Paige Finn DohertyFounding Partner, Behind Genius · Founding Partner at Behind Genius Ventures

Jeanne Grosser: what was it like to sell Gmail as a product?

14 Sept 2022 · 1 min

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In this interview segment, Jeanne Grosser reflects on her experience joining Google when it had about 2,000 employees and later Stripe at around 400 employees. She highlights how many people misunderstand the timing of joining fast‑growing companies, noting that she was part of the longest‑tenured 0.4% of Google’s workforce and similarly senior at Stripe. She emphasizes that in world‑class companies it’s rarely "too late" to join because of abundant opportunity. When asked about the early Gmail launch and its waitlist, she clarifies that she was not directly responsible for selling Gmail, indicating a distinction between her role and the product’s go‑to‑market activities.

Chapters

So, can you give us a bit of context into what it was like to sell Gmail as a product in the early days? I heard there was a waitlist, but would love to hear more about what that process was like.
Yeah, so let me, let me take a step back and say one thing first. So, I joined Google at 2,000 employees, and I joined Stripe at 400 employees. And I think one of the things that a lot of people get wrong about startups is a lot of folks would've looked at those 2 companies and been like, oh, Jean, you joined those You know, when I left Google, I had been at Google for longer than 99.6% of the current employee base. And I haven't looked up Stripe, but I'm pretty sure I'm also— I've been here longer than 99% of the company now as well. When you, you know, really world-class companies, it's often really never too late. And there's, you know, there's a ton of potential there. But sort of going back to your question on Gmail. So I actually, I technically wasn't selling Gmail. That was another thing I did.