# Executive Function: Building systems that can make decisions without you | Jeanne DeWitt Grosser (COO, Vercel)

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/in-depth-1318680/executive-function-building-systems-that-can-make-decisions-without-you-jeanne-dewitt-grosser-coo-vercel
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/in-depth-1318680/executive-function-building-systems-that-can-make-decisions-without-you-jeanne-dewitt-grosser-coo-vercel.md
Podcast: [In Depth](https://stenobird.com/podcast/in-depth-1318680)
Published: 2026-02-05T14:47:00+00:00
Episode link: https://traffic.megaphone.fm/FRCH1763950732.mp3
Audio file: https://traffic.megaphone.fm/FRCH1763950732.mp3
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JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/in-depth-1318680/episodes/executive-function-building-systems-that-can-make-decisions-without-you-jeanne-dewitt-grosser-coo-vercel
Duration seconds: 4551

## Resource

In the first Executive Function episode, Brett sits down with Jeanne De Witt Grosser, Chief Operating Officer at Vercel. Before Vercel, Jeanne spent nearly a decade at Stripe, where she built and scaled global revenue teams and led product partnerships. In this conversation, she unpacks what separates good executives from extraordinary ones, shares her rigorous executive hiring process, and reveals the brutally honest performance review feedback she'll never forget. In today's episode, we discuss: What it takes to operate at 30,000 feet and ground level simultaneously The leap from frontline manager to manager of managers Inside Jeanne's executive interview process The inherent value of driver trees for metrics Why context is everything References: Akamai: https://www.akamai.com Claire Johnson: https://www.linkedin.com/in/claire-hughes-johnson-7058/ Culture Amp: https://www.cultureamp.com Guillermo Rauch: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rauchg John Collison: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnbcollison/ Next.js: https://nextjs.org Nike: https://www.nike.com OpenAI: https://www.openai.com Patrick Collison: https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrickcollison Stanford Graduate School of Business: https://www.gsb.stanford.edu Stripe: https://www.stripe.com Vercel: https://www.vercel.com Where to find Jeanne: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeannedewitt Where to find Brett: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brett-berson-9986094/ Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/brettberson Where to find First Round Capital: Website: https://firstround.com/ First Round Review: https://review.firstround.com/ Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/firstround YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@FirstRoundCapital This podcast on all platforms: https://review.firstround.com/podcast Timestamps: (01:17) What separa…

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