Maintaining culture while growing
With growing so fast as Legora does, it brings challenges to keep the initial culture and start-up atmosphere. Max agrees that culture building and attractive talent are key to continued expansion. He presents Legora’s internal motto, which is LFG.
“It can have several meanings. But for us, it means Lean in. Fight for excellence. Grow together.” Max says with a grin.
He describes the culture as intense, but transparent. “If you’re in engineering, you’re building features customers will use next week. If you’re in sales, you see immediately whether we win a deal or not. Everyone’s contribution is so visible here.”
Young employees come in and quickly take on responsibility and grow here. Several team leads are in their early twenties.
“What matters most is growth trajectory. We look at what we call the Y-slope, meaning how fast you develop. Skill level at entry matters less than your learning speed and ambition.”
Grades of course matter. But so does initiative, resilience, and having experience from taking on challenges, whether in sports, projects, or side ventures.
Entrepreneurial mindset
Max reflects on whether he was born an entrepreneur or simply someone who just struggles with authority.
“Probably both,” he says. “I have low tolerance for inefficiency. If something doesn’t work, I’d rather fix it myself.”
He works long hours, often late into the night, but insists that it energizes him. “If I worked the same hours in consulting, which many people do, I’d be exhausted. But when I do it for my own company, it gives me energy.”
He grew up in an entrepreneurial family and saw both success and setbacks early on. A perspective that shaped his risk appetite.
“When we later got into Y Combinator, it was full throttle for us. Total focus.”
Visibility and responsibility
As Legora grows, so does public attention. Max has found himself in rooms he once only read about. He scrolls for a short time on his phone and shows us an email from Jensen Huang, CEO of NVIDIA, that he received yesterday.
“Those moments are actually surreal,” he says.
He has also met world leaders, including French President Emmanuel Macron. “He had a very steady handshake,” Max says with a smile. “You start to notice things like that.”
Yet for Max, visibility and being in the spotlight are not the goal.
“It’s part of the CEO role to represent the company and tell our story. But what matters most is building something that lasts.”
What drives him is scale and impact. He reasons for a while on the responsibility of being the CEO of a company that grows so fast. Legora receive ten thousand job applicants from people all over the world. Which is incredibly impressive but also a big responsibility.
“When so talented people choose to join us, I feel a responsibility to build something truly meaningful. To give my everything and create something global.”
The future
For now, Legora remains laser-focused on legal work. But Max sees long-term expansion into areas such as tax, compliance, and risk.
He often references companies like Google, businesses that built a strong core product and later expanded into entirely new domains.
When asked about tips for coming graduates, the recommendation is clear:
“If I were early in my career today, or soon to graduate from SSE, I would absolutely join an AI-native company. That’s where the whole future is being shaped.”