From 0 to VP: How I got promoted to VP at Amazon

Ethan Evans is a writer, career coach, course instructor, and retired VP at Amazon. During his 15 years at Amazon, he helped invent Prime Video, Amazon Video, the Amazon Appstore, Prime Gaming (formerly Twitch Prime), and Twitch Commerce. Ethan holds 70+ patents. Has reviewed 10,000+ resumes, conducted 2,500+ interviews, and made 1,000+ hires.

In this episode, we discuss everything on:

* Formula on growing and promotion in your career

* Strategies on how to become a good manager

* Why are bad managers good for you?

* How do you hire for ownership?

* Lessons from working with Jeff Bezos

* How to build trust with your team and managers?

* The Magic Loop (Career Playbook)

* Mistakes new managers make

* Why do some people’s careers stagnate?

* Transitioning into management

Some key takeaways:

* Follow the (secret) Magic Loop to speed up your career growth: do your current job well, ask your boss how you can help, do what they ask, suggest ways to help that align with your goals, and repeat.

* Bouncing back from failure is simpler than you imagine. Acknowledge the error, gain knowledge from it, and put in continuous effort to rebuild trust. Despite an unsuccessful product launch at Amazon, Ethan earned back Jeff Bezos's confidence and was given a promotion.

* Going from IC to Manger is a new career—10x in influence. Transitioning from individual contributor to manager requires a new skill set, and it's essential to recognize that you're changing careers. Being the best engineer or designer doesn't guarantee an executive role; the ability to influence other executives is crucial.

Watch this interview today:

Where to find Ethan Evans:

* LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ethanevansvp

* YouTube: Ethan Evan’s video

* Website: https://www.ethanevans.com

Where to find Felix Lee:

* LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/felixleezd/

* X: https://x.com/felixleezd

* ADPList’s Newsletter: https://adplist.substack.org

In this episode, we cover:

0:00 - Introduction

2:00 - Who is Ethan Evans?

5:33 - Lessons from 80s, 90s

8:48 - Who are Executives?

10:37 - Executive vs Management

14:34 - Mistakes managers make

18:14 - How to transition into management?

23:33 - Value of "bad" managers

31:31 - The Magic Loop

38:20 - Dark side of Magic Loop

44:15 - Career stagnation

48:30 - Failing Jeff Bezos

55:04 - How to rebuild/build trust?

57:10 - Hiring for ownership

1:08:40 - Interview with Elon Musk

1:14:36 - Handshake policy (no lawyers)

1:21:00 - No return for offices

1:26:25 - Resources

Resources:

* Don Norman: 21st Century Design, Controversy, AI, Hard Problems, and Legacy. Watch on YouTube.

* Guy Kawasaki: Lessons from Steve Jobs & Mindset to Achieve Greater Things. Watch on YouTube.

* Julie Zhuo: Early Facebook Days, Leaving Meta & Building Data-Informed Products. Watch on YouTube.

* Chris Do: Reveals Truth on Good Design, Money, Psychedelic, Storytelling and Legacy. Watch on YouTube.

* Jakob Nielsen (Special Keynote): 10 Foundational UX Insights. Watch on YouTube.

* Kunal Shah: How to Make Career Luck, Secret to Happiness. Watch on YouTube.

Recommended Reads For You:

* Design Career Ladder Cheatsheet (NEW)

* How I got 50 job offers with zero experience

* This is the 1 skill designers will need

* What six years at FAANG taught me about designer growth

* A guide to becoming a senior product designer

Sponsor ADPList’s Newsletter: https://www.passionfroot.me/felix or the BeMore Festival 2024: https://bemore.adplist.org/sponsors

Question: Who else should I interview next on ADPList Growth Series?

Thank you for being a part of ADPList’s Newsletter! I hope you found it valuable. Forward it to a friend if you did, or share it on socials to get others thinking.

I'll keep creating great stuff if you watch, listen, or read. I read every reply if you care to reply :). You might get an answer back.

Until next week.

Felix Lee

Why Some People Succeed and Others Fail?

Ever wonder what sets people like Steve Wozniak, Stacey Abrams, Mark Rober, and Jane Goodall apart? Why do some people seem to eat, sleep, and breathe “awesome?”

In this episode, Guy Kawasaki joined me to discuss his life and career, patterns of successful people, Thinking Remarkable, brutally honest thoughts on Steve Jobs and Elon Musk, joining Canva, Advice to Young People, and more.

He’s an extremely rare guest on any podcast 🔥, and we’re so humbled that Guy Kawasaki has agreed to come aboard ADPList’s Interview! This video interview is already on YouTube trending!

Guy Kawasaki Interview—Lessons from Steve Jobs and How To Leap from Average to Exceptional In Life

Guy Kawasaki is the Chief Evangelist of Canva, the Author of Think Remarkable, and the Host of the Remarkable People podcast. He was also the Chief Evangelist of Apple (part of the original team responsible for marketing the Macintosh) and trustee of the Wikimedia Foundation.

He has written 16 books, including The Art of the Start 2.0, The Art of Social Media, and Enchantment. He is also known as the father of modern evangelism and one of the most influential figures in marketing.

In this episode, we discuss everything on:

* Lessons working with Steve Jobs and Early Apple.

* Early Life in Hawaii: The “Ohana” Culture.

* The Importance of Connecting the Dots Backwards.

* Why do some people succeed and others don’t?

* 3 Traits to Be Remarkable in Life and Career.

* How You Can Achieve Greater Things in Life.

* Canva and the groundbreaking culture.

* The Pursuit: Dropping out from Law School.

* Silicon Valley v.s. Rest of the World.

* Design Wars: Figma v.s. Canva v.s. Adobe.

* Life & Career Advice for Younger People.

Some takeaways:

* Connect Your Dots Backwards—Success is not linear, focus on making the best decisions, not always the right ones, nurture growth, grit, and grace, don't let self-doubt hold you back, and create a growth mindset environment for success.

* Traits of Remarkable People (Must Watch!)—Growth, Grit and Grace. Grit means keep going when things are no longer easy or fun; success comes from showing up, and is a skill that can be learned. Believing in a growth mindset and having heroes like Steve Jobs can inspire people to achieve more extraordinary things.

* Mission-Led A**holes vs. Ego-Centric A**holes. Enough said about this, but Steve Jobs was a Mission-Led A**hole, not ego-centric. And in the interview, here’s what we can learn from it.

* Grit Matters. Melanie Perkins teaches perseverance and the importance of surrounding yourself with people who are better at their jobs than you, as demonstrated by her experience with Canva.

Listen now on YouTube (a must-watch)!

Where to find Guy Kawasaki:

* LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/guykawasaki/

* Website: https://guykawasaki.com/remarkable-people/

* (Free Course) How to be Remarkable: https://www.canva.com/learn/guy-kawasaki/

Where to find Felix Lee:

* LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/felixleezd/

* X: https://x.com/felixleezd

* Newsletter: https://adplist.substack.com

In this episode, we cover:

0:00 - Introduction

2:24 - Hearing Lost

6:34 - Childhood: Hard & Love

9:28 - The Dropout

11:10 - Lessons: Ohana & Hawaii

15:15 - The Pivot: Life & Jane Goodall

22:04 - Right Decisions

26:10 - Think Remarkable: Patterns of Successful People

28:28 - Mindset 1: Growth

31:57 - Environment for Success

34:22 - Mindset 2: Grit

37:27 - Dream Big

41:44 - Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew

44:52 - Silicon Valley

47:00 - Lessons from Steve Jobs

50:43 - Mindset 3: Grace (not Elon Musk)

55:00 - Guy Kawasaki joining Canva

58:39 - Lessons from Canna

1:02:54 - What's important to Guy Kawasaki?

1:05:34 - Retiring

1:07:33 - Canva vs Figma vs Adobe

1:08:56 - Advice for Young People

Resources for Leaders & Product Builders:

* Don Norman: 21st Century Design, Controversy, AI, Hard Problems, and Legacy. Watch on YouTube.

* Julie Zhuo: Early Facebook Days, Leaving Meta & Building Data-Informed Products. Watch on YouTube.

* Chris Do: Reveals Truth on Good Design, Money, Psychedelic, Storytelling and Legacy. Watch on YouTube.

* Jakob Nielsen (Special Keynote): 10 Foundational UX Insights. Watch on YouTube.

* Kunal Shah: How to Make Career Luck, Secret to Happiness. Watch on YouTube.

Recommended Reads For You:

* Design Career Ladder Cheatsheet (NEW)

* How I got 50 job offers with zero experience

* This is the 1 skill designers will need

* What six years at FAANG taught me about designer growth

* A guide to becoming a senior product designer

Sponsor ADPList’s Newsletter: https://www.passionfroot.me/felix

Question: Who else should I interview next on ADPList Growth Series? 🙏

Thank you for being a part of ADPList’s Newsletter! I hope you found it valuable. Forward it to a friend if you did, or share it on socials to get others thinking.

I'll keep creating great stuff if you watch, listen, or read. I read every reply if you care to reply :). You might get an answer back.

Until next week.

Felix Lee

Our exclusive conversation with Nir Eyal, Best-Selling Author of Hooked and Indistractable. Previously, he taught as a Lecturer in Marketing at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and Design School, and sold two technology companies since 2003.

Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World | A conversation with Nir Eyal

Nir Eyal is the author of two bestselling books, Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products and Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life. His books have resonated with readers worldwide, selling over 1 million copies in over 30 languages.

Nir Eyal writes, consults, and teaches about the intersection of psychology, technology, and business. Nir previously taught as a Lecturer in Marketing at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford. In this episode, we discuss

* #1 World’s Cause of Death.

* Distraction vs Traction (and why it matters).

* Most Dangerous Distractions you don’t even notice.

* Why you should NOT use To-Do Lists.

* Power of Time-Boxing Calendar

* Setting Right Intentions

* Rise of AI in our lives

* Longevity/Bio-hacking: Reality of this (must-watch!)

* When do you over-optimize yourself?

* The Hardcore Mindset of David Goggins.

* What is the Meaning of Life for Nir Eyal?

* Advice to Young People.

Some key takeaways

* Why focus is a real asset in today’s world? Everything is on the other side of controlling your attention and your time—this is truly how we choose our lives. Only the top 1% in every industry will eventually learn and grow this habit. If you want to be the best, watch this.

* The goal is not to finish what you set out but to be in the present. The goal is not to finish anything; it's to work on whatever you want to do for as long as you said you would without distraction. This trains your mental discipline to be able to be focused in any environment.

* Don’t reply to emails first thing in the morning. 👀 You should continue watching to hear more about this; it’s very, very interesting.

* STOP using To-Do Lists; use Time-Box Calendar instead. This methodology researched by Nir Eyal will keep you focused on a daily basis down into the minutes; it’s very, very effective. I’ve already been on it since a year ago, and remains to be the best yet.

Watch this full exclusive interview here.

In this episode, we cover:

0:00 - Introduction

1:11 - #1 Cause of Death

3:47 - Distraction

6:27 - Dangerous Distractions

7:44 - Focus vs Regret

10:23 - Myth vs Method

12:42 - "To-Do List" Is Harmful

15:07 - "Time-Box Calendar"

18:03 - Intentions

19:50 - Focus Strategy

24:05 - Artificial Intelligence

30:19 - AI Opportunity

36:00 - Bio-hacking vs Overdoing

40:19 - Optimization: Real vs Scam

45:42 - David Goggins

49:50 - Meaning of Life

54:55 - Advice to Young People

Sponsor ADPList’s Newsletter: https://www.passionfroot.me/felix

Free resources included:

* Online book, Indistractable: http://geni.us/indistractable

* Indistractable bonus content is here: http://www.nirandfar.com/indistractable/

* Indistractable summary article: https://www.nirandfar.com/skill-of-the-future/

* Timeboxing article: https://www.nirandfar.com/timeboxing/

* Values article: https://www.nirandfar.com/common-values/

* Nir’s free habit tracker tool: https://www.nirandfar.com/habit-tracker/

* Nir’s free schedule maker tool: https://www.nirandfar.com/schedule-maker/

* List of Nir’s top articles: https://www.nirandfar.com/best-articles/

* ADPList’s YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/adplist

Where to find Nir Eyal:

* LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/nireyal/

* Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/user/nirandfar

* Twitter - https://twitter.com/nireyal

* Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/nirandfar/

* Instagram - http://instagram.com/neyal99

Where to find Felix:

* LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/felixleezd/

* X: https://x.com/felixleezd

Reach your goals faster with the guidance of the world’s top leaders:

* Chris Do: Reveals Truth on Good Design, Money, Psychedelic, Storytelling and Legacy. Watch on YouTube.

* Julie Zhuo: Early Facebook Days, Leaving Meta & Building Data-Informed Products. Watch on YouTube.

* Don Norman: 21st Century Design, Controversy, AI, Hard Problems, and Legacy. Watch on YouTube.

* Jakob Nielsen feat. Sarah Gibbons: State of UX, Generalist, AI and Leadership. Watch on YouTube.

* Kunal Shah: How to Make Career Luck, Secret to Happiness. Watch on YouTube.

If you find this post valuable, check out our top posts:

* What six years at FAANG taught me about designer growth

* A guide to becoming a senior product designer

* This is the 1 skill designers will need

🎉 Join ADPList Meetups Near You

* 🇺🇸 San Francisco | Config Commons, June 25th: https://lu.ma/souzal3i

* 🇺🇸 New York City, June 26th: https://lu.ma/l5vkrdgq

* 🇺🇸 Houston | Config Watch Party Day 1 & Day 2, June 26-27th: Day 1: https://lu.ma/tc7jedjy, Day 2: https://lu.ma/u451sbtz

* 🇺🇸 San Francisco | Config After Party, June 27th: https://lu.ma/rshkf0of

* 🇸🇬 Singapore’s Config APAC Afterparty, July 4th: https://lu.ma/70rbgfcg

* 🇩🇪 Berlin, July 4th: https://lu.ma/stm1btvx

* 🇵🇱 Poznań, July 12th: https://lu.ma/k6z1ajzn

👉 Can’t find your city and want to host one? It takes 10 minutes (i.e. pick a date and location), and you get to meet awesome people from our community. Start today!

Thank you for reading ADPList’s Newsletter. I hope you found it valuable. Forward to a friend if you did or share on social to get others thinking.

I'll keep creating great stuff if you keep watching, listening, or reading. I read every reply if you care to reply :). You might get an answer back.

Until next week.

Felix Lee

Our exclusive conversation with Chris Do, an Emmy award-winning designer, director, CEO, and Chief Strategist of Blind and the founder of The Futur. This is now our top trending video in the past 24 hours.

Disclaimer—this interview is deeply personal, where Chris Do opens up insider frameworks from his talks, to help individuals grow personally and professionally.

Chris Do Reveals Truths On Creativity, Money, Psychedelic, Storytelling, and Legacy

Chris Do is an Emmy award-winning designer, director, CEO, and Chief Strategist of Blind and the founder of The Futur—an online education platform with the mission of teaching 1 billion people how to make a living doing what they love.

He currently serves as the chairman of the board for the SPJA, and as an advisor to Saleshood. He has also served as an advisory board member for AIGA/LA, Emmys Motion & Title Design Peer Group, Otis Board of Governors, Santa Monica College, and Woodbury University.

Deep questions we explored with Chris Do:

* Psychedelic boosting human creativity—truth or myth?

* Is originality worth as much today?

* Most powerful framework for storytelling

* Guide to pricing your creativity and design

* Is Creativity born or trained?

* Science Behind Viral Video Creations

* Value of Content Creation & Creators

* What people don’t see behind “overnight success”

* Guide to Pricing Your Creativity and Work

* Hard Truths on Parenting (must-listen)

* Advice to young people and individuals

Some key takeaways:

* Genius Storytelling Framework. Storytelling is the operating system of the human brain. Every good story needs to have a character that has a want, and there's an obstacle. When telling stories or marketing, it's important to understand the character's flaws, wants, and obstacles to connect with them.

* Pricing: Time vs Value. It’s the world’s biggest myth that the more time you spend on your work, the more valuable it is and the more a client should pay. In fact, it’s quite the opposite as Chris would describe—in no scenario will someone want to pay more for a longer time. (watch)

* Nurturing your creativity. This is all about shading in more colors than the environment that you were originally born into. This means exposing yourself to as many experiences and people as possible; your world’s color will dramatically change as a result.

In this episode, we cover:

0:00 - Introduction

2:10 - Early days of Chris Do

6:11 - Starting at 51

9:20 - Untold Success

13:02 - Content Creation

19:42 - Storytelling

24:03 - 3 Rules for Storytelling

29:49 - Hero's Journey Framework (Joseph Campbell)

33:33 - Greatest Storytelling

37:03 - Originality

43:12 - Creativity vs Originality

46:38 - Psychedelic

49:18 - Creativity: Nature vs Nurture

54:52 - Money vs Creative

58:03 - Viral Video (64M views)

1:03:31 - Guide to Pricing Your Work

1:10:34 - Legacy

1:14:24 - Life Lesson

1:15:49 - Advice to Young People

1:20:00 - Resources

▶️ Watch this full interview with Chris Do!

——

Where to find Chris Do:

* LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thechrisdo/

* Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thechrisdo/

* YouTube: The Futur’s Channel

Where to find Felix:

* LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/felixleezd/

* X: https://x.com/felixleezd

Reach your goals faster with the guidance of the world’s top leaders:

* Julie Zhuo: Early Facebook Days, Leaving Meta & Building Data-Informed Products. Watch on YouTube.

* Don Norman: 21st Century Design, Controversy, AI, Hard Problems, and Legacy. Watch on YouTube.

* Jakob Nielsen feat. Sarah Gibbons: State of UX, Generalist, AI and Leadership. Watch on YouTube.

* Kunal Shah: How to Make Career Luck, Secret to Happiness. Watch on YouTube.

Join us for massive ADPList Meetups this June:

* 🇫🇷 Paris, June 6th: https://lu.ma/gzlfr6k6

* 🇨🇦 Vancouver, June 8th: https://lu.ma/6wcrtd9c

* 🇮🇳 Bangalore, June 8th: https://lnkd.in/geKpYGZc

* 🇹🇼 Taipei, June 11th: https://lu.ma/l4sci0yf

* 🇸🇬 Singapore, June 14th: https://lu.ma/3fbg190i

* 🇺🇸 Baltimore, June 19th: https://lu.ma/oyqkrzgm

* 🇦🇺 Melbourne, June 19th: https://lu.ma/1sj3zc6i

* 🇺🇸 Atlanta, June 20th: https://lu.ma/yuoxeuta

* 🇺🇸 Washington, DC, June 21st: https://lu.ma/sfklkric

* 🇹🇼 Taipei, June 21st: https://lu.ma/l4gv08n9

* 🇮🇳 Hyderabad, June 22nd: https://lu.ma/obpcx5yt

* 🇳🇬 Kaduna State, June 22nd: https://lu.ma/rvem791j

* 🇺🇸 Chicago, June 22nd: https://lu.ma/213hcv95

* 🇺🇸 San Francisco | Config Commons, June 25th: https://lu.ma/souzal3i

* 🇺🇸 Houston (Config Watch Party) June 26th, Day 1: https://lu.ma/tc7jedjy

* 🇺🇸 Houston (Config Watch Party) June 27th, Day 2: https://lu.ma/u451sbtz

* 🇺🇸 SF, Config Afterparty, June 27th: https://lu.ma/rshkf0of

With Toronto 🇨🇦 and Salt Lake City 🇺🇸 coming very soon. 👉 Can’t find your city? Host your city here: https://forms.gle/twQGjsgKjeb1J8sX8 It only takes 10 mins, and you get to meet awesome folks in our community!

——

🎁 Claim your 10% off annually (only $71/year) for our Weekly Newsletter to contribute to our mission to grow human potential through knowledge.

Sponsor ADPList’s Newsletter: https://www.passionfroot.me/felix

Kunal Shah is one of the most well-known and admired product leaders and audacious founders in India. He is the CEO and founder of CRED, an Indian-based fintech startup valued at over $6 billion. Prior to CRED, he founded three other startups, including Freecharge, which he sold for over $400 million to Snapdeal. He has also been an advisor to India’s most influential organizations. In our conversation, we discussed:

* How to seek truth and life-changing opportunities.

* Hard truths about our insecurities (and how to deal with them).

* Discovering the potential curve of your career & life.

* Why struggling and suffering is important for you.

* Fallacy of Work-Life Balance.

* Why success is not a result of inheritance/nepotism.

* Powerful lessons from the third-largest economy, India.

* What Kunal looks for when investing in products.

* Indian CEOs in Tech.

* Is the world progressing for better or worse?

* Why money and being rich, isn’t what you think it is.

* Advice for young people.

Some key takeaways:

* How to find life-changing opportunities—Invest in curiosity, understand human behavior, identify inefficiencies, have a betting mindset, be open-minded, and focus on creating value in various forms as a founder and product builder. Approach things with a betting mindset, be open to being proven wrong and focus on creating value in various forms, not just money.

* Success vs. Inheritance—Success is not inherited but a result of individual struggle. Everyone has a different path to success, with extreme success often coming from a lower starting point and life events playing a significant role in determining the direction and degree of success.

* Role of Luck—Luck is real. Luck plays a role in success, but it's not the only factor. Hard work, talent, and support from others also contribute to achieving success. You can change this by fighting against your comfort zones and familiarity. “When was the last interesting thing you did?”

* Truth-seeking—Leaders should actively work to challenge their assumptions. Keeping an open mind and demonstrating the ability to change your beliefs broadens your perspective, leading to faster and better decision-making.

* Relationship with Money—It is a function of what you’ve not had in life. Money seems important when you don't have it, but it becomes less important as you realize there are other things that matter more in life.

Watch the full YouTube video today.

Where to find Kunal Shah:

* Kunal Shah’s X: https://twitter.com/kunalb11

* Kunal Shah’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kunalb11/

Where to find more resources:

* ADPList’s Website: https://adplist.org/

* Subscribe to our channel: https://youtube.com/adplist

In this episode, we cover:

(0:00) - Introduction

(1:55) - Kunal's Story to CRED

(7:12) - Seeking truth

(10:03) - "Why"

(11:19) - Inefficiencies

(13:13) - Bet on things

(15:17) - Connecting dots

(19:07) - Power of shame

(21:03) - Luck

(25:49) - Truth about insecurities

(30:07) - Public validation

(32:38) - Love, hate relationship

(33:58) - Success vs. privilege

(38:18) - Curve of potential

(39:36) - Gift of suffering

(41:19) - Parenting

(43:25) - Ambitions vs. work-life balance

(47:08) - Indian CEOs

(49:32) - Important Lessons from India

(52:27) - Curse of capital

(53:36) - How Kunal invests in startups

(56:07) - Hard work

(57:30) - Is the world getting better or worse?

(59:50) - Money

(1:00:56) - Advice to young people

—

ADPList is building every person’s trusted access to knowledge sharing. Join over 195K+ learners and meet your mentor. We’re on a mission to give the world the freedom to grow together.

Our exclusive conversation with Don Norman, co-founder and principal emeritus at Nielsen Norman Group, is the author of The Design of Everyday Things. This interview is now #1 trending on Design YouTube (and ADPList meetups, below ⬇️).

21st Century Design, Controversy, AI, Hard Problems, and Legacy

Don Norman is an emeritus Distinguished Professor at the University of California, San Diego. He's a co-founder of the Nielsen Norman group and has held executive positions at Apple and HP. He has authored 21 books, including "Emotional Design" and "Design of Everyday Things," and his latest book is "Design for a Better World."

* Evolution of designers and leaders since the 80s

* Artificial Intelligence on humanity

* Why there’s a lack of “designer” CEOs

* Hardest problem to solve

* Why Generalist will be important

* How to work on important frontiers

* 21st Century Design and Ethics

* Why Apple’s take on simplicity is wrong

* Conflict of Don Norman’s past work

* Advice to designers, humans

Some key takeaways:

* Theory is far from reality—Design education needs to be more broadly based, focusing on design thinking skills rather than just drawing skills. Humanity-centered design considers the impact on all living things and the ecological system, not just individual users. STEM education lacks focus on people and history, which are crucial for understanding design and innovation.

* Apple is wrong about simplicity—Good design isn't just about looks; it's about functionality and usability, especially when things go wrong. Simplicity is complex, not just removing icons or buttons.

* Designers cannot just design—Designers must ensure their work not only addresses immediate economic needs but also contributes to long-term sustainability and societal well-being. Leadership requires more than just designing on Figma, it’s holistically viewing a problem.

Watch this full exclusive interview here.

Where to find Don Norman:

* Don Norman's LinkedIn

* Don Norman Design Award: https://dnda.design

* Don Norman’s new book: Design for a Better World:

Where to find more resources:

* 🍀 Subscribe for good luck: https://youtube.com/adplist

In this episode, we cover:

0:00 - Introduction

2:20 - Back from Retirement

4:12 - Philosophy

6:38 - Evolution of design

8:02 - Problem with design industry

9:10 - HCI is wrong

12:03 - No Design CEOs

15:21 - Power, Wealth

16:40 - Artificial Intelligence

23:25 - Surprising evolution of AI

31:19 - Controversy

35:32 - What's wrong with Apple

38:38 - Virtual reality

40:30 - Technologist

42:38 - Theory vs reality

44:38 - Generalist

45:53 - People, History

48:13 - Hardest problem

51:20 - Great designers

53:38 - Conflict of past work

55:53 - Better world

1:00:29 - Educate on history

1:00:57 - Legacy, Don Norman's Prize

1:04:42 - Sustainability

1:07:43 - Ethics, Morality, Fairness

1:08:56 - 21st Century

1:12:18 - Final advice

Sponsor ADPList’s Newsletter: https://www.passionfroot.me/felix

—

PS. Want more resources for senior designers & design leaders?

* Julie Zhuo (ex-VP of Design, Meta): Early Facebook Days, Leaving Meta & Building Data-Informed Products. YouTube, Substack.

* Jakob Nielsen: Why AI is Changing Design (forever) feat. Sarah Gibbons. YouTube.

If you find this post valuable, check out our top posts:

* What six years at FAANG taught me about designer growth

* A guide to becoming a senior product designer

* This is the 1 skill designers will need

—

✨ ADPList Meetups in April 2024 ✨

RSVP for ADPList Community-organized meetups happening soon—click the city name to register:

* Tokyo 🇯🇵, April 3rd—Thanks to Jarell Alvarez!

* Gdańsk 🇵🇱, April 4th—Thanks to Damian Szulakowski!

* Raleigh 🇺🇸, April 4th—Thanks to Tim Rosenberg!

* São Paulo 🇧🇷, April 11th—Thanks to Echos Lab!

* Noida 🇮🇳, April 12th —Thanks to Shivangi Pande!

* Accra 🇬🇭, April 12th—Thanks to Chinaa Emmanuel!

* Bucharest 🇷🇴, April 13th—Thanks to Eliza M. & Raluca M.!

* Dubai 🇦🇪, April 13th—Thanks to Sanjin Celeski!

* Berkeley 🇺🇸, April 14th—Thanks to Rachel Finn!

* Hong Kong 🇭🇰, April 15th—Thanks to Vince Siu, Joanna, & Michael Tam!

* Toronto 🇨🇦, April 20th—Thanks to Ivan Damnjanović!

* Toronto 🇨🇦, April 26th—Thanks to Nicholas Sohail Hussain!

* Central Hong Kong 🇭🇰, April 26th—Thanks to Stephanie Lau!

* Syracuse 🇺🇸, May 1st—Thanks to Dianna Miller & Gillian Schneider!

* Singapore 🇸🇬, May 10th—Thanks Pimnara, Felix & Carousell!

👉 Can’t find your city and want to host one? It takes 10 minutes (i.e. pick a date and location), and you get to meet awesome people from our community. Learn more.

Thank you for reading ADPList’s Newsletter. I hope you found it valuable. Forward to a friend if you did or share on social to get others thinking.

I'll keep creating great stuff if you keep watching, listening, or reading. I read every reply if you care to reply :). You might get an answer back.

Until next week.

Felix Lee

Our conversation with Julie Zhuo talking Early Facebook, Design Leadership, AI, building data-informed products and leaving Facebook to start Sundial.

Julie Zhuo is a highly influential design leader, an early-employee and former VP of Design at Facebook and now, the co-founder of Sundial, a modern analytics tool to help companies understand the story of their data to make better decisions. Before that, she was the VP of Product Design for the Facebook app, where she helped scale the service from 10 million users to over 2 billion during her nearly 14 years there. She is the Author of The Making of a Manager, became an instant Wall Street Journal bestseller, and was selected as one of Amazon's Best Business and Leadership Books of 2019.

* Julie’s advice for career development

* Early Facebook lessons learnt

* How Facebook design in the early days

* How Facebook’s design evolved over time

* Leaving Facebook to startup

* Founding of Sundial

* Building Data-informed products

* AI’s impact on Design

* What most people get wrong about using data on products

* Career advice to being successful

Some key takeaways:

* "That sense of constantly being on that adventure and not knowing what will happen and taking some risks is one that I grew to seek out, and that is a lot of the reason why I ended up starting a company and trying to dive into the unknown."

* Building an experimentation platform and using AB testing at Facebook led to rapid learning and growth, making it a crucial factor for success.

* Reflection is key - it's important to take the time to reflect on your actions, whether they were successful or not, in order to learn and improve. Iteration, feedback, and talking to customers always grounds us and pushes the work to be better.

* Design and data are unified by a desire for truth, and the struggle lies in interpretation and where we are on a particular use case or metric. The truth of what's happening with users is very complex and multi-dimensional, but we can only see it in two or three dimensions, so we need to be cautious with data and metrics.

* The idea of taking risks and pursuing dreams only became a reality for Julie Zhuo when she was no longer too scared to do so, highlighting the impact of fear on decision-making.

Watch the full YouTube video today here.

Where to find Julie Zhuo:

* Julie Zhuo’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/joulee

* Julie Zhuo’s Medium: https://joulee.medium.com/

* Sundial’s Website: https://www.sundial.so/

* The Making of a Manager Book: Order here

Where to find more resources:

* ADPList’s Website: https://adplist.org/

* Subscribe to ADPList YouTube (upcoming Don Norman: https://youtube.com/adplist

In this episode, we cover:

0:00 - Introduction

4:03 - Early Facebook

8:15 - Global reach of Facebook

12:51 - Unknowns of Design

16:25 - Biggest lessons

18:38 - Strategies for growth

24:46 - Data-informed design

34:00 - Data vs Opinion

37:08 - Opinion-based experiment

43:30 - New startup

45:05 - Leaving Meta to startup

47:20 - Culture of startup vs Meta

51:50 - Silicon Valley and India

57:30 - Tech Layoffs

1:00:29 - Future of Design with AI

1:05:38 - Final Advice

—

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That’s all! Have a fulfilling and productive week! 🙏

👋 Hello! Welcome to this week’s 🔒 subscriber only 🔒 View From The Top: Design, Product & AI, a weekly podcast column. Each Tuesday, we tackle design, building products, and accelerating careers. We’re looking for sponsors. If you’re interested to support our newsletter to advertise, let’s chat here.

In the third episode of View from the Top, we talk to Cameron Worboys, Design Director at Wise. Cameron has a wealth of experience in designing for agencies, startups, and big tech, and has recently led a design system revamp at Wise.

Tune in as we discuss Cameron's insights and learnings on:

* Cameron's background and journey to becoming a Design Director at Wise

* Design system revamp at Wise & advice for companies going through a redesign

* Fostering an innovative culture & hiring great talent

* Most commonly overlooked skill in today's design industry.

* Habits that contributed to Cameron's success

A breakdown of today’s podcast episode:

(00:00) Introduction and Cameron’s background

(4:19) Designing at agencies vs startups vs big tech

(5:46) Recent design system revamp at Wise & learnings

(14:10) Importance of attention to detail & when companies should think about rebranding/redesign

(18:03) Advice for companies looking to work with agencies

(21:57) What sets Wise apart from its competitors

(23:55) Fostering an innovative culture and hiring great talent

(32:53) Cameron’s leadership principles and collaboration style

(35:29) Most commonly overlooked skill in today’s design industry

(39:37) Habits that contributed toward Camerons’ success

(44:53) Closing thoughts and remarks

(47:05) Bonus: Camerons’ favorite song!

Where to find the speakers:

👋 Connect with Cameron: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cameronworboys/

👋 Connect with Felix: https://www.linkedin.com/in/felixleezd/

A Supaquick Podcast Q&A:

Thanks for listening to the View from the Top podcast! We would love to hear your feedback so we can continue to improve the show. Please fill out the following form and let us know your thoughts:

* What was your favorite part of this episode?

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* On a scale of 1 to 10, how likely are you to recommend this podcast to a friend or colleague?

We appreciate your feedback and look forward to hearing from you 🙏.

👋 Hello! Welcome to this week’s 🔒 subscriber only 🔒 View From The Top: Design, Product & AI, a weekly podcast column. Each Tuesday, we tackle design, building products, and accelerating careers. We’re looking for sponsors. If you’re interested to support our newsletter to advertise, let’s chat here.

In the second episode of View from the Top, we talk to Sarah Doody, Founder & CEO of Career Strategy Lab. Sarah has a deep experience in UX Design and is a regular contributor at Forbes, where she writes articles about leadership and careers. We’re also joined by guest host Kamala Alcantara, a UX mentor at ADPList and founding UX researcher at Blockdaemon.

Tune in as we dive into Sarah’s insights and learnings on:

* Sarah’s career journey, including how she fell into the design and created her own consultancy - all self-taught!

* Her motivations and biggest learnings from starting Career Strategy Lab, an accelerator for UX and Product professionals

* Advice for landing a role in UX in the current job market and for those facing imposter syndrome at work

A breakdown of today’s podcast episode:

(00:00) Introduction and Sarah’s background

(3:41) Creating a UX career accelerator and a sneak peek of a typical session

(9:38) Career search advice given the state of the UX jobs today and opening up to different industries

(14:50) What sets Career Strategy Lab apart from other programs? A favorite success story?

(22:40) How mentorship played a role in Sarah’s journey and advice for those facing imposter syndrome

(25:27) Biggest lessons learned about leadership and building a successful business

(28:01) Emerging trends in the UX industry and how professionals can stay ahead of the curve

(29:51) Closing remarks and Sarah’s upcoming book!

Where to find the speakers:

👋 Guest Speaker, Sarah Doody: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarahdoody/

👋 Guest Host, Kamala Alcantara: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kamalaalcantara/

Welcome to the very first episode of ADPList’s Podcast!

Every week, our Co-Founder Felix Lee will dive into exclusive discussions with top-tier design leaders and AI experts. Absorb tangible, result-driven advice to empower your work's journey from inception to market-dominating success.

In this View From The Top episode, we talk to Jess Clark, the Head of Design at Calendly. Jess has had a remarkable career journey, starting as the first design intern at LinkedIn and eventually taking on the Director of Product Design (Design Foundations) role at LinkedIn. She shares her experiences leading product design at Calendly and building teams and culture while balancing parenthood. Join us as we dive into Jess's insights and learnings on:

* Jess's career journey, including her time at LinkedIn and how she became the first design intern there.

* Her current role at Calendly and her challenges in leading product design there.

* Building teams and culture, and how Jess balances being a mom of three with leading a design team.

Connect with Jess Clark:

* LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hellojessclark/

* Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hellojessclark/

Connect with Felix Lee:

* LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/felixleezd/

* Twitter: https://twitter.com/felixleezd

In this episode, we cover the following:

(00:00) Introduction and Jess’s background

(5:30) Utilizing her front desk receptionist role at LinkedIn

(6:50) Design System Manager at LinkedIn and the Challenges faced

(10:09) Challenges for building design infrastructure

(13:25) Discussion for Design teams around the rise of AI

(15:25) Misconceptions and Tools for Design Systems

(21:25) Business impact for designers

(24:40) Transition to Calendly and new challenges in the first year

(31:42) Tips on prioritization and design roadmap

(38:02) Team culture building while raising children

(42:30) Jess’s leadership style and values

(45:10) Tips for moving from IC to management

(48:17) Key factors to Jess’s successful journey

(50:37) “Doing the boring things” and the following personal milestones

(54:00) Closing Thoughts and Outro

Reference:

ADPList gives every person the freedom to grow together - by opening doors to mentors worldwide. Join over 190K+ learners and meet your mentor today. We’re on a mission to give the world the freedom to grow together.

If you find this newsletter valuable, share it with a friend, and consider subscribing if you haven’t already.

Recorded with ❤️Felix