Design and AI with Won You

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 2 (00:11):
I would argue, if there's an established design
system and an established lookand feel from a creative
director, art director, designer, and you have that established
design system and you train themodel on that and you're like,
hey, what I need is a feed and Ineed it to do X, y, z.
It's going to look at thelibrary of other apps and how

(00:35):
they do feeds and it willgenerate a very high quality
feed.
That's where I see the productperson no longer needing a
design.

Speaker 1 (00:44):
See the product person no longer needing a
design.
Do you want to decommoditizeyour products and services?
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revenue and have more controlover your pricing?
Well, you're in the right place.
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(01:06):
I'm your host, Devin Smith, andthis is the Experience Leader
Podcast.
All right, everybody, welcomeback to the show.
We are talking today about AIand everybody's talking about AI

(01:28):
.
I'm here with my friend, JuanYu Juan, thanks so much for
coming on the show.
It's actually your idea to talkabout this.
I think it's a fantastic topic,man, Thanks for coming.

Speaker 2 (01:38):
Thanks for having me, devin.
Yeah, this is something that'sbeen on my mind all of last year
.
I'm sure it's on everybody'smind right now, but I think it's
particularly salient with allthe tech layoffs that's been
happening over the last coupleof years and just trying to
think ahead about wheretechnology is going to go and
how that's going to affectdesign but also society at large
in terms of other occupationsthat might be well, maybe not

(01:59):
threatened but at risk of havingto evolve or change in some way
.

Speaker 1 (02:04):
Yeah, absolutely.
I'm very interested as I watchthe applications of AI.
I'm already using AI in mydesign process.
I don't use it necessarily tolay out interfaces yet, but I
have used it.
I'm also an artist, so I'veused it to like get me started

(02:26):
on illustrations, like thedeadlines I'm able to hit for
clients.
You know, there's no way Icould move as fast as I can now
with AI and sometimes I don'tactually use the output from the
AI, it's just like a startingplace to you know, get some
ideas going.
But I've used the output andjust, you know, fix what it got

(02:46):
wrong, right, like some funnystuff I've had happen where it's
like do a project for a client,do a, you know, like a keystone
illustration that's going to beused across a lot of things.
And you know, for instance,like a semi-truck, ai knows
generally what an a, what asemi-truck looks like, right,
but it doesn't know where allthe wheels are supposed to go.

(03:07):
It doesn't know where all thewheels are supposed to go.
It doesn't know actually, likehow to get the number of wheels
correct all the time.
Yeah, and so you know, I stillhave to go in behind it and
paint in the right stuff.

Speaker 2 (03:23):
Yes.

Speaker 1 (03:24):
But I still.
I mean it did all the otherheavy lifting, it got the
aesthetic that I wanted and I'mjust in there making tweaks and
that's.
I find that's not actually thatdifferent from how a lot of
master painters worked.
Eventually they had apprenticesthat were, you know, doing
things and getting it to acertain point.
That's why some people hateThomas Kinkade, but it's not

(03:48):
completely unheard of in humanhistory and the creation of
things to have that done.

Speaker 2 (03:54):
Absolutely, and I'm right there with you.
I've already incorporated AIinto my process.
I know a bunch of otherdesigners have as well.
Recently, I wanted to do athought experiment that was
inspired by something that I sawon TikTok, which is to see if I
can actually sell AI art online, and so I went on Midjourney

(04:16):
and had it export or create avariety of different images
based on my prompt, and let metell you some of those output.
You would not be able to tell,at least you know, maybe two
years ago, with I don't know,generation two of Midjourney, it
wasn't that great.
Stylistically.
You can see it's trying to dosomething, but it wasn't

(04:37):
believable.
Now it is so good that thequality of the output is almost
indistinguishable from that of ahuman.
For example, one of the promptswas something around doing an
Art Deco style illustration,like a portraiture, and what it
created was really good, likesomething that I'm like yeah, I

(04:59):
can see someone wanting this ontheir wall or as a phone case,
see someone wanting this ontheir wall or as a you know,
phone case.
And more recently, I had aclient project where I was
trying to look up or I wasstarting to look for photography
for like corporate headshots oroffice workers in a corporate
environment and it, and I don'tknow why I thought of this, but

(05:21):
I was like huh, I wonder if Ican get MidJourney to create the
shots that I want.
Obviously, I wasn't using thesephotos in full bleed, but I was
using them as, like thumbnailsor things like that.
You can't tell that that was AIgenerated, that it's not stock
photography.
In fact, if you go on Adobestock photos, I think they sell

(05:42):
photos now that are AI generated.

Speaker 1 (05:43):
They do.

Speaker 2 (05:44):
And they market are AI generated?
They do, and they mark it as AIgenerated.

Speaker 1 (05:46):
Yeah, and I appreciate that they do market,
they mark those things as AIgenerated.
But and I found cause, you know, and doing actual client work,
I found that there are timeswhen I'm trying to get a certain
result from the AI, likeMidjourney or Dolly.
I'm trying to get a certainresult from the AI, like mid
journey or Dolly.
I'm trying to get a certainresult and it's not coming out

(06:10):
quite as refined as I would likeit.
And I, you know I don't havethe time to go and refine it
myself because I've got, youknow, a lot of other things that
I've got to deliver.
And so, you know, I there's acertain aesthetic that I'm
looking for and sometimes I wantto even know, like, can AI even
get me what I want here?
Like, is this a pipe dream?

(06:33):
And I've gone on Adobe Stock andseen, like somebody produce a
photo that's way better thanmine, or like a painting that's
way better than mine with AI,and I mean, like it was evident
to me, it was like there's noway there, mine with AI.
And I mean, like it was evidentto me, it was like there's no
way, there's no way that theywere able, just given the state
of AI image generation at thetime.
They were able to get to thatwithout having to modify it

(06:54):
themselves.
But I mean, it was marked thatand I was like, okay, like you
know, and I was willing to buythe stuff, I actually sent it to
the client.
And I was willing to buy thestuff, I actually sent it to the
client.

Speaker 2 (07:06):
I was like, hey, I think this is a great image,
Like you know, we should justget this one.
Yeah, I mean like if you thinkabout it, you know, once the
quality gets even better, whichit will in future generations.
Like you don't need to do photoshoots, you don't need to book
like some sort of environment,hire actors or models, get the
sign, the release, have thephotographer, you know all of

(07:28):
that is gone, it's gone.
You can just do it through aprompt.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (07:32):
Which is crazy.
I mean, one of the things thatand I'm interested to get your
take on this because, you know,just as a designer, as an artist
, like you know, I a lot oftimes I have a vision for what I
want and I'm trying to get AIto produce that vision faster
than I could produce it myself.

(07:53):
And in the past, what we wouldhave to say is we just can't do
that for this project.
Like, I have this grandiosevision and it's just not
possible for this project.
We can't afford it, we don'thave the timeline vision and
it's just not possible for thisproject.
We can't afford it.
We don't have the timeline.
Now it's kind of possible and sothat you know the the crazy
artist in me, like I'm like, soyou're saying there's a chance,

(08:14):
like you know, like there's apossibility.
So I'm, you know, I would sitin front of mid journey for for
hours trying to get the promptright.
Yeah to to produce the vision.
And one of the things that I'vefound is sometimes I struggle
with the words to communicatewhat I see in my head.
And even if I could, it's likeI realize now what it's like to
be on the other side whereyou're trying to get another

(08:35):
artist to produce what you wantand I've kind of landed in two
modes here.
There's a mode where I have avision for what I want and I'm
going to get AI to get me asclose as possible and I'm going
to take it the rest of the wayif I can get AI to get in the
ballpark right.
And then I have another modewhere it's like I have a vision
it is not so tightlyprescriptive and I'm going to

(08:58):
see what it comes up with and Ifeel like that's actually more
like working with a real artist.
The way that I enjoy whenpeople work with me is they have
a general idea of what they'retrying to express or accomplish
and they let me, as the artist,use my creativity to express
that.
And I found that actually iswhen it works better.

(09:18):
When I'm trying to get AI toproduce a very specific result,
it's hard.

Speaker 2 (09:23):
Right, yeah, it's interesting.
You said that because itreminds me of a, a friend on
LinkedIn who posted anexperiment maybe a couple of
years back, and they do 3dimages, and they showed one that
he did which was like I thinkit was like his own custom Nike
shoe or something, and then onethat AI generated and and he and
he was making the argument thatAI isn't quite there yet.

(09:46):
But when you think about whatyou need to do to get AI to get
closer to what your vision is,it's very similar to all the
things that you need from aclient, right, you need a brief,
you need them to explain whatare the things that they like,
what are things that they wouldlike to emulate, what's the vibe
?
It's almost like creating amood board, right, you also need

(10:08):
to be very specific in terms ofthe ingredients, and so the
more specificity you give, themore accurate the output.
Right, and with AI, I think, formid-journey at least, you can
feed it reference images and say, like, for mid-journey at least
, you can feed it referenceimages and say model it after
these things.
It will approximate it muchcloser, especially if it's like

(10:31):
oh, I want this redhead.
You're like okay, I'll makethat red and providing that
definition and constraint in away that allows them to fill in

(10:51):
those gaps without too muchimagination, then you're going
to get pretty good results, Ithink.
But I like it also in the waythat you're talking about it,
which is surprise me, likegenerally surprise me, and I
also love the results you getsometimes from that as well.
You know, of course it's goingto be more hit or miss, but

(11:11):
that's part of, I think, what'sgood about the way Midjourney
works is that they give you fouroptions.
So, they do the stable diffusion, to sort of come up with more
than one variation and you canpick the one that you think is
closest and then tell it to youknow.
Do other variations based offof that?
So I agree with you.
I think the way in whichtechnology works is both as a

(11:35):
partner but also as a deliverysupport person right.
Like a production artist and Ithink that's the argument a lot
of other people are making inthe industry is that, oh,
production design will disappear, Like the actual comping up of
high fidelity mock-ups that willstart to go away because you

(11:55):
don't need a person to do that.
But I would argue that that'sone of the seminal artifacts and
deliverables that we asdesigners create seminal
artifacts and deliverables thatwe as designers create Right.
And the place that I get alittle worried is when so much
of the work is going to be takenover by AI.
Where does that responsibly liein terms of the strategy, the

(12:18):
thinking?
Well, it could be the productperson.
If a product person canliterally go to some sort of
generative tool and say make methis design based off of these
requirements, user stories, yada, yada, yada, and it's able to
produce that, do they need thedesigner at that point?

Speaker 1 (12:36):
Right.

Speaker 2 (12:38):
So I'm wondering where the industry will shift.
Industry will shift.
Will it be product people kindof taking on some of that work
because AI helps them do it andthey don't need like a team of
designers, they just maybe needone, like you said, to refine it
, to kind of dial it in.
Or will it be the designer thatstarts to become more like a
product person and it's helpedcreating the thinking, the

(13:01):
strategy defining the productrequirements?
Who takes on that response?
Because the job of the strategydefining the product
requirements, who takes on thatresponse?
Because the job of the actualscreens is going to go away.
I think everyone's agreed uponthat.
When that happens, that personstill needs to be fully employed
, so they got to do other things.
So either that designers, youknow, I think in the industry we

(13:21):
have the typical designorganization where you have
designers and pods right Part ofdifferent feature sets or
different parts of the customerjourney.
I don't know that you need somany designers dedicated to each
part of the product.
You might have one designeroverseeing multiple features at
that point right.

Speaker 1 (13:38):
Right.
I mean that is interestingbecause I'm a designer who
became a product person.
I've done design, I've donefront-end development, I've done
product management and productstrategy and it's easy for me to
see the shift from designer toproduct person, designer like

(14:10):
designer to product person,because I know that I could go
if ai generated ui got goodenough right.
I know that I have the mentalmodel to be able to create an
experience, to think about howsomething works, to know what it
what good looks like.
Because I think the strugglefor the product person, who has
no design background using AI,is that the product person

(14:34):
doesn't necessarily know whatgood looks like.
They can know from it at asurface level, but the
experienced designer can look atsomething and say that's
unrefined or that this is a badinteraction.
There's an element of skill andexperience there that makes
that person fast at being ableto determine what's a good

(14:57):
experience or not, or what isgood visual design or not, and
doesn't give you that there's alot of stuff that ai can
generate that that, as adesigner, I can look at it and
say, okay, that's close, that'snot it, but that's close and
that's helpful.
Right, but this hasn't replacedme yet yet right, right, and I

(15:21):
think that, like I am notarrogant enough at this point to
say now that it won't replaceme doing some of those things,
but it's easy for me to say,okay, so like I can do this with
a smaller staff.
Yes, this with less people.
Like you know, the people thatI know who are doing just like

(15:43):
killing the game in AI everybodythat I know, everybody who I
know that's doing that well,they're using AI to do something
they're already highly skilledat and they're producing high
quality results because theyknow what good looks like, right
Right, developers, designers,artists they already know what
good looks like.

(16:03):
The folks who I see who areusing AI, who they don't have
experience in that field they'regetting good results, but
they're not getting greatresults.
Like you know somebody who'sexperienced.
I'm looking at that and I'mlike, oh yeah, that's definitely
AI generated.
I can tell, like you know, andso I think there is a.

(16:24):
I do think we'll cross athreshold and I do think it's
going to remap things.
I think for tech, it'sdefinitely going to remap things
the product person producing UIwithout a designer.
It's harder for me withoutknowing that people are out
there working on design toolsthat are being trained by

(16:44):
designers to create good UIWithout seeing that.
It's harder for me to see aproduct person not needing
somebody who knows what gooddesign looks like to be the one
at the steering wheel with theAI.

Speaker 2 (17:00):
You know what I'm saying.
I agree with you.
With the AI, you know what I'msaying.
I agree with you.
However, I feel like so I don't.
I agree with you in the sensethat, yes, great design is
probably not going to beproduced by AI right For the
foreseeable future.
In fact, especially innovativedesign, it's not capable of
original thought Right.
A lot of the AI generated,whatever are almost always

(17:25):
derivative.

Speaker 1 (17:25):
Yes.

Speaker 2 (17:26):
But I would also argue that a lot of design over
the last five to 10 years hasbecome so homogenous yes, it's
no true and everything looks thesame.
We're like logo on the upperleft corner, hamburger menu on
the upper right.
Maybe they swap positions,maybe the logo is in the middle
of the header, but it's alwaysthe same structure.
You've got a hero, there's animage, there's a headline,

(17:49):
there's a CTA.
This is a formula.
I think it's good because, asjuxtaposed to the very early
days of the web, where it waslike the wild west and you had
some really bad design and everywebsite was like I don't know
what I'm going to get, I don'tknow how I'm going to use this
website, how to check out.
Maybe it's going to befunctional, maybe it won't.

(18:10):
But there was also some realnovel ideas that have carried
through.
But we've come to the oppositeof that now, where it's so
formulaic and also with the riseof design systems, it's so
formulaic and also with the riseof design systems, everything's
become very componentized.
And so I would argue, ifthere's an established design
system and an established lookand feel from a creative

(18:33):
director, art director, designer, and you have that established
design system and you train themodel on that and you're like,
hey, what I need is a feed and Ineed it to do X, y, z.
It's going to look at thelibrary of other apps and how
they do feeds and it willgenerate a very high quality

(18:55):
feed.
That's where I see the productperson no longer needing a
design Agreed.
When that foundation is laid,what do you need the designer
for?
Like, the designer at thatpoint might be a design director
coming in to do a pass throughand make sure everything's good,
but you're not going to need adesigner actually doing the
implementation Right.

(19:16):
And there's tools now that andI don't think we're far away
from it that can take a designand even generate the front-end
code.
That's right, oh, that's right.

Speaker 1 (19:27):
I mean Webflow already takes.
I mean yeah, I mean it'salready doing that well.
I mean, you know, used to be afront-end developer.
There was a time where Ithought, like man, I don't know
if any you know no-code tool isgoing to be able to generate
clean front-end code.

Speaker 2 (19:43):
Yeah, and they did it Well back in the day.
Remember Dreamweaver?
Oh yeah, it would slice things.
And then you'd look at themarkup and you're like what is
this garbage?
It's so bloated it's doing allthese divs unnecessarily.
Now I don't think that problemexists.

Speaker 1 (20:01):
Webflow was the first one to to pull it off.
I mean, I remember I thinkmacaw was the first engine I saw
try to pull it off and they gotclose.
I, I, I was working with thatearly on, I was an early adopter
and it was getting close.
Webflow solved the problem, inmy opinion.

(20:22):
They, at least they solved itgood enough to where.
You know, old school front enddeveloper like me is like good
enough, good enough for me tonot get in there and write it
from scratch Sorry, like youknow, like I'd rather focus on
the design, like and I was ahardcore, like there was a
period where all I did was frontend, like I took like three
years of my career and just didfront end, you know, for my day

(20:43):
job, and so like I got reallydeep in it and was really
hardcore and was very proud ofyou know clean standards,
compliant yep.
You know markup and css andusing as little javascript as
possible and and all that stuff.
But when I saw the output fromwebflow, I was like, no, this is
, this is good.
I mean, I'm not so.

(21:05):
I am not so proud that I likerefuse to.
You know, let this machinehandle this thing Like.
I want to be able to makewebsites and I.
The goal here isn't for me tobe able to write code.
The goal is for me able tobuild websites to make things
that are useful for people.

Speaker 2 (21:24):
Right, that's the goal.
Yeah, have you used this toolcalled ReLume?

Speaker 1 (21:29):
I haven't used it yet .
I've heard about it.

Speaker 2 (21:33):
So one of their tools is it'll create a wireframe for
you and if you give it a prompt, it will generate, for example,
a landing page.
You tell it what kind ofproduct it is prompt it will
generate, for example, a landingpage.
You tell it what kind of productit is, if it's a SaaS product,
if it's a retail for selling Idon't know shoes or anything
else.
Right, it will create.

(21:58):
It will.
Basically, they have their ownFigma component library that
they created and it will pull inblocks and do the UX copy and
lay it out.
Obviously it's prettyderivative, it's very blocky,
it's kind of like the threecolumn layouts, you know, like a
bootstrap type of websitelayout, but it's so fast and
good.
It is better than a lot ofentry level designers work.
When I look at this, I'm like Igot this result in one minute

(22:19):
and if I assigned it to a juniorentry level designer, I promise
you it wouldn't look that goodand polished Alignment and
things like that would be offand it would have taken them
days to get it to me.
Yeah.
So I worry about the future ofdesign for these younger

(22:39):
designers coming into the field,because I wonder if they're
going to be reliant on the toolsand they won't even know how to
think for themselves right andhow to actually do the craft
with their own hands are youlistening?

Speaker 1 (22:50):
design teachers are you listening?
This is the problem of thefuture yeah, I mean like even
coding.

Speaker 2 (22:55):
I remember.
So I have a degree in computerscience and back then you
couldn't cheat I.
You can cheat by maybe copyingfriends' work, but there was no
way for you to easily findsample code to solve some
homework assignment.
Now all of that is online andnow with like GitHub, copilot,

(23:16):
it will write the code for you.
I don't even know how, withthis new generation of students
with that tool available to them, if they're actually going to
do the hard work of figuring itout, or they're just gonna be
like, why do I need to figure itout?
I can just have ai do the workfor me.
Isn't this the future?

Speaker 1 (23:33):
that it's kind of.
It's kind of like back inschool when the teacher told you
like hey, you're not alwaysgoing to have a calculator with
you, and it's like now you know,you see all the memes.
It's like you know, like youknow, like I always do, but
there's still value.
There's still value in knowinghow to do it.
I think the it is dependent onwhat you want in the, and I

(23:58):
think a lot of times it is goingto take a design professor
telling the students if you wantto be able to produce the same
thing as AI, then fine, go, letthe AI do it for you.
If you want AI models to betrained on what you're able to

(24:19):
do, then do it the way I'mteaching you to do it.
Right.
You know, if you want to be adesigner, like the great
designers of history and thedesigners who are the ones that
the AI models feed off of, thenthis is the path that you have
to be able to generate originalthought that works on the basis

(24:42):
of good design.
I think that's what theprofessor is going to have to do
, at least right now.

Speaker 2 (24:47):
Right.
Well, here's one of myprognostications about the
future.
I think in five to ten yearsand you can argue whether it's
closer to five or ten but Idon't think there's any argument
that the job and the day-to-dayof a designer's work will
change or evolve right.
But one thing that I wonder iswhether or not because so much

(25:13):
design work that's done today isso copycat, so derivative.
I see students work and they'relike oh, they modeled it after
Instagram or whatever, but it'susually a you know worst version
of what's up there that theycopied or tried to imitate, and

(25:34):
I feel like a lot of design haskind of averaged out to the
bottom, like it's.
They all look very similar.
There's very little originalwork anymore and I feel like, of
course, we still need theinnovators to help feed the
model.
I think that'll be like the 2%.
I think that'll be maybe the10%.
90% probably aren't going to bethe original designers coming

(25:55):
up with new ideas.
That it's outside of the realmof AI-generated work or even
design system With designsystems systems.
Literally, you go to thecomponent library, see if
there's a component that'ssimilar to what you need, you
pull it in and you just lay itout based off of that.
Right, there's no, I wouldn'tsay there's no design, but

(26:17):
there's no work in terms ofthinking about the visuals.
All of that work has been done.
Right, the typography has beendone.
Right, the typography has beendone.
Right, you're going to use anH3 here.
You're going to use an H2.
That's a form label, that'swhatever.
Right, there's nothing you'recreating.
Right, you're just beingintelligent about what needs to

(26:38):
be used in what scenario.
So, in a lot of ways, I feellike design today is already
kind of like ripe for disruptionand has already gotten very
commoditized.
If we think about, like, theevolution of design in the early
days of the web and I'm goingto sound like an old geezer here
, but everything was bespokebecause nothing was out there,

(27:00):
everything had to be handcrafted.
Then we got to an era where youknow they're starting to be
templates.
There's websites likeSquarespace.
You know you need a restaurantwebsite.
We have a restaurant template.
Change the photos, change thecopy, change the menu, boom.
And then you know, but it wasstill designers creating those
templates.
And then we got into a servicemodel like Canva, where all

(27:23):
these templates, thousands oftemplates.
You need an Instagram socialmedia post?
We have hundreds of them.
Pick one it's free to use.
With the subscription, it'salready been commoditized.
You don't need designers forsocial media, social media

(27:46):
experts.
Go to Canva, pick the templateand use that for you and charge
you a little margin on top right.
Ai is going to basically takethose templates and just do it
for you, right?
You don't even need the socialmedia person at that point.
It's going to write the copy,it's going to write the headline
, it's going to mock it up foryou and, hell, it'll even
publish it for you.
So I'm not sure where the workis anymore.
Yeah.

(28:08):
I've seen designers today createstoryboards, customer journey
maps using AI right.
Yeah.
So I mean, obviously thethinking is still needed.
Obviously there's, you know, ahuman needed to do user research
.
Obviously there's, you know, ahuman needed to do user research
Other than certain pockets ofwork.
I feel like a lot of what, atleast for the last 20 years, has

(28:28):
been the core of what designersdo is evaporating.
And.
I'm not sure what happens.
I don't know if those hundredsof thousands of design jobs will
be replaced and if it isreplaced, by what?

Speaker 1 (28:42):
That's.
I mean, that's a great pointand I think about just.
You talked about some of yourhistory and I actually want to
get into that.
I want people to get a sense ofwho you are and kind of the
depth of your perspective,having that perspective of being

(29:07):
in the early days of the weband being and being able to look
at what it is now.
You're totally right.
I actually saw a conversationthat sprouted from a post that
cameron maul made on linkedin,basically saying that you know,
so much of design has becomecommoditized and we need to get
back to you know.

(29:29):
He said that the thing that hewas saying was when he was an
early employee at Meta, you know, and back then it was Facebook,
right he's.
When he's an early employee, heit was drilled into him and he
became a hardcore believer inyou know, done is better than
perfect.
Yeah.

(29:49):
And that they would drive hardtowards just getting something
that was good out there.
It doesn't have to be great,and he's saying that.
He's kind of coming back fullcircle to realize so many things
out there clearly don't havecraft to them, so it's so

(30:09):
commoditized.
There are so many things, it'sclear they don't have craft to
them.
And he's coming back around tocraft is important and the only
reason that you can get awaywith having the design system to
where you don't have to thinkabout whether it's good
typography, whether the colorsare good, whether the the layout
principles are good, the onlyreason that you can do that, and

(30:33):
even something you knowsometimes down to flows, right
um.
The reason you can do that isbecause somebody who created it
had craft, right um, that theircraft was good and they were
strong in that.
And I do think that AI is goingto return us to designers who

(30:55):
are able to adapt to a post-AIdesign field.
There's going to have to be areturn to craft.

Speaker 2 (31:03):
I would use a different word than craft,
although I think that's the moreaccurate word.
I think there's going to haveto be a return to craft.
I would use a different wordthan craft, although I think
that's the more accurate word.
I think there's a sense of joyand love that's been lost.
It's become very, I think, withSilicon Valley having such a
high emphasis on KPIs andcertain engagement metrics or

(31:24):
whatever, that you're reallyover-optimizing for those things
.
Right, and there's moments inan experience that are very hard
to quantify but that givepeople delight and joy and
really go like someone put careinto this experience.
They thought about this littleanimation.

(31:44):
I think about the differencebetween Apple and Microsoft.
Like Windows from back in theday, there was no love in
Windows, it was an engineer'sproduct, but Apple would think
about even the smallest detailwhere if an app needs your
attention, like the app iconwould do a little hop dance.
You're like that's sodelightful, like who thought of

(32:06):
this, it's so pleasurable, likeevery little detail was thought
through.
You can't put a metric right onon that, but you can in some
ways, like when you talk aboutcustomer affinity and and their
nps scores.
They love apple products, theyknow that it was lovingly
created, that they sweat thedetails.

(32:27):
I feel like there's been such anemphasis on speed, on metrics,
that we've lost the joy.
It's all about numbers, it'sall about how quickly we can
ship, how often you can ship,and we've lost the human element
of it.
I kind of feel like we willhave that go back to the
beginning moment in this post-AIworld.

(32:48):
Obviously, we're in thebeginnings of it, but there'll
probably come a time and itmight happen like five, 10 years
later, where it becomes similarto like a tailor-made suit.
It's like a human spent timemaking it.
This was like human created.
Designs like like that willbecome a niche.

Speaker 1 (33:08):
yes, I agree with you .
I agree with you.
That's the same way, that, andI will say there's a difference.
There is a difference, right,like the first time I got a
custom suit, I noticed thedifference.
Yeah, there is a.
There is a reason why it costsmore.
And I said the same thing aboutwhen you know the rise of the

(33:29):
e-reader and e-books, you knowthere's going to come a time
when the print version of a bookis going to be so expensive
because it is now consideredmore of a niche item.
Right you know, and now I lookat you know the price on some
paperbacks and the price on thehardbacks.
Oh my gosh, like I rememberwhat you know.

(33:50):
Like a hardback you could get ahardback book for somewhere
between 12 and 18 bucks, and nowit's like 30 bucks.
I know, and I think it's kindof going to be the same thing.
It's like I want a human design.

Speaker 2 (34:05):
It's like okay, be half a million dollars, I don't
think you're wrong.
I don't think you're wrongbecause and it's not even that
it's like there's a crazy markupeven on the suits, right right
it takes them hours like notjust hours, I mean like hundreds
of hours sometimes right to doit.
So it's not that they'repadding, it's like that's just
how much time it takes yeah it'slike art yeah like this't
science.
This isn't a factory-madeproduct.

(34:26):
I feel like, in the same waythat the fashion industry has
experienced fast fashion, whereoutfits are disposable, they're
only meant to be worn for aseason.
They're not made to last yourlifetime, they're made to be
worn and then thrown away andthen replaced by another one.
Next season we're going to havefast design because thrown away
and then replaced by anotherone.
Next season we're going to havefast design because AI is going

(34:48):
to help accelerate that.
But there's still going to beroom for high quality, lovingly
made garments and designs.
But my fear is that access tothat will become limited to a
very small percentage ofcompanies who can afford it.

(35:10):
That's right and for the smallto midsize companies they're
going to have to go with the AI.
Yeah.
And they will.
Because it's so cheap.
Right, it's like going toTarget.
Yeah, it's so affordable.
You don't need to hire a humanfor that anymore.

Speaker 1 (35:25):
And I do.
I agree with you.
And there's.
You know I try hard not to be aLuddite about this, but there
is a part of me that is sad forthat change happening to design.
Yeah.
Because it is the field in whichI've spent the longest time, at
least where I've been paid.

(35:46):
I've been an artist longer thanthat, but I've been paid to be
a designer longer than anythingelse, and there is a part of me
that laments that change.
But I also, just as a tech guyand I love technology.
I've always loved technology,ever since I was a little boy.
I recognize the genuine gainsto human quality of life that

(36:07):
technology brings, and so Iwouldn't.
I'm not trying to stop it.
Like you know, one of thethings I struggle with is, you
know, I see a lot ofprofessional artists, you know,
putting up the.
You know no AI art.
And I'm thinking to myself, likeyou sound kind of like the
factory mill worker who gotreplaced by the robot, like you

(36:32):
screaming no, ai art is notgoing to change, yeah, that the
box has been opened and thisdoes produce.
It does produce quality of lifeimprovement for humanity, and
it's incumbent on us to it.
Are you about yourself or areyou about your fellow man?
And if you're about your fellowman, let's you know my like, my

(36:56):
thing is let's do ai artethically.
So, you know, I do think thatthere may wind up being a
reckoning for MidJourney and forOpenAI and on how they have
trained their models, you know,because they probably I think
it's almost- it's a certainty.

(37:18):
There's no.
They broke copyright laws inorder to do it yes, laws in
order to do it yes, and I Idon't know.
I don't know who is the one whoto bring the suit and win.
Um, but I do think that it hasto be done in a way that artists
are not being stolen from, andI 100% agree with every other

(37:41):
artist that you should not bestolen from.
There is a sense in which anartist looks at other people's
work and that they ingest thatin order to be able to produce
their own work.
It's a different thing thanliterally taking a copy of
somebody's work and mashing ittogether with other copies of

(38:03):
other people's work to makeanother image.
There are laws that protectthat under certain things, and
so it's not necessarily becausethey could.
Even I could find the lawyersfinding a way to call it collage
.
I could find them trying tofind a way to interpret it as
collage and defend it that way,because that's legal.

(38:26):
But I don't think we'restopping it.

Speaker 2 (38:30):
It's not going away Like you said, pandora's box has
been opened.
There's no putting it back inthe box at this point.
It's out there.
It's out there, it's out there.
Yeah, I agree with you.
I think there's a big field anda big debate going on in terms
of the ethics of AI and how todo that the right way.
The New York Times recentlyfiled a suit in terms of chappy

(38:51):
GPT and basically feeding themodel with their journalistic
tone and voice, so I don't knowwhere that's going to net out,
but it's clear that's happened.
So my question that I'm stilldebating I love your input on
this it's like what sort of jobsdo people have in the future?

(39:14):
Because the thing that I worryabout is, like we've seen over
the last 20 to 50 years thatoffice workers' productivity has
continued to go up.
Right.
I don't know what thepercentage is it might be like
40%, 50% at this point but thewage is pretty much flat, right
Adjusted for inflation, and wecan see that there's more and

(39:35):
more work that will be replacedby.
In the past, we've thoughtabout automation more in the
context of blue collar workers,like factory workers Always
thought like, thought, work,service work would be safe.
Yeah.
But we're seeing now that's notthe case, right?
Right, if we think about AI, aicould be used for replacing
paralegals.

(39:55):
They're filling out forms,they're doing a lot of like
paperwork that could beautomated, right?
Hey, find me a case law similarto this case.
Ai can do that.
There's a lot of things thatwill be completely replaced and
obviated by AI, but we live in acapitalist society, so we still

(40:16):
need to work to make money andunless that changes, I don't
know if, with all these swathsof industries being disrupted
and all these jobs potentiallyneeding fewer and fewer people
like a skeleton crew, do we ashumanity, do we all, become
creatives?
Do we become content creators?

(40:36):
Do we become artists?
Do we shift the nature of ourwork from productivity-related
output to creative output?
I don't know.
That's the part that I'mgrappling with, because I don't
know where I sit in the futureat all.

Speaker 1 (40:55):
I'm grappling with the same thing.
In a sense, I think that it's agreat question and I've thought
about it some.
As it pertains to me, I've justkind of always you know,
throughout my career, chased myinterest and that somehow just
you know, has worked out has putme kind of where the puck is

(41:19):
going.
And so you know I would listento people on podcasts talk about
, well, you're going to have tosee like people go from this to
this and I was like, oh, I didthat a couple of years ago, but
that's just because I was, youknow, adhd guy curious and I got
super interested in somethingand I kind of went down the
rabbit hole and found out a wayto make money doing it, you know

(41:39):
.
And so I think that there is, ina sense, in a broader, abstract
sense.
I do think that there's going tobe a need for humans to focus
on things that are creative, andwhen I say that I mean things
that require original thought,things that require things that

(42:02):
the machine can't do.
That is uniquely human and Idon't know.
I would be lying if I said Iknow what that looks like.
I would be lying if I said that, but I do think that's what
happens.
And so, like you know, it's asI've come up in my career.
You know, you know making theprogression from like working up

(42:25):
under other folks and watchinghow you know how they create,
and as a production artist, oryou know as a, you know watching
how people run a business.
You know, as I've come upthrough my career and gotten
into more being the one who istasked with having the original

(42:47):
thought, with needing to havethe mental model and then
needing to have original thoughtto go in a certain direction or
to make decisions or to createsomething.
Thought to go in a certaindirection or to make decisions
or to create something, Irealized that there's also this
sort of thing that's happeningbehind me, as I'm just kind of
chasing my interest.
There's also this thing that'shappening behind me where
there's no going back, like I'mturning around and it's like, oh

(43:10):
, holy crap, the road's likefalling apart behind me like
this I can't.
You know, there's no going backto that like I gotta keep going
in this direction.
I keep going forward.
You know, and and uh, I dothink that there's, you know,
like you see, you know, withthis rise of like, all these
content creators, and they arereally doing, you know, creative
things, and you see the samesort of like distribution, right

(43:34):
, like there are people who aredoing things that are very
derivative and there are peoplewho are doing things that are
very derivative and there arepeople who are doing things that
are very creative, who are thetrendsetters.
And I think more and more.
I think my optimist, because Iknow there are probably a lot of
people who will disagree withme, probably just as much as who
will agree with me, who knows?
But actually I think thatcapitalism is good and that it

(43:58):
forces you to make somethingthat somebody else wants in
order to make money.
It forces you know, as abusiness owner, I am forced to
do something that actually helpssomebody else make progress in
order for me to make money, inorder for me to make a living,
and that forces me to figure outways to produce value.

(44:19):
I don't get to just keep doingwhat I'm doing and think that
it's valuable just because I didit.
It's only valuable if it helpedsomebody else, if it's
something they think is worthmoney.
And so I think that we'vefigured it out, by God's grace.
We've figured it out over theyears, over the course of human

(44:40):
history, and I think that we'llfigure it out again.
And the optimist view for me isI actually think that there's
the possibility that we see justan explosion of innovation and
better technology, becausehumans don't have to be focused
on the repetitive remedialthings and there will still be

(45:03):
people who have to check theoutput and that will you know,
as we move forward, that willbecome less and less, that it's
so systematized.
But, like you think about massproduction, there's somebody who
still has to check the outputand some things still make it
through.
Like we still haven't perfectedthat right, but like there was
a time when every watch, everywatch, was handmade.

(45:27):
And we've gotten to the pointnow where if you want a handmade
watch, you're going to paythousands and thousands of
dollars for it because you can'trush that process and there are
only so many hands to makethose watches.
And so if you want a Rolex,you're going to pay for it.
If you want an Omega, you'regoing to pay for it.

(45:49):
But I'm wearing an Orient andthis company is owned by Epson,
and they figured out how to makegood automatic watches
mass-produced.
And so, guys who are watchnerds like me, I don't look down
on a mass-produced watch likethis, because I respect the

(46:12):
people at Orient and the peopleat Seiko too, because they also
have done it.
They're actually both owned bythe same parent company, epson.
But they figured out how tomake a good mass-produced watch
and I'm thankful that I can geta great-looking watch that works
well, that's reliable, withouthaving to spend $3,000 on it,
and I'm not mad at that and I'mnot mad at that.

(46:34):
And so, in the same way, Idon't think I'm going to be mad
that if I need a bunch ofscreens produced now, I can go
and write a prompt for that andmaybe ingest some things that I
came up with.
Or it's a back and forth processwhere I write a prompt.
It gives me some ideas.
That creates some originalthought.
I go, do something, feed itback into AI and it produces

(46:55):
high fidelity stuff and thatdidn't cost me tens of thousands
of dollars.
I'm not necessarily mad at that, but I also think that's how we
get to some of the crazyinnovations of the future is
freeing up humanity to thinkabout those things, because if
you think about one of thethings that one of my mentor

(47:19):
taught me that I didn't reallyknow about history and wound up,
looking back at this is likeyou didn't see a lot of
breakthroughs in literature anda lot of other things until we
figured out the oil lamp.
Like when we figured out theoil lamp and we could figure out
how to get brighter lightwithout you know, without having

(47:40):
to have candles, we could workfarther into the night.
So a lot of points on whichhumanity innovated because we
could work more, because wecould work at night.
Right.
And then electricity, Right, andall the innovation that's come
because of electricity.
And so I mean electricitycoming meant that we didn't.
There are things that we didn'tneed as much anymore, and there

(48:01):
were markets that dwindledbecause we didn't need certain
things anymore.

Speaker 2 (48:06):
Yeah, it's funny you mentioned that because there's I
think it was like a Joe Roganpodcast where someone I think it
was the comedian David Carsonhad said that the biggest
industry like in I don't know,it might have been like the 1900
or something like that 1890 orsomething like that, but was
like whaling, because they woulduse that for light and whatever

(48:26):
else, and then, once you know,electricity came out, that
entire industry was wiped out.
Yeah, it's gone.

Speaker 1 (48:35):
I mean, look at the Rust Belt.
Yeah, look at the Rust Belt.
I mean we don't have to havehumans in factories to make
things as much anymore.
Now, some of that stuff, wejust we outsourced it overseas.
We didn't really figure out howto make things as high quality,
we outsourced it overseas.
There's still aninterdependence there, right,
like a global economicinterdependence there.

(48:57):
But yeah, I mean, you're right,there's an element of hey, I
need this thing less, but itfrees me up to do these other
things that I didn't think werepossible before before right and
now we can, you know, we canlook forward to.

(49:18):
You know, who knows?
I mean farther space travel.
I mean I just heard, literallyheard yesterday, from one of my
old design professors.
I was talking to him on thephone last night.
He said devin, they've repeatednuclear fusion three times
successfully now and I'm like,and we had a whole conversation
about there's a whole industryyeah that is going to disappear

(49:41):
yeah there's a whole industrythat's probably going to I mean,
I won't say disappear, but itis going to be completely
remapped because we don't needfossil fuels for energy as much
anymore.
I'm I am not like I'm not oneof those folks who's worried
that fossil fuels is destroyingthe planet at a rapid rate, but

(50:04):
I also recognize that there's abetter way and I would like us
to get to a better way.
And so if the traditional powergrid changes dramatically
because of nuclear fusion andenergy becomes super cheap, what
does that do for humanity?
I mean, there's all kinds ofthings that makes possible.

(50:26):
So I kind of think of AI in thesame way.
I know that was a super longanswer.

Speaker 2 (50:29):
I think you're spot on.
I guess part of me is justwondering what that would look
like, because there's obviouslybeen the emergence of creator
economy recently and it'scontinuing to grow and more and
more people are getting intostreaming, right.
I can't remember how long agothis was, but I remember when

(50:51):
the first time I saw aninterview with a kid being done
and they asked them who theirfavorite star was and they
mentioned a YouTuber, not acelebrity, not an actor, not a
singer.
It was a YouTuber, and for thelast 10 years that's been true
of this younger generation isYouTubers, right.
And so now you have more andmore people creating content.

(51:13):
Podcast has exploded.
There's the Substack newslettercreators.
There's, you know, people onmedium writing, on linkedin
writing.
There's experts on tiktok,right.
Like literally every job is nowbeing like there's a tiktoker
for it.
There's a legal talk, there's aaccountant talk.
There's like excel, like youknow shortcuts and're like there

(51:37):
is a market for everythingthere.
I don't know if that's thefuture, where people just kind
of go online.
That becomes the way theybecome, I don't know both
fulfilled and financiallycompensated.
I don't know.
I don't know where, with all ofthis innovation and all of this
production being automated.
Where do we go?

(51:59):
Where do we go from here?
Right?
Do we create even bettertechnology?
Probably, in the next fiveyears, there's going to be more
and more AI startups.
Most of my clients are shiftingto AI already, so that's going
to be a thing, right.
They'll probably be emergingwhere there's going to be a big

(52:20):
player that eats up and vacuumsup other players, and it'll be
like the AI go-to for law or forsoftware or whatever else.
But I just wonder after that,the post-AI right.
Yeah.
When it's peak AI, at that pointwhere it's part of every aspect
of your life.
Where do we find work?

(52:43):
Where do we?
What do we do?

Speaker 1 (52:48):
I think that's a great question.
I think that the folks workingin all kinds of industries
throughout human history thataren't really things anymore
probably wonder the same thing.
We're wondering now, and it'skind of an exciting time to be
alive.
I think we are at an inflectionpoint in history, be because I

(53:22):
think that the intersection orthe sort of like this
convergence of ai coming, cominginto its own and being able to
produce, just like you know,three, four, five hundred
percent increases in humanproductivity, you know, like one
person being able to do thework of like four or five people
I have a friend who does that.
I'm blown away by it.
I actually have a couple offriends who do that, and both of

(53:46):
them own businesses and theydon't have to have staffs as
large because they're able touse AI to produce so much more.
But like that that convergingwith us figuring out cheaper and
more efficient ways of creatingenergy I think that those two
things I think that my hope isthat in 50 years, like our

(54:10):
grandkids, are like looking atus the way that we look at folks
who lived in primarily agrariansocieties, who don't have all
the comforts that we have now,who can't spend all their time
doing the things that we do now,because it took all day to make
dinner.
It took all day to make surethat you had enough to produce

(54:33):
for yourself and maybe to sellsome right that they're looking
back on us and they're like dang, how did you live like that?

Speaker 2 (54:40):
Yeah, I'm with you At heart.
I'm a tech optimist as well, soI'd rather see the positive in
the future.
But it can always go theopposite way.
Right, like AI can becomeavailable only to the rich,
right, and everybody else has todo it the laborious, the hard

(55:01):
way.
Yeah, and it becomes, you know,a few elite companies.
That becomes like an oligopolythat owns everything yeah yeah,
that is danger.

Speaker 1 (55:13):
I think that.
I think that, because of howmuch we need each other, if we
stick to allowing the market topick its own winners and losers
which is essentially allowingpeople to pick what they want to
buy and how much they arewilling to pay for it I think
it'll work out and the rightpeople will win because they're

(55:36):
producing the most value.
I do think that we have to.
That's the guard that we haveto keep up is making sure that
we keep allowing people to makechoices.
And then those of us who areproducing because everybody has
to produce something right thoseof us who are producing, or in

(55:58):
the areas of our lives where weproduce a better way to say it
that we're looking for whatproduces value and we adapt
instead of trying to hold on towhat we know to be able to say,
okay, how can I really dosomething that now better serves
?
What does this make possible andhow can I better serve my

(56:19):
fellow man?
How can I make something evenmore valuable?
And I think that's how it windsup working out, and no one
person has all the ideas, and soI think that's how it winds up
working out.
As long as we allow people tomake choice, it's going to force
everybody to have to makethings available, because one of
the things that is difficultabout being in a business where

(56:43):
you have to depend on the peoplewho have a lot of money is
there are fewer of them, thereare fewer customers to be had,
and so figuring out a way tomass produce something means you
get to have more customers andthere are economies of scale to
that, and there are ways thatthat is more attractive to some

(57:04):
folks, and there are some folkswho are always going to be
attracted to.
I want to work with the high networth people who can afford
this bespoke thing that is notas figured out, and all this
stuff.
There are going to be peoplewho are always more attracted to
that and there are going to bepeople who see more value in
producing the thing that can beconsumed by many Apple in the

(57:28):
spectrum of things in the techworld.
When Steve Jobs talks aboutwhat he always wanted to
accomplish, he wanted, hisvision was for the computer to
be in everybody's house and forit to be like a lamp.
He didn't want a computer to bethis complicated thing that you
had to turn on and it had toboot up and all that stuff.

(57:50):
Like he, he said that he wantedto get to the point where
turning on a computer was liketurning on a lamp.
And now we have the iPad theiPad.
I don't ever turn off my iPad.
Really.
I never turn it off.
It's always running Like thescreen may be off.
Right.
Like I almost never turn off myphone, right Right, like I go up

(58:14):
to my phone and I pick it upand the screen lights up yes,

(58:37):
no-transcript to make it betterand faster and cheaper.
And I think that's what's goingto happen with AI, because
right now it definitely feelslike, oh, it's like the people
who are on the edge, who arelike tinkering with this, like
know how to mess with it, orpeople who are really tech savvy
the folks who are not as techsavvy are kind of being left
behind and we have, like youknow, I think there's also a lot

(59:00):
of money to be made and peoplemaking ai for dummies right,
like teaching, teaching.
You know a book?
There should be a book.
You guys are listening.
Hey, send us a check, send me awant to check.
Ai for dummies.
Go make a lot of money, but Ithink there's value in that.
So I think there's, I think theways I just always think about
it like all right, so we'reworried about this group of

(59:22):
folks over here who's not goingto be able to necessarily catch
up as far as these younger folksor people who are really into
this.
How do we bring those folksalong?
And those folks are willing topay money to be helped, and as
long as you don't have thismentality that you're trying to

(59:42):
usuriously extract from somebody, like make the thing five
dollars and it will make yourich and everybody will be able
to for it.
Make it five dollars andeverybody will buy it right, and
then everybody gets to moveforward you know, yeah, I agree
with that.

Speaker 2 (59:55):
There's a potential convergence that I kind of think
about, which is, if you thinkabout meta calling themselves
meta, right where everyone'sgoing to basically inhabit this
digital universe.
It already happens in thegaming world, right?
if you play video games, I playleague nice like like you spend
money like buying new skins,which is basically a new outfit

(01:00:17):
for like a digital characterthat you play, and there's
people in Sims or in Second Lifethat will buy outfits, digital
outfits for their characters.
Like real money, like $50 thatyou can buy on real clothes to
pay for a digital thing for youravatar right I'm wondering

(01:00:39):
whether or not with ai, with youknow the vision pro with all
these things, like we don't gooutside, we just live in the
digital, it's just yourcomputers.
There's no turning on thecomputer's, just on your face
all the time at that point Iworry about, about that.

Speaker 1 (01:00:56):
I do worry about that .
You know, when I see people outin public with a vision pro on
their face, I'm just like thiscan't be the answer.
This can't be it.
I like Apple, all right, okay.
Like I think this is the firstrun, this is, you know, if we're
talking design, this is firstcomp, man, this isn't final comp
.

Speaker 2 (01:01:15):
Well, it's going to get smaller, right, they're
probably trying to.
Everything will getminiaturized to a certain point,
so maybe it'll become more likethe Google Glasses of
yesteryear.

Speaker 1 (01:01:26):
Yes, did you ever have Google Glass?

Speaker 2 (01:01:29):
No, I tried it.
I played around with it alittle bit.
I was like, okay, I would neveruse this.
It doesn't solve enoughproblems for me to make it
useful yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:01:39):
It was a more in my opinion.
Just like, if you're going tohave something like that on your
face, like even now, I thinkGoogle Glass is a more
acceptable version of that, justvisually, like walking around
seeing people with that stuff,but like.
So I used to work for an agencyand they bought us one, just
like you, like we begged them tobuy us one to see what we could
do with it, because we couldimagine all kinds of

(01:02:01):
applications Like we never didany of those things.
But it turns out one of thedevelopers like basically took
it to his house.
Most of the time At leastsomebody was using it.
But like it would get super hotman, dude, it would, would burn
your, it would feel like it wasburning your temple.
It gets super hot because thewhole computer was contained in
this little thing right here,yeah and uh, yeah, it's like you

(01:02:22):
couldn't wear it for that longand the thing would be cooking
your, cooking your face.
But, like I and people wereuncomfortable.
They were very uncomfortablewith seeing, because they were
wondering if you were recordingthem.
Yeah, like it was a lot lesscommon back then for people to
just be, you know, recordingthings with their smartphones
out in public, yeah, and sopeople were very uncomfortable,

(01:02:44):
like if they saw you walkingaround with that thing, they
assumed you were recording themand you could see people you
know yeah.
So that was kind of a neatsocial experiment for us.
It's like walking around with itin public and seeing people not
okay with us walking aroundwith it at that point, yeah yeah
, I mean, clearly, people haveless of an adverse reaction to

(01:03:05):
people walking around with applevision pro, which is much more
obtrusive device, but I don't.
I know that reality matters.
So, like you know, it's funny.
Mkbhd asked a question lastnight on Twitter.
He said hey, if you had adevice that you could put over

(01:03:25):
your eyes and like, itsresolution and audible clarity
and spatial awareness was sogood that it tricked your brain
into thinking it was real and itcould somehow mimic the wind on
your face and smells and allthat, and you could put that

(01:03:49):
thing on and travel to the GrandCanyon with that, would you
still want to go in real life?
And I answered and I said, yeah, I would still want to go in
real life.
And I answered and I said, yeah, I still want to go in real
life because I know my body hasnot entered that physical space
and reality still matters, likeI.
I know that I was only intaking somebody's interpretation

(01:04:10):
right of that physical reality.
It wasn't the actual thing, andthere are things that their
interpretation are not going tobe able to reproduce moment for
moment.
They might have reproduced acertain moment or an
amalgamation of a certain moment, but they're not going to be
able to probably accuratelyreproduce everything at once.

(01:04:33):
And even if they could, I stilldon't get to ever say that I
was there oh you know, I wasn'tactually there, so that it still
matters to me and maybe maybeour grandkids like 50 years from
now.

Speaker 2 (01:04:48):
I don't you know, maybe they don't care, you know,
but I care yeah, I I think Iagree with you in part, so like
I don't think it's a replacement, but I do think we have such
limited ability to do all thethings in life right.
Yeah.

(01:05:08):
There's just so much time in theday, so much resources and
energy, but if you can teleportyourself to any part of the
world instantly and rather thanlooking at it on video, but
actually feeling like you'rethere without being there, I
feel like that's still something.
It's still valuable right, yeah.
I agree with you that youwouldn't necessarily replace it,

(01:05:32):
but I think there's differentkinds of needs.
Right, but I think there'sdifferent kinds of needs.
There's one where it's aboutthe life experience, and then
there are others where it's moreabout education and exposure.
And when we think about, forinstance, this is a stupid
example, but in the US we havethe benefit of being able to eat

(01:05:54):
cuisines from all around theworld.
We don't have to go there toexperience those cuisines, we
can experience it where we areright.
I think that is incrediblyvaluable from a cultural
exposure standpoint.
So I see us being able to dothat more.
Maybe someone will come up witha cool name spatial tourism or

(01:06:16):
something, but there's still.
I think there's somethingintrinsically valuable about
that, because it's so expensiveto travel around the world and
get jet lag got to go to customsyou know there's a lot of.
You know passport, all of thatand for some people, for a lot
of people, they don't have themeans.
And if you can afford to do itthis way and see 20 of the

(01:06:40):
greatest cities around the world, I don't know.
There's still somethingvaluable about that.
I guess the risk is peoplestart to take the easy road and
substitute that for the realthing, and I think that will
probably happen as thetechnology gets better, Like

(01:07:00):
people won't feel like they needto go anymore because they feel
like they already experiencedenough of it, right Like 50%,
60% and that's good enough forthem.
So maybe tourism getssacrificed.

Speaker 1 (01:07:15):
Man, we keep killing industries.

Speaker 2 (01:07:17):
On this podcast with ai it's just where things are
going I think you're.

Speaker 1 (01:07:24):
I think you're right, man, I think you're right.
Like what, people are willingto spend money to get on a plane
and go see shrinks.
I think it does yeah that's I'mso like, I'm curious.
I'm curious about what youthink will happen with
technology development and maybewe can, like you know, get into

(01:07:46):
a little bit of your background, because I think that that's an
interesting look into why youhave the answer that you have.
But, like, before we get intothat, like what you know, how
did you wind up in design?
oh like how did you get there?
And you know where do you seeyourself right now in your

(01:08:09):
career yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:08:10):
So I got into design, kind of like by accident really
.
So I was studying engineeringbecause my parents forced me to
essentially, or pressured meinto it, and I happened to be
attending U of I, which was likethe birthplace of Mosaic, which
is like the first graphicalbrowser.
It was like the predecessor toNetscape.
So this is how old I am.

(01:08:32):
Kids.
There was a time in the earlydays of the web where you would
browse websites through theterminal it was through the
command line prompt.
Browse websites through theterminal it was through the
command line prompt and so beingable to see and experience the
web through a graphicalinterface, through a browser,
that was pretty eye-opening andit really was like a portal to

(01:08:53):
experience all sorts of things.
Of course, you know, we hadpornography, but it also had
games.
It had, you know, a bunch oflike soundbites from the
Simpsons, which I loved, andanime and all that other stuff.
And so I fell in love with theweb and it made me want to make
my own website and just by theprocess of having to learn how
to do that, I got exposed todesign, although I didn't even

(01:09:16):
know what that was at the time.
I learned how to basically domarkup and CSS, and then I saw
some cool sites using JavaScript.
I was like, how did they dothat?
Back then there was still Javaapplets too, so also played
around with that.
But that was my entree intodesign and I was so early that

(01:09:36):
there wasn't any classes for it,there wasn't any degrees for it
.
There was maybe like two bookson the subject matter at the
time.
So when the dot-com boomhappened, they were looking for
anybody that had any knowledgein terms of building websites,
and so that was kind of like howI transitioned from being more
like an engineering.

(01:09:57):
I ended up getting my BS inmath and my master's in computer
science.
But that was how I segued into.
Design was being self-taught.
So I am a completelyself-taught designer.
I had to learn everything thehard way, every single thing
about typography, grids.
I made all the mistakes and,kind of like through trial and
error, figured it out, I guess.

(01:10:17):
But I've been doing design forover 20 years.
So there's kids that were bornin the 2000s that I was doing it
longer than that, and so I'vebeen doing design for over 20
years.
So there's kids that were bornin the 2000s that I was doing it
longer than that, and so I'veseen the industry go through all
of the major changes right.
So, starting from, everybodyneeds to be on the website.
That was largely brochureware,but then, you know, we had Web

(01:10:39):
2.0, where it became morefunctional.
There were features, there werethings that it can do for you.
You can buy online, you canhave accounts.
And then we had the with mobile, with the iPhone was a
watershed moment, because now wehave all these mobile apps and
mobile development, and so thattransitioned me into doing more

(01:11:01):
product design, and I also led adesign bootcamp at one point
one of the first UX designbootcamps in the country, which
ultimately got acquired, and soI've been in design for a long
time doing design leadership.
I run my own product designstudio now doing consulting work
for clients.

(01:11:21):
What I'm really passionate aboutis that intersection of
creativity and technology.
So I love generative AI and thepromise that it holds.
But there is some, you know,important questions around,
because I think the differencenow, when compared to the tools
of the past, as I think about it, is when you had people doing

(01:11:43):
hand setting of, like printmaterial.
You know, having software likephotoshop was a game changer.
It made things so much fasterand all the tools since have
been accelerators.
I think what's what's profoundlydifferent for me now is that it
isn't just about makingsomething faster, it's about

(01:12:05):
wholesale doing it for you.
Now you might guide it, youmight be thinking and you're
still the architect for it, butit's doing the legwork and
that's very different.
It's not the same right in thatregard, the same right in that

(01:12:27):
regard, and that's where I havea lot more pause and hesitation
around what this means for thefuture.
But I'm excited for it and ifclients need AI consultation, of
course I would provide it andof course, I use design today
with AI.
Yeah, I do wonder, of course Iuse design today with AI.
Yeah, I do wonder what thefuture will hold and how the

(01:12:48):
industry will shift.
I think the skills that we willcontinue to need to exercise is
problem solving, to be thinking, to be empathetic, to really
think about who our users andcustomers are, what the customer
experience ought to be.
A lot of the actual design,delivery, the solutioning that
part of the work, I think willstart to fade away.

Speaker 1 (01:13:10):
That's interesting and that's really cool.
It's really cool to know thatyou're self-taught.
You know, honestly, I've met acouple of self-taught designers.
I mean, I started self-taught,I did eventually wind up going
to college for it and I wound updropping out.
I ran out of loan money, Idropped out, but I had some

(01:13:32):
great instructors and it wasvery valuable.
But I've worked alongside someself-taught designers and I'm
just like dang dude.
I mean you save saved.

Speaker 2 (01:13:44):
I didn't save money because I still went to college,
remember?

Speaker 1 (01:13:47):
oh, that's right, it was just for something different
.
Yeah, that's true, that's true,dang, but like that's really
cool, it's really cool to hearthat and you know, like to see
some of your.
You know your work was like no,Juan's good.
Appreciate it.
You taught yourself well.

Speaker 2 (01:14:06):
Well, I think it's a good skill that anyone can have
is just learning how to learn.
That's one of the key thingsyou're supposed to take away
from going to school, becauseyou need to constantly be
evolving as a designer, whetherit's the tooling, whether it's
the methodologies, the thinking,design trends are constantly

(01:14:27):
changing, so staying on top ofthat.
But if we just even think about, like the software, right, like
what was it before?
It was like Photoshop, thenthere was Sketch, there's XD,
there's, you know, figma, nowyou, now the tool is constantly
changing and the medium ischanging, whether it's a screen

(01:14:49):
on a phone or a screen on thecomputer, desktop to a laptop,
and now on watches, now spatialapps.
And I think with AI, a lot ofthe interaction models will
change too.
It's not going to be a userinterface in the traditional
graphical sense, right, it'sgoing to be dialogue based.
It'll be conversational.

(01:15:09):
So what artifacts are youcreating now, when it's all
derived around questions thatpeople may have and what prompts
you need to help anticipatethat a person might give the AI
to assist them?
Right.
What do?
you show them when the resultscome back.
Like that's very different fromeven like the screen, because

(01:15:32):
it was easy to think aboutminiaturizing or shifting the
layout of something that istwo-dimensional into a smaller
footprint.
This is like not even.
It's not even that.
It's like it's audio.
It could be just voice-based,right.
It could just be the AI talkingback to them.

Speaker 1 (01:15:50):
That's right.
That's right, yeah, I mean, Ithink it's going full circle
back to browsing a website viathe terminal.
It's going full circle.

Speaker 2 (01:16:02):
That's very true, yeah, but you just don't have to
memorize the commands anymore.
It's just like it could be.
Just, it could just be whateverfree flowing question you may
have.
Someone brought this up and Ithink it was from a product
coffee conversation I had.
They were saying that customerportals might no longer be

(01:16:23):
needed.
So if you think about yourphone bill, you log in, you look
at your payment history orbilling, you have to go through
a navigation.
You have to think about whatnav to click on to get to where
you want to go.
Well, with AI maybe, the firstscreen you see is just like an
input field for typing in whatyou want and they'll know like

(01:16:45):
oh, you want billing history forAugust, here you go.
You don't need a person pickingaround, going into the billing
section.
Where's the billing section?
Let me sort by year, click onthe exact month that I want and
then see a PDF.
They'll just know, that's whatyou wanted right.
So that interaction model, thatall of that work that we've
built over the last 20 years interms of like information

(01:17:08):
architecture, like that willchange that information no
longer needs to be organized inthat hierarchical manner that
people are thinking about.
You don't need that Mentalmodels like they have a question
.
You need to know that billingis a keyword and it maps to this
, and then everything else willbe automated you know it's
similar to you.

Speaker 1 (01:17:27):
Know, I thought I think about ai a lot, very as
being very similar to when, whenI'm ready to buy a particular
thing or I'm going in store I'mlooking for something.
I would love to just be able towalk up to somebody who works
there and knows the place orknows more about the thing, and
say, hey, I need something thatdoes this.

(01:17:50):
Or hey, I need to find this.
And they're like, oh right,this way.
Yeah.
Instead of me figuring out howto navigate the store.
You know, the goal is not forme to become good at navigating
the store.
The goal is for me to get thething so I can go and accomplish
another goal that I have in mylife right.
There's a different job to bedone that I would like for not
having to navigate the store toget in the way of.

(01:18:12):
I think it's the same way withthe interface, that I think it's
kind of a both-and situationwhere there are certain things
that a visual interface providesfor you faster than dialogue.
But it may be faster to get tothat interface with the dialogue

(01:18:32):
than it would be trying to peckaround to find where that
interface is.
And also, I think we are goingto rapidly move and I think
design systems have given us theability to get there where that
interface is not.
It is not something thatsomebody thought up ahead of
time around that information andgives you you know, like I'm

(01:19:02):
thinking about dashboards givesyou a dashboard that it made for
you in that moment that showsyou specific things and you can
decide to save that dashboard ifyou want to see it like hey,
this is great, I won't, like youknow, save this.
If I say, show me Devin'sdashboard, it brings up Devin's
dashboard again and I don't haveto go through the same process.

(01:19:22):
But that was a creative thingthat happened right then, where
it made that dashboard off ofyou dialoguing or typing
something in.
You didn't go around peckingand a designer didn't design
that dashboard ahead of time.
A designer maybe, put the rulesand this is where I think maybe
the future for folks like uscomes is.
We are now thinking in terms ofrules that we give the AI to

(01:19:45):
create products.
We give rules for interfacesand information that we present
to somebody, or controls that wepresent to somebody.
There are rules to make sureit's a good experience, but the
AI is presenting that at thetime and those things don't have
to be prefab.
Like you said, screens you knowscreens, the way that we talk

(01:20:08):
about it in you know design.
World like that's going away, Ithink.

Speaker 2 (01:20:13):
Yeah, yeah, I think that's a great point.
I think that's part of, I think, where the shift in terms of
what designers will need tothink about and be able to do
will go is also thinking abouthow to structure conversations,
how to anticipate needs,creating or defining those
heuristics.
I think there'll still be somepeople that will need to help

(01:20:35):
lay down some of thatfoundational work, like design
systems.
But once that initial work isdone, then a lot of it will.
I don't know.
It'll probably look less likewhat designers spend their time
doing right.
Yeah, where it's laying out UI.
Now it's going to be thinkingabout all the possible ways in
which a person might have aprompt.
Yeah.

(01:20:56):
And how to facilitate that.
Yes, I think you're right interms of if they're asking for
billing history, maybe you haveto think about okay, so maybe
that's something that happenswhere you want that as a save,
save it as a shortcut in thefuture, so then that becomes the
link that someone could clickon so they don't have to type in
that prompt.
It's like they can look at itand be like okay, that's the

(01:21:19):
thing that I want to do enoughtimes that we should have like a
visual representation of beingable to do that, like redo that
action or save that dashboard.
Yeah, it's crazy because we havedata scientists now creating
those infographics, right?
Yeah.
Bar, graphs, charts, and it'snot hard to imagine AI being

(01:21:41):
able to do that work for you.
Show me the sales from Augustto September and then break it
down by geography or something.
Yeah, and it's like boom.
You don't need to knowdatabases how to make that query
, how to actually pipe it intosome data visualization like d3,

(01:22:02):
like yeah, I could do that ohmy gosh.

Speaker 1 (01:22:06):
Now, yeah, this guy who I might be a I might have
been a front-end developer, butI am I don't try to trick
anybody into thinking I'm like areal I say a real developer,
like a real software.
It's like database queries andstuff like that like I've never
had to write database queries oranything like that.
I always worked with, never hadto write database queries or
anything like that.
I always worked with greatpeople who did that.
The idea that I could likefigure out a way to make

(01:22:30):
software and just tell AI, likewhat information that I need to
be able to draw, tell it whatinformation I need to be able to
store, tell it what informationI need to be able to draw For
AI to be able to intelligentlyfigure out what the right data
model is.
It's not to say I can't thinkof a data model.
I can think of a data model.

(01:22:51):
I just don't know how to writethe code to build the data model
.
But like even getting to thepoint where I don't have to come
up with the perfect, mostefficient data model, I tell AI
what I want and it makes thedata model.
It's the same way now where Igo into Webflow and I don't
worry about what code Webflow'swriting and I cared a lot about

(01:23:13):
that.
Like I said, there was a pointin my career I cared a lot about
that and now I don't careanymore because I know it's good
enough that it's not creating areally crappy output that's
going to, on the other side,create a bad experience
potentially.
It does the job.
I can see it getting to thatpoint where I can create

(01:23:35):
software.
That's okay.
I'm not going to makeinnovative, groundbreaking stuff
without a developer, probably.
But I could make an app and notneed a developer yeah, I mean
that's.

Speaker 2 (01:23:49):
I feel like that's what the trend has been right
for the last five years.
Is those no code tools?
yeah you know there's no codeweb websites, but there's also
no code through like bubblewhich will, you know, help you
create databases and do any sortof server-side type of thing.
And yeah, I think AI is justgoing to continue that trend
where hopefully maybe that is agood thing that the creative

(01:24:14):
product that people create willbe AI-assisted right, so it'll
help them but even if they don'tknow programming languages,
that they can get developmentdone.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:24:24):
Right, yeah, affordably.
That totally.
I mean obviously we see it, wesee it going in that direction
already.
So you know we we talked abouthow that's probably going to
happen in design.
I already see it happening withdevelopment to a certain extent
.
And there's also danger therebecause you know there is a side
of development where if youdon't have the right data

(01:24:46):
security, all that stuff, youcan create real problems for
others and yourself.
But I do think it's going totrend, continue to trend in that
direction.
So, like I have anotherquestion for you to think about,
kind of as we close here, likewhat do you think you know, like
now, owning your own productdesign business?

(01:25:07):
Do you think this changes thebusiness of product design?
For you.
How has it changed and how doyou think it changes it over the
next couple of years?

Speaker 2 (01:25:18):
Well, one immediate change is in terms of my
workflow.
I think that in the past youmight have to work with Well,
one immediate change is in termsof my workflow.
I think that in the past youmight have to work with, say,
like a copywriter.
I have now relied on AI foralmost all copy.
So I don't work with, like acontent strategist, x copy even

(01:25:39):
right, like AI is pretty good atgenerating and you can even be
very specific like give me 25options for a CTA here.
Boom, done right.
Like it has been such a greataccelerant because I've used it
not only for copy but alsoresearch.
Bard is great in terms of youdon't have to do a search and

(01:26:05):
then go through all the results.
It kind of summarizes thefindings right.
So it's been great in terms ofchanging the workflow.
But one other part of the waythat I've structured my business
differently maybe than I havethought about businesses in the
past is the design serviceindustry is kind of like a

(01:26:28):
pyramid scheme, right.
If you're an agency owner, theway that you make money or
increase profit is you have moreprojects.
You're one person.
You can't do multiple projects,so then you need to hire more
people.
Well, how do you continue toscale?
You need more clients, but onceyou hit a certain threshold,

(01:26:55):
you have to feed the beast.
You need to maintain cashflow.
You have a huge headcount atthat point, and you need ongoing
business development to be ableto maintain staff, and so it
becomes a I don't know like anever ending loop.
You're always looking for newclients, you're always pitching,
and so I feel like what AI hasdone now is that you don't have

(01:27:17):
to scale because you can dothings more lean, and so it
almost allows you to structurethe business not so much like a
solopreneur where you're doingall the work, but it also
doesn't mean that you have to doall the work anymore, because
it takes some of that burden offof you, and so one thing that

(01:27:39):
it's done is help me sort ofrestructure the way that I think
about my business less assomething where I want it to be
a 20, 50 person agency and moreabout having a business, that
where I can do good work, workwith people that I enjoy, but
also be more deliberate aboutthe scale, like I don't need it

(01:28:00):
to scale, like the technologyhas enabled some of that.
I think there will be a littlebit of a window, and that's the
opportunity that I'm hoping tocapitalize on.
We're leveraging these emergingtools to be able to service
more clients without having toburn the midnight oil and hire a
bunch of people and you know,know, start to go into that.

(01:28:23):
I don't want to call itdownward cycle, but like having
to have you need more money,hire more people, and then it
just becomes like that doom loop, like you're like stuck, you're
stuck, you don't want to fireanyone, and so it just becomes
like a ongoing stressor in yourlife.

Speaker 1 (01:28:40):
Yeah, that that makes sense.
I I that is one of the thingsthat that I think about, that
you know I've worked inprofessional services for most
of my career and that that is athing that I see at almost every
firm.
It's the thing is, like you,you get to a point where you got
to feed the beast and you'retaking work that you don't want

(01:29:03):
to do because in order for allthose people to still have
gainful employment or for you tomake payroll, you gotta have
the work coming in, and so I Ialso see it as a as potentially
an answer to to some of that,and I also think it.
I also think it potentiallymakes it easier for people to be

(01:29:23):
solopreneurs and other peoplewho want that.
I'm not like there are somepeople who are like hardcore,
like solopreneur life, and likethere are other people who are
like I want to, like I kind ofhave a team.
Like it's selfish to just wantto be a solopreneur and I'm like
I think there's room in theworld for both.
Like I don't I'm not hardcoreabout either one, but I'm with

(01:29:47):
you on responsible scale, onintentional scale.
Like if you're scaling, it'sbecause, okay, this person, this
person is bringing somethingthat is needed, that can't can't
be provided by any other means,and that person is bringing
something unique to the businessand I also think that also

(01:30:17):
creates like another questionfor me and in my mind.
I'd be interested in hearingyour thoughts.
It's just like you know, Ithink and you touched on this a
little bit earlier like that cantend to trend things towards
more senior people being theones who are making, you know,
more of the money.
It's like you know, how doesthe junior, how does the junior

(01:30:38):
designer or the juniorpractitioner of any field really
?
But we'll keep it focused todesign for the thought
experiment, like how do theybreak in?
Yeah.
You know what are your thoughtson that.

Speaker 2 (01:30:49):
Yeah.
So that's actually a questionthat I've thought about long and
deeply.
I had a website for a whilecalled designapprenticeshipcom
that I created with a co-founderto to at least champion the
apprenticeship model, because Ithink that's one answer.
That's one thing that when youlook at Europe, they have more
than one pathway for a career.

(01:31:10):
It's not just everyone has togo to college.
You can go to vocational school, you can learn a trade, you can
do a technical thing, and Idon't think the US has enough
alternate pathways to a careerother than you go to college.
And even now, getting a collegedegree means nothing.

(01:31:30):
It used to be in the 50s, right.
It doesn't even matter if youhad a social sciences degree.
They're like you can get a goodjob because you have a college
degree.
Now it's table stakes.
Like everybody has a collegedegree.
It's meaningless.
Now it's table stakes.
Like everybody has a collegedegree.
It's meaningless.
And you could be someone with aBS degree and a barista at this
point you have a very expensivedebt but nothing to show for it

(01:31:52):
.
You could have been a baristastraight out of high school.
So I feel like we need moreoptions for young people and I
truly believe that anapprenticeship model.
Alternative to what?
Because I was part of this.
You know boot camps, right,they're for profit.

(01:32:12):
There's a profit motive there,like I would love to.
You know.
This was one tension thatalways existed.
It's like having fullenrollment versus making sure
it's the right people in thoseseats.
You would love to behyper-selective, but when you
have a gap in terms of idealenrollment, you might lower the

(01:32:33):
standards a little bit.
Right To get the revenue,because that's the challenge.
So, and it costs a lot of moneyto go to those bootcamps and
people take out loans to go tothose bootcamps.
This is after college, sostacking debt on debt, and you
know you don't get a jobstraight out of graduating a
bootcamp.
It takes months sometimes, insome cases maybe a year.

(01:32:57):
So one answer that I see is likean apprenticeship model.
People need experience to gettheir first job because, no, you
know that's always the rub,right, it's a chicken and egg
problem.
How do you get your first jobif you have no experience?
Like, if every job requiresexperience, how do you get the
experience?
You need a bridge, you needsomething to gap fill that.

(01:33:18):
And you know there's only somany students who are able to
participate in an internshipprogram at undergrad?
Most people don't.
There's like what?
Maybe a handful of open seatsfor internships.
So I feel like anapprenticeship model where
someone is an understudy andmaybe it could be a couple years
right, and then they've learnedthe trade, they learned the

(01:33:42):
craft, they know how to do itbecause they've mirrored
somebody, they've shadowed them,and so they've had that
opportunity to get practicalexperience.
I feel like that's one answer,but I do have.
I mean, I think AI is somewhatof an aid.
There was a moment back in themid 2000s where I was like okay,

(01:34:05):
I have to not only knowPhotoshop, illustrator, but I
also need to know HTML and CSS.
I also need to know how to dostuff in Flash.
I also need to know how tomaybe do dabble in 3D.
I'm just like dude, like howare you going to learn all these
things?
You don't learn them in school,and so I think the barrier to

(01:34:25):
entry was very high, like youhad to learn a lot of software
just to be able to do the thing.
Now you just kind of need toknow Figma, and maybe with AI
it's going to be even less, butI think the foundational stuff
is always going to be important.
Honestly, I do worry about thequality of education in some of

(01:34:45):
these design programs.
Yeah, because I see a lot ofportfolios from boot camp
graduates and they all look thesame.

Speaker 1 (01:34:53):
Yeah, that's been my concern.
Actually for a while that'sbeen my concern with boot camps,
because, trying to hire peopleout of boot camps, I noticed
that, like it was clear theydidn't.
They.
Their grasp of the fundamentalswasn't super strong, like they
knew how to do derivative things, but their grasp of
fundamentals wasn't strong andyou could tell they were copying

(01:35:17):
patterns they'd seen, but notwell, yeah, and so that that was
a concern that I had.
But you've, you know, I'veheard of people coming out of
boot camps and I'm just likedang, like awesome, you know,
and I think a lot of it dependson the person who's going
through.
I went to the Art Institute forprofit.
I saw them compromise on whothey let into the program there.

(01:35:39):
I mean, they were we would talkabout it as students, you know,
we would have friends where itwas like we.
You know, it's like dang, like.
Why did they let them in?
Like they're stealing theirmoney, like this person's not
going to be good enough to get ajob.
They're not going to get a job.
That's not fair to that person.
No.
Because, like this is anexpensive school, private,
for-profit institution.
This is an expensive school,private, for-profit institution.

(01:36:02):
This is an expensive school.
Yeah, Even compare it.
I actually found out it wasmore expensive.
I originally wanted to go toSCAD.
I originally wanted to go toSCAD.
Went to Art Institute because Ithought Art Institute was less
expensive.
It's just the way they framedit, because I was a dumb
18-year-old like the way theyframed it made it sound like it
was less expensive.
No, it was actually moreexpensive?

(01:36:23):
oh no it was it wound up being23 000 a year to go to the
artist's hut versus 18 000 to goto the scat.
So when I heard that 18 000number, I freaked out and then
it, you know, taught the scat.
But they didn't talk in thesame, they didn't frame it in
the same way.
Yeah, it's a little bitpredatory in my opinion.
Oh yeah, but like you know, I Istill I got a good education

(01:36:47):
there, so I'm not mad about that.
I mean, obviously you've seenall the stuff that's happened
with the art institutes becauseof some of their predatory
practices, but, like I still gota great education.
But I agree, like there is aconcern for me as well, of you
know how some folks are, aregetting educated in some of
these programs, because it doesseem a lot more popular for

(01:37:08):
somebody to go now through aboot camp than to go to design
school yeah I still don't see alot of people choosing to go to
design school well, I think alot of.

Speaker 2 (01:37:17):
So some I I have a few observations that I've made,
so just to start unpacking someof them like, in terms of
design as a profession, it'sstill kind of it's not very
common knowledge.
It's a viable path, right,everyone's heard about
engineering, everybody heardabout other fields in tech data

(01:37:38):
scientists, maybe even productmanager but design is still sort
of hidden as a profession.
So I remember in high schoolthe career counselor never
mentioned design as a thing.
I didn't even know what thatwas then, right.
So, really, and coming from afirst-generation immigrant

(01:37:59):
family, like engineer, doctor,lawyer, high, high paying,
stable jobs, but no, like designwas never in that conversation,
and I think part of it is thelack of visibility.
So what ends up happening is alot of the people who end up
going to bootcamp they graduated, they realize that's not what
they want to do.
They hear about design, maybefrom a friend or somewhere else,

(01:38:21):
and they're like oh actually,that sounds more within my
wheelhouse of something that Iactually want to pursue.
Oh wait, I don't want to go backto school for this.
I don't want to go, you know,apply for a master's program.
They don't have rollingenrollment, right?
So it's going to be like I haveto wait until the fall to get
admitted and then pay thetuition.
It's a two-year degree.
Wait, there's another pathway.

(01:38:43):
It's three months.
It's less money when you thinkabout it, two years versus three
months and it's open enrollmentand it's rolling enrollment,
meaning like at any point youcan sign up and there's going to
be a cohort that gets started acouple months later.
It sounds like the right answerright when you look at it from
that standpoint, the studentsthat I found who are most

(01:39:05):
successful are the ones who areeither career transitioners
meaning they've been working andthey're just trying to like,
like, go somewhere adjacent.
Maybe they were a developer anddecided, realized they actually
like the creative part morethan the technical part yeah and
they want to go to designschool.
Or there's someone who's tryingto level up Someone who came

(01:39:25):
from a graphic design background, a print design background.
They're like you know what Ineed to get into UX design.
That's where it's heading.
I can make more money.
They have the foundations.
So what they're really buildingon top of that are
understanding about UX,understanding HCI, and that's
easier because they have thefunnel.
They even know the software sothey can, even if it's not Figma

(01:39:48):
, they can pick it up prettyquick.
Those are the most successfulstudents, the ones that come
from nothing, like they have.
Maybe they were an Englishmajor.
They know nothing about thesoftware.
They have no understanding ofanything related to graphic
design.
They have, maybe, an eye fordesign.
They have no understanding ofanything related to graphic
design.
They have maybe an eye fordesign, but that's it.
Maybe they've used apps andthat's their reference point for
how to design a user flow andinteraction model, but that is

(01:40:11):
all they've got to build on.
So three months is never enoughfor them.

Speaker 1 (01:40:14):
Right, yeah, that makes sense and that was, yeah,
my thought is, like man, likethree months is not long enough,
but that was always my likewith front-end development,
because you know there was aboot camp program that I, you
know, I would try to hire out ofand yeah, it was a three-month
program.
And I'm thinking to myself,like this person knows, nothing.

(01:40:36):
Yeah, and you're telling me thatyou're going to.
You're telling me as anemployer, that they're ready to
come into my company and beproductive after three months.
And I interviewed a lot of themand I was supportive of it.
I was like because I wantedother paths other than college,
because it was so inaccessible.
I wanted other paths.

(01:40:56):
I wanted to believe, but then Isaw the output and I was like,
like, this person's not ready.
They're not ready.
I could try to get them therest of the way there, but I
don't.
I'm going to still be teachingthem.
Really, I can't assign themwork and then pick up the extra.
They then become extra capacityin my team.

(01:41:20):
They're not ready to do thatLike, and they're actually
probably going to piss off therest of the team if I bring them
in under those auspices Like,hey, this person's going to help
us do this and they'll be likeyay, and then they're going to
see the work and they'll be likeDevin, what were you smoking?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Like you know, that was what wasgoing to happen.
So I really I think we onlyhired a couple of people out of

(01:41:45):
those programs, but it wasinteresting to see like some of
those folks were making.
They were already working insomething else, they were making
a transition and those folkswere fantastic.
They are One of the guys that Iworked with, one of the best
developers I ever worked with.
I mean he was the guy was justmagic.
I mean he was a linguist.
Oh, wow, and he became a frontend developer learned you know

(01:42:07):
Angular and React and all thatstuff, which is not what front
end development meant when I wasa front end developer.
It shows how old I am, but he, Imean, he was amazing and he was
a linguist, he worked, he washired because he could speak
multiple languages.
That's what he did before wentto a front-end boot camp and

(01:42:29):
picked it up and just, he'shands down one of the best
developers I've ever worked withand we were, I mean, it was
like man, it was like playingbasketball with somebody that
you just know how to play withand you're doing behind the back
passes and alley-oops and likeI'd talk about something I just
talk about.
So I've got to go to a client'soffice and I don't even have

(01:42:51):
time to work up designs and Italk about it and I come back
from like a client trip and he'dbe like devin, I built it and
I'm like I didn't even give youdesigns.
what are you talking about?
You didn't even know how to doit before I left and I'd come
back and he'd show it to me.
I'm like are you an alien?
And he was a linguist beforeand he went through a boot camp.

Speaker 2 (01:43:10):
Yeah, well, it's possible.
I think linguists, there's alot of commonality, because
programming language is alanguage.
Yeah, that's true, it'sactually a simpler language than
, if you think about it, thanthe written word.
So it's really just a matter oflike wrapping your mind around.
You're passing instructions toa computer to do a thing and you

(01:43:31):
have to anything.
You have to tell it step bystep, in its own, in a very
specific way, using theprogramming language syntax to
tell it how to do it.
That's right.
Using the programming languagesyntax to tell it how to do it,
that's right.
And if you can wrap your mindaround that, which is very
foreign to most people, theyjust take things for granted
Like oh, this is how you do it.
You've got to decompose it intoits very individual steps to

(01:43:57):
make it clear what you need todo, Like everything they're like
oh, Then you can be a goodprogrammer, but it's a different
way of thinking.
But you're right, there aredefinitely people who are very
successful.
I have many students who havegone on to work at the FANG
companies Google, Meta senior orleadership-level roles in their

(01:44:19):
companies boot camp students.
But I don't take credit for anyof it, because I'm like they
were good you know what I meanLike I kind of think of it as
like they had the intrinsicskills to be good.
They just needed to be taught,like, what to read, what to
think about.
And then they kind of took itthe rest of the way, which is
why I feel, like you know, thereneeds to be I don't think

(01:44:42):
bootcamps need to disappear, Ido think they need to you know
there needs to be some sort ofagreement on what the main
things that they need to, likestudents need to pass, Like they
need to learn these things andthey shouldn't all be
automatically graduated.
Like they need to graduate likenot rubber stamp through the
factory mill, which is what theydo now, and I also think an

(01:45:06):
apprenticeship model for peoplewho can't afford that, where
they you don't get paid.
As an apprentice, you watch,yeah, yeah, you observe day in
and day out and maybe you knowyou'll pass them some small,
like repetitive tasks so thatthey get their feet wet, but
then you start building up andthen after two years, you have a

(01:45:28):
ready-made employee that youcan hire.
Like that feels right to me,Cause if it's a culture fit you
know it's a culture fit becausethey've been apprenticing for
you with you for those months.

Speaker 1 (01:45:33):
I think that's I think that's fantastic, and I've
been an advocate of bringingback the apprenticeship model.
I a hundred% agree, and Ihonestly think that it would
bring some folks into the foldthat otherwise couldn't afford
school and also some of theireducation might actually be

(01:45:54):
better Now.
Granted, there is a science tohelping people learn right.
So I'm not discounting thegains that we've gotten from the
university system.
There's a lot that we've gainedfrom that.
So I'm not trying to discountthat.
I just don't think it's foreverybody.
And I think that theapprenticeship model I mean how

(01:46:19):
many great painters have we hadthat came through that model?
How many great architects youknow different things that we
need in society came throughthat model.
So I think it would be afantastic thing to see happen.
And, quite honestly, like youknow, I realized like guys like
you and I are positionedessentially to be able to offer

(01:46:42):
that you know to be like hey,you want to learn how to be a
designer.
You can be my apprentice.
Yes.
You know, like we havebusinesses, we can come be my
apprentice and you know, likeyou, this is what you're going
to see day to day for two yearsand at the end of that then
we'll talk about maybe you know,you know being a part of this,

(01:47:02):
or I'll help you get a job.
And I think that, if you'rethat forces, you know,
essentially sort of like almostlike an economy of designers
where it's like people want toapprentice for that designer
because she's amazing, right,like you know, like and being
able to say, like you came outof so-and-so, being able to say
I came out of one used studiolike oh crap came out of.

(01:47:25):
You know it'd be like saying youcame out of SCAD, right, like
came out of SCAD.
Like when you heard thatsomebody came out of SCAD was
like one of the applicants tothe same job you're going after.
I think there's a lot of valueto that man.
This has been amazing, Idefinitely.

(01:47:48):
I know you're living all theway in Gwinnett, man, but you
got it.
You got to come back on theshow.
The fantastic conversation, man.

Speaker 2 (01:47:54):
Yeah, I loved every minute of it.
It was a great time.

Speaker 1 (01:47:57):
Yeah, so.
So where, where can folks findyou on like, where can they find
you, juan?
Where can they find you online?

Speaker 2 (01:48:03):
Yeah, so they can find my company on wjystudioscom
.
They can find us on Instagram.
Wjystudios is our handle and,yeah, connect with us if you're
interested.

Speaker 1 (01:48:16):
Awesome, awesome, juan, thanks so much for coming
on the show man, it's beenawesome.

Speaker 2 (01:48:19):
It's been a pleasure.

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