Building Products at Stripe
newsletter.bringthedonuts.com
Building Products at Stripe
1–10 of 32 posts
Re: Building Products at Stripe
#2In my experience, Stripe is full of very smart, interesting people, but most of what's described here is an aspirational view of how the current executives think product should work at Stripe. That's OK, in some sense any view of the "self" is going to be aspirational, but it seems naive/koolaidy to believe that all of the following things can be true at the same time (these are all quotes from the article):
- "it’s an incredibly deep-thinking culture. It’s a written culture really focused on getting to the right answer"
- "The company is especially dedicated to moving very, very fast."
- "deep thinking and speed are combined with a substantial amount of user focus and user empathy."
- "We talk a lot about building multi-decade abstractions."
- "Quick-thinking, quick-acting people do really well here."
- "It’s craftsmanship and a huge amount of dedication to getting all of the details right."
- "There is just the feeling that it should all be exceptional. We should push for an extreme quality bar on all of the fronts."
This seems like a pretty standard fluff piece that's aimed at recruiting PMs who want to identify as near-super-human talent. Stripe is a fantastic place to work but this kind of communication does them and their employees a disservice -- that said I'm not a recruiter and can't say what kind of tactics work best for finding PMs.
Re: Building Products at Stripe
#3Stripe needs to reduce fees
Re: Building Products at Stripe
#4In my experience, Stripe is full of very smart, interesting people, but most of what's described here is an aspirational view of how the current executives think product should work at Stripe. That's OK, in some sense any view of the "self" is going to be aspirational, but it seems naive/koolaidy to believe that all of the following things can be true at the same time (these are all quotes from the article): - "it’s…
I can see how many of those items fit - at times I thought they were literally describing me.
Founder that got into products at first using CompSci skills - but finally realized it is the problem solving through business that kept me engaged and pulling me back.
The 30 year vision helps stretch the mind from what is around us (pulling from what is know) to creating an ideal solution and working backwards.
Re: Building Products at Stripe
#5In my experience, Stripe is full of very smart, interesting people, but most of what's described here is an aspirational view of how the current executives think product should work at Stripe. That's OK, in some sense any view of the "self" is going to be aspirational, but it seems naive/koolaidy to believe that all of the following things can be true at the same time (these are all quotes from the article): - "it’s…
Michael from Stripe here (the interviewee).
While it’s true we are always hiring, this wasn’t meant to be a recruiting piece—it’s a personal interview Ken (the author) asked me to do based on demand from his readers.
It’s fair to say this is how we want product building to work, and we certainly don’t always live up to it. But I do think it’s broadly reflective of the operating model our product managers, engineers, etc. aspire to and what we hold ourselves accountable to. Do we fall short of our own aspirations regularly? Absolutely.
Re: Building Products at Stripe
#6In my experience, Stripe is full of very smart, interesting people, but most of what's described here is an aspirational view of how the current executives think product should work at Stripe. That's OK, in some sense any view of the "self" is going to be aspirational, but it seems naive/koolaidy to believe that all of the following things can be true at the same time (these are all quotes from the article): - "it’s…
I think little of zeal outside of close-knit groups. It takes too much effort, it's easily misdirected, and it can be faked. At scale, it incurs a deficit between input and output, willpower and reality, and eventually achieves its close cousin and exact opposite, cynicism. In the world after zeal, trying becomes pretending, enthusiasm becomes opportunism; anything done the cause becomes suspect in the eyes of those who had to suffer the cause.
The inability to control zeal seems common to communist republics[1], "rocket-ship" startups, and other half-baked endeavors that don't know how to get work done without demanding religious fervor/perfection from their unfortunate subordinates.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Soviet_man -> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_Sovieticus
Re: Building Products at Stripe
#7In my experience, Stripe is full of very smart, interesting people, but most of what's described here is an aspirational view of how the current executives think product should work at Stripe. That's OK, in some sense any view of the "self" is going to be aspirational, but it seems naive/koolaidy to believe that all of the following things can be true at the same time (these are all quotes from the article): - "it’s…
I hear this “fast is slow, slow is fast” type culture perpetuated a lot in product. What they’re describing is lots of experience, practice and general intelligence. Always feels pretty masturbatory when you write it out.
Re: Building Products at Stripe
#8In my experience, Stripe is full of very smart, interesting people, but most of what's described here is an aspirational view of how the current executives think product should work at Stripe. That's OK, in some sense any view of the "self" is going to be aspirational, but it seems naive/koolaidy to believe that all of the following things can be true at the same time (these are all quotes from the article): - "it’s…
Michael from Stripe here (the interviewee). While it’s true we are always hiring, this wasn’t meant to be a recruiting piece—it’s a personal interview Ken (the author) asked me to do based on demand from his readers. It’s fair to say this is how we want product building to work, and we certainly don’t always live up to it. But I do think it’s broadly reflective of the operating model our product managers, engineers,…
The interview is certainly useful in that it reflects Stripe's aspirations as a product team. I would have found this interview much more interesting if you had been able to go into detail about the reality of working on a product team where you're holding yourselves to a set of mutually incompatible constraints -- what tradeoffs you tend to make, how you think about making them, what are the common failure and success modes. Maybe a good follow-up post; consider this a single reader's suggestion, not a demand :)
Re: Building Products at Stripe
#9Here I thought Stripe was getting into the lumber and nails business. Can we get a [verb] tag? /s
Re: Building Products at Stripe
#10I often hear about this concept of deep thinking and deep drive into user stories. My experience sadly is much of the work in companies is dominated by smaller tasks. I'd love to know how stripe handles this balance between big feature developments and smaller issues.