Building a culture of excellence | David Singleton (CTO of Stripe)

2023-05-04 · 90 min · 26 entities

episode page audio

Asserted relationships

→ references High Output Management Andrew Grove book

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evidence rules-v4
Link in episode "Building a culture of excellence | David Singleton (CTO of Stripe)": https://amazon.com/High-Output-Management-Andrew-Grove/dp/0679762884
→ references Build book

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evidence rules-v4
Link in episode "Building a culture of excellence | David Singleton (CTO of Stripe)": https://amazon.com/Build/dp/1787634116/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0
→ references Features product

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evidence rules-v4
Link in episode "Building a culture of excellence | David Singleton (CTO of Stripe)": https://github.com/features/copilot
→ references Scaling People Tactics Management Building book

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evidence rules-v4
Link in episode "Building a culture of excellence | David Singleton (CTO of Stripe)": https://amazon.com/Scaling-People-Tactics-Management-Building/dp/1953953212
→ hosted by Lenny Rachitsky person

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Feed author/publisher: Lenny Rachitsky
→ discusses Technology company

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Feed category: Technology
→ discusses Business concept

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Feed category: Business
→ discusses Entrepreneurship concept

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Feed category: Entrepreneurship
→ references penname.co website

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evidence rules-v4
Link in episode "Building a culture of excellence | David Singleton (CTO of Stripe)": https://penname.co/
→ references stripe.com website

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evidence rules-v4
Link in episode "Building a culture of excellence | David Singleton (CTO of Stripe)": https://stripe.com/
→ references AndrejKarpathy website

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evidence rules-v4
Link in episode "Building a culture of excellence | David Singleton (CTO of Stripe)": https://youtube.com/@AndrejKarpathy
→ references blog.singleton.io website

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evidence rules-v4
Link in episode "Building a culture of excellence | David Singleton (CTO of Stripe)": https://blog.singleton.io/

Entities found in this episode

websites 8

mentioned penname.co website

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evidence rules-v4
Link in episode "Building a culture of excellence | David Singleton (CTO of Stripe)": https://penname.co/
mentioned stripe.com website

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evidence rules-v4
Link in episode "Building a culture of excellence | David Singleton (CTO of Stripe)": https://stripe.com/
mentioned AndrejKarpathy website

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evidence rules-v4
Link in episode "Building a culture of excellence | David Singleton (CTO of Stripe)": https://youtube.com/@AndrejKarpathy
mentioned blog.singleton.io website

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evidence rules-v4
Link in episode "Building a culture of excellence | David Singleton (CTO of Stripe)": https://blog.singleton.io/
references penname.co website

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evidence rules-v4
Link in episode "Building a culture of excellence | David Singleton (CTO of Stripe)": https://penname.co/
references stripe.com website

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evidence rules-v4
Link in episode "Building a culture of excellence | David Singleton (CTO of Stripe)": https://stripe.com/
references AndrejKarpathy website

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evidence rules-v4
Link in episode "Building a culture of excellence | David Singleton (CTO of Stripe)": https://youtube.com/@AndrejKarpathy
references blog.singleton.io website

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evidence rules-v4
Link in episode "Building a culture of excellence | David Singleton (CTO of Stripe)": https://blog.singleton.io/

books 6

mentioned High Output Management Andrew Grove book

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evidence rules-v4
Link in episode "Building a culture of excellence | David Singleton (CTO of Stripe)": https://amazon.com/High-Output-Management-Andrew-Grove/dp/0679762884
mentioned Build book

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evidence rules-v4
Link in episode "Building a culture of excellence | David Singleton (CTO of Stripe)": https://amazon.com/Build/dp/1787634116/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0
mentioned Scaling People Tactics Management Building book

0.90

evidence rules-v4
Link in episode "Building a culture of excellence | David Singleton (CTO of Stripe)": https://amazon.com/Scaling-People-Tactics-Management-Building/dp/1953953212
references High Output Management Andrew Grove book

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evidence rules-v4
Link in episode "Building a culture of excellence | David Singleton (CTO of Stripe)": https://amazon.com/High-Output-Management-Andrew-Grove/dp/0679762884
references Build book

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evidence rules-v4
Link in episode "Building a culture of excellence | David Singleton (CTO of Stripe)": https://amazon.com/Build/dp/1787634116/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0
references Scaling People Tactics Management Building book

0.77

evidence rules-v4
Link in episode "Building a culture of excellence | David Singleton (CTO of Stripe)": https://amazon.com/Scaling-People-Tactics-Management-Building/dp/1953953212

concepts 6

mentioned Business concept

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Feed category: Business
mentioned Entrepreneurship concept

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Feed category: Entrepreneurship
mentioned David Singleton (CTO of Stripe concept

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Building a culture of excellence | David Singleton (CTO of Stripe)
discusses Business concept

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Feed category: Business
discusses Entrepreneurship concept

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Feed category: Entrepreneurship
mentioned CTO concept

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CTO

products 2

mentioned Features product

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evidence rules-v4
Link in episode "Building a culture of excellence | David Singleton (CTO of Stripe)": https://github.com/features/copilot
references Features product

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evidence rules-v4
Link in episode "Building a culture of excellence | David Singleton (CTO of Stripe)": https://github.com/features/copilot

persons 2

mentioned Lenny Rachitsky person

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Feed author/publisher: Lenny Rachitsky
hosted by Lenny Rachitsky person

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Feed author/publisher: Lenny Rachitsky

companys 2

mentioned Technology company

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Feed category: Technology
discusses Technology company

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Feed category: Technology

Episode description as stored

Brought to you by Mixpanel —Product analytics that everyone can trust, use, and afford | Eppo —Run reliable, impactful experiments | Braintrust —For when you needed talent, yesterday — David Singleton is Chief Technology Officer at Stripe, where he oversees engineering and design teams. Since joining Stripe, David has helped grow the technology org across the U.S. and developed new engineering hubs in Singapore and Dublin as well as Stripe’s fifth hub, remote engineering, across the globe. Before Stripe, he spent 11 years at Google, where he was VP of Engineering, leading product development and coordinating more than 15 different hardware partnerships. In today’s episode, we cover: • Hiring secrets that set Stripe employees apart • How to build a product-minded engineering team • How to operationalize meticulousness • Strategies for maintaining developer productivity at scale • The process of “friction logging” used to make better products • How AI is changing the way engineers work • Insights for planning and prioritizing at scale — Find the full transcript at: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/building-a-culture-of-excellence — Where to find David Singleton: • Twitter: https://twitter.com/dps • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidpsingleton/ • Website: https://blog.singleton.io/ — Where to find Lenny: • Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com • Twitter: https://twitter.com/lennysan • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/ — In this episode, we cover: (00:00) David’s background (04:22) How Stripe’s unique hiring process has helped them build an incredible team (12:27) An example of a relentlessly curious and passionate employee (14:11) Structured hiring loops at Stripe (16:39) How Stripe built a product-minded engineering culture (21:56) Stripe’s operating principles (25:39) How Stripe uses “friction logging” to build a meticulous product culture (32:22) How to operationalize friction logging (35:02) How to set PMs up for success (36:53) Stripe’s collaborative approach to product evaluation (41:17) Advice for presenting to CTOs (42:58) How to get better at building products (45:28) Stripe’s “engineerications” and the importance of getting into the weeds as a leader (52:03) Auto-testing and other strategies to improve shipping speeds (59:29) Improving developer productivity (1:00:54) How AI has impacted the way Stripe builds product (1:07:03) Why David is excited about Copilot (1:09:24) Lessons from managing people (1:14:30) Planning and prioritization based on first-principles thinking (1:18:23) Lenny’s feedback from using Stripe (1:19:14) What’s next for Stripe (1:22:10) Lightning round — Referenced: • Stripe: https://stripe.com/ • Jeff Weinstein: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffwweinstein/ • How we use friction logs to improve products at Stripe: https://dev.to/stripe/how-we-use-friction-logs-to-improve-products-at-stripe-i6p • GitHub Copilot: https://github.com/features/copilot • High Output Management by Andrew Grove: https://www.amazon.com/High-Output-Management-Andrew-Grove/dp/0679762884 • Build by Tony Fadell: https://www.amazon.com/Build/dp/1787634116/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0 • Scaling People: Tactics for Management and Company Building by Claire Hughes Johnson: https://www.amazon.com/Scaling-People-Tactics-Management-Building/dp/1953953212/ • Andrej Karpathy on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@AndrejKarpathy • Midjourney: https://www.midjourney.com/home/ • Emily Sands: https://www.linkedin.com/in/egsands/ • Michelle Bu: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michellebu/ — Production and marketing by https://penname.co/ . For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com . Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.lennysnewsletter.com/subscribe