Katie Dill - The new era of design at Stripe

00:00:00We talk a lot about how the landscape ofdesign is changing, but how does thataffect a company like Stripe?>> There's no more of the oh, you know whatwould be great if and like what aboutlike I got to go like find, you know,some couple of people. I'm going to haveto convince them of this so they canbuild the prototype. And it's just likeI had an idea for this thing. So here itis like here's the link. Go check itout. What do you think?>> What traits are they looking for in newhires? And what does it take to thrivethere as a designer? the part you get toplay in product development, you know,opportunity identification, productshaping, all the way down to like liketo building something. You want thosepeople that are they don't know whatwhere we're going. They don't know whatthe answer is, but they know that it'slike somewhere out there and they're[clears throat] they want to like, youknow, get up and go.>> Welcome to Dive Club. My name is Rid andthis is where designers never stoplearning. Today's episode is a deep diveinto design at Stripe with their head ofdesign, Katie Dill. We're going to talkabout how the practice of design isevolving and all of the little thingsthat they do to consistently push past[music] the status quo. And I love howthis episode starts because Katie walksus through all of the little designdecisions in the allnew Stripe.com.

00:01:15youwant to do something that's [music] likefresh and novel but like also is goingto have lasting power is not easy andthere were definitely many iterationslike I can't even tell you how manydifferent waves we've looked at you knowat Stripe in general I've been hereabout 5 years we have designed millionsof waves uh and that that's great like Imean I it's one of my favorite parts ofthe job that we get to really justexplore the kind of the boundaries ofwhat you know one can do in code with,you know, with color, with light, withform, there's infinite possibilities andwe've, you know, certainly explored alarge share of them already. But, youknow, you want to find something that,you know, you're not going to get sickof that like it has, you know, impactwhen you first come and you open up thethe website. Uh, but also it can, youknow, play a role in here that you'regoing to see, you know, again and again.as we kind of go through some of theelements of uh the exploration. Uh thepart I was saying about the storytellingwas like this was the unlock for thatbecause we have a number of things thatwe provide and you know they relate forsure. You know I you know we have plentyof businesses that work with us and theyyou know use a number of our productsand so they might use us for usage

00:02:30basedbilling. They also use us for payments.They also use us for agentic commerce.they also use this for issuing etc. youknow that you can kind of work with allof these things together, but also theycan work in part. Uh, and you know,plenty of organizations are only usingus for certain parts of this, you know,kind of overall product ecosystem. Andso we wanted to make it clear that kindof large gamut of things that we do, butalso make it easy to traverse, you know,the scale of it because for a lot oforganizations, you know, they may nothave known that we have, you know, builtthese products since they first got toknow us. A critical part of course theexperience too is like as you traversethis and you know get to know it alittle bit like how do we keep youcentered here without you knowcompletely distracting you to then learna little bit more. So that's what thislike page overlay thing is for.>> I think this is what's going to getcopied the most for what it's worth.Like we're going to copy the heck out ofthis website over the next few years. Ithink this pattern where you have thebento grid and you're able to keep itreally really simple in the grid itself.Like too many bento grids have all ofthe text and you're forcing three linesof subtext for each individual item andhow you had like a very clean entrypoint with as much information as youwant. Like I'm I'm going to copy this. Iknow a bunch of other people are goingto as well.

00:03:46>> And I feel like every designer canrelate to the challenge of wanting tolayer in so much, right? Like oh welllet's also put the value propositionhere and let's give more detail and whydon't you list out each of the relatedproducts? And it was certainly, youknow, kind of a negotiation in that. Andof course, like we've mocked up amillion different versions where we'velooked at different things, but alsohaving to stay with the priority on theuser's experience. And you know, nobodycan read 19 things at once. And so whatwe're trying to do here is like kind ofcrit a few critical things in thehierarchy. Like one, we want to showrather than tell. So, like how cansomebody like if you imagine you'recoming to a website and you read only10% of the words on the page, do you geta sense? Like I don't know about you,but that's what I do when I go to awebsite, right? Like I'm scrollingpretty fast and I'm kind of gettinggists. So, we're searching for imagerythat like kind of gives you that senseof like what is that talking aboutwithout having to read any of the wordsand then, you know, as quick, concise,salient as we possibly can be about whatthis thing is. And one of the thingsthat I think is like a very stripismthing that I'm very glad for is we tryreally hard to just be verystraightforward with our speaking in inthe context of the

00:05:01website or anywhere,right? Like trying to remove marketingspeak and like fluffy language thatjust, you know, you can kind of see in alot of different sites and it just likeit makes you kind of roll your eyes likehow do we just like say directly whatthe thing does and who it does it for?And not easy. It is definitely I mean Ican't even tell you how many iterationsin the words that we've probably donehere trying to get that right.>> Real quick message and then we can jumpback into it. So Jitter just releasedimage to video and it's a pretty bigdeal. All you have to do is upload anasset and Jitter will instantly generatea short video clip from it with the helpof AI. It's an easy way to add motionand depth to static backgrounds. Maybecreate little clips for brand visuals orjust in general make any scene feel morealive with subtle movement. It's superfun to play with and available today.Just head to dive.club/jitterto try it out. Don't be the person withthe portfolio that doesn't [music] havea custom domain. With Framer's latestrelease, you don't have that excuseanymore because they partnered withHover to provide a seamless flow whereyou can select free or discounteddomains that will automatically beconnected to your Framer site afterpurchase. You heard me right. Framer[music] is offering free custom domainsfor the first year when you upgrade your

00:06:16site to a yearly plan. So definitelydon't miss out on this offer. You canhead to dive.comclub/framerto [music] claim your domain today.Okay, now on to the episode. Can wedouble click on that for a second? Cuzthere's something that you do that Ihaven't seen before, which is that verytop H1 in the hero section. And I thinkthere's like this almost meme at thispoint where as a company scales, the H1becomes more and more generic, right? Itstarts off super pointed and by the endit's like delivering actionable insightskind of thing and it doesn't even meananything where you're doing so manythings. If you were trying to fit into atraditional H1, it would have to begeneric. Like there's just too much tofit into something that is like seven oreight words. And so I haven't seen thispattern before where you basically wrotea sentence as your heading. Was like howquickly did you get to that? I'm curioushow wide the spectrum of exploration wasfor that piece of copy specifically.>> Yeah. Well, it's a great call out and itdefinitely was a debate and I rememberwhen the team showed me like a couple ofdifferent options and one of them ofcourse was you know financialinfrastructure grow your revenue waslike or maybe it was even just financialinfrastructure like our previous site itwas just like that was large andeverything else was smaller and I waslike gravitating towards that I'm like Ithink that's going to be more readablebecause it's just like you know a coupleof words

00:07:31that I have to digest at oncebut the team felt strongly like but thisfeelslike It's more of the like we're tryingto set the pace for what you are goingto experience and you know we're we'renot trying to be shy about like we'vegot a you know pretty big hefty productsystem to tell you about here>> and you know honestly I think they'reright like financial infrastructure growyour revenue can't say that a ton ofpeople know exactly what that means justby reading [laughter] that right so likelet's not hide the fact that like that'snot enough like there there's more wordsthat we have to share with you to giveyou a sense of what this is. And ifwe're like, you know, kind of asking youto take a pause and read the paragraph,like I that sometimes it, you know, irksme a little bit because most of the timewhen we're trying to design somethingfor the user, we want to make it quickand easy and skimable, but like thereality is that like that's just notwhat's being said here. Like there'sthere's more to say.>> Are there other details on this sitethat you're particularly proud of wherethey landed?>> Yeah, I mean, let's see what else totake through. There's so much. I mean, Ijust I'm really proud of the work thatwent into this. The team was sothoughtful and so dedicated and workedso hard to try to just find moments ofmagic. Like I I

00:08:46think this area, we callit the data viz. Obviously, this is notan actual data visualization. It's moreof an accompaniment to it. And it wasinteresting to see people's response.You know, it's like, oh, why would theteam, you know, take time with this?Like the visual doesn't actually sayanything. And well to us like the visualsays a lot. The v like number one youknow beauty for the sake of beauty is awonderful thing. And you know therethere quite literally is utility inthat. It it brings joy. It makessomething more compelling. It like youknow as you think about like imaginethis page without that right like youwould probably just like skim right by.But it makes you you know take a beatfor a second and want to see what thisis about. And again like out of thecorner of your eye is it communicatingsomething like yeah this iscommunicating global scale like you youdo get that read from that you know youdo get the the sense that there issomething to have been you know like a agist that we are trying to give to youin these visuals. The other thing itcommunicates is you know the the loveand the care and the you know thetechnical ability and again that is animportant message in the front page ofour website. I mean we move people'smoney. We are uh a part of the creationof millions of businesses. They arerelying on us. So to

00:10:01communicate thatlike we care about the details and weare going to like painstakingly work onthis animation so it moves just theright way. Um is probably an importantthing for them to know. Um and so yeah,a lot goes into that. Uh this is justlike a fun thing. It's like you knowagain a moment of joy, a moment ofsurprise. And the kind of the coolbehind the scenes story is that thevisuals here, the imagery, um arephotographs from one of the leaddesigners on this, Tatiana, uh from hertrips hiking in the mountains. Uh noway. And so these are like actual likethis is the color of the sun when shewas hiking uh that went behind this.>> That's so cool. I'm very excited aboutthis area because of course like a lotof the you know importance of what we'rekind of communicating is the impact ofwhat Stripe's doing and you know who wedo it with and how you know we helpbusinesses grow and help them accomplishtheir goals like that's what brings tolife these products right like when Itell you like we do subscriptions you'relike sweet I don't know what that meansbut it's like well we you know helplovable so that they can build an AIbusiness so that they you know, changethe cost depending on the inference rate

00:11:16at the time. Like these are very helpfulthings to understand and then like itmakes a bit more sense about what thethese products do. So, we're excited toget user stories in there. There'sactually like several places where userstories show up as you can see. Butthese are these are just like these kindof fun images that we're doing that arealso a part of a a campaign that we runwhere we have billboards around thathave kind of like the similar idea wherethe stripe parallelogram becomes part ofthe image. Wait till you see themanimated. They are. We have animatedversions that we'll we'll put up soon.Um they are delightful just like littlemoments of magic. But yeah, this is justsuch an interesting thing because youknow as we were kind of creating thebrief on this and it's like okay we'regoing to you know it's it's about thepartnership with us and this or otherorganizations. So we want the otherorganizations brand to kind of comethrough but we also want to have likeyou know the strike you know kind ofmagic as a part of it. So theparallelogram taking place in the kindof the business's kind of context. Icannot even tell you the blood, sweat,and tears behind the scenes on thesethings because AI is magical and it doesa lot of things that feel really good.Especially like, you know, you canoneshot it. You're like, "Yeah, look atthat. How amazing it is." But like veryrarely, you know, are we at the pointnow yet gets better every day, but like

00:12:32okay, it's ship ready. And so likeactually this imagery I'm showing youtoday, I I wish I had the example ofwhat like what actually happened in Critbecause the image when I saw it gothrough crit is that they had likelittle notes like almost like every inchon here of like the lighting is offright here and this shadow isn't exactlyright. And so it is AI plus a lot ofmanual figuring it out in Photoshop 3Dcontrol and like reworking it to get youknow the image and get the the realismcorrect and of course when we animatethem like even more so. Um so it's a akind of interesting to imagine like allthose details and you when you thinkabout like when does that detail matterthat much like what if we didn't fix thelighting there. Uh, I think the realityis like subconsciously, you know, youwould feel that something's off andthen, you know, what does that then doto your feelings of like the realismand, you know, the care behind all theother details. So, that's kind of whereit ends up becoming an arduous butworthwhile effort.I think my personal favorite detail onthis site that totally does not have toexist, but it's amazing is theinteractivity on the little dividinglines where they

00:13:47kind of like twist andswirl.>> Unbelievable. I don't know how like howdoes that even happen? Like how does agiant company like Stripe even shipsomething like that? We've been thinkingabout what are, you know, those littlemoments of detail or magic of or ofbeauty that, you know, can kind ofenhance an experience but not get in theway, you know, and and Patrick Collisonhas asked about it is like, you know,the way he's kind of put it to the teamis just like what are the things thatmodernism left behind, you know, whenwe've evolved to this like ultra clean,sometimes sterile look and feel inmodern architecture and in a modernproduct design, you know, and it's allabout like focus and clarity and whitesspace and clean it up. Like there'sthere's definitely some good in that forsure. You know, I am very interested inallowing a user to fully understandwhat's going on and know where to focusand know where to move on and they don'twant to clutter their experience or getin the way. But like, have we taken ittoo far? And have we gotten into a placewhere some of the product experiencestoday can feel a bit disconnected, bitsterile, a bit, you know, not inhumane,that's the wrong word, but

00:15:02lacking ofhumanity. And so, yeah, we like searchedfor and thought about like, well, wherewhere do we bring that in in a way thatdoesn't get in the way. So, like that'sof course one of them. And so, it's justlike it's a little detail. Most peoplemight not even see it, but if you do,you know, maybe gives you a smile, youknow, something like this where it'slike our our little stamp. It's justlike fun little details that give it anextra touch of care.>> Can you tell me a little bit about thecall for a new aesthetic? And you I feellike a lot of people saw the post onTwitter. What's the backstory there? I'mkind of curious how this influences thedesign or at Stripe, too.>> Yes. Yeah. So, what you're talking aboutover the holidays, uh, Patrick Collisonand Tyler Cohen, uh, tweeted that theywere putting out a call for proposalsthat were exploring ideas of newaesthetics and so that they would offergrants to people that are exploringthese things. And the the thinkingbehind it as they describe in this kindof like very brief one-pager is you knowthat there's an opportunity to thinkabout what are you know the newaesthetics of this modern era becausewhat we're living in today does feellike it is a continuation of many of thethings that we've seen and and this ismy

00:16:17words not theirs but like you knowwe've certainly kind of gotten into abit of a rut where you know we certainlyhave taken you know some of what I Iwould consider absolutely exceptionalbeautiful styles from you know bow houseand international architecture andbeautiful forms that over time I thinkpeople have kind of halfassed theinterpretation of and you know you getthese almost like lifeless simplemanifestations of like gray concreteblocks and you know window walls withoutwithout love and care that they don'tage Well, they don't demonstrate, youknow, a care for humanity and a love forbeauty or for detail. Uh, and so there'sopportunity to explore that. Certainlyalso in product design, digital productdesign or what have you, is that you seea lot of the same forms again and again.And you know, at at best they're clean,at worst they're stark or sterile. Andso we've heard a lot, you know, in inworking with Patrick, like he certainlyhas talked about this and it's somethingthat comes up in the work all the time,which is just like, you know, what areways that we can demonstrate care forour users through our work. And part ofthat

00:17:32is certainly making products thatare extremely powerful and can do a lotand solve our users problems. That'slike number one. But number two, doesthe product serve them? Does it fittheir mental model? Is it really usable?And number three, does it bring delightto their experience? Is it beautiful? Dothey enjoy using it? And like all threeof those things are very important partof product quality and like what westrive for. And I appreciate that, youknow, he's of course Patrick has, youknow, talked about this in terms of ourown team and we think about that at atStripe is like what are we doing to helpshape the new aesthetic. It reminds meof this video that I watched recently.It's by a game guy named the culturaltutor.>> Oh, yes. Yes, yes, yes.>> Did you see this? I was like I was like,you have to watch it if you haven't yetcuz it's right up your alley. And>> for people who are not familiar, a bigpart of this video is>> juxtaposing the types of lamp posts inLondon>> and how they used to be incrediblydetailed. And they talk about liketourist spots often having these lampposts and there's like a reason forthat. It just feels good to be thereeven if you don't necessarily notice

00:18:48thelamp post. And now everything is justvery, you know, modern and minimal. Andman, my hope is that with all of theefficiency gains that we are gettingwith AI that it buys us time to notnecessarily do more in terms of thebreadth, but it it gives us time to makethe finely detailed and artisticallychiseled lamp posts. And what does thatlook like in product design? That waswhat I came out of that video beinginspired to do is like just notnecessarily to try to go faster, youknow? Let's see how many agents I canspin up and how many work trees I can beworking on simultaneously. And it's likewhat if I just slow down a little bitand put a little bit extra care and tryto push past what I get almost out ofthe box.>> That is so well said. And I do think asthings get easier to make, people areaware that it is easier to make thingsthat are, you know, the the seven out of10, the baseline experience that, youknow, I think there'll be even astronger call, a stronger want for thosethings that demonstrate a little bitmore love and care. And actually,there's a great article from TheAtlantic. Beauty, the new business tool.This is from 1927 in the Atlantic. Oh,wow. And so what the author

00:20:03is talkingabout is like off the heels of thesecond industrial revolution where youknow things were being mass-produced andlike machine-made and it's likeand the author was talking about howpeople were yearning for things thatshowed a bit more love and care and thecare of the maker because like you knowyou think about like a Zara versus aHermes, right? you know, you're justlike, "Yes, like this thing that waslabored over and cared for, like that'swhy it like achieves a price pointversus a thing that was kind of likemass production, anybody can have itkind of thing." And I think when we lookat what AI will allow us to do, it cankind of like create a design factory umand enable like the creation of a lot ofyou know decent baseline things, butwhat are you know the things that aregoing to like really set themselvesapart are going to be the things thatkind of demonstrate that extra love andcare beyond that. And I agree with youlike that video is so phenomenal. Istrongly recommend people give it awatch because like yeah when you lookback at the way things used to be madeand you know the like the love and carethat like people labored over. Umanother good example on that is like heshows like sewage

00:21:19plants right likesewage plants you [laughter] know thatwere like so loved um and just>> it looks like a museum. [laughter]>> Exactly. Versus like things that arejust like mehay. And you know, peoplewill talk about it's like, well, it'sabout cost and it's about scale. And Ithink sometimes, you know, that'sreasonable. Like I can get how somethings are like, yeah, it's probablycost prohibitive to make every lamppost, you know, a gem. However,not I think sometimes it's laziness. Ithink we've like allowed oursel thatexcuse. And I think you are totallyright that the tools have taken thatexcuse away because it is easier to putmore care and attention and detail andbeauty for the sake of beauty uh intothings now. So hopefully we'll see apart of this like new revolution like agreater commitment to loveare and beautyin the works.>> I think a big part of this conversationthat I'm really interested in digginginto is like how are things changing?How's the practice of design at Stripechanging?>> I do think everything around us isevolving rapidly and Stripe'spositioning is particularly interesting,I think, because of what we do. So, weare

00:22:34we're building tools for millions ofbusinesses. These businesses areevolving and changing, right? Like theyare using AI and the way that people arebuilding businesses and getting going isobviously different. So anyway, there'slike pressure for us to figure out howdo we partner really well and evolvequickly and evolve our products withthem. That's like one opportunity.Secondly, we can use AI to make ourproducts more interesting, better, morepersonalized, more valuable, moreresponsive. And then thirdly, we can useAI for the way we work and like how dowe, you know, accelerate productdevelopment, expand the creativeexploration, like all of these things.So like there's like a three-fold waythat things are different now. And soyes, I would say it does change the way,you know, design operates. You know,we've been doing a series of reviewsthis week for, you know, some bigupcoming ships we have at, you know, ourevent coming up in the spring. And, youknow, most of the work that we're seeingare are prototypes. uh we uh built ainternal tool uh we call protodash wherewe can create AI prototypes extremelyrapidly that look and feel like the

00:23:49stripe dashboard and so you can kind oflike build it in this like playgroundand you can evolve it from a startingpoint and so it like speeds things upquite a bit because one it's likealready in the context and of courselike whenever we're doing work we'retrying as quickly as possible tounderstand like well what is the usergoing to feel so putting it in contextis extreme extremely helpful. There'snever, you know, no product is like everfelt by your user in isolation. It'slike they usually got there fromsomething else or they're like bouncingoff to something next. So like how tosee it in that. And so the fact that nowdesigners or engineers or PMs can, youknow, mock up these different ideaspretty quickly in that like looks likefeels like works like thing is awesome.What that means for like how a designerchanges is that well one you knowthere's like you know the saying likeyou could just build things now. So I Ifeel like there's no more of the oh youknow what would be great if and likewhat about like I got to go like findyou know some couple of people I'm goingto have to convince them to this so theycan build the prototype and it's justlike I had an idea for this thing sohere it is like here's the link go checkit out what do you think and that's likesuper exciting and you know we can lookat a number of links like well here'swhat it's going to look like in a yearhere's what it's going to look like insix months

00:25:04and so we can be a bit moreyou know kind of exploratory and youknow kind ofIt does not everything doesn't feel soprecious and costly like it used to beto do vision work. It's like okay are wereally going to take you know people offother work for two months to go explorea thing and then maybe not get builtlike now we can do that without you knowsuch a great cost to everything elsethat I think like we get we see moreexploratoryyou know more ideas being thought aboutmore ideas being tried more ideas put infront of users so I think that likemeans that I I think I think if you askthem uh the designer ers would saythey're just more empowered to beproactive with with big ideas, which isa good thing.>> When the practice of design changes thatmuch, how much does it evolve like theprocess or or rituals, collaboration,like how is that changing given the factthat I mean, even down to the tooling?It sounds like you guys have investedpretty heavily in what you're handingover to designers as a playground toexplore these ideas.>> Please don't present. Please don't pitchyour ideas. Please don't take a weekmaking a deck to talk about the thing.Like I don't want that for you. I don't

00:26:19want you to waste that time. Andhonestly, I also don't want to hear it.[laughter]Like let's just get into the work. LikeI just want to see it like a user. Ithink we've often said that like I'veprobably been saying that, you know, allmy years of design leadership, but likeI feel like we're there now. It's just alot easier for people, you know, now toget to that prototype stage. And so,yeah, I feel like a lot of thesereviews, for example, that I've beendoing this week, it's, you know, onesentence is set up and then it's like,okay, let's go into it and let's clickaround and let's see what it would feellike and work like. I think the theother part is, you know, the dynamicthat can happen in a team. Designershave always had superpowers of like,well, you can visualize the ideas andthat's a, you know, it's far better toshow people rather than tell people. ButI think it was still pretty timeinensive and costly to put those ideastogether. You know, as much as I saidlike, "No, no, no, just like, you know,tonight when you know, after work justlike mock it up and then you'll show itto the team tomorrow and you get themexcited, like that's a lot that, youknow, ended up being a lot of work." Nowyou can literally just like prompt yourway to those ideas. And so I think it iseasier and faster for folks tocommunicate and and provide

00:27:35like more thoughts at the earlier stagesproduct development and and drivestrategy faster with that kind of methodfor visualization. So at Stripe forexample we were a part of an evolutionas like design changed over time. whenyou know Stripe first was you knowbuilding products it was very APIfocused and design therefore could be abit more surface level like how do weyou know what does the marketing websitelook like how does one encounter the APIand then kind of like the design wasless involved over time our products arefar more like numbered far more complexand they like have a bigger role in aninterface in a UI and dashboard board.So designers have evolved from beingreally focused on the surface level tobeing you deep participants in thedevelopment of the deep experience. Andnow I think that transition continues aswell now also with the powers of AI wecan much more rapidly develop earlystage ideas contribute in even earlierstages of the the project and you knowkind of like lower the barrier to entryto put new

00:28:50ideas on the table. So Ithink it's a net positive for the organd a net positive for the partnership.I really like that because I think thatthere's a narrative that I seefrequently and just even in differentparts of the internet, different designcommunities where by playing more incode, we're actually almost narrowingour exploration space and cappingcreativity in a way, but you'resimultaneously talking on both frontswhere it's like, no, no, we are makingthings that are functional and real andyet deeply creative as evidenced by allof the different things that you areshowing. Being able to hold both ofthose in balance is it's indicative ofthe type of practice that I want to havemoving forward. We certainly see moredesigners doing more you know kind oflike product think like what hastraditionally be PM like productthinking and product shaping and problemdevelopment or problem identificationand then we definitely are seeing youknow PMs like you know I've got an idealet's mock it up and like let's promptour way there and like I'm glad for thatglad for you know engineers to be ableto more rapidly create ideas so likewe're just like easing the interchangemoments that existed between disciplinesBut it also means then like with thatlike what you know what what now can wedo like how many more you know likecreative

00:30:06ideas can we look at that butbefore we were just kind of likeminimizing because we just didn't haveyou know enough time or like you know itwas it was a lot more costly to makethree prototypes than it was to make youknow one and now I mean you can make 30.>> It sounds like there's quite a bit ofbottoms up innovation happening. When welast talked, you mentioned somethingkind of off-hand to me about how, youknow, it's like a new year kind of newopportunities thing. So maybe I couldtoss a hypothetical your way, which islet's say it's the end of 2026 andyou're reflecting back on this year andthe design or at Stripe. What would youhope to see that would make you be like,"Yeah, this this year was a good yearfor the design or I'm proud of how we'veevolved with the times. I'm proud ofwhere we got to." Well, I think with alot of the design community, you know, Ithink we're all talking about likeawesome that these tools are kind ofraising the floor. We can build, youknow, more generally good thingsquickly. Awesome. What we also need todo is raise the ceiling. How, you know,can our taste and ability go further?how when we're not so busy doing basicstuff can we take advantage of that timeto

00:31:21do something you know extra speciallike that is those things are definitelyon my mind. So for example, you know, aswe scaleand as we use these tools and as werapidly prototype and we rapidly create,how do we, you know, only furtherleverage our systems? Like I don't needpeople to reinvent the wheel when thingsare working really well and you want tobe able to provide good coherency andconsistency for the user. So, forexample, like I don't need people toreinvent the dropdown for the datepicker, you know, every time they doone. Like that seems like a basic likehowever I do want people to think aboutwhen is the status quo holding you backand when is there an opportunity to dosomething even better for the user? Andso like thinking from like firstprinciples like is this genuinely thebest way to do this or does this requiresomething better and that could be youknow purely aesthetics and like is itjust about like is there opportunity todo something more beautiful here or isthere's like this just like pattern isnot a good interaction it is limiting itdoes not allow us to do a thing you knowso I'll give

00:32:36you like more of a tacticalexample last year we launched finanfinancial accounts at Stripe. And thisis like an awesome unlock for usersbecause before what was happening ispeople were using Stripe to, you know,sell their goods online or in person andtake money and the money would come intoStripe and they would move it out to abank account, maybe move it, you know,to, you know, another thing or anothercountry or whatever. And it's like costand time like that's what was involvedin all those steps and it was painful.Now they can like bring the money in andthen they have all these superpowerswith it like right in Stripe. They canpay out to anybody just with an email.It just like becomes this like mucheasier, faster, useful way of doingthings. But when the team was doing thedesign work for this thing, they ofcourse they use the system and it lookedlike you know the usual way our thesystem does in the dashboard. And Iremember the review and we're we're allmeeting together and uh Will our ourhead of product and business is like youknow kind of commenting on like thisdoesn't feel like as magical as thisproduct actually is [laughter] and youknow he was totally right like what wewere doing was you know we were justusing very basic form fields and basicyou know kind of drawer interactionsfrom you go

00:33:51through one step and thenyou answer a question you go to anotherone but like what the magic actually isis that like you have these like youknow kind of containers that you canlike really fluidly move things throughand you know we can with directmanipulation we can make that happen asfluidly in the UI and we can present itin a way that's very clarifying this islike oh I have I have this bucket ofmoney this is in USD this is in uhpounds like I can I can shift it over tohere the UI was not fit to purpose andthe UI was leveraging the status quowhich was suboptimal and so that's anopportunity where I want to see thecreativity and I want to see you know usto think about like what is the mostbest way of doing this for our userslike what will what will really you knowhelp to answer their needs and kind oflike deliver on the promise of what wehave there kind of where I'm going withthis is that I want us to be in a betterposition where it's a lot easier forpeople to kind of like pick thesebattles and see these opportunities toreally push their creativity and kind oflike push the way that we're doingthings to maybe create, you know, newpatterns, new paradigms or, you know,new aesthetics that like, you know,bring interest to the experience.

00:35:07And Ithink we're unlocking that by makingtools more powerful, better, leveragingthe systems that exist. So again, you'renot reinventing the wheel where it'sunnecessary to and kind of making it sothat like people can just build things.You can you can build these ideas, youcan get them across and test them out.So in the end of 2026, I would imagineI'd have a lot more stories for youabout where that's happened and where,you know, people at any part of the teamthat like had an idea for a thing,mocked it up, you know, maybe showed itto some users, showed it to some people,got people excited, and that like wecould just kind of like streamline thepath to getting it out there, tobuilding it and, you know, getting itlive so that we can learn from it andkeep pushing it.>> [music]>> Hey, really quickly, let me tell youabout the all-new Dive Talent Network.I've hand assembled over a hundred ofthe most talented designers and buildersthat I know so I can recommend them tomy favorite companies. So, if you'relistening to this and you're open to newopportunities, the talent network isanonymous and super low pressure. It'sjust an easy way to see what's out therewithout having to post on social media.So, if you're interested in joining ormaybe you're looking for your next hire,head to [music] dive.club/talent.club/talentespecially as AI continues to raise thefloor

00:36:22the cost of the 7 out of 10experience is going to be borderlinefree you know in the long run and to methe most exciting part of that is thisconcentration of effort and like reallythinking strategically about like yousaid like hey this part of the productis magical like what if we just tookfive times the amount of resources andtime and creativity and just pointed itdirectly at the way that these panelsmove or whatever that looks Likeit's exciting.>> Yes. I love that. And that is such agood way of putting it. Like the sevenout of 10 experiences for eight. Yes. Solike [laughter] now how do we make somelike 15 out of 10 experiences?>> Yeah. Let's dig into the 15 out of 10then because listening to you talk likemultiple times you've pointed at thefact that there's a good feedbackculture happening like people are reallypushing each other. So can you just go alittle bit deeper into what does thatlook like in practice whether it's critor async? Can we just kind of shine aflashlight on collaboration at Stripe?>> Yeah, I think it's one of the thingsthat we have, you know, continued towork on in my time there because we aimto have high standards. We you know wewant to be a place where the best peopleare doing the best work of their livesand that we are not okay with

00:37:37goodenough and we are not okay withmediocre. You know I've had a lot ofconversations with Patrick Collisonabout this too of just like you knowthere have been times where you know heor I or we have you know pulled the plugon something last minute. I mean he hasasked us to make changes to billboardsthat were already up. Um, and we'vetalked about like how that's a goodthing, you know, because a lot ofcompanies don't do that. I think a lotof us have probably been in companieswhere, you know, you've had that momentof like it's not great, but you know, wegot to get it out. And I mean, we'veearned like we put so much time into it.The team will be crushed if we do if wedon't go for it, right? Like how manytimes like that's happened, right?>> Totally. And I really really appreciatethat, you know, when what we're facedwith that decision and it's like, oh,the team will be crushed or we let it goand we know it's mediocre is like Iwould every time I would rather havethat hard conversation and, you know,take the moment there to think aboutwhether or not this is actually greatand if it's not, fix it. And I think theteam, you know, in the end,

00:38:52while thatmight have been a hard conversation oflike, okay, we decided to stop thisproject or, you know, we decided to takeit down after it was already up orwhatever, I think they would, you know,in the end, absolutely, you know,certainly the type of people that we'rehiring that want to like take pride intheir work and do great things and put apositive dent in the universe, you know,in the end are going to be glad to becreating things that they're proud ofrather than put something out that ismediocre like hold that high standard.So anyway, I think that like that's apart of it. That's what we strive for.Do we always get it right? No,absolutely not. And there's definitelythe things that we've shipped that likemaybe that wasn't the right call, but westrive for it. And then in the feedbackculture, I think, you know, this is alsotough, right? because I want it to be aplace where designers feel like they cantake risks, that there isn't a like afear of failure, that they can trythings, wild and crazy things, and youknow, also just like take a little bitof like the heat off of like whenthey're going to go into a review orwhatever. I don't want people to belike, you know, on edge that like how isit going to go well or not? And at thesame time, we're pairing that with like,well, we're we're gonna like beat thisthing up and we're gonna look at itreally tightly and we're gonna askourselves like, is this thing great ornot? And so doing those two things canbe

00:40:07hard. And it's definitely somethingwe've I think been talking about, youknow, in my time there of just like howdo we get how do we do both? [laughter]How do we make it like e, you know, warmand accepting and a place where we canlike try and fail and and and take risksbut also continue to hold those highstandards. So I don't know if you knowwhat the answer is definitely let meknow you know our pursuit [laughter]um that we have I think our best shot isjust like literally calling that out andjust being like we're we do some seriousstuff here like for example if there arebugs in our product or you know we havea typo like that is a big deal becausewe move people's money and our partnersrely on us to like do the work well andour surface level all the way down toour infrastructure is a part of whatthey are trusting in us. If we allowthings that you know erode trust toexist then you know that can put allthings in question and so we want todemonstrate the kind of like commitmentto quality that we have at every levelof the stack and that this like startsof course with like that surface levelexperience. So yeah, we we do someserious work and that means that, youknow, we certainly should

00:41:23take a lot ofresponsibility for what we ship, but inthe process would love for it to be, youknow, also a place where people can, youknow, experiment and not everything isperfect right off the bat. And so Ithink that's like where we do that isthe nature of the conversation and justlike being real with each other and likejust so you know what you're about tosee here, this part is not figured outyet. And the and the good conversationcan come from that.>> Okay. Okay, so we've been talking a lotabout how the role of the designer hasevolved at Stripe. It kind of makes mewant to talk a little bit about hiringand what you're looking for in differentcandidates. You've obviously hired a lotof people and been in a lot of theseconversations over the course of 5 yearsor however long you've been there. WhatI'd love to know is when you think aboutthe main signals that you were lookingfor in people when you first joinedStripe, what are some of the biggestchanges now as you're thinking about thetypes of people that you want to loopinto this org and build around for therest of this vision? I think thatthere's still some of the same themes,but I think they've it's been adapted inlike the certainly the way that I lookfor it and like specifics, but likecuriosity always would have beensomething that I would probably haveshared with you on like my top list. Youknow, I just like certainly I'm lookingfor people that are,

00:42:38you know, humble,have exquisite talent, and that they arecurious and that they're going to like,you know, really just like constantly belooking to grow and constantly betterunderstand the circumstances of the workthat they're doing and their usersexperience or, you know, theircollaborators like I think that justlike generally makes people betterwithin a team. What does that curiositylook like today has evolved? You know, Ithink the, you know, certainly criticalpiece is like is this person kind ofleaning in to this evolution or thisrevolution that we are a part of with,you know, AI. Um, it's intimidating.It's overwhelming.Everything like you think you're on topof it one day and then tomorrow there'sa new model and a new tool and a newpossibility. I don't expect, you know,every person we meet to have it figuredout, right? because again they would beat a date as soon as they you knowthought they were on top of it all butthat like they demonstrate a genuineinterest and curiosity because againlike kind of going back to what I saidearlier I think you know in the stripework it is so much more complex to thelevels because it's about what our usersare experiencing and how they're usingthe technology and how it's shapingtheir business

00:43:53how we're providing forthem and then also how we're buildingthose tools and so somebody that takesGreat interest in this technology alsomeans that they're probably moreinterested in what users are goingthrough and they're going to be morelikely to be able to shape these things.I mean AI product thinking is different,right? It's like a non-determinedproduct. You have to think about likehow can you, you know, embrace ambiguityin a whole new level and think about itas, you know, an a great opportunity anda great input to not only shape your ownwork but shape your output. We need tosee that. Certainly, we're seeing moreof AI experience in somebody's work, butyeah, I don't think like we're going toencounter that many people that have hadlike I've been doing AI for 10 yearslike that doesn't happen. But like dothey demonstrate that, you know,despite, you know, the years that theythey've led that they've in the mostrecent years and then then theopportunity to that they are genuinelyinterested, genuinely trying, genuinelyexperimenting and are ready for that.And then the last thing I would say isagency. I think that's another piecethat has always been important but has anew role and that is that because whatwe were talking about earlier is liketasks evolve, roles are evolving, uh thepart you get to play

00:45:09in productdevelopment, you know, opportunityidentification, product shaping all theway down to like the like to buildingsomething. The fact that you can justbuild now is so exciting and soempowering and does that persondemonstrate agency. It's the other sideof curiosity. It's like you know doingsomething with it essentially and youknow I certainly look for that. You knowsometimes you see that in you knowoutside of the person's work like youknow oh yeah like my hobby I do thisthing and um you know I've been oh I youknow made my husband this website tolike help on this other thing. doesn'tnecessarily even have to be in theirwork, but you can kind of see like whoare these people that just like have afire under their belly and they justlike they want to go and do like I don'tknow. There definitely feels like thatlike stories of being on the frontier,but like you want those people that areum they don't know what where we'regoing. They don't know what the answeris, but they know that it's likesomewhere out there and they're theywant to like, you know, get up and go.>> Let's imagine this hypotheticalcandidate, right? They have theintangibles of curiosity, agency. Theyshow up ready to go. Maybe we can fastforward again to this end ofearreflection question only pointed at thisperson. I'm curious, what are some ofthe best behaviors

00:46:24or traits that yousee in the IC's at Stripe that arereally thriving that you would then hopekind of rub off and shape this newcandidate over the course of theremaining 10 months this year?>> Yeah. Well, like you know, I was talkingabout this thing Proto Dash that we havelike that was one guy's baby like hisidea um you know and he Owen recognizedthat we had like a barrier to entry likeokay AI can help us make things fasterbut the hard part is you knoweverybody's got to get acquainted withthe tools and like people have differentknowledge and then they have to likestart from scratch every time and sohe's like I can fix this and you knowwhen he fixed it I don't it was probablynights a week at I don't you know allsort combination of things but he waslike hey I made this thing what do youwhat do you think and you know like ohthis is really useful and and he's likecontinued to like evolve it and make newversions of it and so he's like he ispulling us ahead and then you knowanother example of there's a contentdesigner on our team Chris who's likeyou know what the way that our like wewe serve platforms and you know therethese behemoths of businesses that arerather you know can be quite complex youknow so if you think about like theShopify is the world, right? Like theyhave um businesses within

00:47:39businesses andwe provide tools to help you know thosebusinesses grow. Their needs from Stripecan be different than a business that isyou know sole solely one entity. And so,you know, he and the team recognizedthat like there were a number of placesacross our product where we're making itharder on them to find their informationand to organize the work and it didn'tfeel like it was centered around theirexperience um and that like theexperience was built for a a a singularentity. And so like they put together astrategy and a new idea and prototypethings and and put that forth. And soyou are totally right when you said likeyou know it can be bottoms up. Goodideas can come from anywhere. I thinkthe critical piece is that like you knowyou've got a good idea, you see aproblem, you see a piece of trash on thefloor, you pick it up and like you youthink about like how do I make thisproblem better longer term um for morefor everybody for you know and and howhow might I you know kind of inspireaction to that. And so yes, at the endof 2026,I think we are all better equipped to beable to, you know, see a thing and do itdo something about it and proactivelyelevate

00:48:54the ambition of of folks aroundyou with new ideas for what would be abetter solution.>> Can I point the question at you now? Iguess I'm curious given all of thechange and the fact that you know fiveyears is a long time like you've you'veseen a lot of even market shifts andobviously tooling shifts. So what aresome of the ways that this is shapinghow you show up as a leader or where youthink about the ways to evolve your ownpractice?>> Well, my role has definitely evolvedover the 5 years that I've been here.You know our team has grown, our companyhas grown. I've learned a lot of thingsthat you know I could do better andthought about where you know where is mytime most valuable you know certainlyevery little project we do every bigproject we do I don't need to be youknow intimately involved and in factthat might be a failure state um andit's more about how do I help put theconditions in place where this is anorganization where great work gets doneI am not often the the right person tomake the great work happen it's more ofthe actually craft crafting thecommunity that does that and and the waythat we do that. I think the opportunityI have is like while

00:50:09trying to shift tothat other way of work where you know II focus on uh building the system thatdoes the great things and you know thatincludes the team is not losing touchwith what are we making and what are ourusers needing. uh we actually have apretty intense culture of commitment touh this idea of walking the store,spending time with users. You know, it'ssomething that I think every companyneeds to do. And I think as companiesgrow larger or your products get morecomplex or in our case is like I willnever be a CFO of a Fortune50. I willnever be on the you know the paymentsteam or running a platform. like I won'tknow as intimately what our usersexperience as I might, you know, when Iworked at Lyft and I could take a liftto, you know, to the office that day.And so spending time with users, gettinginto the product and actually trying itand then putting yourself in their shoesis so important. So I I do think aboutlike how do I just actually increase myparticipation in that? And sometimesthese tools are a really great way of umbetter, you know, mimicking the productexperience

00:51:25and better understanding whatit would feel like to be uh running alarge enterprise and seeing my businessevolve over time and how that's going toshape my Stripe experience.>> I like that. That's your answer. Becauseevery time I talk to a leader that's inyour position, there's some pressure tohelp this team cross the bridge ontohonestly a completely different way ofworking. Totally different types oftools and abilities and it's very easyto kind of narrow in on that as theobjective when that is very much so justthe means to the end. Well, and I thinkthe other part is it's really easy tojust be busy and you know talk about howimportant these tools are but like beout of touch. I am also using proto dashto you know make versions of the productand you know are mine going to be betterthan you know the the designers that arethinking and doing that all day nodefinitely not but like will I have alot better understanding of like whatthey're going through and what it takesto like make something. It's vital thatI, you know, get to know these toolsfirsthand and, you know, absolutely I'mlike, you know, making my own, you know,vibe coding my own websites on theweekend so that like I, you know, knowwhat that's like. It is definitely hardto take the time to, you know, play andmake and and lead

00:52:40and check all theemails and all the slacks and for sure.For sure. But I I do think that that isan important part of knowing the realityof work these days and will make youknow me a better leader if I am in touchwith what you know today feels like.>> Yeah. I mean cuz most people that get towhere you're at do so on the back ofbeing in the trenches and using thetools that we're all familiar with andyet now everything has kind of changed.like you don't have that track recordwith these tools to draw from, you know,and obviously there's like the highleprinciples that are the same, but>> I still probably open Photoshop up morethan people on my team do.[laughter] I know this tool so well.>> I respect it. I respect it. Uh well,Katie, thanks for coming on. Just a bigfan of everything that you all do andwho you are as a a leader and someonejust contributing and shaping the designcommunity as a whole. So, I appreciateyou taking the time and giving us alittle tour of all the work today andwhat's happening at Stripe. [music]>> Absolutely.>> Before I let you go, I want to take justone minute to run [music] you through myfavorite products because I'm constantlyasked what's in my stack. Framer is howI build websites. Gen is how I

00:53:55doresearch. Granola is how I take notesduring crit. Jitter is how I animate mydesigns. Lovable is how I build my ideasin code. Mobin is how I find designinspiration. Paper is how I design likea creative. And Raycast is my shortcutevery step of the way. Now, I've handselected these companies so that I cando these [music] episodes full-time. So,by far the number one way to support theshow is to check them out. You can findthe full list at dive.comclub/partners.