What the Plaid and Brex CTOs learned scaling teams, skills, products during years of hyper growth

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I’m Tearsheet editor in chief, Zack Miller.

I’m joined today by the CTOs of Plaid and Brex.

The successful fintechs that found early escape velocity did so by rapidly responding to their customers’ needs for complementary products and services. There are just a handful of companies that were able to do this – to go from 0 to 1 in a way that required massive scaling and building product platforms that can support this growth. And a lot of times that required scaffolding, deconstruction, and re-scaffolding while the growth engine is revving.

Plaid’s Jean Denis and Brex’s Cos are two of the best in the business. I felt like this discussion was a masterclass in what it takes to lead tech and product teams at the highest level. Having both CTOs on the podcast was also interesting to see where they concurred with one another and where they departed.

We discuss the biggest challenges they’ve learned in scaling and the organizational changes they’ve made to support different stages of their growth. We look at the acquisitions both companies made and how Brex and Plaid integrated new teams, technologies, and products. I ask both Cos and Jean Denis about their approach to talent and how their teams are organized to harness their people’s talents. Lastly, we drill down further into how their product planning and product pipelines work, and how both have evolved as their companies have grown.

Here’s my conversation with the CTOs of Brex and Plaid.

The big points

* Lessons learned in scaling the team.

* How did the team structure change over time?

* Importance of domain expertise.

* Integrating new talent into the company.

* The evolution of the business model.

* Thinking about product surface area.

* Turning R&D budget into operating budget.

* How far out does product planning go