that's representative of the people that he's let or that that leader's let on the team. Um and so meeting as many people as you can to kind of do that vibe check. It sounds kind of hand-wavy, but I feel like if you're being thoughtful about where you're going, you have a good sensibility about how you feel when you spoke to that person. Were they being authentic? Um, you know, were they are they being caring and thoughtful um and smart about how they want to build out the team?
Bill Berry:Do you remember what my answer was?
Ariana Goodell:Yeah, I don't know if my I feel like I I did somewhat black out because it was like a marathon of interviews. But I just remember, I think one of the things that really set me at ease when I was doing an interview was it really just felt kind of like this podcast. Like it felt like a conversation. It wasn't like this series of kind of loaded questions to kind of catch me in some sort of like gotcha answer. And when it really put me at ease, and I feel like that's kind of like a parallel to how I love it when I collaborate with people on the team. Like when you feel like you're not being judged because you're being vulnerable by putting an idea out there that like hasn't been tested or tried or true, and you feel like you can bring your authentic self to an interview, that's really the sweet spot where you really get to know somebody. So I just remember how surprised I was by how conversational the interview felt and how like meaningful the interview felt. Like I felt like it really helped me get to the answers of my questions. Hopefully it did for you.
Bill Berry:But yeah, yeah, for sure.
Cecilia Ziniti:How have you taken that approach, assuming that you have with stakeholders? So you all, you know, for for maybe you can give us, tell us, tell us what Vicata does, and then I think that'll open the door to to make it obvious to listeners why it might be that that you they that you need to earn trust of your stakeholders. So tell us about what Ricotta does, and then how do you think about what Ariana just said around building that ability to be authentic, to be vulnerable, to come up with new ideas, um, you know, an environment where you know you have real compliance considerations.
Bill Berry:Yeah, yeah. So Fricata, it's a B2B play. It's a company that provides basically cloud-based products, services to basically support any kind of business or entity in terms of the building safety. So obviously we started out with cameras and kind of what you think of a physical security system, cameras and access control alarms, but we've gone beyond that, you know, with guest management and air sensors and really becoming and trying to become that kind of smart building platform that can be for schools, government agencies, and big office buildings, kind of the broad spectrum of of uh clients. Um and so in in that context, we're very fast moving. When I first got here in 2022, we were less than a thousand employees, only doubled the size literally of the office in HQ. Maybe a year later, uh, we're now up to 2,300 employees with 17 offices worldwide. So we're just rocket ship growth. And when you're in that environment, I think it's important, you know, you you have to have efficiency of communication and efficiency of kind of giving legal advice. And I'm a big, big believer that legal ease is like just bad for that type of efficiency and having that kind of authentic conversation. And so we definitely are looking when we're interviewing folks, and this is why we were so enthralled with Ariana, just they can have a conversation. Um, and you won't feel like you're talking to a lawyer. You feel like you're talking to a person that's in the boat with them making business decisions. And of course, they've got kind of the legal framework and trying to make sure that they're, you know, you don't fall trapped to any legal landmines, but you're really having a business-minded conversation with them and and kind of toss legalese out the window. No legal memos, no, you know, you just don't need to use all those legal buzzwords that we could get so used to, especially in the law firm context, to use that now being on the client side, I'm curious what you think, Ariana, going from outside counsel to inside. No client wants that. No client wants a legal email, no client wants uh legalese. I mean, I just literally today I received an email. It was just a lot of MA lingo. And I'm just like, okay, let me take a this is what I need. Not only for to make sure I understand it, but I have to convey this to our internal stakeholders, and this is going to be needless. So I think that conversational tone and that kind of I'm not a lawyer, I'm becoming your business partner is really important for a especially for a company at this stage.
Cecilia Ziniti:Ariana, what's the so no legalese, I like that. How do you how do you live that in practice, right? So it's a pretty technical product, right? It's got so it's got physical security cameras. If you're watching on screen, uh Bill's got one behind his shoulder. And then a cloud component with computer vision with some interesting, some interesting things, right? Obviously, traditional machine learning, probably doing some some other kinds of AI as well. So how do you, how did you do it? How did you become bilingual, Ariana? And then any examples of what he's talking about. So Bill had a good example with the MA memo where he's like, all right, you know, the the earnout and this and that and the and the you know, the the single, triple trigger, whatever, whatever, all the things. But ultimately he's like, let's get this deal done. What what examples do you see on the privacy side and how do you do it?
Ariana Goodell:I'm trying to think about my day-to-day and some of the things that I've I just have integrated into my working style. But part of this stems from the fact that a lot of the product managers and engineering leads are in a different office. And so you don't really have these, and in certain circumstances, you might not have the opportunities to really kind of have these like water cooler conversations that really help make a conversation about legal guidance approachable. I feel like, you know, so I feel like when I'm meeting somebody for the first time, I'm trying not to talk at all about work. I really want to get to know them. And every time I meet, I'll start off with like a question about what they did that weekend because I think that that really helps. It's not the same question every time, but yeah, I'm really just trying to start the meeting off with something that is like a more human interaction so that it doesn't seem so transactional when you get on a Zoom call with somebody. I also think it's really effective to tie the tie back the things that you're considering to the value, the valuable points that they're that matter to them. Behind every legal consideration, you're always kind of balancing, well, what's the business benefit or what's the business objective? And then what are the risks that are going to get in the way of that or could compromise that? And I feel like you know the business risks and the, you know, the things that are gonna impinge the business objective. But I feel like when you verbalize it, verbalize the business objective for your client or your internal client or your business stakeholder, it really reminds them that you're not just there to be a lawyer or provide some advice that's not meaningful. You're doing it to help solve their problem and always bringing it kind of it's helpful it's self-reinforcing. It kind of brings you back to what's the overarching objective. Um, and like, are we reaching that? Or is it that, you know, are we still kind of focusing on enabling the business instead of just trying to create a set of yeses and no's? So yeah, I think like humanizing the work as much as possible to make lawyering more approachable and kind of like destigmatize people's conception of what an in-house lawyer looks like or sounds like. And then also just really trying to reinforce that you understand the problems that they're trying to solve from a business perspective. I think that's just invaluable.
Cecilia Ziniti:Can one of you make it real a little bit? So let's talk about a launch that you've done, either a country launch or a product launch or something. So a lot of our listeners are product counsel or you know, kind of maybe they're commercial, but I feel like a big time that that gets tested is like, are you in the boat to Bill's words, or not, is around a launch. And so um, can you tell us about a recent product launch that that that you worked on? Either of you, yeah.
Ariana Goodell:I have to like kind of rack my brain for a little bit to think about. We just got done wrapping up. Um, we do a conference every year that kind of showcases some of the new feature launches and products that we're rolling out with. So there was a ton of work up to that point. Um, I think that this is maybe a bit general, but I mean I'm trying to be sensitive also to some critical product launches. But I think that one of the things that you really have to realize as an in-house lawyer is that you really can't solve every problem immediately. There's there's always going to be things that are deprioritized because there's just limited resources and limited time and attention to prioritize fixing everything. So, for example, like we're rolling out a new product related to it's like an intercom duo mixed with biometric access control. And so, you know, there's obviously a lot of considerations of, you know, making sure that this product is providing a lot of features that support different ways of compliance. Every company has a different risk tolerance, every company has a different internal process of meeting certain compliance obligations. We're trying to be as accommodating as possible to kind of meet all of those customer needs. But, you know, you really can't do, you really can't, you know, launch everything, you know, at the beginning when you're coming out with this new product launch. There's there's just limited time to get get things done before launch time. And so I think kind of, you know, in talking with the engineers, I kind of got a sense like, hey, they're kind of strapped with they're trying to build this product. Like, you know, good is always, you know, you know, you don't want to make that saying that you never want to make the uh perfect the enemy of the good. Um and I think having that sensibility where you're kind of being empathetic to the fact that they're resource constrained while also saying, hey, you know what, some of these compliance, you know, features are privacy by design considerations. These are nice to have, and they're also not going to be demanded by the immediate market. And so you kind of have to prioritize those. And I think that goes back to like the business judgment value that you bring in and being able to kind of spot opportunities where you have that sensibility and you can showcase that. It really just shows them that you're a partner and you understand you're in the trenches of them, you understand what they're going through. That was more of like a general example, but yeah, I'm curious if anything comes to mind more in my own.
Bill Berry:Product launch is, I think, a especially problematic for the leak in-house legal team because, and I think this holds true for most product launches, regardless of what industry you're in, you're gonna have collateral with it that's going to be making claims about it. And you, you know, one, you have to make sure that they're substantiating the claims are correct, but also they're, you know, regulatory and you know, from the hardware side, hardware compliance issues, and make sure all those line up. But invariably what happens, you you take a look and they have like an early draft of it and you look at it. And then it goes up the chain, gets changed like 15 more times, and they say, well, we need to look at it again, and then you look at it again, but then whoever signed off on it wants to see what if legal changed anything. So I think it's always hard on the product launch side is like where does legal insert itself? And they really want what they're used to without legal is just a kind of a steps to the process. A lore person drafts it, sends it to their boss, and then sends it to their boss and their boss, and it goes all the way up to the CEO, and then you're done. Problem is when you put legal in, they kind of have to see what it looks like to start, and they have to make sure the end product didn't change through that process. So they're they don't really fit neatly in a sequential process. Um I don't know, Ariane, we did have this big customer conference called Vicata One that we do every year, and it happens every single time because they're doing a ton of marking collateral, not just the presentation itself at the event, which has a bunch of content, but there's a lot of collateral around that. There's uh side side uh conversations, there's a lot of pushing out ads. And there's also kind of the main stage keynote speakers are talking. And so I find those are really good examples of why I think product council have functions so hard because they have to like make sure they're looking at all these different things from all these different angles, triaging ones, making sure they escalate ones where they think, okay, this truly is a problem, and swallowing risk on others and how to make that distinction, but also trying to fit yourself in a sequential process that's not really sequential from a legal side. Does that make sense?
Cecilia Ziniti:It makes so much sense. So I similar experience, product council, marketing council, you know, at Amazon. We had, you know, the day that we launched all the new devices. And, you know, funny, your story reminds me, it's not even just legal. It's it's there's a lot going on. So the name for the Alexa, the Amazon Echo, was originally going to be called Flash. And they had boxes printed. I mean, this is literally physical hardware, as you all sell. And Jeff Bezos is like, do we like that name? And everyone at the meeting is like, I guess not. And so literally the original Alexa shipped in a cardboard box, and all they could do was print the actual, like, like they printed like a card to go inside, but it was not enough time to reprint the boxes. Literally, this was like product counseling on the devices that got to get on a boat from China. So that that resonates. I also, I mean, for me, for my from my product counseling days, the hard part was when you had when someone on the team, a more junior lawyer, so probably even, you know, uh kind of let's say counsel level or or or even compliance manager type type person, and the blind person writing the marketing copy would, you know, would clash and then it would go up and it would come back, come to me as like legal says we can't say this. And I was like, well, that's not exactly how it worked out. And like, here's why, and here's not. And, you know, it definitely took very specific kind of like, I guess, training of the junior folks to get to that point where you're trusted enough to then be on the chains as it goes up higher and higher. And so I guess the question is so what do you do? So you're showing, okay, so you you have this launch, there's some, let's say, compliance mechanics that maybe don't bubble to the top. That's okay. Um, what do you what do you do post-launch then? Ariana? So you have the launch, you've got this list. So I I just remember, I still remember we were looking at accessibility bugs. Um CBAA, the Communications and Video Accessibility Act, requires that certain kinds of products have, you know, closed captions and they have other, you know, things for the for individuals who are blind. And um and you know, my counterpart on the engineering side went and marked a bunch of bugs won't fix. Like that was literally one of the tags.
Bill Berry:I was like, ah, don't do that, do that, won't fix.
Cecilia Ziniti:So that was that was kind of my my Laura moment. So what's your equivalent? What do what are you doing post-launch? You have VicataCon, Vicata One, and you're and you're and you're doing more compliance. Is it is it just like an ongoing journey or like like put us in your shoes and how do you do that well?
Ariana Goodell:Yeah. Well, it's it's it's kind of funny because I feel like it's like a very large balloon that inflates, and then you know, there's this huge conference. There's a lot of pressure to get things ready for the conference, and that's different from the actual launch date. So it's kind of like this like artificial deadline to just get things in a way that's gonna be, you know, ready to present, not materially different from what we're doing afterwards. And so I think having that mindset like gave me a little bit of pressure release of like, does this need to be perfect for Verkada One or can it can we, you know, decide on this final decision down the line? Um, and you know, what product managers are you know most concerned about is they want to make sure that the product that they're putting on is like the best version of that product and they're not kind of like limiting the capabilities of the product early on in a way that's just gonna be different from how we ultimately sell it. Yeah, I don't I don't have like a ton of like uh I don't think I have any horror stories just yet, which is I guess a good thing. But um I am I am really sensitive to you know the difference between ready for Vicada One versus like ready for launch. And you know, what I've also come to understand too is that I think a lot of product managers and engineering managers as well, I don't think they build with the idea that this is, I mean, there's always going to be different and updated versions of a product. You're just like, what is a what's the viable uh version of the product that we can sell that solves the customers' problems today that they can rely on, you know, and that really showcases our mission, which is like to make sure that privacy is a consideration that's embedded in, you know, making products in a privacy uh sensitive way. And so always trying to tie back the product to those privacy considerations and making sure that we're staying true to that, even in the early launches of products, which are important. So I think it's something that like we kind of hold dear at Verkada, and it's not something that I have to like virtue signal to the product managers. Like they know that that's an inherent value of our products and why people, why our customers like trust our products. So that's kind of nice, but it yeah, it hasn't really blown up in my face just yet. But I think that you know there is a difference between Verkada Want, Verkada, like conference ready and like launch ready, and then even then there's different versions.
Bill Berry:Yeah, I mean, I definitely had my you know, the because I think everybody's had this where you're like, you said what? You can't say that. We need to change that um post-launch. Um and to me it was interesting. We've had I've been at the company for uh about three and a half years now. So I've been through three ricotta ones. Um and the first ricotta one, I think it was me and maybe two other lawyers, and then we started building a team. Now it's you know, we're about 20, 20 folks now. Uh and this was the first ricotta one where I went and saw the keynote and I saw the presentations and there was no surprises because usually our ones was like, wait, did anybody look at that before that was put together and and presented? But there's always stuff you kind of see and you're like, okay, we gotta tweak this and tweak that. Um and I think you know, I there was one launch where we had we're about to launch a new uh product and they came. I just by happenstance heard what they're gonna call it without getting the details. It was very similar to a name that a government agency had used. So I it was one of those kind of movie moments where I'm like running down the hall with a SVP of product saying, You can't you can't use that name. You need to come up with a different name. Um and I explained to him why, and he his face kind of went ash, and he's like, Yeah, but don't use that name. And so I think that kind of stuff will invariably happen. Because I like I said, I think it's very hard. The product launch process, and I Ariana's spot on, like there's a difference between conference ready and launch ready, but it's still the same issue of like ideally legal is involved from the very get-go. So when they start building out these features, um they have, you know, if there's compliance size on privacy side or the product regulatory side, they hear about it and they can fix it again rather than have it baked in. So to your example, Chilia, when you have a name and it's all boxed out and it's too late to change it. But I think, you know, we are a little bit of friction when you start sticking us in there. Is probably kind of the best thing you can try to do. Um, because you really want to be there right when they're talking about it. Because there's so many issues from you know, think about freedom to operate on the patent side is an issue. We really want to be there in the beginning before they go down a path that is gonna be problematic. On the privacy side, I'm sure Ariana, you've seen where you know you get earlier you get in, the more you can give guidance and kind of steer them away. Maybe they're on the the wrong path.
Ariana Goodell:Yeah, I also try to like I also really try to kind of let them into the work that we do by showing them and telling them like what are the important considerations for Legal so that they have at least that understanding when they're going back to the head of product and then they're invariably going to talk to them about it. To kind of like be representative for Legal there too and empower the product manager, the engineering lead to like understand what your key considerations are and like what you care about. I think. If you can, if you can like you know verbalize that and articulate it for the product manager, that you know, then it it empowers them. They're not scared of changing like one word and then having to go back to legal, because then you're kind of seen as you know a bump in the road that's just kind of like stunting their creation, right? Um in their development process. So trying to kind of include these as much guidance as you can so that you have a representative, even if you're not there, they understand your perspective. But that's been really helpful.
Bill Berry:And I think it goes back to being in the boat, because I feel like the big thing I always kind of make sure and I think is important to focus on is what's the consequence if we don't do it the perfectly legal way? Um, what's the consequence if you put something in the marketing ad that maybe isn't as substantially as you want? What happens? Because the business is gonna make a decision because I mean, there's certain there's gonna be some rare cases where you just what I call throw your body across the tracks and say, you just cannot do this. I think that name of that product was a good example. That was not even really a legal issue. That was just a this is a bad brand.
Cecilia Ziniti:And the thing is, is next time, like you have earned so much more trust by pointing that out, right? And it's like you see these ads of like, you know, there was the I think Apple had an ad or something where they they smashed a piano and they smashed a whole bunch of stuff. And it was like basically that same week there had been like some apartment that had had collapsed. And it was like, did nobody point this out? How many people watch this that nobody noticed it? I still remember on Alexa, actually, we had a basically somewhat an ad, a proposed ad where um it was basically gonna have a baby on the counter, like crawling on the counter. And I was like, no, like that is not a thing. Like, do not do that. Like, you know, you're not supposed to turn your back on the kid, however old they are, or they're gonna fall off the counter. Maybe you hold them on the counter or you're like, you know, whatever, like standing with them, but you're not letting them crawl on the counter unassisted. And it was one of these things where I was a mom at the time and I watched it, it was just like you said, it was just the judgment. But the fact of having that judgment, I can tell you now from the CEO seat, I have a lawyer that helps us out. And, you know, there are times when I'm like, I just need to gut check on this, even social media posts, whatever it is. But you're right too, Ariana. You said something that's like when they use your language, it's it's almost like seeing your kids walk or something where you're like, thank you. Um so, yeah, it's it's it's it's a fun one. Um, almost like um, and and the the trust value. Let's get real brass text. So, do you do trainings and things on privacy or like how do the the sort of line employees at Verkada absorb that value that you described around, you know, that your products should be trusted to this kind of thing?
Ariana Goodell:Yeah, well, I think that there's like, you know, it's pretty typical at most companies where you have like an annual privacy training. But I think what's unique about VRCata is we have such a very vast and wide product suite that, you know, some of the product considerations for certain products are a lot more sensitive and critical than other products. Like we have like an air sens air quality sensor. It's not collecting that sensitive of information as compared to a camera that has facial recognition technology where it's collecting biometric, you know, vectors of your face in order to visualize, you know, and either authenticate your identity or verify, you know, you for like access control. So I feel like some of the ways that we've tried to really kind of embed that into the the way that we interact and work with product team managers is really setting up these individual meetings with these uh with, you know, and it can be per team. It's interesting about Bricata, this is different from other companies I worked at, like, you know, they have these, the product teams are separated and they also have, you know, separate backend microservices. So even their back end is separate. Um, and you know, so that makes, you know, it imperative for you to kind of federate out your guidance. You know, what's relevant to one product team or one, you know, engineering lead is going to be different from another one. Um, so we really try to have those regular product syncs where we're understanding like what are they focused on. Some of the more critical meetings that I feel like you can be in is actually the product planning and roadmap planning meetings because there you're kind of understanding what are they like what's keeping them up at night? What are they really trying to push out and like why are certain things getting prioritized over others? Like what's a P0, what's a P1, and why? Those were meetings that I had to kind of like really advocate to get at the table at at branch, not because there wasn't a willingness. There just wasn't, you know, that structure there. They didn't really have legal integrated into their design process at the time when I joined, I was there for five years. There's clearly a lot of growing, uh growing to do. And then, you know, at Verkada, what's what's really amazing about the company is that it's, you know, a late stage venture, I'd say, but you know, it grew so fast. So there's like a level of maturity in the product and you know, how well the business is doing, it's not always one for one in terms of the maturity of the organization. And you really have to kind of like put yourself into the organization, understand where they're at, meet them where they're at. Because if you try to kind of shove this like privacy by design program with all these shiny decks and like, I'm gonna be in every meeting, it just doesn't always work. You kind of really have to understand how each product team works and then find natural, like intuitive ways to integrate yourself into those meetings where you are enabling them to launch without having to retract something or change something. That's the worst thing, you know, when they push something out and then all of a sudden, you know, hey, this needs to be changed and they're gonna have to update the app or they're gonna have to, we're gonna have to update this UI screen. Like no product manager wants to go back to their out of product and say, hey, we have to change this. Because then they're like, why? You know? So uh I feel like, you know, really trying to kind of embed yourself and meeting the team where they're at based on their maturity level and organizational structure is pretty key.
Bill Berry:I think it's interesting, having come from two big giant public companies before I came here. I think there's this notion of uh one, those legal teams have unlimited resources, and two, those companies are super well run on the inside. And they're not. I mean that's just you know, every time.
Ariana Goodell:Not those by the cover.
Bill Berry:You know, and I've talked to people who worked at Apple and Amazon. I'm sure you saw the same thing, Amazon, Chicho. There's so many just crazy chaotic things happening in these big companies that are kind of surprising. I remember at Google, you know, we had this internal tool to track all the cases. You know, we had tons of cases. The litigation team that I ran had you know, I think a thousand active cases. And we tracked that on a spreadsheet because the tool didn't work very well. Uh and it was it was a homegrown tool and it just was impossible to use. Most of the time we just used spreadsheets to track our cases. And uh, to me, that was an example of like people think of this like you know, we had this like polished system to track these things and operationally it just ran like a uh well-oiled machine. Not at all. Not at all. And so when you come here, it's it's definitely chaos because we don't have the resources to buy all these kind of operational tools. But it is not when you're I think in the valley in general, and and you're in tech and you're in fast-moving companies, there's not operational top-level stuff. It's just it's kind of a mess. It's kind of a mess, um, which is why they move so fast, which is good. I think you go to other bigger companies that are more traditional and slower moving, they have tons of process operations, which I guess can make you happy because it's better in that way, but they also move painfully slow. Painfully slow.
Cecilia Ziniti:You know, it it's an interesting debate, like so much goodness in what you all said. The federate your advice, that's a new one. I had not heard that advice, that, that, that phrase. So I'm gonna use that. And then the sort of like, you know, everyone's a mess. So if you're listening and you're like, oh my gosh, my legal team, my product. Just like, you know, take the reassurance that that kind of everywhere, even the hugest companies, um, it's kind of like it's in some ways an operational mess. But the ability to tolerate that, I think it is a personality thing as well. And you see that even Netflix, I think until very recently had we reject process or something like that as a value. And there was a guy post on LinkedIn, he's like, My title is the head of process, and you know, I'm trying. That's a good one.
Ariana Goodell:Yeah, I feel like some executives are very averse to it uh to some extent, and in certain types of like especially, you know, in product development where you know you don't want to stifle innovation by giving people a bunch of structure and process. It's gonna slow them down, especially if you like you're working on AI where it's like time is time is resource, time is power. I feel like I remember, I remember in my last, in my last role, we were you know working on a problem within the company. I I even forget what we were talking about, but I'll never forget the email that I got from the CEO at the time. And he responds back to like this group conversations happening. It's like a very long email chain, and he just goes, This sounds really big company to me. And it was just that was it. That was the email. And it was kind of a really yeah, it was like a yeah, you learn a lot from it. It's a really striking moment of like, what are we actually solving here? And like, you know, are we overcomplicating things? And it it will, it's an email. I'm sure everybody has these, but it's an email that I'll never, I'll never forget.
Bill Berry:Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's also that that first principled approach. Like, why do you just because everybody's has a process, why do you need a process? Why is there really a reason to kind of slow things down with process?
Cecilia Ziniti:Sort of first principles. I mean, but then you know, uh obviously it has its place, right? So you're at the Vicata One, you've seen all the you've seen all the videos. Yeah, yeah, that is good. Yeah, so I guess that's a good segue on on process and tooling and how you move fast. Let's talk about AI. How are you thinking about AI within legal both advising on it? So, like maybe a little bit of a structure around or or process at lowercase P around how you advise teams on AI. You have a lot of products. How how did you have you been thinking about that? And you know, maybe there's a historical point too, which uh you all have been doing AI since before Gen AI. So what can the teams advising on Gen AI now learn learn from you? And and what have you done?
Bill Berry:Take that Ariana.
Ariana Goodell:I think it's kind of a Yeah, well, I have some initial thoughts. I think for me, it's kind of all happening at once because you know, I worked at an ad tech company prior to Verkada. So when I came to Verkada, it was I came at Verkada at a time where there's this confluence of, you know, AI LLMs, AI governance, the UAI Act coming out. And I'm also now working with a hardware product that has an AI component, and that's you know, the very one of the main value propositions of the product. So I like, I couldn't imagine a better time to have AI to learn AI. It's kind of like inception. I mean, there's just no way. I think that I can't imagine trying to wrap my head around learning model, you know, how all the steps that engineers go through to try to prepare data to train a model without having the, you know, having an LLM where I can just like ask these baseline questions and really go through the reasoning process myself. Like it would just be, it's such a game changer. You know, it kind of speaks to this like larger theme that I think we're all seeing now is like if you want to do lawyering, there's a baseline AI literacy you're going to have to have. And this is true for everybody at the company, but I feel like for lawyers, especially, like we're we're at a time right now where like AI literacy is going to fill the gap where you can kind of like extend your skill set and even to some extent augment it to meet the capabilities and experience of people that have been lawyers for much longer than you or have a lot more lived experience than you. So really trying to capitalize on that, especially given the complexity of the products that we build, has just been like it's been a godsend. I'm glad I feel like I came at Verkada to Verkada at the right time.
Cecilia Ziniti:Love it. I love it. Bill, what um how are you seeing that? Are you seeing kind of kind of lawyers supercharged with AI? Like, are is that something you're you're being intentional about with the team? Ariana took that question a different place than than I than I thought, which is she's using AI to be a better lawyer. Yeah, I think you are.
Bill Berry:Yeah, I think there are two pieces here that I think we're we're talking about. One is on the product side. Uh-huh. A lot of companies, and it's getting more and more, are using AIs in some way in their product. And it for us, it's it's a it's a major factor in our our services that we provide through our our hardware and software. And so there's an element of there just, you know, the law is changing all the time and just trying to catch up uh is a big piece. But I think what you're getting to is more like how does the team use AI? And I think um we were probably a little bit late to the game. I actually we formed a little working group that Ari Hung is on um to kind of look at uh what are what are the tools out there that could help our team specifically with what we're challenged with. You know, we have we're like it's a 2300-person company, you know, probably six to eight hundred of those are in the sales org in some way. So we have a gigantic sales force because we're a B2B company. And there are a lot of deals, a lot of NDAs happening, a lot of user agreements, reseller agreements, uh, vendor agreements. And I think where we looked at was like, well, let's look at rather than just kind of get overwhelmed by all the abilities and capabilities of AI, let's look at some low-hanging fruit first and not go down this slippery slope of like, wow, you know, this kind of shiny tool that can just solve so many problems. We're not quite big enough. We don't have the resources enough to buy all these tools and buy all these different permutations. Let's look at, well, what are things that we can just solve that are kind of what we call low-hanging fruit? Let's focus on those first. What are basic things that AI can come in uh in an efficient and frankly cheaper way that we can start using as a foundation rather than try to just solve, you know, boil the entire ocean of problems that we've got. So I'm really curious, Ariana, because you guys, that group has been going through some demos and uh and I haven't checked in with you all in a bit, but I think to me, the two big areas that we saw, one, Ariana's point, is there's definitely a lot of capability with AI, regardless of the tools, whether it GCAI, Harvey, or just Jim and I or Chat GPT, of I've just got a basic question and I can ask it and just get a gut check. There's value there in that kind of research capability. And also first drafting, which is I think related. I had to draft kind of a very unique kind of uh secondary sale or secondary transaction policy. And there's no template of this. And I was like, I just kind of did the prompts, described what I wanted, and it's and this is just Jim and I've spit out this amazing draft. That was a workable draft. I had to make a lot of tweaks to it, but it was it probably saved me a couple hours, just that initial draft. So that's one piece, and then I think the other piece is just contract review. That's kind of near and dear to our our kind of uh legal flows. I think there's a ton you can do there. And we saw those as kind of two low-hanging fruit. But I think Ariane, you guys have been working for I think we kind of formed that uh earlier this fall. It's been several months now of kind of being more intentional about let's actually look at some opportunities and which which tools should we engage.
Ariana Goodell:Yeah, there's certainly use cases that members of the team are more interested to solve and versus others that they feel like it's overcomplicating it by using AI, which is interesting. But yeah, it's really kind of also freed up a lot of time to do creative lawyering. I think so much of our work is spent doing a lot of time-consuming tasks. So it's exciting to think about a world where you know the value you bring is really from your ability to think critically and spend your time doing creative lawyering work versus, you know, what now AI is going to be doing for a lot of us. So no more first drafts from outside council, I'll tell you that much.
Cecilia Ziniti:There you go. I love it. I love it. Yeah. So on AI specifically, how do you all think about public policy on AI? And maybe the new California bill, SB 53, requires companies to publicly disclose mitigating catastrophic AI risks. Obviously, all are in schools. You have some pretty, you know, law enforcement type, I guess, use cases. What um you know, have you have you thought about either public policy or like just how do you um help the company figure out its position on these things? Maybe that's the creative learning that you need.
Bill Berry:Yeah, to me, the uh from the company perspective, I think for Kata, we're a uh B2B company where the government's a big uh kind of customer demographic for us. Schools are a big demographic for us, um, as well as kind of the Fortune 50 up to the Fortune 1000. You know, I think we wanna, we're definitely not like my prior companies who are gonna be on the forefront, a very top-of-fundal branding so everybody knows their names. I think we're fine when nobody knows what pracotta is, they just know their products. And you know, the pracotta cameras are on my son's elementary school, for example. And I don't think people know that. They just know it's it's a white camera, right? So I think on the policy front, we don't envision or wanna be tip of the spear on those types of issues. Uh whether it comes to be privacy or AI policy, gen AI policy. And I think so. I think that kind of kind of informs how we kind of approach the policy perspective from a company perspective. It's just fly under the radar. It's something that our head of comms, she started just a couple months before I did. I interviewed her with one of the first people I interviewed because I was like, I want to talk to somebody who just joined. But we are very much in you know, goose on that kind of vision of like, let's just fly under the radar. You know, we don't it's just that detracts from our business and our um kind of profile necessarily so because we don't need to be the tip of the spear on that stuff. We used to talk about running with that. Yeah, yeah.
Cecilia Ziniti:And I think on privacy, I mean that makes a lot of sense on privacy as well, right? I mean, it's still when you think about like the traditional kind of FTC sort of like reasonable expectation, right? It's like, okay, your reasonable expectation is formed by what is the radar? Like, what is the normal thing you would expect? You would expect a camera in a in a school. So things like that. Cool. Right. I love that. Um, all right. So let's go to to kind of closing reflections. Let's do a lightning round. So what's a book idea or concept or podcast that has shaped how you lead?
Ariana Goodell:I'll start with Ariana. Book, idea, or podcast. I think the most uh the quickest thing that comes to mind is uh like a idea about leadership. Um and I I I go back to leadership. Your biggest asset as a leader is your authentic authentic. Um and I learned that because I I feel like I I've been surrounded by a lot of different types of leaders that I've admired, but they all have different styles. And at some point in my career, I kind of wondered, you know, do I need to change the way that I talk or the way that I act in order to be more esteemed by my colleagues or more respected? Um and you know, I got an answer from my boss at the time, but I think that over time I've learned too that, you know, really your power as a leader comes from the ability of people to perceive you as being authentic to yourself. Um and so I really try to live that day in and day out. I don't try to be something I'm not, and hopefully that ultimately makes me successful in life. So yeah. I love that. Bill, how about you?
Bill Berry:I think there are two things that come to mind. One is kind of it's not something that I wanted to model. Kind of going earlier, kind of building the team. What do I look for? What is bracata looking for when we hire? Going back to my Google days, Jonathan Rosenberg and Eric Schmidt, who are two executives, they I forgot they published a book together, and I think they dedicated a chapter to kind of what they call hiring the what they call Diva, but kind of the big personality, big ego. Um, because they're just gonna get stuff done. So they're a big proponent of that. And I think it showed in the Google workforce there are a lot of egos at Google, and people got a lot of stuff done, just crazy smart people and in imposter syndrome everywhere because of that. Um and but I think that experience made me think I don't like that approach. I don't I don't want to seek out and hire the egos. And it was kind of refreshing when I went to Tesla, the legal team, I think the company in general, I mean, we had we had a very big ego at the top of the company, almost no room for egos below. And it was refreshingly, this is not a word, but refreshingly ego-less. Um and so when I came to Ricotta, I think it was very intentional. If I interviewed somebody and I had a hint of an ego, a person went down a notch in my view of where they would be a right fit for the team. So I think that's one thing that's definitely shaped me. It's like I I really intentionally try to hire the people because I don't think you need an ego to be ambitious. I don't think you need an ego to be driven. I don't think you need ego to drive things to completion. You can do all that without without an ego. So I don't know, Ariana, but I I feel like did you get that?
Speaker 1:Because I definitely feel like Didn't meet a diva.
Bill Berry:Didn't mean Logwin as well. She's our you know, amazing recruiter. Like I think we've actively tried. Like I look at the team, there's just not a lot of ego there on the team.
Cecilia Ziniti:And I that actually takes us to the top of the hour, right? Like people find, like, you know, there's like a there's a lid for every pot, right? And it sounds like the two of you really have like a really nice kind of vibe. And I can tell that, like, okay, the boat that is this like very high growth environment, very um, you know, challenging you know, intellectually and um from a business standpoint, product that you're supporting, like it kind of like it sounds like you found the right place. So that's great. I if I'm a listener to this, I'm like, well, sign me up. This sounds like a great place to to practice law and to work. So thank you, thank you both for being here. You've shown you know a lot about leadership, some really great kind of product counseling tactile stuff. I feel like everybody talks about contracts. So even though commercial counsel folks, I love you, but this was a this is a product counseling episode, which I just I love. Awesome. All right, so where can listeners connect with you if they want to want to follow you?
Ariana Goodell:We're like off the radar. No, you're like, you should not.
Cecilia Ziniti:Like, sorry, you know, just come to Burkotta's office.
Bill Berry:I had a Twitter when I was at Tesla was the only time I had a Twitter account because I kind of needed one.
Cecilia Ziniti:Um yeah, of course.
Bill Berry:But I shut it down. Funding secured.
Cecilia Ziniti:Hashtag funding secured. Let's go.
Bill Berry:I'm on LinkedIn, but I don't really post them.
Cecilia Ziniti:LinkedIn. All right, we'll check it out on LinkedIn. We're gonna drop um if you um if you have the name of that book from from the the kind of anti-pattern so we can read how to not hire divas. Uh share that. We'll we'll post on the show. I looked that up. Amazing, awesome. Hey, thank you both for being here. That was my conversation with Bill Berry and Ariana Goodell from Verkada. And they're a reminder that the best legal teams are human and uh apparently egoless, but also that you um do things to really support your stakeholders and make products happen. When leaders build trust and and really are intentional around how they work, um, it looks like everybody wins. So follow CZ and Friends wherever you um get your podcasts. And you can visit gc.ai to learn more about how legal teams are using AI, as Bill and Ariana described, to work smarter and lead with impact and do more creative learning. Thank you so much for listening. We'll see you next time.