Joining the company in 2012, Shiner has doubled the team at 1Password year-over-year. Though their success was a team effort that revolved around a deeply ingrained culture of customer centricity, a large part of their growth also had to do with CEO Jeff Shiner’s unique approach to hiring and scaling. The entire org, instead, consisted mostly of developers and customer support reps-about a 50/50 split. There was no marketing department, no sales department, and no human resources department. There were team leads, but no formal managers. Team members at 1Password also didn’t have formal titles until a few years ago, even though the company had grown to around 150 employees. When they did accept funding, they became Accel’s largest ever single investment in the firm’s 35-year history, raising a $200 million Series A in 2019. When it comes to tech startups, there’s a great deal of unique origin and growth stories out there, but one of the most interesting stories we’ve heard probably belongs to 1Password.ĭespite being the world’s leading password manager, 1Password didn’t accept any venture capital funding until 14 years after its inception.

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