Stitch Fix CEO Katrina Lake wants to remake your closet and Silicon Valley

FIFTEEN FLOORS ABOVE SAN FRANCISCO’S historic shopping district, Stitch Fix CEO Katrina Lake is scrolling through her client queue, selecting clothes for a 47-year-old mother in Southern California. Lake is in the midst of a busy month. In addition to running the 5,800-person company she started out of her apartment seven years ago, work is taking her to Berlin and New York City. But she is still taking time to style “fixes,” the personalized boxes of clothes that her company has shipped to more than 2.5 million people in the past year.

“What makes this company special is undoubtedly technology,” Lake says, glancing over the “match scores” that algorithms have assigned to rows of shirts and skirts on her screen. Clients can choose to buy the items in their box or send them back, and these