Eric Sager, COO of Plaid, describes how the company maintained operational focus during Visa's planned acquisition of Plaid, which was later abandoned.
“In the case of Visa, the team that was actively day-to-day working on the transaction was actually quite small and everyone else was a hundred percent focused on continuing to grow the business.”
quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading:
filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard
(the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →
More from Eric Sager
Disclosure
Sager: Plaid intentionally avoids running at 100% capacity to preserve agility
“Hey, I really don't ever want to be at like right at a hundred percent capacity. I'm willing to pay for some inefficiency so that as the market evolves, as our product evolves, et cetera, like I have the capacity to kind of adjust to it in real time, much more…”
Eric SagerJul 16, 2026▶ 25:23Why great leaders make themselves obsolete | Eric Sager (COO, Plaid)
Opinion
Sager: Not considering Plaid for US bank connectivity is a fireable offense
“I think if you think about in the US, like building a product Where it depends on bank connectivity or open finance connectivity. The odds are just insanely high that you're going to consider plan, right? It just, I mean, it's like a fireable offense. Like if …”
Eric SagerJul 16, 2026▶ 31:53Why great leaders make themselves obsolete | Eric Sager (COO, Plaid)
Insight
Sager: Most toxic high performers reform when given direct, constructive feedback
“Once you say that to people, the vast majority of people I've ever worked with, Their reaction to this is, hey, Eric, thank you. I really appreciate you caring about me enough to give me that feedback. And then they do their best to course correct. And it migh…”
Eric SagerJul 16, 2026▶ 8:05Why great leaders make themselves obsolete | Eric Sager (COO, Plaid)
Insight
Sager: The idea that faster execution is always better is nonsense
“I don't think it's fair to say that, Hey, no matter what the decision is or what you're talking about in the context of the business, that faster is always better. I think that's nonsense, right? And there's plenty of examples where you don't want to do that.”
Eric SagerJul 16, 2026▶ 11:26Why great leaders make themselves obsolete | Eric Sager (COO, Plaid)
AssertionNot checkable as stated
Sager: Fintech competitors that sacrificed precision for speed failed completely
“I think we've had competitors that sacrificed, you know, everything at the altar of speed and it didn't work out and it didn't, and not at all.”
Eric SagerJul 16, 2026▶ 15:01Why great leaders make themselves obsolete | Eric Sager (COO, Plaid)
Disclosure
Sager: Plaid will accept account unprofitability to ensure customer success
“There's just, there's almost no amount of money, right, that I wouldn't reasonably spend to make sure that one of our customers gets to a good outcome. And even if that makes that account unprofitable, That experience will kind of resonate across the rest of t…”
Eric SagerJul 16, 2026▶ 34:29Why great leaders make themselves obsolete | Eric Sager (COO, Plaid)
Made with StarZero
Turn any episode into a week of clips.
This entire site, about 80 episodes transcribed, diarized, checked and made playable,
runs on the StarZero media pipeline. Drop in your own episode and the podcast clipper finds the
moments worth sharing, cuts them, captions them, and reframes them for every feed.
We use essential cookies to make the site work. With your permission we
also use analytics cookies (Google Analytics and Mixpanel) to understand
usage and improve StarZero. See our Cookie Policy.