Stephen previously co-founded Modulz which created Radix UI, now used by Vercel, Linear, and Jetsi.

Now he’s the founder of the most influential design tool on the market — Paper.

In this episode, Stephen gives us a look at how Paper is fundamentally changing the speed of traditional design flows.

Some highlights:

• How to drive alignment as a company
• How Stephen cultivates empathy in designers
• How Stephen views the traditional design role
• How Paper is paving the way for modern design tools
• How Paper is bringing creativity back to design tools through shaders
• a lot more

• David Hoang Strategy is Compressing article
• Stephen posted on DeviantArt in early days
• Created Radix UI at Modulz
• Paper’s Liquid logo release on Twitter

A year ago, it felt like AI-generated UI was about to have its moment. But now the landscape looks a LOT different than what people expected.

So this episode answers the question "what's next?"

Because there's still an untapped opportunity that I believe will become very real soon...

• Kyle Turman (Designer at Anthropic) https://www.dive.club/deep-dives/kyle-turman
• Nad Chishtie (1st designer at Lovable) https://www.dive.club/deep-dives/nad-chishtie
• Zach Leach (Head of Design at Gamma) https://www.dive.club/deep-dives/zach-leach
• Jordan Singer (AI at Figma) https://www.dive.club/deep-dives/jordan-singer
• Pranathi Peri (Product designer at Vercel) https://www.dive.club/deep-dives/pranathi-peri
• Alex Schleifer (Former Chief Design Officer at Airbnb) https://www.dive.club/deep-dives/alex-schleifer

This week, Zach Leach (Head of Design at Gamma) gives a behind-the-scenes of what it’s like designing one of the hottest AI products in the world today.

He shares a ton of techniques and lessons learned from working with LLMs—including some ways to make AI fun again :) And we also learn what makes design at Gamma a bit unorthodox in all the best ways.

Some highlights:

• What makes Gamma a team of “AI Pioneers”
• How Gamma designers prototype ideas in code
• How Zach has iterated on interaction patterns for AI
• How to think about AI functionality at the system level
• How Zach imagines his design role in the coming years
• What Zach has learned about designing AI-powered flows
• a lot more **

• The core team came over together from Optimizely
• We talked about prototyping in Bolt and Lovable

The more I study today's top design teams, the more clear it’s becoming that we're entering the era of a new type of design leader— one with taste and the skills necessary to uphold craft.

So this episode studies this new archetype of leader by highlighting clips from design leaders at Airbnb, Ramp, Duolingo, and more…

• Alex Schleifer (Former Chief Design Officer at Airbnb)
• Mig Reyes (VP of Product Experience at Duolingo)
• Derek Briggs (Design + Code at Hypermode)
• Teo Connor (VP of Design at Airbnb)
• Diego Zaks (VP of Design at Ramp)

Mig Reyes is the VP of Product Experience at Duolingo (and a design director at Instagram before that).

In this episode he shared a behind-the-scenes of how design operates at Duolingo (as well as some harsh truths designers need to hear).

• Common portfolio review mistakes
• How communication skills build influence
• Mig’s strategy behind hiring junior designers
• How to succeed in executive product reviews
• Mig’s mandate to raise the design bar at Duolingo
• How Mig revamped design management at Duolingo
• Why Duolingo changed from “UX” to “Product Experience”
• a lot more

• Jacob Nielsen (commented on LinkedIn post)
• Brett Westervelt (VP of Design at Instagram)
• Ryan Sims (Chief Design Officer at Duolingo)
• Luis (CEO of Duolingo)
• Companies mentioned: Instagram, Airbnb, Coinbase, Meta, OpenAI, Figma

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)