Building beautiful products with Stripe’s Head of Design | Katie Dill (Stripe, Airbnb, Lyft)

25:36Okay. All right. Well, it's that good. It's that good. I wish I could remember which episode that was, but it was. I forget. But yeah, it's exactly right. Oh, nice. Okay. All right. Well, then lastly, a, you know, quality is a matter of pride. Beauty is a matter of pride. If we put that in, you know, kind of care into our work, more people want to work with us because they want to see, you know, their time spent in the care for their craft, recognized and utilized and see that that can, can be, you know, put together into something really impactful. And so, you know, we really put that on pedestal, you know, because we know how much it matters to our users and how much it matters to the people that work with us.

26:17Beauty, beauty is an important part of it all. Amazing. Speaking of beauty, I think when I think of Stripe and Beautiful, I think of your website and some of the specific landing pages you have, which are just incredibly nice. I'm just curious how you decide it's time to redesign your website and how much time and thought you put into a new website because I feel like a common question founders have like, should we redo our website? And it feels like you guys really think deeply about that. So I guess is there anything there that you can share? Yeah, there's definitely a couple of things we could talk about in terms of like operationalizing quality because I mean, the gravitational pull is to mediocrity.

26:54Right. Like, you know, it is, it is very easy to fall into a path of a baseline where what is required to go to that next level where something feels truly great is certainly a lot of effort. And it's a concerted effort. And I will definitely say that we are working progress. You know, we have not nailed nailed all the things. And it is an ongoing pursuit of excellence. And so the way that we build the website is that, you know, we certainly do put a lot of care into what we're putting out into the world. And we view it as a articulation of, you know, how we care about our users in all that we provide for them.

27:36So we take that very seriously. We try to kind of meld art and science. So it's the creativity of the work, but it's also just like the technical kind of power of the way that we show it. How we've actually operationalized the way we do that is that we have design and engineering and our product partners and product marketing work really, really closely on this. And actually it's one of the few teams where all of these things report will not all of them, but most of those functions report into one place. So engineering and design actually all report up into the design organization when they work on the website.

28:16And together they like quite literally as we were talking about earlier, you know, if we were physically together, they would be sitting side by side and you know, they're batting ideas back and forth because you know, the engineer on the team, you know, has a great idea for how we could go about executing on it. And the designer on the team has another idea and had to push that a little further. And so that sort of rapid cycle of iteration is really, really powerful, especially when we're trying to move quickly, but at an extremely high standard. That's super interesting. Is there anything else that you've found to be really helpful in just operationalizing great design craft beauty, any processes, systems frameworks?

28:54Yeah, I would love to tell you about something that we've actually rolled out pretty recently that I'm extremely excited about the positive impact on. Awesome. But before I get into that, one of the things that you know, the process and the way that I've been thinking about how, you know, we can build better things at Stripe is actually I've been just talking to people, talking to different, you know, design leaders, product leaders, engineer leaders at different organizations and try not understand, you know, how they go about it. And there are a couple of themes that are clearly coming through.

29:28You know, number one is that quality is definitely a group effort, you know, your sunk, if you think that like you can just like hire some incredibly talented person and like, and they'll do it, that'll be fine. You know, the rest of us will do what we're doing and they'll do it, or that it's just like one organization that's going to look out for quality or you know, QA is going to solve it all for you. It really does need to be, you know, an organizational and a group effort. And if you think about like, you know, the way that you run, you know, the, the internal functions is going to show up in the outside and like how clear you all are and how you're talking about it and the standards that you set inside and you're constantly reminding people of in the way that you communicate inside will then eventually show outside.

30:09So take, you know, of course, keeping your talent far high and then thinking about how those things, you know, really need to be cared for, you know, that shared care across the organization is, is number one. Number two is that, you know, there needs to be some amount of vision and alignment. So, you know, if you hire all the best people in the world and you just like set them out to go and do their thing, what are the chances that they're all going to end up with something that actually aligns pretty well? Right? Like, even if they all have incredible taste and they're very good at what they do, you know, there's subjectivity to every decision in some part and so that they might end up with some things that are really great but don't fit together as a really nice whole.

30:48Like the perfect example would be building a house, right? So you have like the person that works on the roof and the person that works on the deck and a person that does the sighting, etc, etc. And a house is arguably far less complex than most of the technical products that we all know. And yet there, like, is painstaking effort put into, you know, having, you know, the plans and having, you know, a drawing of what the final thing is going to look like. There's a GC, there's an architect and these people are helping to make sure that all those pieces fit together and we should have that same care when we're trying to build products together.

31:18And so I think a big pair on that is then the next piece which is editing and, you know, you might call that your GC or your architect or somebody that, you know, kind of sees how all these things fit together and then has, you know, an ability to kind of help narrow and reduce and remove the things that don't fit. And so like at Airbnb, you know, Brian Cheskey is like the editor of all the things that, you know, come together at the economists, you know, there's a chief editor, but you know, other organizations they might decentralize that approach which is, you know, certainly possible and but, you know, challenging because you do need somebody to help kind of like see these things come together.

31:53And that pairs with the next piece which is about courage, like the ability to actually like say, you know, no, this isn't good enough. Like to have the resolve to just be like, mmm, all those, but no, which is like one of the hardest decisions I think leaders can make and certainly I've had to ever make in my career too, it's just like, you know, a team puts like all this care and effort into something and then you can say like actually it's just like, and unfortunately like we're just not there yet. Let's try again. And that is I think, you know, incredibly important part of getting there and building that, you know, the kind of the fitness of what you do.

32:27And then lastly, the thing that I've learned that will lead me to the example that you were asking about is that in order to build quality, you really do need to understand it also from the user perspective, which kind of gets me into, you know, my fixation with journeys because that is how I use this. The user, very, very, rarely just like deals with any aspect of what you build in isolation. There has to be a moment where they learn about it. There has to be a moment where they get to know it and then there's a moment where they actually decide to use it and then, well, something just changed and now they need to use the, that product in some other way.

33:05And so you have to understand it from that point of view to really understand whether or not the quality is there. And I think that's a critical piece of building teams that have empathy for their users. So we have been operationalizing that, you know, all the things that I just mentioned, but like one of the key pieces is to, you know, kind of bring that approach to understanding the quality of the product. And so our goal was to set out to try to solve the fact that, you know, products can be shipped and they could be at the their highest gain when you ship them. Like you, they go through all the processes internally to be, you know, a high quality thing.

33:43And then it gets out into the world and then over time, the quality regresses. And some of the reasons for that is that, you know, other things are being shipped. And it's kind of like, again, back to an analogy of a house. Imagine you have one room where you redo the molding and, you know, you paint the little aspects and you put like new plates on the lights. Now all of a sudden that room is great, but it makes everything else look worse. And the whole composite is worse. And so that is, you know, something that can happen to products is actually they, you know, kind of get worse over time. And then you organize a company oftentimes in, you know, parts to be able to focus on their key business areas.

34:23That's a very good thing because they get focused and they know what they're, you know, building towards and they get expertise and their, you know, laser focused on that. And so that ideally they move faster. But what also happens is that they get so focused on that, they forget about that piece of the journey and how it all fits together. And not recognizing that, you know, part of their product experience is intimately tied to another. So what we did was we set out to, number one, increase the, you know, kind of awareness and accountability of leaders to own their journeys. And so what we have established are, you know, we started with 15 of our most important user journeys.

35:0015 is, you know, somewhat of an arbitrary number. It's a number that we can kind of keep track of, but also, you know, has pretty good breadth, but it's certainly not comprehensive of all the most important things. But 15 of our, you know, critical user journeys, the things that we know matter so deeply to our users and we must get right at the highest level of quality possible. And so those 15 things then each have engineering product and design leaders that are responsible for the quality of those products. And they review these journeys, what we call walk the store, where they review them as if they're, you know, walk in the floor of their store on a regular cadence.

35:38And they friction log what they experience, which I know David Singleton talked about on your podcast. And they will write, you know, what they have seen, what's working, what's not working. And they're, they're viewing this from, you know, they're trying to put themselves in the shoes of their user. This is, of course, it doesn't replace user research, but it, you know, kind of substitutes it and it adds to that. And so they go through the experience and noting, you know, what's working and what's not working. And very critically, it's a journey. So a lot of times, you know, it starts from internet search, it starts on, you know, Google trying to understand something goes to the website, you know, they end up on docs, they end up in the dashboard.

36:13And they're seeing it as a user might and with that, they'll be, they're able to find, you know, the, the, the entailments of, you know, the experience that may or may not be working. And they drop that down, they file bugs, they reach out to the teams that may own the different parts of this experience. And then they score it. And then on a, you know, then again, a regular key, and we come together in almost like a calibration where we meet and we talk about the score of their work. And it kind of relates to performance reviews, right? Like, you know, performance reviews, managers are assessing the individual's performance, which is hard, right?

36:49Like it's like there's some subjectivity to it, just like understanding quality can be. But what we do as managers is we calibrate, we come together and we talk about like, okay, how well is this, you know, is our interpretation of our ladders document? And, you know, how well does that performance align? And are we doing it consistently across the rest of the organization? And so we do something very similar. We calibrate, you know, these scores because what we're really trying to do is not just, you know, the 15 essential journeys and the owners of those, we want to actually like up level and and bring more, you know, shared understanding of our quality bar across the company.

37:27And so these moments of calibration kind of start that. And then having leaders do this, you know, kind of like creates this like, you know, number one, like cascades this idea of the importance of owning your journey. And then also has upstream impact because when people see the state of products in the wild as a user would, they learn a lot about, you know, what are, you know, some of the bigger opportunities that we can make to make the product better? What are some of the things that maybe we want to change in our process to make sure that we have, you know, even better things coming into the wild?

38:00And, you know, one of the best parts of this is since then we've learned that, you know, folks, you know, have seen that like, oh my goodness, our SEO for this particular product, you know, or, you know, the way we're articulating it doesn't align to actually how we want people to understand it later on in the journey. So if we improve this over here, we're going to improve outcomes later on. And so they're seeing that and, you know, they're now, you know, able to make that happen even, you know, faster to make some of the changes there. And then my, you know, real favorite part is that we're hearing from folks that maybe at first didn't see this as necessary, that, you know, maybe in different functions that are, you know, just like, oh, you know, I was so very focused on executing, you know, the technical ability of what I do on this thing, but I, you know, hadn't seen it from this lens before and now they're like actually like converts of like, yes, this isn't a really important part of it.

38:51And that goes back to the point of like, it's a group effort. Like you don't want just one function looking out for the quality of the product. So having engineers and product managers and people of different disciplines, kind of walking the store, seeing the experience, feeling it first hand, I think we'll lead to better care in, you know, all of the details that we're aligned to, better craft in the end. Oh man, what an awesome process. I have a million questions I want to ask to better understand how you operationalize this. I'll try to ask just a few. But one thing that's stood out about this process is I think people kind of don't trust their on judgment when they're looking at their own product.

39:26They kind of, especially product managers almost have to like, feel like they have to rely and use research or data to like, know a thing versus like, I just see this and it feels bad to me. And I think I've learned over time more and more. You should really trust that because you're, you're spending your energy trying to use this thing. You're not that different from a potential user. So just, I love that this actually relies on your personal judgment trying to use a thing, which I think people undervalue. Yeah. A couple of just very tactical questions. How often roughly does this happen? Is it like once a quarter?

39:59Yeah, yeah, to your first point, 100%. Like they're all just forms of input. Like I'm definitely not saying like, do this instead of user research. Do this instead of data. It's like, you know, these things in additional sense. And I do think what's so powerful about doing it firsthand is that although I am like the biggest supporter of user research, even hearing somebody talk about an experience while that is like really, really powerful feeling the pain firsthand. It's just like this next level of visceral understanding. Oh, this could be better. And your users, you know, they might not always say what's missing or what's wrong.

40:36Or maybe they don't, you know, they don't know that certain aspects of it could be better. So yeah, having your, you know, point of view on that in addition to the user research and what you've heard from them directly is really, really important. But you asked about how often we have, you know, as I've mentioned, we are, you know, constantly looking at our processes and trying to figure out how we can, you know, make them better and better, you know, as an organization, you know, as we've grown, you know, things, you know, need to adjust. We today are doing it quarterly. And the quarterly aspect of like walking the stores by no means meant to be like, that's the only time people do it.

41:14But that is the time where, you know, we're looking for like update your scorecard and, you know, share the information in a dashboard where, you know, everybody can see. And that is feeling right now to be the right cadence because there's enough time that, you know, there can be, you know, material, different, since made. And so you can see in kind of like the scores evolve over time. But also frequently enough that, you know, you're not missing that perhaps, you know, there's been a step back since. But of course, my real hope is that these happen, you know, they're happening weekly, just perhaps in different parts of the organization.

41:46I want to ask a couple more questions. So that folks can try this at home. I was just thinking like that's podcasts is the opposite of don't try this at home. It's like here, try this at home. Yeah. So I want to try to give people a few more answers to questions when they're probably going to try to do this themselves. So who's in these meetings? Like, do you join these walkthroughs? Does like David join? What do you suggest there? Yeah. So what we're doing for each team is they do them themselves together. So, at bare minimum, it should be the engineer, product manager, and designer doing it together.

42:18And the reason why we like to see it happen together is again, as we've talked about before, is that like people bring a different perspective to something. And so let's say, you know, somebody in the room might be like, oh my goodness, you know, that the load time didn't feel really good there. And like, oh, whoa, that like the way we're stating this is not consistent per page. And ah, that's not on our design system. So, you know, it is really powerful to have folks come together and do it. And in fact, David Singleton, who you mentioned, he and I do these things very regularly too. Like, this is like kind of outside the central journeys program.

42:53But like, he and I walk the store and we'll just pick random flows and go through it together. And, you know, I can't code, but he can. And so he'll do the code part and I'll be, you know, sitting there and be like, what? Do they really do that? Like, you know, how can we make that better for them? And so it's, I really love the multidisciplinary approach. But then when we do the calibration, after the team has done these walkthroughs and they've kind of gotten their own perspective and they fill out the scorecard based on our rubric for quality, we will come together in what we call PQR product quality review.

43:27And they will take us through what they have, you know, experienced and then they'll talk about like, and so this is why we've scored this a yellow or a yellow green. And then we might have a, you know, conversation about that. It's like, well, actually, like, that felt a little worse than, you know, you've described it. And actually, like, I think that, you know, we probably need to put more urgency on solving that. Or in some cases, it's like, actually, like, that was pretty great, you know, if you think about, you know, what we're trying to, you know, help somebody achieve at this moment, like, that actually is, is really, you know, hitting the mark.

43:59And so we will debate that there in announce meetings. You'll have, yes, myself, David Singleton, Will Gabrick, who, you know, leads product and business. And then various leaders from the organization that might be relevant to that area. We are trying to give people kind of like insight to what's happening across. So again, it's a multidisciplinary room. Trying to keep it, you know, not too, too large because obviously, it can be, you know, hard to have discussion. But it is very valuable to make sure, again, that we have, you know, the perspective of product marketing and the perspective of engineering and expected product in the room is we discuss what our quality bar is.

44:36Awesome. Okay. That makes a lot of sense. In terms of scoring, are you scoring individual steps of these journeys? Or is it yellow for like segments? What are you scoring? The way the rubric works is so that, and we, we have a template for the friction log. So people fill out a friction log and it'll be like screenshots and then what they experienced. And then there is a, you know, kind of a tool to tag for each kind of moment. It's like, oh, that was a nice touch. Or, oh, that is, you know, not great. We should consider a fix or different levels of kind of severity of like, oh my gosh, P0 bug, we need to fix this right now.

45:08So they'll tag for different moments in the journey. And then there is a summary score at the end, which is based on a rubric that we have that talks about, you know, the importance of quality from the point of view of usability, utility, durability, and you know, actually going to that next level of surprisingly great. And then we'll ask them to score on a whole what they felt of these things. And then that adds up to a summary score, which we have also talked about the different ways of scoring. You know, is it a number -based system? Is it a letter -based system? Like, can you guys see? Yeah, we have so far we have landed on a color system because honestly, I think people can get a little tied around the axle on how you're measuring it.

45:51And like to your point is like, especially in subjective things. And it's just like, oh, you know, it's like, well, is it really at six or is it a seven? And you know, we didn't want people to get a little too worried about, you know, how does like, it's not meant to be an objective quantitative score. It is qualitative. It is judgment. We hire people for judgment, you know, so we want, you know, them to bring that to the conversation. And so that's, you know, how we chose the score because we felt that would actually lead to, you know, quicker, but like straightforward opinions and decisions.

46:25At a lot of companies, you have these reviews and the founders like share all this, like, oh, this is broken, this is busted. And as a product team, you're like, get to him, we have these goals we got to hit, we have as a roadmap. And now we're going to get a hundred things that the founders like, you got to fix this. I'm curious just how you tell teams to take this stuff and prioritize it amongst all the other things they're going to do. Is it just up to them? Is there like need to fix this? Anything you can share there, but just like had actually operationalized taking this feedback and doing something with it?

46:54Yes. Yeah, I've seen some organizations talk about, you know, when they're doing planning, you know, you're doing your OKRs for quarterly or half year or year, whatever, you know, recommendations of like, you know, 10 % of your time should be spent on fixing things and 20 % on growing things and the rest on, you know, keeping the lights on, whatever it might be. So yes, I've seen different companies build a recommendation based on certain percentages of how they think teams should be spending their time. And we at Stripe think that, you know, first and foremost is that, you know, we have to make sure that folks are number one, you know, hired with the fact that they have great judgment and care for what they build and they take pride in it.

47:45Like, you know, that's like number one and then, you know, you can give a lot of trust to people based on that kind of commitment to building great things that they will use that in their decision making. And then of course, it needs to be very clearly, you know, advocated for at the highest levels of the company. And with that, I think that kind of like fuels people's thinking as they're building their plans. But there is iteration in the plans and we do have multi -disciplinary people, you know, making the plans together. So it's like, oh, okay, are we advancing these features? Are we, are we going to be building grows?

48:20And, you know, is that, you know, improving the quality as well? And so I think that's how we kind of together get to it. But we don't have, like, there's no formula that we ask people to. So basically, what I'm hearing is it's like cultural kind of just everyone, people are hired with this expectation and we are going to focus on quality. And we'll prioritize things even though they may not move metrics because we know that this will generally improve and grow the business. Part of it though is showing talent moves metrics. Because I think that is a dangerous belief that is absolutely out there as we talked about earlier.

48:54But that actual quality improvements do increase growth. They do improve the bottom line, right? That like, you know, for example, we, you know, saw that folks were reaching out to support because they didn't know the state of how, you know, one of their invoices was performing. And when we, when we dig in, we realized just like, well, we had a button that like looked nice, but it wasn't super clear. And so they didn't know how to access the thing that they were trying to do. And so by improving that, you know, we decrease the need for them to have to reach out, which is a clearly not there, you know, want to have to close somebody, they find the answer to their problem.

49:33And so with that, we made an improvement and we of course improve the bottom line because of that. So I actually think that maybe in one of the steps that somebody should consider in the organization is just like, you have those examples like every company does where, you know, quality leads to better business outcomes and to talk about those and make them known because I think it's actually a false belief that, you know, it's like one of the others like, are we going to work on quality and it doesn't move the metrics and where we do. You know, some of them are, you know, longer term. And so you have to look out for a while to see that change and, you know, the beliefs of your customers or, you know, how often they're, they're sharing your product or how often they're succeeding in what they're trying to do.

50:15But some of them are short term impacts. And that is an important thing for people to be aware of because it will give them ideas of like, oh, we could do this in our team too. We can have a higher quality product and actually moves the business metrics. Is there anything you do in how you evaluate performance of teams that helps prioritize this sort of thing? So generally, it's just like cool, you just team move this metric by ton. They're doing great. I guess is there anything that you bake into performance evaluations at Stripe, especially for product teams that help them understand and prioritize some of these things that may not obviously move metrics other than just broadly.

50:51We believe great experiences are going to improve growth. Yeah. Well, I think one part is being clear on what impact means. Because I do think that in some companies, you know, impact is like, okay, you know, what business metric did I move and how much? And there are, you know, certainly really important impact projects that folks can have that maybe they're multi quarter, you know, multi -year. And so, you know, maybe you didn't move, you know, this incredibly important business metric in one quarter, but actually like the work that you are doing is instrumental to the success of the business.

51:26So there's that. And then like you said, you know, there are perhaps, you know, quality efforts that are harder to measure or they're longer term, but they are still impactful. So I think number one is that, you know, what you're thinking about how to come up with the rubric for how you're going to judge performance is just like really honing in on what, what does impact me and then a lot kind of comes from that and being able to celebrate and recognize great work happening even when, you know, it's not necessarily materially moving that number. And the other part of it is, we have a level of some ladder system.

52:02So it's a document that's not meant to like lay out like, here's the checklist of all the things you need to do. But it's, you know, kind of a guide for, this is what is expected in your role and at this level. And in these documents, we talk about the importance of things like quality, and that the, you know, what we pursue is building these, you know, things that are great. And another part of that is also the operating principles, which is kind of like the thing that we align on underneath all of these levels and letters systems that we have. And our operating principles include meticulous craft.

52:39It is one of the things that is really important to us as an organization is just like having that meticulous care for all that you do, like whether it's like you're, you know, designing the space that we work with in, or that you're creating the API, or that you're building the interface, or that you're, you know, talking to people on support calls, like the meticulous craft is something that, you know, is actually expected of everybody. Today's episode is brought to you by one schema, the embeddable CSK importer for SAS. Customers always seem to want to give you their data in the messiest possible CSP file.

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54:38One of the things that has stuck with me and through all the trials and tribulations of leading has already laid out for you in the very beginning of this call haven't always got it right. But one of the things that has been a clarifying force is I think about growing and leading teams. It's actually something I learned at Airbnb when we were there together. It's a formula. So performance equals potential minus interference. I really like this. It's pretty simple, but is a good reminder that as a leader, one of the things that you are of course driving towards is trying to get better performance, better performance so that your team feels more purpose and motivation and is excited about their work and that you're building greater things for your customers and you're having more business effect of course performance.

55:33But the key pieces of that of course is potential. So thinking about how you increase potential which would be of course hiring really well, developing the talent and helping them grow and increase their own potential to do better and greater things. And then paired to that, that of course is decreasing the interferences, which could be that kind of lead weight on top of great talent because you can hire the best people in the world. But like a muscle atrophying underneath a cast, if there are interferences that are holding them back from doing great work, they're going to burn out, they're not going to enjoy the work, they're not going to be as successful and you will not get as strong of performance from it.

56:14And so I really do think of this constantly as to how can I increase potential, how can I decrease interferences. And over time, especially as your company grows, you're going to have to keep doing that. The design work is never done in designing a team because the more people you bring in, the more it puts your processes in a faulty state. We intentionally or I have intentionally run teams where you get to a point where it's kind of it's just like, okay, like without running our processes. And that's okay because then you can learn as to like, okay, this is how people are actually trying to work and this is how we actually can improve it.

56:54So making those changes as needed helps to make them more sought after and more informed in terms of as you improve the processes. One of the things that I've been working on since I worked back at Airbnb was this idea of improving awareness of the things that are happening. What happens at a lot of companies, especially as they grow, is people lose touch with what's happening in different parts of the organization. And everybody's got like a doc that they're PRD where they've written down what they've done. It's got tons of words that nobody really understands and keywords for the different projects.

57:32And that isn't the best way to lead to clarity. And I'm a strong believer that a picture tells a thousand words and a prototype tells you know saves a thousand meetings. So what we do and I've been doing it for the last, yeah, I don't know, decade or more, is having people within the design team share as a screenshot or a prototype of what they're working on in a shared deck. And so they add this to a slide and Google slide decks and for a couple of weeks and get to see what's happening across the design team. And this is really important for all the designers because they could see in a whether or they're a team of 10 or 170 or whatever it might be.

58:09What is happening? And they can say like, oh my gosh, like you're working on that surface like so am I. And let's talk about it or oh, that's an interesting pattern. Like, you know, maybe we could use this in more places. And we send it to the product managers and the engineer leaders and the leaders in the company because it is also a really great way for them to understand what's happening and what are we building together because going earlier as I talked about the importance of thinking about things as a journey. So what's happening in the marketing side? What's happening in the, you know, this aspect of the product and seeing how all these pieces really fit together.

58:41That has been, you know, absolutely, like one of the things I will take where, you know, wherever I go, whatever I do because it has just been like very, very useful tool. I remember that at Airbnb and I, there's nothing more fun than just looking through a bunch of awesome designs and products that are in motion. And in a deck form is so handy. Just flip through. It was going on around the company and like, oh wow, look at this thing. That's amazing. And it's interesting that ends up in a deck like feels like Figma would be really good for that too, but, but somehow decks are still really, really handy for simple things like that.

59:11And one of the key pieces is just like keeping it really low maintenance. Yes, you know, the design team would definitely prefer that it would be in Figma. But I, you know, critically, I want all functions to be able to look at it. And, you know, if not everybody is on Figma, you know, if they were that great too. But if they are not, you know, it's just like flipping through really easy touch of a button, you know, you can just like send it off. It's behaviors that people are really used to commenting, but yeah, maybe one day. And the way you do that is it's just like a scheduled call for all designers, add your stuff to this deck.

59:46And then you email it out every two weeks. I think you said, yeah, yeah, we, and we experiment with like how often we ask folks to share and also like, you know, the granularity of what they're doing. Like it is not meant to be a status check. We're not asking everyone like, show us what you're doing. It's more of like, what are the projects that are happening? And, you know, we might ask like, what show us like the medium and large projects, you know, if there's such as too much going on and all of sudden it's like a 200 page deck and no one's going to flip through it. So we have experimented and evolved that depending on the team size.

1:00:15And I think right now we're at monthly sharing of it. And that seems to be working pretty well. It used to be biweekly, which I loved because I really love looking through, but it adds up, you know, if it's, you know, feels like it's a arduous task, then, you know, it's not succeeding. Yeah, and especially in any designers, they'd want to make sure it's the best version of what they've done. And then it takes all this extra time to like, okay, we got to make this beautiful mock. Yeah, you know, and we're actually another part of it that, you know, is another benefit of, you know, opening up the curtain a little bit of like, we, you know, we do, you know, certainly we have to take things seriously in terms of like, you know, confidential work, it's work in progress.

1:00:53You know, it's not ready to go live. You know, we're not ready to, you know, critique all the details about this. Like, you know, we do need to make it very clear to folks that this is like work in progress. But also, you know, that it, it is really beneficial to bring the work out because what isn't great is that you get to the end of the project and people have worked tirelessly on it for some long stretch of time and then find out that like, oh my gosh, this is the same project that we're doing over here. And you know, this can be completely redundant or like, these two things are on a path to collide.

1:01:25So we want to know that sooner because it absolutely in the end of the day will make the work better, save time. And so, you know, opening up that curtain and showing the work in progress, you know, it can feel hard at first. But I think people have started to see the benefits and doing that. And then, you know, usually that will lead to better outcomes and then long run in the culture too. Going back to this formula, you share which I love performance equals potential minus interference. Is there an example that comes to mind of helping with interference where you found that, oh wow, this is really slowing things down and you change something?

1:01:58It actually goes back to org design that we talked about earlier and where people sit. So when I joined lift, as I mentioned to you earlier, I was like, oh, I had learned from the experience that I had at Airbnb and I came in and, you know, needing to transform the organization and was hopefully much better at it because I had learned so much. What actually was going on there is that the way that the team was organized before I got there was that actually, physically, the design team sat separately. They sat in a room that was just like beautifully designed, separated from engineering and product and all the other functions by a locked door.

1:02:38And that was really interesting to see because of course, there were a lot of benefits to it, which is that like design, you know, had this like very safe space for creative discovery and exploration and communication. There was work all over the walls. It was like wall -to -wall white boards and it was just like absolutely a place where creativity could thrive. It sounds exactly like there being a situation, by the way. The current Airbnb situation? Yeah, original, the yeah. And, you know, absolutely, there are a lot of like tions to, you know, what I had seen. And the, you know, interesting part about like how, you know, actually teams were working is that you would see that there was like a lot of wasted work and there was a lot of like misalignment and what we were trying to do because there was, you know, product managers and engineers that were sitting alongside each other making decisions and talking about the work and deciding things and then designers were sitting over here in this other room and they were working on something and then they like, you know, they'd meet up and they're like, that's not aligned.

1:03:37Like, that doesn't fit the goal. And like, you know, you went that way, we were supposed to go over this way. And so, you know, interference in the sense that it was like it was wasted work. It wasn't actually aligned to the goals. It was slower. And, you know, there were definitely benefits. Like there was real reasons for doing this and I know there are companies, including Apple that have, you know, kind of like separation of these things. But I think if you're going into that kind of way of working, you know, there's probably a lot of other decisions you need to make too in terms of the way the teams work.

1:04:06And so what I was seeing there was just, you know, it was kind of like the composite of all these aspects coming together that was not leading to, you know, more efficient and less interference. And so what we did was to evolve the way we were working and bring better alignment to the different functions. And again, you know, I had done it with, you know, an approach about listening and, you know, came into that with a, you know, kind of better understanding of getting to know the team and getting to know engineering a product and see what our goals were together. So that when we were making changes, we were making the changes together.

1:04:38And we, you know, actually were aligned so that like on the day that we opened the doors and, you know, brought, you know, design an engine product together and had, you know, spaces for folks to like work together and like they actually sat with each other. We still kept the creative space for, you know, this is where we'll do crits. This is where we'll do working sessions. This is where the folks that don't work in an embedded fashion will sit. But we had like, you know, the best of both worlds in that way. And so with that alignment of the way that the teams were working together, there was much like faster kind of iteration cycles, better clarity on how the work was working.

1:05:12And we still kept and protected, you know, that room for creative space, like literally the room and literally the room in terms of like figuratively speaking for allowing for creative exploration more aligned. And just to understand, essentially you re -orbed the teams and not just physically move people, but you kind of changed the way the product and design and engine team was even organized. Yes, yes, like literally and figuratively we broke down the wall and, you know, brought the teams physically together so that they would work together. And then, you know, we had an org chart where it's like, okay, these designers are working on driver.

1:05:46These designers are working on rider. These designers are working on, you know, safety team. And then they would sit with their respective engineers and product managers. And then, you know, we would, as I talked about earlier, like we would come together at key moments to make sure that we as a design function were still, you know, aligning on, you know, shared goals about, you know, the overall experience, but also making sure that we could work well with our partners. So interesting that that was a recurring pattern at the places you went. I imagine Stripe was not like that. There was not all designer sitting in that locked room.

1:06:18Not in a locked room. And when I joined Stripe, it was a Zoom universe. So it's a little bit different. But, you know, we do, even today, we have, you know, a studio space where, you know, we have all the great, you know, tools of craft. And when you do go into the offices, we do have places where, you know, designers sit together, especially in the functions that aren't embedded. So we do have, for example, we have brand and marketing creative. We have the website team and we have, you know, folks that work kind of across all of the things that we do. And so, you know, for sure, there usually is some sort of creative space, which I actually think like having a physical space for creative discovery and exploration and, you know, having that up on the wall, like, you know, I love that so much.

1:07:05And, you know, I go into the office about half time now. And, you know, I think over time, we'll probably build out more and more because it is really powerful in addition to having teams like sit by the disciplines that they work with every day. It reminds me of a quote I have in my wall that I think I found in the Rick Ruben book, but it's by someone else, so I don't know exactly where I found it. But it's the object isn't to make art. It's to be in that wonderful state, which makes art inevitable. Oh, that's good. I like that very. By Robert Henry. Okay. I read what I tried to do in this little podcast studio that we got here.

1:07:39Is there anything else that you think would be useful to share either from scaling design teams or broadly? I think one of the other tendencies I see of companies at different stages of their growth is, you know, a fear of bold ideas. What happens is that, you know, it can happen at small sizes and it can happen at large sizes, actually. It's just that like, you know, a fear of kind of like shaking things up too much or, you know, big ideas with lots of things changing at once. It's really hard to measure. And so like, actually, like, you know, if we just like make an incremental approach, it's very measured and we can we know what the outcome is going to be.

1:08:24It feels safer. You know, I can get it done in the quarter and depending on how your performances manage, that might be more attractive. And so that is a dangerous tendency because I think if we go back to like what quality means, you know, and you think about it as like, well, like, quality is really, you know, your users are the judge of that and the way that they experience things oftentimes are like across products, across surface, across time. If you just think about, you know, these like incremental approaches to the little, you know, to the scope of whatever that is that you own, you are very likely not to like make the whole thing better.

1:08:57So I think we have to fight against that. And you know, the way I look at it is, you know, the way I talk about it is like, reach, reach for the stars and land on the moon. And what I mean by that is that vision work is really important. And I think like it sometimes you can get a bad name because you can end up with some folks that are doing vision work that goes nowhere and they make a beautiful deck and then it gets like seated on a shelf and nobody ever builds it. Like that is not what I'm talking about here. That is not what I recommend. But actually, you know, vision work that absolutely does look at the, you know, the entirety of the experience, the comprehensive approach, you know, a journey approach and thinks about how these things, you know, various things may come together to be better and sketch out the ideal version.

1:09:39And I think Brian Jesky talks about it. I think it was like the 11 star experience. I think you once said, so it's like, let's listen to white stuff. Yes, exactly. Looking at it as a journey. Yeah, like it's not the five star approach. It's not the six star approach, but like the 11 star approach, whether it goes show what that ideal version is, like because you, if you don't know what that is, what are the chances that you're going to increment yourself to the right outcome in the end? And, as I talked about before, like building my house, like you want to see what that picture looks like in the, you know, how all these pieces come together.

1:10:11And I strongly recommend you want to see what it looks like in, you know, an ideal form, because you can always work back from that. And so it's like, okay, if this is what we want to get to, this is what, like our product is going to look like in two years, how do we get there? And what very likely is it's a team effort in various parts of your organization are going to have to own various parts. And, you know, maybe we ship this piece first so that we can study it and learn and, you know, make sure that the data is good before we move to that next piece. Like I'm not suggesting you have to ship the whole thing at once.

1:10:40But that, like, you know, kind of north star lays out the process in a way that I think allows for, you know, big risk taking in a way that is measured and thoughtful. And, you know, actually also feels like progress as you step towards that versus like, you know, trying to like get their, you know, day one and, you know, likely, you know, end up giving up. I love that. Reach for the stars, land on the moon. That could be a metaphor for so many things. Let me try to squeeze in one more tactical tip for people listening. If someone's hiring a designer, so someone that's not a designer, you know, just founder or product team, just like, what should you look for that maybe a rich lack or something that you want to look for to kind of feel good that they're going to be a good fit.

1:11:23The key, I think, to keep in mind is, you know, it's easier to teach tools and process than it is taste and character. So I would certainly, you know, pay a lot of attention to that, you know, kind of like their hit rate for, you know, great judgment and great taste and how they've honed that, you know, even if, you know, they're not very experienced, like just to like see, do they have that, you know, natural inclination for great things. The other piece of it is that, you know, certainly you want to find somebody with great talent for short and high craft, but you also want to find somebody that's humble, you know, that like, you know, folks that are really good at what they do aren't always, but humility is a really important part.

1:12:11I mean, I think it's a really important part for anybody on a team because, you know, if you're working on a team, you know, you need to work together and it is important that they have that respect and empathy and understanding and, you know, enthusiasm for the folks around them, but also it's like users. So, you know, humility means that they're going to pay more attention to what the users are saying and hopefully be curious about what's working and what's not and strive to navigate these things to make it better. And then I guess the last piece would just be, you know, hustle or hootspuff.

1:12:43I'm not sure exactly what's the right way to put it, but, you know, the design and, you know, the creative functions is, you know, it's the act of creation. And it's scary, you know, it's like to like take a blank piece of paper and propose something that you think is better, it's scary to, you know, have the courage to say this is not good enough, and we should do it again is scary. And so having somebody that has, you know, that kind of, like, courage inside them to, you know, fight for great is pretty important. And that hustle to, like, try to execute on that, you know, rapidly is, of course, you know, essential as you're, you're hiring it, you're really any stage company.

1:13:22And I guess lastly, I think you were asking in particular, like, is, you know, especially with younger companies who are startups, you know, I think one thing that can be hard is like, do you hire a, you know, more junior doer or more senior, you know, kind of like thinker operator. You know, it's like, if you had all the dung lindt in the world, like all of it, but I do think in your early stages, you probably do need a doer, but it is important to also have that kind of lens of, you know, how do you build an organization that's user focused in the way that they operate and the way that they work together and bringing, you know, a strategy that will help to be user focused from the start.

1:14:00So, you know, maybe a great way of doing that is kind of having like a more, you know, senior leader design advisor and then a, you know, kind of executor or doer, you know, full time on the team. That's a really cool tip on the craft and taste piece. A lot of times people don't have that themselves necessarily. Any tip for how to measure that is there, I don't know, a book you'd recommend or trick or is it just treasure, treasure judgment and like, does this feel great to you? It's contingent on like, what is the thing? What is the user need? You know, so something that, you know, is really great.

1:14:34Like, you know, we do a lot of tools that like we strive to make them power tools for our users. And a lot of times that means like, dense information that of course is like still, you know, easily accessible, but, you know, we'll definitely feel different than perhaps, you know, a consumer product that is meant to be extremely, you know, light and sparse and, you know, directive to like one individual thing at a time. So it really kind of depends on the context of the products sometimes. So that's why it is hard to kind of quote an individual book. But yeah, I mean, I can think on it and we can put it in the show notes.

1:15:06There are definitely books that talk about like the principles of great design. And you can look at that. Amazing. Well, in texture books that come to mine after one other question I wanted to ask is what's a favorite project that you all have worked on at Stripe? Oh, yeah. We got a good one so excited about. We, well, first off, I don't know if everybody knows this, but Stripe prints books. So Stripe Press, we print books that are, you know, we consider ideas of progress. It's, you know, our intention of bringing great ideas out there. They don't all have it, you know, most of them don't have anything to do with financial infrastructure.

1:15:42It might be any number of interesting, you know, problems and opportunities of things and ideas that people have talked about. I have many of them in my background here. I have a huge fan of Stripe Press. Nice. And we take great care to, you know, to kind of like deliver these ideas of progress in books that hopefully feel beautiful. And we have a new book coming up that you can pre -order now. And it is for Charlie's Almanac. And so it's actually. I'm ready pre -ordered. You did? I'm so excited to hear that. I'm really excited to work. It's a fascinating book and it's 20 years old. It's actually Charlie Munger's words, but Peter Kaufman, a friend and a colleague of his, assembled all of these documents over the years of things that Charlie had written and said and put it into this kind of like anthology.

1:16:29And so this book is really fascinating and it's not, you know, it's not really a linear story so much. And so we have reprinted this book. We also have created a teaser site that I strongly recommend you all check out. It's really, really fun. Oh man, it's unreal. I remember when you launched that. It just keeps going and gets crazier and wilder and amazing. I don't even know how that's possible in a kind of website. It's pretty awesome. And that's our website team is just like, you know, we talked about the importance of like design and engineering, working super closely together and it's just like that.

1:16:58It's wild. You know, that art and science coming together into something that, you know, hopefully is fun and engaging and people want to pursue it. And so we're working on that the book will be coming out soon and we're working on an update to the site that we're really, really thrilled about so you can kind of read the book online and it really in a special kind of way. So yeah, very big fan of this. What's the website for folks that you happen to have the URL of the Rise Will link to it in the show notes for. Yeah, yeah. It is press .stripe .com will be where you can see all the books that we have at Stripe Press.

1:17:28And I believe the first one in the line. And actually what you'll see in the website is that we originally had a kind of like, you know, typical buying model of like the squares outlined. And one of the things that, you know, we sought to do with the website is to kind of consider like, what would be, you know, a great experience for understanding different books. And like when you go into a bookstore, like you see like, you know, the spines of the books and you, you know, kind of pick them up and you turn around and you look at them. And so that's actually what you will experience. I mean, I should stop describing it.

1:17:57Just go and check it out. And you'll see as we, we sought to deliver this work in a way that, you know, would be aligned with what a reader would want to pursue. I can't help but ask, but how did that even come together? Was it just like this passion project of like, oh, this book's coming out, I just want to invest a bunch of time resources into this? Or is how does that happen at a Stripe? Yeah. Well, I mean, Stripe's mission is to increase the GDP of the internet. Like we, you know, we strive to build global economic prosperity because, you know, that's greater access across the globe. But there's more ways to do that than financial infrastructure.

1:18:31Financial infrastructure is absolutely a major part of that, right? And it is like kind of like the lifeblood of businesses and enables them to accomplish more. But this notion of like ideas of progress is another angle into that. So while it might not be our core business, it is very much aligned with our mission. And so yes, it takes time, but we feel that it's important for what we're setting out to do. And it also relates to, you know, the pursuit of, you know, creativity and excellence. It is a part of, you know, our identity. It is a part of, you know, who we, we feel we are, or we strive to be.

1:19:08And, you know, we're excited to share that with people. So, you know, in part, it's like in some ways, like how they get to know us and they get to see, you know, the care that we put into, you know, any number of things. Katie, is there anything else you want to share or touch on before we get to our very exciting lightning round? We talked a little bit about, you know, the importance of different disciplines and the, you know, kind of importance of quality being a group effort. And, you know, I hope this doesn't insult my function, as I say, but like at the core, design is simply intention. You're bringing attentionality to the decisions that you make.

1:19:47And thinking about, you know, who is this thing for? So like if you're designing a doorknoble, let's say, and it's like, okay, it's just the doorknobs speak to whether or not I'm going to push or pull or turn, is it comfortable in the hand? Is it easy to manufacture? Is it easy to put on and remove? You'll see these are some of the intentional decisions one could make, whether or not a third designer, an engineer, the product person, you know, any old function can, you know, put that intentionality if you think about like who is impacted by this? Who is using this? That literally could be anything from designing a doorknoble to designing your org structure, to designing your strategy.

1:20:25And obviously, great design is also creative, and it also is demonstrated with great taste, you know, for what is beauty. And so of course, that's where, you know, I would say that, like design expertise with people that have these, you know, creative skills and these great taste is, you know, an incredible important thing to, you know, bring into the organization. But I think, day one, everybody can bring more care and intentionality. And I think that will result in better outcomes internally and externally in the long run. I think your podcast is a great example of great craft and great quality.

1:21:02You're, you know, I was just saying this to my husband the other day as I was talking about doing this. And it's just like, your podcast, there's like more usable learning per, you know, minute than, you know, most, I don't know if that's like a metric that you're measuring. But like, I love how you don't have your guests tell about their background, right? Because like, when someone tells about their background, like, that is interesting. But like, it's not really like usable information. It's like, oh, I can take this information and run with it and bring it to my own team and make my work better.

1:21:34And so like, you have clearly thought about that. Well, I don't know if that's why you made that. But like, okay, it's great. And I also love, you know, the way that you set these things up, you know, you had said to me, you know, in the thing that you set me, he's just like, if it's not good, we're not going to ship it. And you said it in very nice ways, by the way. But like at first, I had this like, oh, gosh, like, what's that? What's that? What's that? But I also had this moment of like, oh, well, that's pretty great because if it's not good, he's not going to, you know, embarrass me to the rest of the world, hopefully.

1:22:03And I love that, because that was that courage that I was talking about earlier too, if that like, you're not going to let bad go out because you know that each one of these little things will end up, you know, leading to a belief of the level of quality of what somebody, you know, can rely on getting when they listen to your podcast. And you know, again, like one workout isn't going to be a six pack, but like every one of those things, you know, will end up leading to better, you know, quality overall. So who knows do you give your nail in it? So great. Wow. Katie, what a nice way to end it. I really appreciate that.

1:22:38That's exactly how I think about it. Actually, you cracked my whole strategy of just making it as concretely useful as possible. I was actually on David Perl's podcast recently. And he had this really good way of describing this, which is exactly what I've tried to do, but I haven't put words into it to make it as useful as possible per minute without removing the humanity. And I realized that's kind of what I do is like, you know, I could cut all the stories of everyone's backgrounds, but that's that's that sucks. So it's just optimized for value and concrete tactical advice, but also make it fun and human and interesting.

1:23:14Yeah. So thank you for the kind words. And with that, we reached our very exciting lightning round. I've got a number of questions for you. Are you ready? I'm ready. Let's do it. What are two or three books that you recommended most to other people? One, how to win friends and influence people. It's an oldie, but a goodie. I forget how many years old it is, but many, many years. Yeah, I think it was like in the 1930s. But yes, I mean, the cover is funny. You know, you might be embarrassed to read it on a bus. I don't know, but the learnings from it, you know, are timeless. And I've actually read it four times.

1:23:50And I get it all we do for another because it is a great reminder of just how important the way you articulate things are and not a negative or gross kind of way, but people care first and foremost about themselves. That's the body that they are within. That is the context that they are within and recognizing that I think can be really powerful as you think about leading teams, as you think about working with other people, as you think about being a good spouse, whatever it might be. So a big, big fan of that one. The other one is a newer book. I think actually I'll sell a couple of years old.

1:24:23It's about the Wright Brothers by David Cole. I think I've been learning how to fly. And so I'm very obsessed with this, but I think it's a book that's relevant to everybody, especially even on Fernores because it just kind of talks about the impossible challenge of nobody thought it could be done. Even the American like institutes science like didn't think it could be done. And you know, these individuals that had the like resolve and the commitment to you know make it happen. I think also the power of this like beautiful partnership of course, their brothers. That doesn't always mean you get along, but they were brothers and they you know, they did so and it's a beautiful story.

1:25:03So big, big, big thing has been that. And then third book I would just say is actually I brought it over because I knew you're going to ask this question. I don't know if you can read that, but the boy, the Newell, the Fox and the horse. This book was given to me by Jenny Arden. I think you may know it's wonderful. It's a beautiful story. It's like, you know, it's you make your laugh. It's you know, it teaches you a thing or two. And you know, one of the best quotes in it is one of our greatest freedoms is how we react to things. Very good. Yes. Awesome. What is a recent favorite movie or TV show?

1:25:37You really enjoyed it. Oppenheimer was amazing. And TV show shrinking. And that one was really good. And it actually really surprised me how like funny and like positive it was because the trailer for it does not give that impression, but it was really good. Sweet. I've not seen that. What is a favorite interview question that you like to ask candidates? Tell me what work you're are most proud of. And the reason I ask that is because, well, it helps me understand their taste and their judgment. What motivates them, what work they view as good and as a good outcome. It also helps me understand a little bit about, you know, what they like to do.

1:26:24And where, you know, they're kind of like gravity pulls them. Is there a favorite product you recently discovered? The an app or physical thing, anything? Yeah. Well, as a parent, you should definitely know the Tony box. Oh, I don't know this. The Tony box. So the Tony box, I should have brought it over too. So it's a, it's like a squishy box, but it's a speaker and your kids can control it. And the way they control it is the little figurines. I mean, this is also like a brilliant product because you want to buy all these figurines. But the little figurines, so it could be like, you know, Bell from Beauty and the Beast or like Elsa from Frozen.

1:27:02And you know, they place the figurine on top in that activates the stories that the thing reads to you or the songs that it plays for you. You record your own voice so that you're telling stories to your child. And they control it all by themselves and they can drop it on the floor. And it's all good. But the Tony box, pretty awesome. It just texted my wife to check this out. But forget. Amazing. Great. Very handy and timely. Do you have a favorite life motto that you'd like to share or come back to find meaningful? I don't say this out loud, but I do. I've had it as opposed to like in my jewelry box and that I you know, see regularly.

1:27:39Tomorrow is today. And what I mean by that is that so often, you know, I will like in my head be like, I'll do that tomorrow. Like, oh, I'll eat better tomorrow. Oh, I'll think about that vision tomorrow. I'll communicate better expectations tomorrow. And it's kind of like those joke signs that like free beer tomorrow because very easily tomorrow just always moves on. And I needed to remind myself that it's actually, it is now today. Tomorrow is now today. If you like any to take all these models, which are amazing, I love this question that I just invented and just put them all my wall here in this office.

1:28:21Yes. That's a great idea. You should make a book. Book of wedding. Oh, man. The tribe of mentors version of Lenny's podcast. It's awesome. Is there a lesson that your mom or dad taught you that is really stuck with you, especially as a new -ish parent? Yeah. I think about this a lot. I am a mom of twin girls. And, you know, feel so lucky that my parents raised me to see that accomplishment is based on merit and hard work. And they never made me feel like, you know, because I was small and that I was not as strong as, you know, somebody, whatever it might be that I wasn't able. And so like, my dad had me, you know, chopping wood and mixing cement as a young kid.

1:29:10And, you know, that certainly led me, you know, in one part to be a designer, but also, you know, to be able to pursue leadership and be, you know, even though sometimes uncomfortable, like willing to be in the room where I'm vastly outnumbered by people that, you know, don't look like me and, you know, wanting to or just like not letting that hold me back. And I actually, it's not about that the other day because I was riding in a lift to the airport. This was also like 4 a .m. So it's like a really hard time to be in a lift and go under the airport. And the driver was telling me about his kids.

1:29:43And actually he had twins. It was one boy and one girl. And so we were talking about twins. And he's like, yeah, yeah, you know, like, my girl, she's my princess. And, you know, I, you know, my son doesn't understand why I don't let her take out the garbage. And like, why her job is to sweep. And you know, that's his job. He's not gonna let her take out the garbage. Like, and I was just, I was sitting in the back of the car wondering, like, should I tell him, like, you're screwing it up. Like, no, like, just because, you know, she's a female. Doesn't mean that like, she's not, you know, able to do the jobs, even the hard ones and even the bad ones like, you know, trash.

1:30:15And, you know, I really do think that I'm so fortunate that, you know, that was never the way that my parents were looking at it. And that, you know, now today, I feel like that is very much a part of a little bit of my Hutzba and willing this to, you know, kind of like step out there because I, you know, hadn't been held back from those hard jobs earlier. Beautiful. Final question, you mentioned that you fly planes. And this is my actually related to my last question. I guess one that I was going to ask if that's true. You mentioned that it is true. Is there a lesson that you've taken from learning to fly and flying that you can, that you've brought into product, leadership design, anything come to mind?

1:30:57Yeah. First of all, learning fly has been such an amazing experience because there haven't been many things in my adult life where you feel like yourself going from like knowing nothing about something and like being able to do something. And it's just like, what an incredible, kind of journey that is. And so, you know, whether it's like, you know, learning language or whatever, like that, that is awesome and highly recommend it. But, um, no, one of the key things that I has definitely sat with me from the experience of learning how to fly that I definitely thought about how to bring it into my work is that when I was, kind of getting to the stage of being able to do things myself.

1:31:36So my instructor is sitting there next to me and, you know, usually he's right there at the controls with me. So if like something goes wrong when I'm, you know, flying that he's right there. And I remember the, you know, one of the first times when I was like learning how to land where he moved his seat back and like, like a lot. And so like he was now like kind of out of touch with the controls. Like he can jump there if he needed to. But like he really pulled back and it was such an incredible like this rural experience. I was like, he trust me. Like in, like, right now he is like, he is showing his faith in me to take this and like take this challenge on.

1:32:15And I think about that all the time is just like, you know, how can I show, you know, my team, people I work with, like my support and trust in them, you know, to take that challenge on. And so like, you know, I can't always move my seat back. Well, like, what might be the way? And so that's been a, you know, pretty, pretty great example of like something I want to pull forward. That is an awesome metaphor. Feel like this whole episode is just full of beautiful metaphors. Also just full of beauty. Katie, thank you so much for being here. Two final questions. We're gonna focus on any online if they want to reach out and maybe ask some questions.

1:32:47And how can listeners be useful to you? Yeah. Well, first off, please do, you know, find me online because, you know, as I talked about, like we're in the pursuit of, you know, trying to build excellent things and it's always a work in progress. And so I'm always interested to learn how others do it. And, and you know, see how we can improve our own methods. I am a little underscored deal on Twitter. And then I think that name was taken on threads. So I will underscore delete with a Y on threads. And then I'm logged in. Find me there. We're hiring. So definitely reach out. We at our job board to striped .com slash jobs.

1:33:26Definitely check us out. We definitely would love to hear from you. Katie, again, thank you so much for being here. Thank you, Lenny. Bye, everyone. Thank you so much for listening. If you found this valuable, you can subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts Spotify or your favorite podcast app. Also, please consider giving us a rating or a leaving review as that really helps other listeners find the podcast. You can find all past episodes or learn more about the show at Lenny's podcast .com. See you in the next episode.