Our Top 3 Takeaways from the Fullstack GC Conference

Last Friday, our team attended TechGC’s fifth annual Fullstack GC Conference here in San Francisco. We had a great time connecting with GCs and exchanging ideas on how legal teams can stay ahead of the curve when it comes to protecting—and optimizing—their company’s business operations. Here are our three main takeaways from the conference:

1. Finding creative, efficient ways to work with teams across the company is a top priority for all tech GCs. This came through most clearly when Eric Ries spoke about legal as a source of power and speed, but it was a broad theme across all the day’s sessions. We loved hearing about how GCs are finding ways to prioritize accessibility, transparency, and cross-functional collaboration.
2. The GC role is defined by rapid ramp-up in a number of areas, especially for first-time GCs. Our GC Chris Young had the privilege of co-hosting a roundtable with TaskRabbit GC Danielle Merida. One thing we heard over and over: GCs agree that the role isn’t about knowing everything, but about knowing what you don’t know.
3. GCs and legal teams have more business counterparts (and responsibilities) than ever before. Ten years ago, it might have been uncommon for a company to have an Information Security or Sales Ops team. New business functions mean new challenges for GCs. How much should a GC know about CRMs? Cyber threats? The job of the GC is to assess and manage a company’s risk. That task gets more challenging as the universe of risks expands.

Were you at the Fullstack conference? If so, we’d love to hear what your takeaways were and to continue the conversation. Feel free to comment with your learnings below.

With CLOC Vegas 2019 happening this week, we also look forward to taking what we heard at the Fullstack conference and comparing it to what Legal Ops teams are seeing on the ground.