Building Enduring Infrastructure: Lessons from the First 12 Years of Stripe

Stripe rewrote its API three times before ever launching. Their CTO explains how this user-first obsession became the foundation for building enduring, global infrastructure.

#1about 4 minutes

The Channel Tunnel as a metaphor for enduring infrastructure

The long and challenging history of the Channel Tunnel illustrates how great infrastructure succeeds by providing clear utility and enabling network effects.

#2about 4 minutes

Understanding system change with the pace layering framework

Stewart Brand's pace layering model helps explain how systems evolve by separating components based on their rate of change, from fast-moving fashion to slow-moving culture.

#3about 5 minutes

Building a culture around the "users first" principle

Stripe's culture is built on concrete operating principles like "users first," which guided early decisions like rewriting the API three times to perfect the developer experience.

#4about 3 minutes

Designing a consistent and evolving API ecosystem

A rigorous API review process ensures consistency and predictability across Stripe's products, enabling the creation of solutions like Stripe Connect to meet specific user needs.

#5about 4 minutes

Scaling the company with a remote-first engineering hub

Launching a remote engineering hub in 2019 allowed Stripe to access a wider talent pool and gain deeper insights into global user needs and local payment behaviors.

#6about 4 minutes

Building a global payments and treasury network (GPTN)

The Global Payments and Treasury Network (GPTN) was created as a foundational layer to solve complex international payment and money transfer challenges for users.

#7about 2 minutes

Enabling an ecosystem with Stripe Tax and Marketplace

Products like Stripe Tax automate complex compliance, while the Stripe Marketplace opens the platform for third-party developers to build and sell their own solutions.

#8about 2 minutes

Building enduring governance for a long-term platform

The Valencia Water Court serves as an analogy for creating long-lasting governance structures that build trust and reliability for a shared infrastructure platform.