Morrison & Foerster LLP

01/21/2025 | News release | Distributed by Public on 01/22/2025 07:54

Exploring the MoFo Tech Law Summit – Innovation Under Regulation

The MoFo Tech Law Summit, hosted in San Francisco on December 12, was an engaging convergence of thought leaders from technology, law, policy, and investment. Under the theme "Innovation Under Regulation," MoFo' s inaugural summit addressed the most pressing issues within tech law. We were thrilled to bring together those who are advancing innovation, managing compliance, drafting policy, and overseeing regulations.

A Day of Insight and Innovation

The MoFo Tech Law Summit covered a wide array of interconnected tech hot topics and offered our guests an opportunity to hear from diverse leading voices shaping the future of tech. The 2024 summit included an all-star roster of speakers and topics, including:

  • Unpacking the Impact of the 2024 Election

    Martha Raddatz, Chief Global Affairs Correspondent, ABC News, and Tiffany Cheung unpacked the impact of the 2024 U.S. presidential election and explored what Trump 2.0 will mean for technology companies and for business operations generally. Of particular focus were the topics of domestic and foreign policy, national security, workplace issues, climate and energy, and media and journalism.
  • Insights from Meta's CLO

    Jennifer Newstead, Chief Legal Officer, Meta, both inspired and informed our guests in a fireside chat with Deanne Maynard. Jennifer and Deanne dove into AI with a conversation around "open vs. closed" source as it related to global competition, regulatory shifts, and approaches for navigating the global landscape. Jennifer also shared what it's like leading the legal department of one of the biggest technology companies in the world.
  • Tales from the AI Frontier

    Che Chang, General Counsel, OpenAI, Lauren Lennon, General Counsel, Scale AI, and Justin Haan discussed cutting-edge AI advancements and explored the dimensions of AI deployment with shifting regulations, including from individual states, the Biden EO, and the EU AI Act. Che and Lauren are at the forefront of developments in AI and were uniquely well positioned to guide us for what comes next.
  • Tech and Antitrust: Policy Shifts in the Second Trump Administration

    Stewart Jeffries, President, Jeffries Strategies, and Matthew Schruers, President & CEO, Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA), level-set our guests as to where we are today in terms of antitrust enforcement, diving into the aggressive antitrust enforcement agenda across all fronts and its implications for merger review; they then built on that to identify defining characteristics of antitrust enforcement in President Trump's second term. This session was moderated by Megan Gerking.
  • Navigating National Security in the New Administration

    Norman Barbosa, General Manager and Associate General Counsel, Law Enforcement, National Security and Telecom, Microsoft, and Alex Iftimie, Deputy General Counsel, OpenAI, outlined the national security landscape in the upcoming administration. Washington, D.C. partner Brandon Van Grack moderated this session.
  • Privacy and Data Security: Different World Views in the U.S., EU, and China

    Alexandra Ross, Senior Director, Senior Data Protection, Use & Ethics Counsel, Autodesk, Brandon Wales, Former Executive Director, CISA and Vice President of Cybersecurity Strategy, SentinelOne, Alex van der Wolk, and Miriam Wugmeister expounded on privacy and data security laws and rules in the U.S., EU, and China and how they differ and compare with each other. Focus areas included Biden's EO on preventing access to bulk personal data, protecting Americans' data from Foreign Adversaries Act of 2024, and cyber incident reporting for Critical Infrastructure Act, the EU AI Act, NIS2, and DORA.
  • Investing in Innovation

    James Joaquin, Co-founder & Managing Director, Obvious Ventures, Selina Tobaccowala, CEO & Co-founder, HomeBoost, and Ari Herbert-Voss, CEO & Founder, RunSybil, spoke on the importance of investing in innovation and shared the opportunities and challenges of being "disruptive" in a regulated environment. Attendees garnered insights into how to keep a growth mindset while balancing risk and reward with shifting landscapes and the speed of technology adoption. Michael Glaser moderated this high-energy session.
  • Responsible Tech: Policy Becomes Practice

    Paula Goldman, Chief Ethics and Humane Use Officer, Salesforce, Senator Scott Wiener, District 11, California State Senate, and Aniyia L. Williams, Director, Responsible Technology, Omidyar Network, joined Alexis Amezcua to speak about responsible technology and its ongoing importance as the pace of innovation continues to accelerate. They covered ethics, safety, inclusivity, societal impacts, and how to build, deploy, and govern technology with these issues in mind.
  • A Fork in the Road: Which Path Will Tech Take?

    The summit closed with a lively and entertaining Q&A session featuring Casey Newton, Founder and Editor, Platformer, and Co-host, The New York Times Hard Fork Podcast, Nilay Patel, Co-founder and Editor-in-Chief, The Verge, and Tessa Schwartz on a wide variety of tech trends to look forward to, including the continued rise of AI, the semiconductor industry in the U.S., and Elon Musk's roles in the next administration, to name a few of the topics broached.

Our partners Joe Gratz and Alexis Amezcua served as emcees throughout the day. Networking breaks fostered new connections and, in the spirit of the season, MoFo made charitable donations on behalf of our attendees to Girls Who Code, Legal Services for Children, and the SF-Marin Food Bank

Looking Ahead

The MoFo Tech Law Summit further cemented MoFo as the leading law firm for the tech elite and as the connector, bringing together stakeholders to address complexities and predict what the future holds for tech, innovation, and regulation. This is only the first of our Tech Law Summits and there will be more to come in the future. Watch this space to follow trends in tech law and how to become a more involved player in our shared tech-driven future.

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