In this episode, Asher and Kelly kick off a new Unlearn format and talk through what’s really changing across the tech ecosystem. Kathleen Curry from Workday joins the pod.

They dig into OpenAI recruiting a CPO-level partnerships role, Shopify’s partnership shakeup, and the latest partner program moves from Google, Microsoft and ServiceNow.

The conversation also looks at what the BCG AI Radar tells us about CEOs taking ownership of AI, and why partnerships now have to focus on adoption, expansion, and real customer value.

Most people still think about partnerships as a sales channel. Stripe’s Erika Wool doesn’t. She leads product and strategic partnerships and defines her job as helping Stripe build businesses that wouldn’t exist without partners.

In this episode, Erika walks through how she moved from consulting and Edelman into Google and Stripe, how product partnerships evolved as Stripe scaled from “easiest way to accept card payments online” to a multi-product platform, and how she explains the value of these bets to executives and the board.

Chapters

00:00 – Coming back from break and introducing Erika

00:38 – Erika’s path: think tank, consulting, Edelman, Google, Stripe

09:30 – What product partnerships mean at Stripe today

15:25 – How to articulate the value of product partnerships to executives

21:25 – Keeping integrations alive: SLAs, joint roadmaps, and care after launch

31:30 – How Stripe structures its partnerships org (pillars, partner engineering, strat/ops)

37:05 – Reporting lines, product ownership, and prototyping with partners

43:20 – Building bridges with sales, channel, and customer-facing teams

48:40 – Why Erika chose partnerships and what keeps her in the role

52:00 – Looking beyond tech: Costco, airlines, Walmart, and how AI changes everything

Key Takeaways

1. Product partnerships should build businesses, not just integrations: Erika frames her team’s role as helping Stripe build businesses that literally wouldn’t exist without partners, especially in regulated fintech where Stripe is not the bank, card network, or payment method.

2. Value stories need both market insight and user data: To justify a product partnership, you can’t just say “we need this partner.” You have to tie what’s happening in the market, what your users are asking for or missing, and what the commercial model looks like over time – even when the forecast isn’t perfect.

3. Launch is the starting line, not the finish line: Stripe bakes in SLAs, QBRs, and joint business plans with partners, but the real work is ongoing: updating products as both platforms evolve, entering new markets, and deciding which new partner features are worth integrating.

4. Org structure should follow products and partner types: Stripe organizes partnerships by product pillar and partner type (financial partners, payment methods, Terminal, etc.), backed by partner engineering and a dedicated strategy/ops function inside the partnerships org. Regional complexity comes later.

5. Great partnership leaders build bridges to CEOs, CFOs, and GTM teams: Erika’s world requires direct engagement with product and company leadership. At the same time, sales, channel, and CS are key sources of market signal and distribution for what product partnerships create.

Key Quotes

“You know, there is one motion. It's called B2B, right? Like in your world, you're actually a B2C company first. And then you have all this like B2B stuff on the backside of it. At least that's kind of how I think about it.” - Asher Mathew

“I feel like it's something that a lot of partner leaders struggle with because it's not necessarily as straightforward as channel partnerships, where you're very much focused on the transactional layer. It gets much more complex.” - Kelly Sarabyn

“You do, you are responsible for how that partner impacts the business that Stripe builds on top of it. And so you've got to know those numbers as well and be able to think about how that will change over time.” - Erika Wool

Final Thoughts

Product partnerships sit in a messy middle: part product, part strategy, part relationship management, and part internal politics. Erika shows how Stripe built an org where partner engineering, strategy/ops, and product partnerships can prototype, negotiate, and scale with some of the most important companies in the world while still serving Stripe’s users first.

In this episode, Asher and Kelly sit down with Richard Ezekiel to unpack his book COELEVATE, a practical framework built from decades in the trenches in Silicon Valley and as part of the venture capital ecosystem. Richard breaks down how to build a “virtual company” between partners, why operational rigor is often overlooked, and how partner professionals can move beyond buzzwords to drive real business value.

Chapters

04:28 – From Wired Magazine to Amazon

10:29 – The Partnership T: A Customer-Centric Framework

17:42 – The Real Reason Richard Wrote COELEVATE

24:05 – Why 70% of Partnerships Fail

29:13 – Building a Partnership Like a Virtual Company

34:42 – The Problem with “Alliances” and Industry Nomenclature

42:33 – Scaling with Platform Partnerships

48:12 – AI, Methodology, and What’s Next for COELEVATE

Key Takeaways

1. The 70% Problem - Most partnerships fail within two years, not because of execution issues, but because the foundational idea wasn’t strong enough.

2. The Virtual Company Mindset - A great partnership should function like a shared operating entity between two companies.

3. Idea Quality > Execution - You can’t fix a weak idea with flawless execution. Strong partnerships start with high-quality, differentiated ideas that actually matter to the customer.

4. Platform Strategy Isn’t Plug-and-Play - Scaling to one-to-many partnerships doesn’t mean copy-pasting one-to-one motions.

5. It’s Time to Codify the Discipline - We’ve built sales, marketing, and product into academic and operational disciplines. It’s time to do the same for partnerships with a common language, methodology, and structure.

Key Quotes

"You’re not building a deal. You’re building the architecture for two companies to evolve together. If that framework’s not there, the partnership won’t last." - Richard Ezekiel

"Most partner pros don’t realize they can take their skills into entirely new industries. The ceiling moves when you stop thinking of partnerships as just a B2B function." - Asher Mathew

"Execution depends on culture. You can’t build a strategic partnership if your company values or brand DNA fundamentally clash, even when the numbers look great." - Kelly Sarabyn

Final Thoughts

Partnerships are complex, evolving ecosystems that need better tools, better thinking, and stronger foundations. Richard Ezekiel’s book COELEVATE is a serious attempt at codifying what most of us learn the hard way: that sustainable partnerships need structure, creativity, and a real operating model behind the press release.

This episode is for anyone trying to bring good ideas to life through collaboration. Tune in to hear what’s next for the discipline and what Richard is building to make the methodology real and usable with AI.