Dive Club 🤿

Over the last few months, I’ve interviewed the people designing cutting edge AI products like Perplexity, Claude, Dot, Humane, Visual Electric, and more… During that time I’ve created a running list of all the metaphors and mental models they’ve used to explain what it’s like. So this episode breaks down 7 mental models for designing AI products. Maggie Appleton (Design engineer at Normally): http...

One of the most impressive things I’ve seen a designer make all year is Meng To’s Dreamcut . It’s the perfect example of what it looks like to transition from traditional designer to builder 💪 So if you’re interested in becoming a designer who ships then this is the episode for you. Meng gives a highly practical breakdown of what it looks like to go from 0 to 50,000+ lines of code as a designer....

Airbnb is making 3 big design investments to bring soul back to the app. So this episode pulls from interviews with their VP of Design, Teo Connor, and prototyping specialist Janum Trivedi. Learn why Airbnb is investing in 3D, motion design, and leaders who still have their hands in the clay. Teo Connor (VP of Design at Airbnb): https://www.dive.club/deep-dives/air-bnb Alex Schleifer (former Chief...

As soon as I finished our original interview , I knew I had to have Soleio on as the first repeat guest. He led early design efforts at Facebook and Dropbox. Now he invests in design-driven startups like Figma, Framer, Vercel, etc. So this week’s episode is all about how designers and startups can succeed in a world where everything is changing. We go deep into: Ideal traits for a founding designe...

This week’s episode is with Joel Lewenstein who is the Head of Product Design at Anthropic where he works on cutting edge AI products like Claude . After 80+ episodes, I can honestly say this one’s “juice per minute” score is off the charts. Some of my favorite highlights: How the team prototyped Claude Artifacts New mental models for designing AI products The way designers shape strategy at Anthr...

Airbnb is one of the truly iconic design-driven companies. They set the bar for design innovation in so many ways. So this week’s episode is a deep dive with their VP of Design, Teo Connor. She gives us a behind-the-scenes look at how design operates at Airbnb including: How Airbnb is bringing vitality to the visual language How Airbnb is empowering designers to be designers How to succeed in a de...

Imagine your first traditional “product design” job is designing the Snapchat messaging UX for millions of people across the globe… Well that’s what Dan Moreno ’s journey looked like as an engineer turned designer. So this week’s episode is a deep dive into his 5+ years designing Snapchat as well as his new role at a rocket ship startup called Captions . Some highlights: Dan’s formula for presenti...

I remember the exact moment where I first explored MercuryOS . It was clear Jason Yuan was one of the most skilled design thinkers I'd ever encountered. No wonder he landed a role designing AI products at Apple shortly after. But the main reason I wanted to interview him was to learn more about his new product called Dot . It's by far my favorite personal AI and a beautifully designed experience....

Mariana Castilho has one of the most impressive career trajectories of any designer I’ve ever met. I first saw her while mentoring through Shift Nudge and within a few years she’s landed roles at Universe, Vercel, and most recently as the first designer at Pierre . One of the keys to her growth has been investing in her skills as an engineer. So a big part of this interview is learning what it tak...

This week’s episode is with Janum Trivedi who makes some of the most stunning prototypes in all of design. So the main goal of this conversation is to answer the question “what makes a piece of software feel great?” Some of the key talking points: The 3 levels of animation Shipping a major refresh of the Netflix iOS app Why shaders are a big deal (and how they work) How Janum built the download an...

Ben Blumenrose was one of the earliest designers at Facebook and has spent the last 12 years as a co-founder and Managing Partner of Designer Fund . That’s allowed him to invest in many of the design founders that you’ve heard from on this shown (like Jorn from Framer or Colin from Visual Electric ). So the goal of this conversation is to tap into Ben’s perspective as a designer turned investor. T...

Imagine leading the design of an AI product that skyrockets to a billion+ dollar valuation in under two years… That’s the story of Perplexity and today we get to hear from their founding designer and current Head of Design, Henry Modisett . Some of the highlights from this conversation: What it takes to thrive as a founding designer Why Henry likes hiring designers who can code The challenges of d...

This week's episode is with Ryan Scott who was an early designer at Doordash and then spent years as a design lead at Airbnb. Nowadays Ryan teaches hundreds of designers ranging from seniors to VPs how to make a bigger impact at your company. This episode is jam-packed with insights about: What it’s like presenting at Airbnb CRIT Ways to unlock your credibility as a designer How to mitigate risk w...

Investing in my personal brand has been the best investment I’ve ever made in my career. So I wanted to find the perfect designer to give a personal branding masterclass and I think it’s Oliur . He’s built a massive audience across YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, etc. and he shares his hard-earned knowledge in this episode: Oliur’s keys to growing on social media Different ways to create leverage in...

This week’s episode is with Maheen Sohail who is a senior staff designer working on generative at Meta. She joined as one of the earliest designers on both the VR and AI teams, so a big part of this discussion is about navigating ambiguity when there’s no clear playbook to follow. We go deep into: New types of interface patterns for AI The unique ways she thinks about prototyping Ethical considera...

After 8 years designing at Meta, George Kedenburg III pulled a 180 and joined Humane as a design lead. So this conversation is a deep dive into designing AI products and how the role of product designer evolves in an AI-native company: How to become a creative problem solver How George navigates ambiguity at Humane Why there’s no such thing as an edge case with AI What George learned while using A...

Visual Electric has quickly become my go-to product for image generation and in this week’s episode we get to learn from the founder and designer, Colin Dunn . The whole discussion is an excellent look at the design founder journey as well as a deep dive into AI-native creative tools. We get into the weeds about: Visual Electric’s big bet to take on Canva The hidden challenges with designing AI pr...

The Arc browser is one of the best products I’ve downloaded in the last few years which is why I’m so excited about this interview with their founding designer, Nate Parrott . This conversation, we get an inside look at what makes design at the Browser Company so unique. We discuss: How Nate went from engineer at Snap to the Browser Co. Why design at Arc prioritizes fingerprints > consistency H...

This week’s episode is with Dan LaCivita who is a co-founder of Play —a new way to design mobile apps using native iOS materials. As soon as I saw this app clip I knew it was a big deal and that I had to interview him to learn more. So in this conversation we go deep into: How to unlock the skill of interaction design What Apple’s sandbox unlocks for designers Why they decided to launch Play as a...

Gavin Nelson is currently designing the Linear mobile app in addition to the best app icons on the internet. So this episode is a deep dive into prototyping and interaction design: Gavin’s journey learning SwiftUI How Gavin got into designing app icons How to design physics-based interactions What it’s like designing for power users at Linear Why interaction design is so important for mobile apps...

If you watched last week’s episode , then you heard Jordan Singer say how visual search was actually the “killer feature” (not generative AI). What’s interesting is that this feature was actually a mid-project pivot . So in this episode we get the full behind-the-scenes of visual search from design engineer Vincent van der Meulen : Why they decided to pivot How Vincent went cowboy mode A look at t...

Live from Config, this episode with Jordan Singer follows his journey from the Diagram acquisition all the way to Figma’s 2024 AI release. We go deep into: What didn’t ship at Config and why How they navigated the early idea maze How the role of designer will be impacted by AI What it will be like designing dynamic interfaces What makes Jordan’s new role at Figma so unique Why renaming layers was...

This week’s episode is with Kathy Zheng who is currently the Head of design at a Web3 protocol called Optimism . But before that she was the first designer at Patreon and went on to spend over 6 years at Github. So the goal of this conversation is to look at how Kathy grew as a designer while at Github and identify the specific milestones on her journey to reaching senior and eventually staff desi...

When you think about storytelling in design... Alex Cornell is often the person that comes to mind. And that's a big reason why he's one of the most requested guests on the show. So this episode is a deep dive into the finer details of communication. We talk about: The story behind his startup Cocoon How Alex leverages his background in video Alex’s precision and obsession with language Why Alex l...

This week’s episode with Maggie Appleton is a deep dive into designing for AI products and LLMs. Maggie shares about her experience as the first designer at Elicit (an AI assistant for research papers) and all of the unique challenges surrounding helping users interface with LLMs. We also go deep into: How Maggie’s grown as a frontend developer Why Maggie feels like she’s in a short-run limbo Stra...