Dive Club 🤿

Only a select few have multiple episodes on Dive Club and today Catt Small joins the ranks. She has a gift for turning messy ideas into practical next steps so it’s no wonder her Staff Designer course is one of the top-rated on Maven. In this episode we go deep into all of the ways you can make an impact by building influence on your team and effectively casting vision for your product. Some highl...

What does it take to make people feel something with design...? This week's guest is kind of an expert on the question. Sara Vienna ( https://x.com/sravienna?lang=en ) , the Chief Design Officer at Metalab, talks about the responsibility that designers have to shape this AI world that we're entering without losing the heartbeat of a brand. We don't hold back on the current state of the industry an...

I think we're entering a world where the market for fractional design is about to explode… So this week's episode is with one of my favorite people in the industry, Gabe Valdivia . We're going to explore his independent journey → how he made the jump, how he's evolved the practice in year two, and all of the lessons he's learned along the way. Some highlights: Gabe’s three-phase client model How t...

Too much of designing a startup happens behind closed doors So I want to work with the garage door open while building Inflight ( https://www.inflight.co/ ) as much as possible. You already saw a bunch of the nitty gritty UI details ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D39Dv9MSlhs)… But when you’re going 0 to 1 on something, the storytelling piece is often the hardest part. So this episode is a sneak...

What does it look like to advance your career in the age of AI? That’s what this week’s episode with Dan Winer (Director of Product Design at Kit) is all about. He shares insights from his top-rated Maven course "Strategy and Influence for Product Designers" ( https://join.dive.club/dan-winer-course ) So if you want to learn how to go from pixel pusher to strategic partner then this is the episode...

This week's episode is with Andy Zhang who was the lead design engineer at Windsurf . So we're going to shine a light on all of the ways you can make an impact as a design engineer including: Owning more of the frontend polish Thinking through design patterns and packaging features Bridging the gap between technical features and intuitive UX Saying “no” to features to preserve the simplicity of th...

I’d bet real money that you have been on Smashing Magazine at some point in the last 18 years… Good news is, this week I got to interview the founder, Vitaly Friedman , who is also one of the leading thinkers in UX right now. In this episode we go deep into how AI is changing the way we interact with digital products and how our patterns and processes are evolving as a result. Some highlights: The...

If I told you someone had a background as a senior designer at companies like Uber, Dropbox, Apple, and Patreon then you'd be pretty impressed, right? Same. But Adam Noffsinger walked away from all of that to start Alma (which you might remember from the Smith+Diction episode ). So this episode is a deep dive into what it really looks like to go 0→1 as a design founder. Adam even walks us through...

This week’s episode is with Pietro Schirano who is the founder of the new design tool MagicPath and one of the true forward thinkers on AI. We go deep into the future of prototyping, design workflows, and what it takes to catalyze your career with AI. Some highlights: How design workflows will evolve Using AI as a collaborator not just a tool How Pietro was able to build influence at Anthropic Why...

This week I got an inside look at Figma Make while talking to Holly and Nikolas all about the future of prototyping… We get into real world use cases for different kinds of prototypes and how our workflow is evolving as designers. One thing is abundantly clear, things aren’t so linear anymore. Some highlights: How Figma Make fits into your workflow Rethinking what “high fidelity” means for a proto...

Last month we did the ultimate Raycast Deep Dive , but there's a lot in there… so this week I want to highlight just the segment from the product design team. We go deep into how they collaborate, why they’ve started shipping more code, and what it takes to build a culture obsessed with craft. Don’t forget to use code DIVE20YT to get 20% off your first purchase of any Lovable plan ❤️ Valid until A...

This week, Gunnar Gray (Product Design Lead at Perplexity) dives into the art of designing AI-native experiences. He shares lessons from shaping Voice Mode and how prototyping with AI is changing the design process at Perplexity. Some highlights: Why Perplexity is racing to get ideas into code What it’s like designing at a hyper growth startup What it’s like designing dynamic voice experiences Gun...

Cursor is easily one of the most impactful companies in all of tech… And this week's episode is with their Head of Design, Ryo Lu. You might've heard of Ryo in this episode back when we talked about early Notion and systems design. So this week we're going to get an inside look at how design operates at Cursor and all of Ryo's experiments with AI 👀 Some highlights: What Ryo believes about the fut...

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 packa...

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 frontend The opportunity for design syste...

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 C...

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 AI How The Browser Co approaches prototyping Dustin’s perspective on MCP and agentic design How their definition...

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 application 3 weekly rituals that are perfect for remote teams What they’ve learned about designing AI experiences What we can learn...

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...

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 culture Darrin’s expectation for how designers prototype How Shopify’s new AI mandate impacts designers Traits Darrin notices in promising younger desig...

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 ca...

There are two types of companies today: Startups birthed out of AI Existing companies figuring out how to adapt to AI This 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...

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 genera...

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...

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 Lova...