#231 CEO & Co-Founder Harvey, Winston Weinberg w/ Ilya Fushman: Worthy Sacrifices

13 snips

Feb 24, 2025

Guest

Ilya Fushman

Guest

Winston Weinberg

In this discussion, Winston Weinberg, CEO and co-founder of Harvey, shares his commitment to respecting the legal industry while integrating AI technology. Ilya Fushman, from Kleiner Perkins, emphasizes the role of AI as a collaborative copilot in various sectors. They explore the importance of thoughtful automation, distinguishing between enjoyable commitments and true sacrifices in work. The conversation also highlights innovative hiring in the AI legal space and the need for professionals to adapt as industries evolve.

Ask episode

AI Snips

Chapters

Transcript

Episode notes

INSIGHT

Zeitgeist Shift to Application Layer AI

There's a zeitgeist shift towards application layer AI companies.
This attracts both those seeking the "next big thing" and those genuinely interested in applied AI.

ADVICE

Ambitious AI Application

Apply AI ambitiously to transform industries by partnering with them.
Domain-specific AI for legal, tax, and compliance has vast potential.

INSIGHT

Quality and Review in Legal AI

High quality output is crucial when selling AI solutions to law firms.
Hierarchical review within firms ensures that AI-generated work is thoroughly checked before reaching clients.

Get the Snipd Podcast app to discover more snips from this episode

Get the app

Guests: Winston Weinberg, CEO & co-founder of Harvey; and Ilya Fushman, partner at Kleiner Perkins

“If you think about pretty much any job out there in the world, we will have some sort of [AI] copilot,” says Kleiner Perkins partner Ilya Fushman. “The question is, who are the right folks to build it, and what’s their vision?”

For Harvey CEO & co-founder Winston Weinberg, the vision is clear: Silicon Valley cannot and should not try to disrupt the legal profession by automating the job of lawyers. Instead, he says, they need to have “respect for the industry” before designing AI solutions that speed up specific tasks.

“These industries are incredibly complex,” Winston says. “Legal is one of the oldest professions known to man. There are firms that are over a hundred years old. There are firms that are hundreds of years old, and having a brand that says, ‘We are partnering with the industry to transform it’ versus ‘We are just going to steamroll the industry’ is really important for us.”

Chapters:

(01:16) - The zeitgeist switch
(02:58) - What is Harvey?
(06:10) - Chief Law Officers
(07:58) - Agentic workflows
(09:43) - Ilya’s investment thesis
(12:48) - Collaborating with AI
(16:05) - Task automation
(20:52) - Why is it called Harvey?
(23:14) - Respecting the legal industry
(26:43) - Winston’s past jobs
(28:47) - First steps
(32:13) - Scaling the company
(35:02) - Scaling yourself
(37:19) - Who works for Harvey
(40:50) - Making mistakes
(43:15) - Making sacrifices
(45:51) - Growing too fast
(50:50) - Setting priorities
(54:54) - Harvey’s competitors
(57:38) - Internal virality
(01:00:46) - Testing Harvey’s limits
(01:03:29) - Who Harvey is hiring
(01:04:01) - What “grit” means to Winston

Mentioned in this episode: ChatGPT, the Fortune 500, Microsoft Copilot, Gabe Pereyra, Activision, Excel, Counsel AI Corporation, Suits, Harvard University, Netflix, Dell, O'Melveny & Myers, Hueston Hennigan, Meta, Reddit, Jason Kwon, Anthropic, Marissa Mayer, Eric Schmidt, Google, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, and Glean.

Links:

Connect with Winston

Connect with Ilya

Connect with Joubin

Learn more about Kleiner Perkins

This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm