Full Stack Whatever

Sana Rao is a contemporary expressionist artist based in London. Her work is a personal meditation and a weapon to guard against the numbness brought on by an entirely mechanised existence. Sana’s artwork draws from the expressionist tradition and depicts the vision of a playful yet symbiotic future. Before returning to art, Sana spent nearly two decades in the world of design and tech working in...

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Brett Westervelt is currently the Head of Design at Instagram. We spoke about his life and career, from growing up in Oklahoma, tinkering with his grandfather, to taking a course at Stanford, experiencing startup life, and growing as a leader. This episode has tons of nuggets about how he thinks of building strong teams to create great software, how he thinks about design at scale, and how to keep...

Andy is a creative director, designer, and event producer. He is most well known for XOXO and Build Conference. He also recently started a non-alcoholic craft brewery called Heck. We spoke about the events that he's created, and how he went from event production to non-alcoholic beverages. Most notably, Andy's career has run parallel to the evolution of the tech industry in the last 15 years, and...

Gabriel Valdivia is a product designer, and currently an independent fractional design leader. He partners with founders as their design leadership counterpart while embedding with engineering teams to execute and iterate towards product/market fit. We talked about the rise of the model of fractional design leadership, the current issues tech teams are facing after bloating their organizations the...

Cat Noone is a product designer turned founder, and now CEO of Stark, a startup streamlining accessibility compliance for software teams. We talked about her path from designer to business leader, the mistakes made along the way, and how she keeps a high bar for craft of the product and of decision making.

In the inaugural episode of 2024, Aaron and I explore three compelling topics. First, we discuss the qualities of our most effective cross-functional partners and partnerships. Then, we delve into the significance of designers considering their work in the context it lives in, and focusing on the impact it can have. And finally, we share insights on the most impactful feedback we've received.

Majd and Jasper are the co-founders of Darkroom, a photo and video editor for iPhone, iPad and Mac. In this episode we go through the whole history of Darkroom, how they think about the product in the context of the competitive landscape, and how they look at evolving the product going forward.

Brian Lovin and Ryan Nystrom are the co-founders of Campsite, a tool for product teams to communicate with increased signal, rich institutional knowledge, and reduced noise. We talked about the lessons they have learned from starting the company, but also about their past lessons and experiences that inform the way they approach building Campsite. We covered a lot of topics that continuously roam...

Noah is a designer and design leader who is currently the VP of Design at Figma. In our conversation, we talked about his path into design from high school, to Carnegie Mellon, to Google, and discovered some great anecdotes and stories along the way. Beyond that, we talked about his experience at Figma, about hiring and growing teams, and about some of our other favourite parts of design leadershi...

Josh is the founder of The Bon Vivants and owner of Trick Dog, a legendary bar in San Francisco that has very recently been crowned Industry Icon by Punch. We talked about the creation of Trick Dog, the context in which Trick Dog was founded, and the lessons from it's first decade. We talked about his 20 year sobriety, how he looks at the low-ABV, non-alcoholic movement. And he also opened up abou...

Chantal is a designer and design leader. She currently leads a part of the design team at Autodesk related to construction products. We talked about her early years on the internet in her parent’s basement, how she went in to design, and found her role at PlanGrid. We talked about Autodesk’s acquisition of PlanGrid and how they eventually merged their design teams. From there, we took a deep dive...

Om is a former journalist, Partner Emeritus at True Ventures, and—in my words—a true internet OG. He was one of the first serious tech bloggers, and founder of Gigaom. We spoke about the current state of technology from both of our perspectives, and he shared where he believes the puck is going. We also went deeply into the topic of photography and creativity, which will be shared in next week's e...

Om is a former journalist, Partner Emeritus at True Ventures, and—in my words—a true internet OG. He was one of the first serious tech bloggers, and founder of Gigaom. We spoke about the current state of technology from both of our perspectives, and he shared where he believes the puck is going. We also went deeply into the topic of photography and creativity, which will be shared in next week's e...

Vicki is a designer, author and creative. She’s worked at companies like Google, Headspace, Lyft and Spotify, and is now writing and designing an illustrated book with the goal of making people aware of their biases. We talked about her path from Research Coordinator to Designer, the lessons she learned in her various roles, how she’s managed her career and her creativity, and what excites her abo...

Jasper is a designer, entrepreneur and fellow dutchman. He’s most notably known for his roles at Sofa, Facebook and Darkroom. We talked about how he started with design, the Sofa team being acquired by Facebook, and the growth he experienced at Facebook. We then dug into his time after Facebook, as a co-founder of Darkroom, and various other ventures.

Amy is the founder of Parea, a startup that is taking a modern approach to book publishing. Before founding Parea, she was various comms, marketing and ops roles at companies like Haus, Glossier and SeatGeek. We walked through her career, and she shared some fantastic insights around brand, operations, and the publishing industry.

Coleen is a designer and multidisciplinary artist. She is currently the founding designer at Braintrust, a new enterprise-grade stack for building AI products. We talked about impostor syndrome, the early days of Twitter Design, her experience helping early-stage startups at Sequoia, and what she looks forward to in her new role.

Nathan and Ryan are the co-founders of Retro, a mobile app that offers a new way to share photos and videos with a close group of your friends. We talked about the origin story of how they met, how they ended up founding their startup together, how they look at the social media landscape, and what they hope to achieve with their company and product.

Behzod is a researcher, consultant, and advisor who focuses on helping organizations and teams make better decisions. We talked about his career path from being a TA to his formative roles at Facebook and Slack, and how he’s evolved his consulting practice to support leaders at companies of all sizes. At the end, he shared some of his thoughts on how AI can support the research practice.

Frankie is a former digital product designer turned food writer and photographer. He’s the author of First Generation: Recipes from My Taiwanese American Home and founder of the food blog Little Fat Boy. We talked about his path, from studying industrial design to unexpectedly landing a job as a digital product designer, and from there taking a side quest to leave tech and fully focus on food.

Alex and George are two very talented designers with very complementary skillsets whose paths intersected at Facebook. We sat down to talk about design, careers, technology, and all the things.

Annie studied architecture, and after a few years as a practicioner pivoted to tackle the laws that govern our built environment, and the systems that shape it. Most notably, she was a policy staffer for California State Senator Scott Wiener during his first term in office where she was responsible for some of the biggest state housing bills in recent times. She shared her reflections on her caree...

Rachel is a designer and creative who currently works on the ride-hailing experience at Cruise. We discussed her path from double majoring in Psychology and Sociology to hustling her way into a design career. We covered her experience as a first-generation immigrant and how she deals with her ambition, and the expectations she puts on herself.