Katrina Lake founded Stitch Fix driven by intellectual curiosity and the desire for impact, not fame or wealth. A $10 million valuation mattered for family security, but beyond that, more money held little appeal. She argues capitalism wrongly assumes money is the primary human motivator when purpose and fulfillment drive people more powerfully.
Chapters
Being famous is not a motivation for me. Like, you know, being rich was really not, you know, was not a motivation for me. And so, like, you know, I have my own political and social beliefs that conflict with where I am in, like, in my career and where I am in society. And, you know, I think that, like, you know, for, like, for me, I started Stitch Fix because I was intellectually super interested in this problem. And I felt like this— I wanted a job that was intellectually stimulating, where I felt like I could, you know, create change. And, like, and, you know, I started were very, you know, for reasons that were really more of just like, this is the job I'd like to have. And like, I can create this myself. And, you know, wealth was really not part of the equation. And, you know, I think what's, what's just like a, and I don't know if this is going to be true for many, for everybody, but like, you know, I would say, you know, getting to like $10 million or something like that was very powerfully motivating to be able to feel like, you know, I could hit a milestone that meant that like me and my family would be comfortable and that we'd be able to whatever, like, that is a very, very powerful milestone, you know, then getting to, you know, these crazy numbers with all of these zeros, like, you know, it's not— I like, I don't find that as, as much of the motivation. And so I think it's, you know, it's interesting that like, societally, there's a lot of obsession around it. And maybe for others, they find that path really, really motivating. But like, you know, I believe that we can motivate people in general through actually different means. Like, I think people find purpose really motivating. I think people people find impact really motivating. Like, I actually think there's a lot of other things that are more motivating to people than dollars. And, you know, I think as a society, like, I think, you know, capitalism is one where you are, you know, where you assume that like the primary motivation of people is money. And I, you know, I'm not sure that that's totally correct.
