Deb Kawamoto

VP of Design @Vanta. Track record leading multi-disciplinary design teams thru hyper-growth. Builder/Maker, 26+2, scuba diving, gluten-free.

[Deb Kawamoto @debkawamoto]

@calcsam Book

[Bloomberg @business]

Compliance startup Vanta is worth more than $4 billion in a new $150 million funding round https://t.co/4QGWvg22QP

[Andrew Reed @andrew__reed]

Shoutout to @TrustVanta @christinacaci on Vanta's new fundraise at $4.15B. Wonderful product, insane customer ROI, also great billboard copy.

Christina often talks about "stacking rice on the chessboard". Here's what that looks like, in real life:

[Christina Cacioppo @christinacaci]

Today, we’re announcing @TrustVanta's Series D and new valuation – $4.15 billion – led by @Wellington_Mgmt alongside @sequoia, @ycombinator, @CrowdStrike, @GoldmanSachs, @jpmorgan, @craft_ventures, and @Atlassian.

Vanta’s mission is to help businesses earn and prove trust.

[Deb Kawamoto @debkawamoto]

Had a chance to speak at @hidovetail #InsightOut25 on #TrustIsATeamSport during my first year and a half at @TrustVanta. @sandrahluo made a great doodle of the talk if you want a fun visual version of cliff notes. How fun would a PRD be if it came like this? 😂

[sandra 🌻✨ @sandrahluo]

Did a lil doodle during @debkawamoto’s talk at #InsightOut25 — loved the design leadership pov as an IC designer

[Deb Kawamoto @debkawamoto]

@sandrahluo Wow! What a great way to take notes! You are quite talented! I’m so glad you found it helpful! IC designers have so much influence with their craft! Let me know if you try a trust experiment!

[Deb Kawamoto @debkawamoto]

Saw this on the @Apple App Store which was extremely deceptive when searching for grok. @X can you take a look and see who’s behind it?

[Vanta @TrustVanta]

💰 The value of Vanta 💰

According to a new IDC white paper, Vanta…

- Provides a 526% return on investment
- Brings customers $535,000 per year in benefits.
- Pays for itself in 3 months

Download the white paper: https://t.co/XMLYK9kt80

[Vanta @TrustVanta]

🚨 Big news coming out of #VantaCon24🚨

We just announced a slew of new product updates to help you collaborate seamlessly, automate workflows, improve reporting capabilities, and so much more: https://t.co/JGVDSfgMZy

[David Eckstein @davidneckstein]

I had the opportunity to sit down with Judy Khan Shaw on the floor at @NYSE to share a look behind the momentum driving @TrustVanta Series C fundraise and $2.45B valuation from @sequoia, @GoldmanSachs, @jpmorgan, @CrowdStrike , @Atlassian, @HubSpot , @Workday.

[Christina Cacioppo @christinacaci]

1/ Thrilled to announce we’ve raised $150mm Series C at a $2.45bn post valuation led by @sequoia alongside our existing investors @ycombinator, @CrowdStrike, @craft_ventures, @Atlassian, @Workday, and @HubSpot and new friends @GoldmanSachs and @jpmorgan. The terms on this round are exactly as we aim Vanta experiences to be: straightforward and clean.

[Michael Shellenberger @shellenberger]

I’m afraid I have some terrible news. The governor of America’s largest and richest state has just signed a law that puts 10 million children and adolescents in grave danger of medical mistreatment.

The media headlines have it wrong. They claim that California Governor Gavin Newsom’s new law protects children by stopping public schools from outing their new gender to their parents.

It does just the opposite. It makes children vulnerable to irreversible and lifelong medical abuse and mistreatment. And it is all based on the pseudoscientific idea that some children are born into the wrong bodies and that we can change a person’s sex through drugs and surgery.

For any of this to make sense, you have to understand what’s happening in Britain. Several years ago, the government appointed a well-respected pediatrician named Hillary Cass to investigate whether it was ethical to block the puberty of children, give them opposite-sex hormones, and perform surgeries on their bodies to make them feel better about their gender. Dr. Cass came back a few weeks ago and said no, absolutely not.

Around the same time, the British government banned puberty blockers nationwide. And, just a few days ago, the new Labor Party government affirmed that it would maintain the former government’s ban.

In her report, Cass said that the so-called “social transition,” whereby a child adopts the identity of the opposite sex, is not a neutral act and has psychological consequences. This means it is the first step toward medical intervention.

What Gavin Newsom has done is actively prevented schools from informing parents that their children have been put on a medical pathway.

This is an outrageous attack on the rights of children and parents. Children have a right to go through puberty. No adult should be able to block their puberty. And parents have a right to know if their child thinks that they are the opposite sex or were born into the wrong body.

We have seen with leaked internal documents of the leading gender medicine group, WPATH, that these medical interventions, namely puberty blockers, hormones, and surgery, are not only irreversible but result in sterilization and loss of sexual function.

Children or adolescents are simply not mature enough to understand the effects of so-called “gender-affirming care.” They cannot, in other words, give their informed consent.

The new law creates the grave risk that activist teachers, students, and outside groups will convince their children that they were born into the wrong body, and hide their “social transition” from parents, which will lead to harmful medical mistreatment.

As such, the law that Newsom just signed is the opposite of what both children and their parents need. We need schools to immediately warn parents if their children think they are the opposite sex.

After all, this is a diagnosable psychiatric condition known as “gender dysphoria.” And if your child has a psychiatric disorder, whether anxiety, depression, an eating disorder, or gender dysphoria, you have a right to know.

And schools must stop teaching children, or allowing other people to teach children, the pseudoscientific and dehumanizing ideas that it’s possible to be born into the wrong body and possible to change one’s sex.

As such, either the legislature, the courts, or a ballot initiative will be required to nullify Newsom’s law. Until then, it is important to spread the word to parents that California public schools are fundamentally unsafe for the millions of children who attend them.

[Manuel Muñoz Solera @mamuso]

⭐️ At GitHub, the design team is growing, and we're hiring a Product Designer II. The position is full-time and remote, based in the US.

Join us and help shape the DX of the tools used by millions of developers every day.

https://t.co/udCrHny5Co

[Brian Balfour @bbalfour]

I’ve secretly 🤫 been using a new product every week that is now live for everyone.

Today we are launching Reforge Artifacts and it’s completely free 🆓. Take a look 👇

Artifacts let you access the real work from those who have done it before, so you’ll never have to start from scratch. Some examples:

👆 Product Review Systems from Casey Winters, Tom Willerer, and others

🧠 Product Strategy and Roadmaps from Adam Fishman and Sachin Rekhi

🪜 Career Leveling Guides from Julie Zhou, Barron Ernst, and Kevan Lee

🧪 Growth + Product Experiments from Lauryn Isford, Matt Woods, and Ben Williams

📈 Quantitative analyses from John Egan, Dan Wolchonok, and Yousuf Bhaijee

🧐 User research projects from Amber Rucker, Mike Fiorillo, Shelly Eisen-Livneh

And sooooo many more.

You can sign up here → https://t.co/zcearP8HBR

Preview some artifacts here → https://t.co/VJpV8Q3HoT

These are NOT blank templates. Artifacts are the real work that contain the substance, nuance, insights, and realness.

Here are a few things you can do with Artifacts:

🔎 Find artifacts relevant to what you are working on
💡 Access notes from the creator about the story, lessons, and insights
⭐️ Save artifacts and share them with colleagues
🔁 Remix artifacts to create your own version

Artifacts is such a simple but powerful idea I can’t believe we didn’t think of it before. I’ve wasted so much time recreating something thousands of others have already done.

Artifacts can help accelerate a lot of work (like open-source code) by enabling building on each other.

Would love to know what you think.

[Deb Kawamoto @debkawamoto]

A great article on @Affirm thesis and breaking down the economics. I’m still so bullish on this credit product (even though I left) It really is the best thing to ever have happened to consumers who use credit!” https://t.co/VaNsRcoJOA

[Max Levchin @mlevchin]

Awful to see a Silicon Valley institution collapse in a flash. SVB helped so many startups over the years with capital and advice. Affirm doesn't partner with SVB, but my heart goes out to all the startup CEOs who now have one more crisis to deal with. 💔

[drew dillon @drewdil]

I kinda admire people who can put up with jobs they don’t really like because they pay well. I’ve never had that gene.

[Deb Kawamoto @debkawamoto]

@DavidSacks +1 on more opportunity for yammer 2.0

[David Sacks @DavidSacks]

RIP Yammer. The product was ahead of its time and paved the way for freemium and social in the enterprise. However I think there is still more room for innovation in the space. More to announce on that soon.

https://t.co/701DL9fDzq

[Affirm @Affirm]

We applaud @CFPB and the Biden administration for cracking down on excessive credit card late fees https://t.co/7qxlUlkjYh. (1/2)