Money buys a lot of talent; and in Stripe's case taste as well.
(There is proof that significant financial resources aren't needed to do great work in a lot of personal websites. Most recent example I came across: https://bruno-simon.com.)
Thanks for posting this.
I've been at a company that many considered to have excellent design and that received a lot of attention here (Heroku). There was a culture that permeated the company around beautiful design and what I would call "maker excellence". It was a place where people who liked building great things (both engineers and designers) felt at home.
I totally understand the need to be a bit less "opinionated" as you expand your audience, but they were definitely memorable.