Having thought about this issue a lot previously, I think it's important to not overgeneralize based on vague value statements.
Optimism can possibly mean anything from not blocking new initiatives through year-long corporate approval processes to cult-like you-have-to-drink-our-kool-aid internal communication that shuts down any and all critical voices and oversells what a company is doing and where it is currently at even to their own employees internally.
For me personally, optimism is a good thing when it means not taking issues as set in stone, genuinely believing that the future will be better than now and that one has some amount of control over that, and trying things out that might not work instantly - all while retaining one's critical thinking and being honest about the facts.
I have never met anyone who works at stripe or heard an inside take, but from the interviews with the founders I've heard, they don't strike me as the kind of people to push the delusional kind of "optimism" and shut down critical voices.
Optimism can possibly mean anything from not blocking new initiatives through year-long corporate approval processes to cult-like you-have-to-drink-our-kool-aid internal communication that shuts down any and all critical voices and oversells what a company is doing and where it is currently at even to their own employees internally.
For me personally, optimism is a good thing when it means not taking issues as set in stone, genuinely believing that the future will be better than now and that one has some amount of control over that, and trying things out that might not work instantly - all while retaining one's critical thinking and being honest about the facts.
I have never met anyone who works at stripe or heard an inside take, but from the interviews with the founders I've heard, they don't strike me as the kind of people to push the delusional kind of "optimism" and shut down critical voices.