I talk to a lot of designers at the pinnacle of their career…

So I’m always trying to figure out how they’ve evolved the way they practice design over the years.

Once I hear the same answer from a few different people I start to pay attention 👀

So here are a few trends I’m noticing for how the best designers get alignment on their teams.

• Alex Cornell (Gen AI at Meta)
• Yuan Wang (Head of Design at Maven)
• Rich Arnold (Design Manager at Coinbase)
• Michael Wandelmaier (Principal Designer at Dropbox)
• Aashman Goghari (Design Lead at Palantir)

Anthropic has quickly become a category-defining company and in this episode Kyle Turman (their first full-time designer) shares a behind-the-scenes of what it was like designing Claude.

If you’re interested in startups, AI products, or the art of prompting then this conversation will be right up your alley.

Some highlights:

• Kyle’s story of wearing every hat for Claude
• What it’s like designing conversational UX flows
• How Kyle uses Claude in his personal design process
• Why Kyle only half-finished his Claude designs in Figma
• How Kyle thinks about designing for emotion and feeling
• How Kyle thinks about the future of design as a discipline
• Kyle’s thoughts on whether chat should the dominant pattern for AI
• a lot me

• We mentioned Tuhin Kumar’s episode (Head of Design at Luma AI)
• We mentioned Julius Tarng
• We talked about the Sesame conversational AI demo
• Machines of Loving Grace by the Anthropic CEO Dario

Recommended Episode:

George Kedenburg III (former designer lead at Humane)

There's a parallel I'm noticing between what's happening today with AI and what happened way back in 2013.

So this episode studies the early days of Snapchat, the emergence of high-fidelity prototyping tools, and answers the question “what does it look like to have agency in 2025?”

• Jack Brody (Chief Product Officer at Suno)
• Jorn van Dijk (CEO of Framer)
• Julius Tarng (Research engineer at Anthropic)
• Tuhin Kumar (Head of Design at Luma AI)
• Maheen Sohail (Gen AI at Meta)
• Meng To (Founder of Design+Code)

Tuhin Kumar has designed at some of the most prolific companies in the world (early Facebook, Airbnb and Apple).

But everything’s changing in his new role…

Because now he’s the Head of Design at Luma AI which is one of the companies leading the charge on generative AI.

So this episode goes deep on how the value prop of design is shifting.

Some highlights:

• The #1 trait of craft-oriented companies
• Why you can’t think of AI products as just a tool
• How to invest in the right skills as a designer today
• What created Tuhin’s career tipping point at Airbnb
• What Tuhin is pulling from Apple and Airbnb’s culture
• How working with AI as a material is changing everything
• The biggest lesson Tuhin learned while writing system prompts
• a lot more

Tuhin mentioned Maheen Sohail’s “Unprompted” podcast with AI

Ammaar Reshi (former Head of Design at Eleven Labs)

There are two goals that designers almost always group together:

1. Make a useful product
2. Make it easy to understand

But my interview with Sam Stephenson changed my thinking completely 👀

So this episode breaks down Granola’s go-to-market strategy and why I’m copying it for my own startup.

• Sam Stephenson (Co-founder of Granola)
• Colin Dunn (Co-founder of Visual Electric)

Jack Brody joined Snapchat as one of the early designers where he spent 10 years and eventually became Head of Product.

So this week’s episode features a lot of lessons learned from the early design team at Snap and an inside look at what makes their culture so special.

But we also go deep into Jack’s new role as the Chief Product Officer at Suno where he’s helping design the future of music. So we end up having quite the discussion on creative launchpads and the impact of AI.

Some highlights:

• Suno’s vision for the future of music
• How AI flips the design process on its head
• Jack’s viral Kim Kardashian moment at Snap
• How Jack grew his strategy muscles at Snap
• The 3 types of competitive advantages with AI
• The big unlock while designing Suno’s creation UX
• a lot more

Suno is hiring!

I’ve interviewed a lot of designers who have landed some pretty high profile roles and I’m starting to notice some trends 👀

So this video breaks down 6 portfolio tips that you can use to stand out.

Lovable has quickly become the go-to way I build my ideas with AI and this week we get to hear from their first designer Nad Chishtie.

We go deep into what it takes to succeed as a founding designer and all of the ways AI is shaping modern product teams.

Some highlights:

• Nad’s tips for collaborating creatively with AI tools
• How designers can be enablers instead of bottlenecks
• How Nad balances Figma with new AI tools like Lovable
• Why Lovable built and deleted a Figma-like layers panel
• What it’s like at the fastest growing startup in European history
• a lot more

• Nad mentions one of his favorite AI tools Granola
• I talked about Unicorn Studio

My #1 source of imposter syndrome is when I see designers prototyping beautiful interactions like this or even this.

It’s one thing to create gorgeous interfaces, but crafting complex interactions from first principles is designing on expert mode. And it’s a big reason why Linear lists interactions as a requirement three separate times in their job description for principal designer.

So this week’s episode is all about how to unlock the skill of interaction design 👇

• Gavin Nelson (Mobile designer for Linear)
• Janum Trivedi (Prototyping specialist at Airbnb)
• Alex Cornell (Gen-AI designer at Meta)
• Dennis Muller (Founder + designer at Amie)
• Dan LaCivita (Co-founder of Play)

I use Granola every single day and it’s quickly become a beloved product in the tech community.

But it was a winding journey to get there…

So in this episode their co-founder and designer, Sam Stephenson, gives a behind-the-scenes of what it was like going 0 → 1 with Granola:

• How to navigate the idea maze for an AI product
• What Sam has learned about prompt engineering
• What it takes to succeed as an early stage startup designer
• How they arrived at Granola’s breakthrough interaction pattern
• A glimpse of Granola’s future product roadmap and teams strategy
• The piece of advice that reshaped how they think about onboarding
• a lot more

• ⭐ Granola is offering 3 months free for you and anyone on your team(!!) using this link
• They’re also hiring a founding designer
• Sam mentions Soleio who was their first investor
• Daniel Kahneman is the psychologist Sam mentions
• The Science of Managing our Digital Stuff
• David Lee is the YC Partner who gave them onboarding advice

If you liked this episode then you’ll enjoy the interview with Colin Dunn (co-founder and designer of Visual Electric)