Business & Legal Developments in Silicon Valley | January 2022

Friends,

Despite another pandemic wave (with all of the disruption, confinement, illness and tragic loss of life), we begin a brand new year with boundless optimism, positivity and creativity, inspired by our brilliant and resilient clients and teammates. The path from garage to global seems to be getting shorter and flatter by the day…

In this first 2022 edition of our monthly newsletter, we look at the two paradigms where law and policy will have to catch up to the facts on the ground, which have rendered traditional legal regimes obsolete:

• Jen Urban and Catherine Zhu discuss how big tech and small will be forced to evaluate their privacy programs and “design in” futuristic policy goals of privacy regulation into their product roadmap in order to get to the next level.
• Pat Daugherty and Louis Lehot argue for the creation of a new legal entity to make room for decentralized autonomous organizations, or “DAOs,” that have become ubiquitous for decentralized finance applications and digitally native tokens. Without a legal framework, DAOs exist in a gray area, not corporations, not partnerships, not individuals, but whose decisions impact entire ecosystems. It’s time for legislation and regulation to follow where the technology is taking us.

Partners Natasha Allen and Louis Lehot hosted the Northern California division of the National Association of Corporate Directors for an “in real life” dinner workshop on how to mitigate the risk of technology disruption through innovation. They were joined by keynote speaker and TDK Ventures President, Nicolas Sauvage, who led a discussion around how to create a corporate venturing program that adds financial and strategic value to its portfolio companies and its sponsors.

On the transactional front, our clients continued to ride the boom in venture capital financings, all over the world. From Austin-based blockchain orchestration platform Cion Digital to Sao Paolo-based flexible office marketplace BeerOrCoffee, our lawyers were structuring and closing smart deals to build enduring businesses.

Our team continues to work with some of the most prolific content creators, entrepreneurs and investors to create new platforms aligned with emerging new technology paradigms, and all over the world.

This edition of our newsletter highlights some of our team’s work in these areas and explores legal issues that matter.

We are always available to help you brainstorm legal and business challenges, foster new introductions, and to help you build.

We are grateful for your trust and confidence, and committed to the relationships that have kick-started our new practice at Foley & Lardner in 2021. As we look into 2022, the future looks brighter than ever.

Your Legal Team at Foley & Lardner in Silicon Valley and San Francisco.

Read more about the recent Business & Legal developments in Silicon Valley.