As the head of design at Cursor, Ryo is at the cutting edge of designers who ship code instead of mocks. He showed me how he built a retro OS with AI and did a live demo of adding a new feature using Cursor’s new agent mode. We also covered how to avoid AI design slop and how the Cursor team reached $29B valuation without full-time PMs.

Ryo and I talked about:

(00:00) Why designers should go directly to code

(02:06) Building a retro calculator app in one shot with plan mode

(08:04) How Ryo manages multiple AI agents at once in Cursor

(15:18) How Cursor builds without PMs and who does the PM work instead

(16:43) How to avoid creating purple AI design slop (it’s not prompting)

(20:01) Inside RyOS: A beautiful retro operating system built with AI

(30:22) How to turn vague ideas into detailed specs with Cursor

(37:47) The fastest way for PMs and designers to learn Cursor

Thanks to our sponsors:

Reforge: AI prototyping tool for product builders - https://reforge.com/peter

Linear: The best platform for AI agents - https://linear.app/partners/behind-the-craft

Get the takeaways: https://creatoreconomy.so/p/design-to-code-with-cursor-head-of-design-ryo-luWhere to find Rio:

X: https://x.com/ryolu_

Website: https://ryo.lu/

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