David Singleton

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

Source 0752023-05-0418,192 words

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Opening
David Singleton (00:00:00): The way we think about product development at Stripe, it really is to find the correct set of early users to kind of co-create the product with. Maybe the best example of that is Stripe billing. When we got to starting the Stripe billing product, we realized that there were a number of our existing users, these were companies like Figma and Slack, were already using Stripe for payments, but had these subscriptions business models....

The opener starts with biography before advice. That order makes the guest legible as a person before the listener extracts tactics.

Accept praise cleanly
David Singleton (00:04:38): Thank you. Well, it's a pleasure. It's a lot of fun. Stripe Sessions is our annual user conference, so we get together a bunch...

Accepts praise without shrinking from it or turning it into a performance.

Name the work
billing subscriptions, our financial automation products, helping you close your books, this stuff matters. You cannot get it wrong. And we also operate, Stripe today, we move as much money as all of...

Names a concrete strength, artifact, or contribution instead of offering generic praise.

Ask with curiosity
David Singleton (01:07:12): We're excited about co-pilot. We've made co-pilot available to our engineers...

Turns a moment that could become critique into a question about the guest's thinking.

Accept praise cleanly
Lenny (01:29:28): David, thank you again for being here. David Singleton (01:29:31): Thank you. It was a lot of fun, Lenny. Lenny (01:29:33):...

Accepts praise without shrinking from it or turning it into a performance.

Ending
Lenny (01:28:55): David, I so appreciate you making time for this, especially during this hectic period ahead of sessions. Two final questions. Where can folks find me online if they want to reach out, maybe learn more about what you're up to you, and then how can listeners be useful to you? David Singleton (01:29:08): Cool. Okay. Well, I am @DPS on Twitter. That is definitely the best place to get hold of me, but you can also check right my personal blog at blog.singleton.io....

The ending stays curious after the formal conversation is almost done.