Lenny's Podcast: Product | Career | Growth
Building beautiful products with Stripe’s Head of Design | Katie Dill (Stripe, Airbnb, Lyft)
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the use of the word "beauty" in books that have been digitized by Google has decreased, like pretty dramatically. And it's aligned with this idea of like, well, functionality is king, functionality is what matters. And as if people think about functionality in beauty as like two opposite things. Like, no, they're not two opposite things. You know, functionality is important. And actually beauty enhances functionality because it does make things easier to use, is more approachable, more compelling to use. And the other piece of it that is not talked about in business as often is just the importance of how people feel. Things that are more beautiful increase trust. You see that like, we've put painstaking detail into this and we care about the details of how something works. And that gives you assurance that we care about other details that you can't see too. Today, my guest is Katie Dil. Katie is head of design at Stripe, where she oversees product design, brand and marketing creative, web presence, user research, content strategy and design-ups. Katie was previously head of design at Lyft and head of experience design at Airbnb. She's built and led design teams at three different hyper growth companies, seeing the team scale at least 10x and two of which Airbnb and Stripe are some of the biggest and fastest growing companies in the world and also the best design products. In her conversation, Katie shares stories of trials and tribulations of leading large design teams, processes she's put in place for operationalizing quality, how she thinks about quality and beauty very practically, how design can directly lead to growth and examples of this that led to big lift and conversion at Stripe. Plus, a math formula she uses to increase team performance, how she suggests organizing your design and product teams, what to look for in design hires and so much more. I was really lucky to get to work with Katie while at Airbnb and I am so excited to have her on the podcast. With that, I bring you Katie Dil after a short work from our sponsors. This episode is brought to you by Sidebar. Are you looking to land your next big career move or start your own thing? One of the most effective ways to create a big leap in your career and something that worked really well for me a few years ago is to create a personal board of directors, a trusted peer group where you can discuss challenges you're having, get career advice and just kind of gut check how you're thinking about your work, your career, and your life. This has been a big trajectory changer for me but it's hard to build this trusted group. With Sidebar, senior leaders are matched with highly vetted, private, supportive peer groups to lean on for unbiased opinions, diverse perspectives, and raw feedback. Everyone has their own zone of genius so together we're better prepared to navigate professional pitfalls leading to more responsibility, faster promotions, and bigger impact. Guided by world-class programming and facilitation, Sidebar enables you to get focused, tactical feedback at every step of your journey. If you're a listener of this podcast, you're likely already driven and committed to growth. A Sidebar personal board of directors is the missing piece to catalyze that journey. Why spend a decade finding your people when you can meet them at Sidebar today? Jump the growing weight list of thousands of leaders from top tech companies by visiting
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