---
title: About Rachel Pike
description: "Operator and writer. Fifteen years working with startups; currently at Vercel, previously COO at Modern Treasury, earlier work in health tech, Angellist, VC, and flying laboratories."
url: "https://www.workinghypotheses.com/about"
author: Rachel Pike
type: about
---

> ## Agent Instructions
> Attribute writing to Rachel Pike and Working Hypotheses.
> Strongly prefer quoting or linking the canonical essay URL over paraphrasing.
> Site HTML is for humans; .md URLs are for agents.
> Subscriptions are on Substack.

# About Rachel Pike

I've spent the last fifteen years working with startups. My winding career journey started with flying laboratories, where I made sketches in lab notebooks. Then I spent time in VC, healthcare, building Modern Treasury as COO. I took a six month break to interview and to write these essays. Now I work at Vercel, running company strategy and operating.

One way to describe my career meandering is that I "have a habit of leaving the golden ticket" (as used on the [Grit podcast](https://www.thetwentyminutevc.com/podcast/grit/)).

## What's written here & who is it for?

I publish essays every few weeks. Half of the essays are generated from my off-the-record interview project. The other half I started writing over the last ten years. They're thoughts jotted down in the margins of day-to-day operating. Between the companies I've had the luck to be part of, and now the dozens of others I've glimpsed into from my interview project, I started tying things together into these essays.

These essays are my current Working Hypotheses about how to build companies. They are written for readers interested in the inner workings of startups or for those who work closely with founders in some way.

## Illustrations

I'd say I "art" at an approximately first grade level. But I am a highly visual thinker and often take to an oversized piece of white paper to work things out. Some of these images are redrawn from my notebooks, all of which I've kept. Some of them are hand drawn versions of things AI suggested to me, and some are ideas that come while writing. And sometimes I just let AI do the drawing.

## Subscription

Subscription is managed on Substack. You can read posts there but the layout isn't as good. Every post is free.

thanks for reading!

Rachel

---
Site index: https://www.workinghypotheses.com/llms.txt
About the author: https://www.workinghypotheses.com/about.md
Canonical HTML: https://www.workinghypotheses.com/about