Hello!
I'm Brie.

weird but warm
@zebriez
brie.wolfson gmail dot com

A. work I'm proud of

Bringing the company center of gravity back with a collectively-curated feed of our best work.

cofounded with Eeke de Milliano, funded by Arc,
Sequoia's seed-stage catalyst

A series of zines (and from time-to-time, some hands-on support) to help organizations approach company culture with the care and rigor they treat building products.

supported by Emergent Ventures

Stripe Press publishes books about economic and technological advancement. I brought the imprint and its first four books to life.

couldn't have done it without Tyler Thompson, Sasha deMarigny, Hemlock Printers, and our authors

Making Figma the go-to tool for the next generation of designers, no matter what kind of classroom they're learning in. I stood up programs and resources for teaching, learning, and creating in Figma.

couldn't have done it without Stephanie Zou, and many wonderful students and educators

waxings

Notes on Taste

an attempt at capturing the essence of a slippery term. Written in the style of Susan Sontag’s “Notes on ‘Camp.’”

What I Miss About Working at Stripe

Nostalgia for another way of working. And wanting to bottle up the org magic.

In Depth Podcast

A conversation with Brett Berson (First Round) about the virtues of writing at work.

Writing Cultures Win

a non-exhaustive list of my favorite things about working at companies with a culture of writing.

Good Stewardship in Slack

if you really want to get me riled up, all you have to do is ask me about my thoughts on Slack norms.

Writing in Public, Inside Your Company

produced for a workshop on business writing with David Perell’s Write of Passage.

How I Got My Brain Back

a (very) personal essay about emerging from depression.

Ditch Your To-Do List and Use These Docs to Make More Impact

How to pick the right stuff to focus on and make sure you get it done.

Execs Podcast

a conversation with Erik Torenberg about the mechanisms company culture moves through.

B. a small part of bigger things

Stripe Atlas Guides

guides on running a real internet business, authored by industry experts and experienced entrepreneurs

Figma's About Us Page

the story of creative tools coming to the browser and a vision for the future of design that is more open, accessible, and collaborative

Reflections on my time at Stripe

after nearly 5 formative and magical years at Stripe, thoughts on what made Stripe different

Bringing personality to company conferences

led mainstage talks for Figma's inaugural user conference and produced short films to capture the essence of Stripe's team and users for our employee conference

Company-wide planning at Stripe

extensive research into how great organizations plan and created a process that fit our organizational structure, company phase, and team culture

Williams Women's Soccer

captained my college soccer team to three conference titles and one final four appearance, the program now holds three national championship titles. 2009 conference player of the year.

Back2School? 
Interview Series

a series of conversations to help students think through their approach to their fall semester, and education more broadly, amidst the pandemic

Episode App Launch at Pocket Gems

A network and platform for readers, writers, and players, that changed the way we tell and consume stories on our phones

Welcoming acquired teams to Stripe

a cultural bridge between Stripe and newly-acquired companies, laid the foundation for Stripe's corporate M&A function

C. projects I admire

D. under the bed

...for now, at least

Written for an audience of one- me- Brie's Wax is a virtual shoebox of things I love on the internet. Some new things, some old things, some short things, some long things. Some I found, some were shared by others. All are worth returning to some time. I don't post anymore but the archives live on.

My novels

I wrote two books about family stuff that Harper Collins published. Rosie Colored Glasses (2018) was my first and That Summer In Maine (2020) followed. Both works are semi-autobiographical, but I suppose most stories are. I decided to write fiction because telling a true story seemed harder somehow.

The Moth

True stories, told live. In 2012, I got on stage at Public Works and shared a very short version of my life's story. It was a rush. I did it a few more times, once at San Francisco's Castro Theater (that one made the podcast). My favorite story to tell was about little lies my siblings and I told our little sister. And also the one thanking my sister, Lana.

Using my hands

Not for typing. I spent a spring making chocolate at Dandelion, a summer helping small restaurants with food prep at La Cocina, and a winter trimming thorns off roses in a small town outside of Bogota. I also coached soccer at The Bay School, but mostly used my feet.

On being a human at work

I wish this wasn't so hard. I started an interview series, Peers at Work, about career musings and philosophies from the brilliant people around us. I posted a few times to a blog, So Many Rootlets, about things that made me feel more like a person at work. I didn't know it then, but this was the start to many more years of writing, thinking, and reading on this stuff. I'm slightly embarrassed of how empty these sites are.

Maybe some day...

I'll finally do these things. A website with teardowns of public apologies. An oral record of a particularly hard day in my family's story. A podcast about helping people ask a hard question to someone near and dear. A middle grade fiction novel about a teenage scandal. A research project on how different cultures mourn. An essay on what's so special about playing women's sports. Finally learn to play the piano and compose a song.

•••

notes to self