executive recruiting @Stripe
Sebastopol, CA
Joined December 2010
- Tweets2.5K
- Following1.3K
- Followers578
- Likes131K
Blake McDowall retweeted
Ben has for many years been the best analyst in tech. I’m very much looking forward to this new @stratechery + @stripe partnership.
stratechery.com/2026/present…
Blake McDowall retweeted
Most children (and adults) can identify 100+ logos and nearly 0 native plant species
This is not healthy for society
Native wildlife roots us in our place and we should treat it with such reverence
If we do not root ourselves in the land it is very easy to lose our ourselves
Blake McDowall retweeted
potentially a hot take but @stablecoin is still underrated, such a good product and a world class team that just keeps shipping
Blake McDowall retweeted
Many founders wish they had true peers & thought partners in comms & people leadership roles.
If you’re gifted with words & people, these roles are opportunities to have meaningful impact at top companies and they’re less competitive than being a top founder/investor/creator.
Blake McDowall retweeted
In traditional Chinese cormorant fishing, the snares tied around the birds' necks are lose enough that they can swallow small fish, but not large ones, which they are trained to deposit at the feet of the fisherman. (Yes, this is a metaphor for our article on Chinese economic growth). Sketches below by Zachary Lank, our fantastic cover artist for the October issue of @WorksInProgMag . So happy with how this issue came out - our most beautiful yet imo. Hope you can get your hands on a copy.
The new issue of Works in Progress, arriving with subscribers this week, is our best ever and packed with must-read pieces.
Our lead essay is @RobinRivaton and @bswud on how China's cities, and the competition between them, have driven its rise to techno-industrial preeminence.
It also includes:
- @danwwang on Chinese and American second-tier cities,
- @tylercowen on the food of Brazil,
- @vpostrel on the invention of supermarkets,
- @CharlesCMann on the discovery of porcelain,
- @salonium on the myth of accidental scientific discovery,
- Stephen Kotkin on Leninism's fatal flaw,
- @owl_posting on biomedical hedge funds,
- @PMArslanagic on the formula for lovable cities,
- @pietergaricano on Ukraine as the future of war,
- @PatRubenFitz on the Bronze Age Collapse, and
- @SCP_Hughes on the social lives of hard-partying Victorian elites.
Plus: love and shame in Ancient Rome, making mosquitoes extinct, the return of 1930s dating norms, and why Pakistan is home to the world's best architect. And our new crossword, our cocktail column, classifieds, and more!
The new edition has had a massive design upgrade with beautiful, premium matte paper, a larger form factor, and bigger, clearer and more elegant typeography. It is a joy to read.
Copies arrive with subscribers this week: subscribe now or by October 16th to get yours.
worksinprogress.co/print/
Blake McDowall retweeted
Issue 26 is out now. Become a subscriber at worksinprogress.co/print.
The new issue of Works in Progress, arriving with subscribers this week, is our best ever and packed with must-read pieces.
Our lead essay is @RobinRivaton and @bswud on how China's cities, and the competition between them, have driven its rise to techno-industrial preeminence.
It also includes:
- @danwwang on Chinese and American second-tier cities,
- @tylercowen on the food of Brazil,
- @vpostrel on the invention of supermarkets,
- @CharlesCMann on the discovery of porcelain,
- @salonium on the myth of accidental scientific discovery,
- Stephen Kotkin on Leninism's fatal flaw,
- @owl_posting on biomedical hedge funds,
- @PMArslanagic on the formula for lovable cities,
- @pietergaricano on Ukraine as the future of war,
- @PatRubenFitz on the Bronze Age Collapse, and
- @SCP_Hughes on the social lives of hard-partying Victorian elites.
Plus: love and shame in Ancient Rome, making mosquitoes extinct, the return of 1930s dating norms, and why Pakistan is home to the world's best architect. And our new crossword, our cocktail column, classifieds, and more!
The new edition has had a massive design upgrade with beautiful, premium matte paper, a larger form factor, and bigger, clearer and more elegant typeography. It is a joy to read.
Copies arrive with subscribers this week: subscribe now or by October 16th to get yours.
worksinprogress.co/print/
Blake McDowall retweeted
Two things matter most when hiring executives or promoting leaders internally:
1. Can they hire exceptional people?
2. Can they solve hard problems?
External executives are usually experienced at building teams, but often lack the context and content depth to solve the hardest problems themselves.
Internal leaders usually get promoted because they’re exceptional problem solvers. The question is whether they can become exceptional at hiring.
The best leaders can do both.
Blake McDowall retweeted
I sat down with @natebjones to discuss how @Stripe is building economic infra for AI. We cover:
-Trust in the agentic economy
-Why @patrickc refers to 1/1/26 as day one of the singularity
-Building with @cursor_ai to stop fraudsters from stealing tokens
youtu.be/YTG0rdHPTDE?si=KdPF…
Blake McDowall retweeted
Excited to welcome Nik Koblov to OpenRouter as our head of engineering!
Nik previously led engineering through hypergrowth at Ramp, and now joins us in NYC to build the best team in the world for multi-model AI.
We are just 35 engineers today. Need a few more :)
I'm excited to share that after an incredibly fulfilling 6.5 years of building @tryramp, I've joined @OpenRouter as VP of Engineering. The world is multi-modal and multi-model — and it's only getting more so.
Blake McDowall retweeted
Earlier this year, Linear passed $100M in annual recurring revenue with over 40,000 paying customers, including OpenAI, Figma and Salesforce -- all while remaining cashflow positive.
Instead of raising cash we do not need, we completed a $99M tender offer at a $2.5B valuation. Startups are one of the few places where the people doing the work own a real piece of it. Sometimes that ownership turns into money that actually changes something (a down payment, years of freedom to go build the thing you've been thinking about). I've been on the receiving end of that. Getting to help run a company where other people can realize those outcomes is the part of this I care about most.
We still believe a small, focused team can accomplish far more than people expect. Maintaining quality as the product expands requires scaling thoughtfully. We currently have 30+ open roles. If you want to build what comes next with us, we're hiring.
Today we're announcing our second employee tender offer.
We passed $100m ARR earlier this year and now have more than 40,000 paying customers.
The tender lets our teammates participate in that success at a $2.5B valuation:
linear.app/now/sharing-growt…
Blake McDowall retweeted
I sat down with @davidgeorge83 @a16z to talk about all things Stripe and agentic coding as plastic injection molding in the 1940s. You'll have to let me know if the analogy works.
We went into:
- Taking a "build everything" mindset to meet this moment of immense human empowerment
- Why agentic commerce hasn’t yet had its Opus 4.5 moment
- Scaling taste
And much else besides.
Blake McDowall retweeted
We're hiring a bunch of roles, but one in particular I wanted to highlight is for Link—our consumer product helping more than 300M people pay in a click, protect purchases, manage finances, and shop via agent! Join us!!! stripe.com/careers/listing/s…
Blake McDowall retweeted
my occasional reminder... if you're a startup and things aren't quite working out — i've been there... — and your team would love to come lead something new, cool, and important at @stripe... i have three specific products in mind we want to build quickly.
[email protected]
Blake McDowall retweeted
new @stripe (careers) website: stripe.com/careers
my favorite part, an H1 devoted to: "Compatibility: Working at Stripe is not for everyone"
