Lucy Stein just watched Givebutter cross $10 billion in donations raised for nonprofits, ten years after she joined the company as employee number seven.

Please join me in welcoming Lucy Stein to the Work 20XX podcast.

In Austin for the second year collaborating with the team at Running Remote, we sat down with Lucy to learn how she built a People function from a completely blank slate, and what it takes to keep it intact as the company scales past 200 employees.

Givebutter's culture runs on three codified values: radical transparency, no assholes, and wired for fun. Lucy breaks down what each one actually means in practice, from a weekly all hands where finance shares real revenue numbers, to an explicit team-wide push to assume positive intent before reacting to a Slack message. She also talks through the recent integration of We Are For Good, a nonprofit media and community company Givebutter acquired, and why culture fit was the very first thing she checked.

The conversation closes on AI adoption inside a remote-first team, and Lucy draws a direct line between the skills that make distributed work succeed and the skills that make AI adoption succeed. Her advice for managers right now: PR for your team. When someone on your team is doing something sophisticated with a new tool, make sure it gets seen.

Oh, and yes, we talk about Mr. Butter, the company mascot with a butter slice for a head.

Lucy Stein: Clear is Kind, Assume Positive Intent | Work 20XX with Jeff Frick Ep 64 from Running Remote