Episoder
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This week's episode is with Julian Lehr who is the storytelling lead at Linear
So we're going to step out of the pixels for this conversation and focus more on how you can get people excited about what you're designing.
Because in the age of AI, stories are what makes your product defensible.
So we're going to go deep into Julian's creative process and how he kinda thinks of his role more as packaging.
Some highlights:
Julian’s sources of inspirationUnderstanding Julian’s creative processThe new analogy that Julian is working on for LinearLinear’s strategy for storytelling for their “Agents” releaseThe importance of visual design in copywriting and marketingHow Linear’s in-house creative studio collaborates on storytellingHow Linear evolved from using “opinionated” to “purpose-built” over 3 yearsa lot moreAntimetal websiteArena for inspirationJulian’s websiteLinear’s hands of god visual for Agents release -
You probably know Intercom… but did you know they recently incubated a new startup called Fin that has already surpassed the core business?
They’ve pulled off a massive transition to an AI-native product and design org so today we’re going behind-the-scenes with their VP of Design Emmet Connolly.
Some highlights:
Why Emmett believes designers will own the frontendThe opportunity for design systems in an AI-first worldWhat Emmett looks for when hiring designers in the AI eraWhy liquid glass represents the wrong direction for designHow Intercom’s AI product Fin overtook their core businessWhy the start of an S-curve is the best time to be a designerHow AI is flipping the traditional product development processa lot morePlato’s cave analogyOpenAI’s forward deployed engineer roleApple’s liquid glass designFons Mans helped on the design of Fin -
Manglende episoder?
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In last week’s episode, the Head of Design at The Browser Company shared a totally new way to think about your portfolio.
He says one of the most valuable things you can demonstrate today is the ability to solve real problems with code (no matter how small).
I’m literally doing this with a side project right now and I’ve learned a lot so I decided to share my new playbook for vibe coding 👇
Teo Connor (VP of Design at Airbnb): https://www.dive.club/deep-dives/air-bnb
Alex Schleifer (former Chief Design Offer at Airbnb): https://www.dive.club/deep-dives/alex-schleifer
Janum Trivedi (prototyping specialist at Airbnb): https://www.dive.club/deep-dives/janum-trivedi
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Dia from The Browser Company has completely taken over the internet. We’re finally seeing what an AI-native browser can be and it’s pretty exciting :)
So this episode is a behind-the-scenes with their Head of Design, Dustin Senos.
Some highlights:
How to build a product strategy around AIHow The Browser Co approaches prototypingDustin’s perspective on MCP and agentic designHow their definition of “good” evolved from Arc to DiaTheir process for exploring patterns for interacting with AIThe #1 piece of advice Dustin would give younger designersa lot moreWe mentioned Nate Parrott’s episode who was the first design hire at The Browser Company
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This week’s episode is a first of its kind because we’re doing the ultimate deep dive into one of my favorite products: Raycast
We’ll here from the founders, design team, and even the hype team and go deep into all kinds of topics:
The hilarious story of Raycast’s YC application3 weekly rituals that are perfect for remote teamsWhat they’ve learned about designing AI experiencesWhat we can learn from how their hype team operatesHow the design team has changed the way they collab with engineersa lot moreThis is easily the most in-depth episode I’ve ever made so I hope you enjoy it :)
Thomas and Petr (Raycast founders)Roy can Rooijen (Designing AI)Jordan Amblin (Designing mobile)Alexander Antonov (Designing windows + DS)Pedro Duarte (Hype lead)Inga Hampton (Designer + Illustrator) -
The last two weeks with Inflight have been the most exhilarating of my entire career…
So I want to use Dive Club to provide unprecedented levels of access to life as a design founder.
I’m talking about the messy behind-the-scenes, hideous Figma concepts, and all of the winding turns that we've taken to get where we're at today.
This is gonna be as raw as it gets.
And hopefully by shining a light on some of the things I'm learning, it turns into a video series that you want to keep watching ✈️
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This week's episode is with Darrin Henein who is the VP of Design at Shopify. We talk about how they create a culture of excellence and how AI is influencing the way they practice the design.
Some highlights:
What makes for a great design critique cultureDarrin’s expectation for how designers prototypeHow Shopify’s new AI mandate impacts designersTraits Darrin notices in promising younger designersWhat designers can learn from the best communicators at ShopifyWhy Darrin believes designers need to think beyond static prototypesa lot moreGKIII’s Cost of Craft articleFrenzy drop sales productAstronaut video game that Darrin releasedRed Dot Design Award won by Shopify’s POS hardware -
There’s a new design tool called Subframe that’s officially caught my eye 👀
So I asked their co-founder Filip Skrzesinksi to give us a demo and talk through their vision.
I found some of their AI interaction patterns fascinating (especially the way they approach prototyping and contextual edits).
If you’re interested in the future of design tooling then I think you’ll like this episode and you can use the code DIVECLUB to get your first month free 👌
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There are two types of companies today:
Startups birthed out of AIExisting companies figuring out how to adapt to AIThis week’s episode is all about #2 because we get to hear from Ioana Teleanu who was the first AI designer at Miro and is now a dedicated AI+Design consultant.
So a big theme of this conversation is how to identify the right opportunities to design AI into a product that’s already working. Ioana shares a bunch of stories and lessons learned from her time at Miro as well as a refreshing perspective on AI and design as whole that i think will resonate with a lot of you.
Some highlights:
What to do if you’re already feeling AI fatigueWhy invisible AI is the future of product designHow you measure the success of integrating AIExamples of good and bad implementations of AIHow the value prop of design shifts in an AI worldWays to invest in your product skills as a designera lot moreBefore Miro Ioana designed Clipboard AI which won Times Magazine best invention of 2023
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This week we get to hear from Jesse Kulp who is the original designer for Google AI Studio.
He shares what it was like going 0→1 as the sole designer and his ideas for where AI design is headed next
I think we're gonna look back in a couple years, the kind of silly stuff we're doing today and say it looks like child's play… Jesse Kulp
some highlights:
How Jesse transformed into the ultimate generalistWhat Jesse learned about managing lots of stakeholdersExploring different interaction modalities for AI in the futureHow to handle ambiguity while working in a new problem spaceHow Jesse figured out the initial product strategy for AI Studioa lot moreGoogle AI StudioVertex AI Studio -
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 companyHow Stephen cultivates empathy in designersHow Stephen views the traditional design roleHow Paper is paving the way for modern design toolsHow Paper is bringing creativity back to design tools through shadersa lot moreDavid Hoang Strategy is Compressing articleStephen posted on DeviantArt in early daysCreated Radix UI at ModulzPaper’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-turmanNad Chishtie (1st designer at Lovable) https://www.dive.club/deep-dives/nad-chishtieZach Leach (Head of Design at Gamma) https://www.dive.club/deep-dives/zach-leachJordan Singer (AI at Figma) https://www.dive.club/deep-dives/jordan-singerPranathi Peri (Product designer at Vercel) https://www.dive.club/deep-dives/pranathi-periAlex 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 codeHow Zach has iterated on interaction patterns for AIHow to think about AI functionality at the system levelHow Zach imagines his design role in the coming yearsWhat Zach has learned about designing AI-powered flowsa lot more **The core team came over together from OptimizelyWe 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 mistakesHow communication skills build influenceMig’s strategy behind hiring junior designersHow to succeed in executive product reviewsMig’s mandate to raise the design bar at DuolingoHow Mig revamped design management at DuolingoWhy Duolingo changed from “UX” to “Product Experience”a lot moreJacob 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 ClaudeWhat it’s like designing conversational UX flowsHow Kyle uses Claude in his personal design processWhy Kyle only half-finished his Claude designs in FigmaHow Kyle thinks about designing for emotion and feelingHow Kyle thinks about the future of design as a disciplineKyle’s thoughts on whether chat should the dominant pattern for AIa lot meWe mentioned Tuhin Kumar’s episode (Head of Design at Luma AI)We mentioned Julius TarngWe talked about the Sesame conversational AI demoMachines of Loving Grace by the Anthropic CEO DarioRecommended Episode:
George Kedenburg III (former designer lead at Humane)
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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 companiesWhy you can’t think of AI products as just a toolHow to invest in the right skills as a designer todayWhat created Tuhin’s career tipping point at AirbnbWhat Tuhin is pulling from Apple and Airbnb’s cultureHow working with AI as a material is changing everythingThe biggest lesson Tuhin learned while writing system promptsa lot moreTuhin mentioned Maheen Sohail’s “Unprompted” podcast with AI
Ammaar Reshi (former Head of Design at Eleven Labs)
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There are two goals that designers almost always group together:
Make a useful productMake it easy to understandBut 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) - Vis mere
