EP 83: Silicon Valley Legend Claire Hughes Johnson (Advisor, Stripe) Unveils Her Best Operating Advice

The Logan Bartlett Show

Claire Hughes Johnson is known as one of the top operators in Silicon Valley. Claire shares the most interesting lessons and stories from her time as COO of Stripe and as an early senior executive at Google.

We discuss leadership versus management, how to have difficult conversations with members of your team, lessons she's learned from hiring thousands of people over the years, and much more.

Show notes:

Claire’s Book, Scaling People: https://press.stripe.com/scaling-people

Running an Effective Staff Meeting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIiaFW874q8

(0:00) Intro

(0:42) Joining Google vs Stripe

(14:17) Holding yourself to a high standard

(21:03) Making the hire

(24:32) Player vs Victim

(28:52) Balance of discussing accomplishments

(30:51) Org structure in job interviews

(34:07) The most successful hires drove me crazy

(37:12) Running a team with inclusivity

(41:01) Operating principles

(48:06) Say the thing you think you cannot say

(53:31) Distinguish between management and leadership

(58:32) The golden rule is not a great tactic for a leader or manager

(1:03:01) Job titles are cheap

(1:11:36) Too many companies make their principles so idealistic that they don't resonate with employees

(1:18:57) Don't let perfect be the enemy of good

(1:23:38) Disappointing people at the rate they can absorb

(1:30:07) Manage people out of seats earlier

(1:37:03) Being on the board of a company built to last

(1:42:38) What makes the Collison's so special?

(1:45:08) You pack it, you carry it

Mixed and edited: Justin Hrabovsky

Produced: Rashad Assir

Executive Producer: Josh Machiz

Music: Griff Lawson

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About the Show

Logan Bartlett is a Software Investor at Redpoint Ventures - a Silicon Valley-based VC with $6B AUM and investments in Snowflake, DraftKings, Twilio, and Netflix. In each episode, Logan goes behind the scenes with world-class entrepreneurs and investors. If you're interested in the real inside baseball of tech, entrepreneurship, and start-up investing, tune in every Friday for new episodes.

Executive Producer: Rashad Assir

Producer: Leah Clapper

Mixing and editing: Justin Hrabovsky

Check out Unsupervised Learning, Redpoint's AI Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@UCUl-s_Vp-Kkk_XVyDylNwLA

🎙 Listen to the show

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-logan-bartlett-show/id1606770839

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5WqBqDb4br3LlyVrdqOYYb?si=3076e6c1b5c94d63&nd=1

Google Podcasts: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5zaW1wbGVjYXN0LmNvbS9zb0hJZkhWbg

🎥 Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCugS0jD5IAdoqzjaNYzns7w?sub_confirmation=1

Follow on Socials

📸 Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/theloganbartlettshow

🐦 Twitter - https://twitter.com/loganbartshow

🎬 Clips on TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@theloganbartlettshow

About the Show

Logan Bartlett is a Software Investor at Redpoint Ventures - a Silicon Valley-based VC with $6B AUM and investments in Snowflake, DraftKings, Twilio, and Netflix. In each episode, Logan goes behind the scenes with world-class entrepreneurs and investors. If you're interested in the real inside baseball of tech, entrepreneurship, and start-up investing, tune in every Friday for new episodes.