Ripple

When you first understand what Ripple does, you think, "Wow, that's crazy" -- enabling people to send money anywhere in the world, in any currency, in 5 seconds, practically for free. Then you start asking how it works, and you think, "Wow, that's REALLY crazy" -- it's a distributed network that's open source and open for anyone to join and use. Then, you ask about how the company makes money if it's all open source, and you find that it's a startup that actually makes money.

Ripple Labs has an unbelievably talented and intelligent team. I have met some of the smartest people I know here, but they are also the type to take the time to explain (in whatever level of technical detail you want) exactly what they're working on, what it does, and how it works. I am truly inspired by the people I work with.

People work hard here because they believe the company and the technology have great potential, and they are passionate about and challenged by what they do. At the same time, it's not the kind of place where you're expected to work crazy hours. The CEO has a family and kids, and so he's going to go home at a reasonable time, and that kind of attitude definitely trickles down from him. There are some people who are out by 6 p.m. most days, and others who work consistently over the weekends because this is what they love doing. There's a great balance, and overall, it's a fantastic place to work.

Lastly, there were about 5 days in the past year when I was not excited to go to work, and those were largely because I didn't get enough sleep the night before. It's really an inspiring team, and I've had an opportunity to work on some fascinating and challenging projects.

This is a startup that's growing fast. The team has grown by 4 or 5 times in the past year, and we're constantly hiring more. As such, we haven't gotten all the processes right yet, and it's important that new employees seek out the help, explanations, or guidance they need. Individual teams are still quite small, but it's definitely getting to the point where not everyone knows one another.

Really my only gripe is that over the past couple of months, we've gone from emphasizing how flat the organization is to hearing constant mentions of the Leadership Team's strategy offsite meetings.

As the company grows, it obviously becomes impossible for everyone to participate in strategy conversations. However, I think the leadership and strategy of the company could be more open and inclusive if we thought about it first as a collaborative process that not everyone has the time or bandwidth to participate in (though they could if they wanted to), and less as the domain of the "Leadership Team" whose findings then get shared with the rest of the company.