My next chapter: Joining Juno as General Counsel

For far too long, the real estate headlines have been the same: “Housing shortage takes a toll” “The US in in the midst of a housing affordability crisis,” “Construction materials shortage triggers delays,” and so on and so on. These are problems that many companies are now looking to solve, but none have been able to do so at scale — yet.

I have spent most of my legal career in commercial real estate development working on sophisticated multi-family projects, and the past three and a half years in proptech, building Zillow Offers from the ground floor and scaling it across 25+ markets. Drawing from those experiences, I have a desire to be a part of the housing solution; to work on something that could tangibly improve residents’ lives — and the real estate industry — at a systemic level. But with such a broken system in the United States, it was clear that the solution needed to come from a team that was willing to balance forward, out of the box and tech-enabled thinking, with real knowledge of development and an appreciation for what already works. Enter Juno.

When deciding which company to join, I looked for three characteristics: (1) a purpose driven mindset; (2) a responsible business plan; and (3) a balanced executive team. It did not take long to see that Juno embodies all three to its core.

First, Juno is committed to changing our cities for the better. This is done by using sustainable building materials (e.g., mass timber) in its productized design and managing all supply chain systems. The result is a consistent, environmentally friendly building that was constructed efficiently, with the savings being passed forward to the tenants.

Second, Juno operates under a bi-furcated business model, in which it can act as either a service provider to third-party real estate developers or as a developer itself. And unlike many of its peers in this space, Juno embraces a decentralized structure. This means that it is asset light and can be nimble on its feet when iterating on product learnings or adapting to changing market conditions.

Third, Jon and BJ have built a first-class executive team with ambitious (yet pragmatic) leaders from the design, technology, product, real estate and construction industries, all while avoiding the familiar pitfall of over-indexing on one sector. They also have a team of industry-leading partners like Ennead Architects, Swinerton Builders, and Holmes to put their model into practice. This is a special blend of entrepreneurs and reputable experts to collectively take on this challenge in a realistic manner.

Once confirming that our principles aligned, I jumped at the opportunity to become Juno’s General Counsel. A General Counsel is uniquely positioned to gain deep visibility into each facet of the business and understand how all components must work together to deliver our product. My mission is to take that perspective and work cross-functionally every day to help Juno execute its core objectives, scale the business and to protect it from undue risk.

We are trying to solve these high-stakes problems in an extremely regulated environment. It has therefore never been more important to have a business-minded General Counsel on the leadership team within the organization. Juno is just getting started and I could not be more excited to be a part of the journey.

Joe Stockton is Juno’s General Counsel.