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Conversations with designers, founders, and builders behind some of the best work
Sara Vienna Full Video Podcast.txt
English (US)
00:00:00.040 — 00:00:23.440 · Speaker 1
I think designers are at a huge advantage because we are the ones who actually understand how to marry, like the human experience and user needs to business goals in a meaningful way. Like that doesn't ever go away. When you're delivering in your work. We'll do anything that we can to knock down those doors so that you can actually produce something that you're really proud of, but also that feels sustainable at the end of the day.
00:00:23.480 — 00:01:51.720 · Speaker 2
Meta lab is an agency that every designer has looked at at least once in their career, or you're at least familiar with their work. Slack, Uber, Coinbase. The list of products that have come out of that shop read like a greatest hits album for product design, and sitting at the tippy top of the design org is Sara Vienna, Meta Labs chief design officer, former art director and someone who learned Photoshop in high school after tobacco companies lost a lawsuit to the state of Nevada.
That is not a joke. That's quite literally how the money ended up in her public school. But what pulled me into this conversation wasn't the impressive portfolio. It was something she said about speed and how the relentless push for efficiency can start to hollow out. The thing that made us fall in love with design in the first place.
Sarah spent her career trying to protect something fragile, that space that you need for creative breakthrough at agencies and at scale, all the while still shipping things that move the needle. For the next hour, we get into how Meta Lab builds culture that makes designers boomerang back their famous Tarantino process, what she thinks AI is doing to team structures, and why she thinks measuring velocity is, in her words, absolute bullshit.
This is State of Play, a podcast where I try to figure out what fuels the most interesting designers and builders. Let's get into it.
00:01:58.770 — 00:02:45.810 · Speaker 2
The thing that I love about your story. And as I've dug into this, the corporate turned me into this person who learned how to move very fast, how to cut corners, how to always associate ROI with every single activity. And it kind of sucked the soul out of the things that I first initially love to do. And, and you've said something along the lines of, you know, speed is efficiency is not the only measurement of of if a design is useful.
And I kind of want to go back to, was there a moment in your life where you said to yourself, design could be so much more about how we impact, you know, the world and the people around us? What was kind of that first moment for you where it really made sense?
00:02:45.850 — 00:04:45.330 · Speaker 1
Oddly enough, I learned Photoshop in high school. Um, and the reason why? And I told the story at awards because it was interesting. So Pablo was hosting awards in New York in December, and he's like, what's your fun fact? And I'm like, oh boy, I hate the fun fact question because, like, I grew up in Las Vegas, I got a lot of stories for you, but some of them maybe are a little too wild for, you know, stage A, B, or C, but this fun fact is, like I learned Photoshop in high school because the tobacco companies lost a lawsuit to the state of Nevada.
And so it infused all of this money into and the school, the public school system there. And I realized I could make anything that was in my brain, in my weird brain at that moment, like I was, you know, going to punk rock shows and reading sassy magazine and like, you know, making stuff on photocopiers and thinking like, and, you know, worshiping David Carson, who was like a really kick ass graphic designer in the surf culture back then.
Um, you look back at it now and you're like, whoa, that was intense and wild, like collage art vibes. But it was a moment where I was like, I can do this too. And that opened up the idea that I could impact people, whether it was like getting them to go to a show or, you know, designing silly books for my friends.
Um, and, you know, things like that. It was like, you can really pull on people's emotional heartstrings with this thing that we have. That's design, and it's not quite art and it's not quite business, but it's the mix of those two things that really got me like, oh, I've got a career here because I can impact people.
Um, and so ever since then, I was just refining and refining and refining and trying to figure out how do I use this tool effectively? Because I was a really shitty designer first,
00:04:47.170 — 00:04:54.260 · Speaker 1
really bad. Like, if I could find you those old yearbook graphics, it would be like, this is the evolution of a designer. You know.
00:04:54.460 — 00:04:58.740 · Speaker 2
That's so refreshing to hear someone admit that, because that is so true for me, too.
00:04:58.780 — 00:05:33.499 · Speaker 1
Yeah. Yeah. Oh, like, whoever's not admitting is absolutely lying. You may have still had taste. You may have still had that, like, ability. Of course, I was very particular. Like, I would freak out about bad typography. Now I don't care. It's like whatever. Like, you got to move on from stuff in life. So taste is always there.
But I didn't know how to channel it, you know, and I didn't know how to apply it. And that was why in the beginning I had a hard time. But that, like, you got to just start if you really care about this stuff. Like, there's no other way to get through that except to
00:05:34.620 — 00:05:36.700 · Speaker 1
be willing to look like a dumbass.
00:05:37.220 — 00:05:53.140 · Speaker 2
Yeah. Yeah, it's it reminds me of that wonderful IRA Glass moment where he monologues about taste and the gap between that and, and and I think that's true, too. I think I first was putting together Winamp skins. Oh no.
00:05:54.180 — 00:06:09.060 · Speaker 2
You know, with a cracked version of Photoshop and trying to do that. And I was nowhere near as good as all the people who were doing that much better than me at the time. But it was it was kind of my gateway. What was was there like gateway work? Was it the yearbook projects?
00:06:09.060 — 00:08:11.390 · Speaker 1
I don't think so. I think the gateway work probably for me was actually like, so I went to portfolio school for art direction, and I thought I was going to be a little bit more advertising focused, and it's only because I didn't know any better. Like, I just I didn't grow up in, like, an artsy family or like a New York family who was like, you can go to design school, you know, just anywhere, go to college.
Great. Wherever. Glad you got in. Let's see what we can pay for. Okay, Masters, my dad's like, just consider it, like your first expensive car, and you're going to have to pay back this loan. And I'm like, great, let me go, like, rack up some credit card debt in San Francisco for years on top of it. But I did, and I'm really glad I did, because what I ended up doing was getting connected to my first job, which was like in school.
I was known as the person who was like the graphic designer, even though it was more about advertising, art direction, you know? And so my friend Jess's boyfriend Kirk basically hired me to be his, like, design peon at a design studio that he worked at. And you might recognize, um, this publishing company, but one of the main clients was O'Reilly publishing.
And so they do a lot of like, technical work. But we were also in the early days of publishing make magazine. And so our directing photo shoots for that, you know, setting the magazine, um, building, you know, stuff on the site to try to mimic what we were doing in print. But it was always terrible. And I was hand illustrating things, illustrating and by hand, but also, you know, an illustrator doing like, weird technical drawings.
It's like, cool. We've got this, um, piece about a girl who made an LED shirt and she went to Burning Man. Let's go shoot it. You know, it was like, just like very San Francisco early days of tech. And that was really my gateway to say like, okay, like, now I've found my people. Um, it's definitely graphic design and making things on the web, um, come to life.
00:08:11.710 — 00:08:45.110 · Speaker 2
What was your relationship with speed? So just because something's faster doesn't necessarily make it better. And again, I'm going to I'm going to lean into that because that's such a, that's such a I've had such a complicated relationship with that. I think a lot of people in this space have and you start first at kind of the agency studio level.
And I feel like at least in my experience, that speed drumbeat is, is hit the hardest when you're working across many projects. Has that been your experience and how did your relationship with speed and quality evolve over those years.
00:08:45.470 — 00:11:14.320 · Speaker 1
That's a good question. Um, I mean, I think, like in order for you to have, like, that creative breakthrough, you need some space, I believe. But how much space and when and how much in your life are you willing to give to that space? Like, that's a really big question. So for me, I was lucky enough in my 20s where, like, I could make my obsession in my life basically about my friends and my job.
And that was all I did. And that gave me more hours in the day than I would say, like, now I have. And I'm sure now that you have, you know what I mean. And so the requirement for speed was still there and quality. But there's there was a compromise that I learned over time of like how to get something good enough and even great enough that you're proud to show your collaborators, whether that's your client or your coworkers, but also pushing for the space you need to make it like.
Absolutely excellent. You know, and, um, and I mean excellent, like, in such a, like, dude, I'm jealous of that way, you know? Um, and so if you're able to figure out how to collaborate effectively, I think you're able to create more space for the quality that you have to push for while still showing the pace of what speed provides.
Because speed is really just about somebody making sure that they're getting a return on their investment at the end of the day, right. And so the faster you can build that trust that you're on your way there, the more you'll be able to build that, almost like, um, goodwill towards your creative process to create more space for making it something that you're going to be really proud of.
And I learned that early, early, early days, but I still fight for that every day and the day job when I'm on a project. Um, but, you know, things have really changed a lot, right? Like the pressure in the space today to shift quickly. But ship something incredible is definitely on, especially for early stage founders and anybody who's in AI spaces especially.
So that conversation is never going to end. Even though I would like it to end, to just continue to focus on the craft, I think it's a necessary evil to create the constraints that we need to be able to continue to ship something.
00:11:14.760 — 00:12:05.080 · Speaker 2
I mean, at Metal Lab, the iconic experiences have come out of that studio, right? We've got Slack and Uber pitch so many others that have just a team that clearly seems like from the outside is just directionally rocking, like understands a balance there. Now, I imagine if we pull back on that, there's like you said, this, this this challenge between those two dynamics never truly goes away, but it sounds like at least there's some philosophy that yes, maybe we do kind of diverge a little bit and give breathing room, and then we come back and we always assess speed around that.
I guess the question I have for you is how do you get a team once, maybe you figured out internally how to how to reconcile those two forces? How do you get a team to reconcile those two forces together so consistently?
00:12:06.360 — 00:15:21.250 · Speaker 1
It's not easy, I'll tell you that. First of all. So like we my job is to make it look easy and to build the confidence and the people that we work with that yes, we will get there. But let's be honest, you know that like, working with humans is messy, but you can't produce those outcomes working with a bunch of robots, right?
And even earlier in my career, I used to typeset things like a nerd and put the trademark on everything. And, um, I used to have this tagline called people not robots, because I really believe that, like, you can't even you can't treat your designers like robots either. And when like we're in a time where, like, people are really requesting our services, so we're in a champagne problem era, but I do not want to treat the design team like robots, because ultimately, like you burn out and then I lose my best talent, right?
And that talent is not something that you can just easily go replicate and find in the market. Like a lot of designers at Matlab have come up through Meta Lab for years and built that muscle for years. So the retention of people is like a really key part of that. And like it's also to say like when we when we lose somebody, we want them to go experience the world 1,000%.
But we have a pretty strong boomerang rate. I will tell you, the amount of boomerang emojis in our slack is, uh, something to something to be proud of, in my opinion, because it means that we've got something really special. And so people is the number one thing. I'll also say that like when we take a look at, you know, the idea of how do you create, you know, these record breaking products or these products that really get people talking?
There's a combination of, um, the right partner too, which can be like very, very key to being able to create that space for the creative process. But some of you also challenges us enough and has enough context to the problem to be able to be our partner and expert in that. But another thing that I'm a huge believer in is just really going divergent as early as possible in your design process.
If there's like one thing that I would teach earlier, stage designers or people trying to reinvigorate their career, honestly, it's to build that divergent design muscle. And we have this process called Tarantino's that's all about playing out the end of the movie via design as quickly as you can, and you're just throwing a bunch of stuff at the wall to see what sticks.
But because you do that divergent and so quickly, you're not precious about it, so you can kind of kill your darlings in the process, and then you get to the things that you're like, right? Maybe 80, 90% of that didn't work because it's not realistic or doesn't quite hit like what we need. But there's a nugget of something in that process that always comes out, that becomes part of the magic of the app or whatever brand we ship.
And that's like, I really work fiercely to protect that and remind teams that there's this thing that you've got and it's going really wide because it's going to get you ultimately something to be inspired by, to pull forward.
00:15:21.890 — 00:15:48.050 · Speaker 2
Now, the famous Tarantino process is always one of my favorites to to talk about. And I have a question here because, you know, in the early 2000, the idea was like, start with a press release. If we shipped this thing. What would the press release say and look like? Well, media is so different today, and we have a culture of launch videos and things like that that'll come out.
Is there a part of the media that gets considered when you think about the Tarantino?
00:15:49.810 — 00:16:38.580 · Speaker 1
Mhm. I think because you're literally starting from scratch. You can you can sketch anything. So you can sketch an app store interface, you can sketch what the sizzle might feel like. You can sketch like the ultimate like, you know, celebrity endorsement if you want. Like when we designed a mental health app called How We Feel and Chrissy Teigen tweeted about it, I was like, oh, dead.
Like, it's that is so awesome. Because she talked about how it improved her relationship. You know, and like, that's just like if you're designing something that really helps somebody human experience and they talk about it in social and they have a following like her. That's a way for you to play out this whole press release idea, but in a way, more modern way.
00:16:39.740 — 00:17:16.260 · Speaker 2
I love that. And so I've got to imagine you, you're you have the team coming together and you're really trying to craft what is the the most ideal end result outcome here. You've talked a lot about how radical candor and critical feedback is such a part of the Meta lab culture. I'm trying to build something similar with our small team of about seven of us, and give people high agency and kind of allow ownership in these levels, and it's a very complicated thing to do.
Um, to assess who's a good culture fit. How do you start to establish a culture where it feels safe to be just very candid about feedback?
00:17:16.380 — 00:17:37.740 · Speaker 1
Yeah. I mean, gosh, I've tried things that worked and then I've tried things that failed miserably. I'll tell me. So we've tried creating frameworks for what you know, great looks like and what craft is, and try all these different matrices and things. And at the end of the day, like, I just kind of,
00:17:39.220 — 00:19:44.190 · Speaker 1
I feel like doing that gets you into a place where you're kind of pigeonholing people into a process, and it's actually way more about trust and the team and what's happening in that microcosm of the team, more than any framework that you could make someone go through. And so that's why I think culture is so important, and that's why culture can, I think, make or break companies in a lot of ways.
Um, so the thing about my lab, too, is it's like, you know, for lack of a better term, we still are an agency. Our business model is to work in service of, like our clients design problem. So the experience of the team across the agency can be really and Different depending on that project context. And so what we'll do is see some teams where that idea of critique is really shining, and people are trusting each other and digging deep into the work.
And there's other teams that may struggle with that. So we try to figure out how do we bring the life of that idea into the teams who may not have gelled yet, who maybe just met each other and are working across the world from each other like, no wonder. Of course, you're going to be a little more careful and you're not going to rip into somebody's design if you just met them, you know?
And so my my goal is always it's like really hard on the work that kind of the people. And we do have a value that's called kind not nice and kind is saying the real thing and the true thing based on whatever your experience. Nice is just kind of like hiding behind those niceties that I think a lot of us were trained to do.
You know, a lot of us were trained in a culture where it's not nice to confront somebody about XYZ, But if you can do it in a really open hearted and loving way while also admitting your faults, then people open up and are like, oh hell yeah, let's go fix this together. If you don't and you come at it like a steamroller, people are going to get mad and shut down.
And even though it may be the truth, people don't want to hear it in that way.
00:19:45.110 — 00:20:26.910 · Speaker 2
I love the kind. Not nice. I've heard that a few times now, in the past couple of months, and it's starting to kind of stick as our own little mantra here, um, with it's incredible. And, and I'll tell you to, you know, something that's been really valuable. And I'm curious if Meta Lab thinks about this and how you think about this, but this idea of play, there's so many new tools now, there's so much more that designers as an individual contributor are capable of.
If they start to crack into some of these tools. How do you think about play in kind of that divergent process? Is that something that you guys make room for? Is there are there like deliberate activities? What are your thoughts around that?
00:20:26.950 — 00:21:39.430 · Speaker 1
Yeah, I mean play is so important because having fun I think creates incredible work. You know, when a team is not having fun, you know, when it feels like a slog and there are moments where sometimes you just got to get eye on the prize and get that deliverable out. But if you can introduce that sense of play wherever you can, you're going to get not like a better culture, but a better outcome.
Ultimately, even if you're not, it's not that day or that week. And so I think when you apply that to process and tooling, it should be a very similar thing where I really encourage people, especially in places where you might be in more of an enterprise space or somewhere where you have to go get approval for things.
I think that designers trying things with their own personal accounts and doing whatever they need to do on your own personal machine, do what you got to do. Don't put any proprietary information into whatever you're using, but play around and find out. Um, and I do think that, like, oh gosh, I love that tweet that was like that listed because it's like super frothy right now.
Right. And did you see that tweet that was like fuck around and find out. Hi agency. It listed all of them. Do you remember that one?
00:21:39.470 — 00:21:41.190 · Speaker 2
I haven't seen that one. I'll find.
00:21:41.190 — 00:22:49.080 · Speaker 1
It. I'm going to send it to you because I use it on my talks and it's like, what else am I missing? You know, and I think that like, oh, Don't Die is a really good one from that. And that idea of like, like the, the stakes are so high. Don't die. Like, we're not in a video game. We're in the real world. You know, I want to cuss at somebody, but I won't.
And so, like, we're in the real world, you need to think about how you're playing around. You need to think about how you're messing around and finding out, um, because there's, like, real implications to the things that we build to at the end of the end of this. And so we don't want to make stuff that's ultimately going to create a society that we don't want to live in.
So you take it from like the team culture to the tooling and the process. But then I think we also really have to tie this idea to the end outcome and what it does to our world, because product design can move the world. We know that now. And so we have to be super careful about how we do that and the intention around what we're making while still hopefully having fun now.
00:22:49.080 — 00:23:19.160 · Speaker 2
And this is one thing that I've loved about your writing, is you. You have expressed a desire for designers to have more thoughtfulness and to be more responsible with decisions like these. And especially when we talk about not just using the AI tools, but the AI tools or the AI, um, uh, you know, empowering of of the tools that we're building.
How is it or what are maybe some practical strategies that you've found help design teams keep a balance around this.
00:23:19.160 — 00:26:45.130 · Speaker 1
It's a good question. I think we're in the thick of that right now. And because, you know, as as people are coming up through Metal Lab, they're also coming up in their life, right? Like people people are dealing with like a lot more demands, you know, like we we do have, you know, more younger people who were like, essentially bringing up through the Metal Lab way.
But there's a lot of us right now who've got the demands of family. And so the demands that happen in your personal life ultimately affect work. And so how do you introduce a balance when you've got all the things to try to, you know, keep all the balls that you're trying to keep up in the air when you're juggling all of this?
And one of the things that we have at Metal Lab is being, you know, some real intentional time off. And we we do have unlimited PTO, which is pretty amazing. And we have to manage, like how many people are out at any given time to make sure, like we're still making money at the end of the day, right? Like, because there's that.
Um, but being able to give people the time that they need is so important. And I also think, like being able to give them time that they need to play around and try things. Like on Fridays, we barely have meetings and most people are doing like al and D and taking a half of a day to do what they need to do to recharge.
And I think especially for designers, a lot of that recharge happens off the screen if I like, we don't clock our hours unless we're like, we've got people who have to clock hours because of the agreement. So like, if I could clock hours against like taking a walk in an art museum or like the woods, to me that is work that your brain needs to actually like, get the ideas that you need to make something that is game changing.
Because if you're in front of a screen all day and you know, it used to be the dribbles of the world that people would just like basically rote copy. If you're doing that all day long, it becomes super boring and almost like systematic. You're a design robot, I guess, right? But having those experiences off of the screen are a big part of the human experience that you then bring back into your work.
And I think that balance is a really tough thing. I'm not sure if I completely believe in it, but the thing that I talk to people about when they do start to feel burnout is it's like, you got to do what you got to do. You're the adult. So if you need time off, take the time. But that doesn't always do it. Sometimes it's just finding a new thing to reinvigorate your passion for the work.
And that's what keeps you and really like continuing to feel challenged and like you're learning. It's and it's so it's so unique to the individual that, um, it's a constant conversation. And that's why I like smaller teams, to be honest. Because if the team gets any bigger than what we currently have, I can't be there for people if they do need that conversation, you know?
It just becomes like a skill issue. And we've like my design leadership team is so incredible that I'm so lucky to have them. That's why we're able to have the team skill that we do, but also the culture that we do. And people can say like, I'm struggling, this isn't going great, I need help, and that's okay to do that because we're here to figure that out.
And when you're when you're delivering in your work, we'll do anything that we can to knock down those doors so that you can actually produce something that you're really proud of, but also that feels sustainable at the end of the day.
00:26:45.170 — 00:27:25.730 · Speaker 2
You know, and that that topic of burnout and balance that resonates with me a lot. None of the conventional advice around burnout and balance ever really worked for me. My brain just does not turn off. But I've learned that for me, burnout, the kind of remedy has been context switching. Stop working on something and go and scratch an itch for something that, you know, I've really been wanting to work on and that recharges me.
And that's been kind of the way that I've found it works for me. What have been like activities in your life? You said walking through a museum, maybe finding parallels for influence. What what are some of the things that help you recharge? I'm always curious to hear this from other people.
00:27:26.090 — 00:27:36.290 · Speaker 1
Oh, I love this. Um, I mean, when I'm not working, I'm. Well, you know, where I live. So I'm like, let me take my dog to the beach. Oh, do you want to meet one? She's right here.
00:27:36.490 — 00:27:37.570 · Speaker 2
Oh, hey, let's see.
00:27:37.890 — 00:27:39.490 · Speaker 1
Who's on my lap. This is sunny.
00:27:39.770 — 00:27:43.690 · Speaker 2
Sunny. She's like, I didn't sign up for this one.
00:27:43.690 — 00:27:48.170 · Speaker 1
I know she's, like, still asleep because it's earlier. Yeah. She's like, what are you doing?
00:27:48.330 — 00:27:49.850 · Speaker 2
I signed no releases.
00:27:49.850 — 00:28:18.290 · Speaker 1
I know, I knew. Um, but I take her to the beach, throw the ball like, um. I really do love yoga. And not to sound like a total hippie, but yoga really helps me tune out, um, meditation I've gotten into, And it just helps me quiet the mind and recharge. And it's just like permission to not obsess and think, you know, like, that's the biggest thing it is for me.
I'm a big napper.
00:28:19.810 — 00:29:25.620 · Speaker 1
Like, they help a lot to just shut down the brain, like do a meditation, take a 30 minute nap. Then my schedule is this like, I wake up, I am on zoom super early because my time zone I work st. What do I do? After a long day of doing this job to recharge, I eat. I take a quick nap and meditate. I wake up, I work out on my peloton and I'm getting into something new where I'm like lifting weights and lifting weights has been really fun and really empowering because you feel like extra strong when you're done.
There's this really awesome endorphin kick that you get, um, that, uh, I and I've never been a gym rat. I mean, I worked at a gym and didn't work out. I'm telling you, like, it was like. Like that. That is not me. But especially as I get older and as I try to manage stress, that mind body connection, turns out, is on the thing that I just have to keep working on.
And everybody's different. But that's what works for me.
00:29:26.020 — 00:29:57.180 · Speaker 2
I find that when I'm in a slump and I get into the weightlifting routine, something I've done for a long time, it creates a kind of a superficial sense of progress. You know, it's not it's not that super important. But like, if you're ever in a lull, I find that it helps me. Okay. Progress was made. I can kind of get back into this motion of moving towards something again.
And I will call out that having a background in weightlifting, when I've tried yoga, it's the biggest butt kicker of anything I've ever done. Uh, so for anyone really looking for something that yoga will get it done.
00:29:57.220 — 00:30:05.900 · Speaker 1
Oh. Yoga and Pilates. Yeah. It's not just stretching. Yeah. And if you're on a stretch, just stretching class, you're doing it wrong. So find the right one. Yeah. Yeah.
00:30:05.940 — 00:30:22.540 · Speaker 2
Well, let's let's shift gears for a second, because I do want to talk about AI. And you've talked about AI, and I want to talk about the tooling, but specifically, first I want to ask you, do you, as you manage your teams or are the teams as the contributors using AI
00:30:23.580 — 00:30:34.980 · Speaker 2
often or at all? How do you think about AI being used? You you made a mention there as long as you're not feeding proprietary information. So a safety around that for sure. How do you think about it?
00:30:35.300 — 00:34:35.990 · Speaker 1
Um, I think we've got to use everything at our fingertips. That makes sense. But sometimes you don't know if the tool makes sense for your process, so you have to go figure it out. Um, like, right now, I'm literally today I took off, and I wanted to talk to you this morning, so I'm so happy to see you. But I get a heads down day of no meetings.
And what I'm doing today is actually trying to see how deeply I can connect a brand book into a design system to see how quickly I can go. Prompt flows and I'll tell you, the tools aren't there and still cracking away at it. But what I'm trying to do is like train this model to get me 20% there to see if we can be faster about it.
I'm doing that all because I just have to find out, right? Like, it's just like, I gotta know because, yeah, like, I already believe in our process and our people, and so we can absolutely do it, but can we get there 25% faster? I don't know, and I'm going to spend that time, I can tell you like it's not quite there to the point where like it's ready to go and the outputs are pretty janky still, but that's like the stage that we're in.
And the more you work with the tool, the more you find out, like where its limits are. Um, but I am almost like I would say that as far as I go, like I play with all the tools as they come up in the context of my workflow. I only work on one project at a time too, and because of all the other stuff to manage at Meta Lab.
But um, the team is actually my inspiration for this. My team are doing things that like, I am just in awe of what they do. Like, I connected this design system to MCP, to storybook, and we created this amazing flow and you're just like, dude, you just came up with that. Or like, hey, I talked to Claude because I couldn't get this motion quite right.
And me and Claude made this, you know, and it's just like one of those things that, uh, when you start to see what your team can really do, you get inspired, too. And, um, I love that about working with such talented humans and humans that are really willing to be vulnerable and have something dumb happen like this.
Even just saying, like, look at this experiment and look at how bad it is. But here's what I learned. You know, that is so fun. And that's the stage that we're in. And I'm a little allergic. And my team would kind of laugh at me to saying like, this is the process and this must be so, like, I don't know. I just think that that's like a little too prescriptive.
I think that people in Matlab are smart and they know when and what to apply, and if they've got a question, they've always got their team to collaborate with to see, like, hey, what makes sense in the moment? You know? And there's things that we're really excited about like flora and fauna. Um, that one we're really excited about.
Um, play, of course. I'm sure you've seen, you know, they directly integrated, um, like models into their prototyping tool for native apps. Like, there's so many things right now that we want to test out and try and feeling that abundance is, like, such a cool way to still feel this in your career, you know, um, and early days, like, I for anybody whose earlier days who feels overwhelmed by it.
I think that like it can be overwhelming. Yes. And like hold, hold space for that, but also just have fun with the thing that feels most fun to you. Try that first. And ultimately, what it's going to do is start to develop your taste profile for what works and what doesn't. And becoming like, I, I like it like I identify I want to be my neighborhood IT guy, right?
Like I want to be the person who's like the go to. And even if I don't know everything, I definitely know a little bit about a lot right now with all these tools. And I can point you in a direction, hopefully it gets you what you need.
00:34:36.909 — 00:34:53.789 · Speaker 2
We I recently talked to Weber Wong, founder of Flora, and blew my mind the way they're thinking about just a node based interface for, you know, using these, getting to a high volume of generative output so that you can make a lot of creative decisions. It was a pretty, pretty enlightening
00:34:54.800 — 00:35:07.640 · Speaker 2
And you recently wrote about designing a new relationship with AI. And I'm kind of curious to hear from you. What do you think is the most significant shift that designers need to make to kind of thrive in this,
00:35:08.680 — 00:35:10.960 · Speaker 2
you know, next AI driven era?
00:35:11.000 — 00:37:35.880 · Speaker 1
I mean, it's kind of twofold. Like one reason in yeah, I'm biased. Like, I think designers are at a huge advantage because we're the ones who actually understand how to marry, like the human experience and user needs to business goals in a meaningful way. Like that doesn't ever go away. So whenever we feel lost, like I really try to direct people back to that formula, that unmet user needs inform experiences that drive those business goals.
So even though right now things can feel like super hectic and frothy. Getting rooting yourself back in like this is the reason for the existence. And this is why companies like the Arab Bees of the world and the things of the world and design founded companies do so well, and they do so well because they really speak to like a simple human truth.
So one side of it is like, we've already got that in our toolkit as a designer. And I think designers especially like we very much identify with that moniker, whether that's a good or a bad thing psychologically. Right. Putting your whole identity wrapped up into being a designer, it can be dangerous. But I do think that's a good thing for this moment because you've got that inside you.
But the harder part for designers in the shift that we have to make is recognizing that there's going to be so much access to being able to do the things that we've done with these tools. So we have to actually continue to flex our muscle. We have to work that muscle harder, and we have to know those tools so that we can continue to have that seat at the table and own the conversation.
And I think that being really opinionated about experiences, especially in a time when you're feeling confused about the way that the world is going. Can be difficult, right? Like, like, well, who am I to say? But I think you are the one to say because you understand how to marry those two things that are like the real, simple human truth element of it, but also the end outcome, right?
Like, we're not just artists. Like I was saying earlier, we also have to have a little bit of that business hat. So we're the best ones to marry the head and the heart of it all. And we need to remember that when we're challenged by these things, and we need to adopt these things faster so that we can continue to shape the world that we want to make and we want to live in.
00:37:36.640 — 00:38:45.250 · Speaker 2
That was a powerful thing. We marry the head in the heart. I love that, and the thing that makes me think of two is the fact that you even said, you're making space today to go and play with a process that even if the outcome ends up being it's not there yet. You know that now. And I'm experiencing something similar.
Everything that we're playing with on the team and then individually, uh, it puts us kind of in the hinterlands and we can have a perspective that, oh, I know where the tools aren't yet, or I know how this won't work in a process yet, but then suddenly an innovation will occur and we will be the first benefactors of that innovation, because we have kind of touched the ceiling of where things were.
On top of that, I've noticed that when we have the ability to be in that space, and I agree with you not planting a flag, it's hard to plant a flag like, oh, this is where things seem to be going. But it's easier to build a perspective about, well, this seems like where things might go. And I want to ask you, as somebody who's operating in the hinterlands is, what do you think might happen to the design team structure, especially at the elite level, as these tools start to get more and more innovative?
00:38:47.250 — 00:38:48.250 · Speaker 1
I think.
00:38:49.730 — 00:38:55.850 · Speaker 1
Well, it's interesting because it's like, do I want to use my optimist mind or my pessimist mind for this question?
00:38:56.210 — 00:39:00.250 · Speaker 2
It sounds like, but it sounds like you could you could see two paths.
00:39:00.290 — 00:41:59.340 · Speaker 1
Two paths. Yeah. Like definitely. You can see things playing out in a way where the faster, faster, faster efficiency conversation happens and puts more pressure on teams. Right. Because we've measured velocity of designers and now we can produce x more by x. Right. And that's absolute bullshit. Like measuring velocity of designers.
You are basically asking for a crap product in my opinion. Now, do designers still need deadlines and project management? Yes, but I really think that, like the idea that these new tools will just build in only efficiency and it's just going to become a race to the bottom if we if our society and our in tech looks at it that way.
But that's the pessimist in me, right? Because that means, you know, smaller teams. Yes. Smaller teams can be beautiful. Um, but that also means, like a lot of people who are just expected to check a box and move on and, like, I don't want to team a box. Checkers. You know, there's times in your life where you just gotta do it because you're like, I'm having I'm having a day, you know?
But you want people who are like the the, the roof is like the roof doesn't exist, right? And, um, if there is a ceiling, I'm going to break through it because it feels so abundant. And that's the optimist side of me, is that even more junior people in their career are going to be able to come up with things that used to only be sort of like in the locked minds of senior people because of experience.
I think that these tools are going to be able to unlock a whole new layer of capabilities for people who are just starting out. That's what's exciting to me because honestly, like great ideas come from anywhere and anybody thinks that, like, you have to be like some highfalutin executive to have a good idea.
Basically belongs at a consulting company. Sorry not to throw shade, but, like, cool, you could stay over there. I think that people, no matter where they are in their career, in their right space, at their best, can make things that are game changing. And so the tools opening up that capability and really like providing access and democratizing access is going to create that.
And what it's going to do to team structures. I think it will make teams smaller, but I think it'll make teams mightier and it'll make people a lot more T-shaped. We're gonna and we do have that at Meta Lab. A lot of our designers like the ideas that you're great at UX, and you're great at understanding user needs and interpreting research, and you're great at visual design.
And you've got some motion chops, right? T-shaped is like the new need for designers. But there's still room for specialists, right? Like, we've got motion designers and brand designers on our team that are highly specialized. It's just about the right balance of teams, of generalists to specialists that I think is really important to think about when you think about the way the teams are going to be changing.
00:41:59.740 — 00:42:23.500 · Speaker 2
So that's really interesting to to hear that too. I'm seeing something similar. I think we've seen a little bit of that over the last couple of years. But the tools really are are enabling so many capabilities. When you're looking to bring on someone to the team, how much do you look at their tool stack? Does that play a role in any of this at all, or is it more about the work and just how they get there?
00:42:23.620 — 00:43:34.900 · Speaker 1
I mean, I'm interested in it, but it's not. It definitely doesn't leave the conversation. The work, it's the work is primary. It always has to be. Um, but also identifying what role did you the individual play in the work is a big part of it too. So I know that this is a spicy thing in the design world. And some of your audience might hate this, but we have a design test and we have to keep it.
And the reason that we have to keep it and we pay people for it, we just don't ask them to do, you know, free work or anything. We need to understand an individual's capabilities. Right. And we need to make sure that the work that we see in their portfolio actually plays out in that test. Because once you get past the design test phase, like if we see that test and we see what we think we see in the portfolio, it's game on.
So and I know there's been a lot of talk about design tests and how much people hate them. And I totally get it. It's just like I've got a really at the end of the day, I still think a pretty small team, a close knit team, a team who needs to depend on each other to be able to output the quality that we're expected to deliver.
And I've got to be able to see that in a candidate when we go through the process.
00:43:35.700 — 00:44:34.350 · Speaker 2
I've been trying to figure out how to reduce the amount of time it takes to bring somebody on board. And I just say, hey, you know, I want to see some of your best work up front and then let's have a conversation. If and some people hate that approach. Um, for me, it's felt like it's been more respectful of everybody's time.
Uh, you know, and I wonder how much more of the hiring process will continue to be more artifact driven like that. Um, as we continue to lean into contributors. Which brings me to a question for you. You had mentioned, uh, I mean, you're you're managing at the highest level of management with the design team at Meta Lab, and you said you still are working on you have a project that you work on.
Uh, and so the question I have is, how do you think, how do you think the role of leadership is going to evolve as we see more and more of these T-shaped designers? And do you think more folks in leadership roles are always going to have their hands on as well?
00:44:34.630 — 00:46:32.150 · Speaker 1
Yeah, I mean, I, I think for me, whenever I don't have hands on, I start to feel divorced from the work and then I start to feel like, who am I to lead these people who are so fricking talented? You know, I really think that I go through that. I have the imposter syndrome if I'm not doing the work. So I just came off of a cycle where I was more like managing an account that was like a really big deal account, but it was like, you know, a high profile thing.
I wasn't doing the work of that. And I started to feel the weight of not being in the tools. And by being in the tools, I'm not saying like I'm, you know, pushing around pixels to ship product. Right. You know, like I don't get into that level of detail, but to shape something and to help a team shape something is like so incredibly important.
And figuring out how do we translate this incredible brand that obviously the Matlab team has created into something amazing? How do we pay that off in the product, bringing those two worlds together, and figuring out the best process, piece by piece is like, kind of the way I feel like I deserve to lead these incredibly talented humans.
And if I don't do some element of that, even when it's art, if it's our marketing stuff, right? Like marketing is another place where, um, a marketing can have a bad word with designers too, by the way. But like, we turned the marketing into, like a new, like, good word in Matlab because we didn't market ourselves for years.
I mean, we let our website stay stagnant until we got really honest with each other and said, we need to rebrand this baby. And when we did, it kind of changed the way that we thought about getting our name out into the world. And even when I get to come talk with you today, like the team's just so excited that, like, our name is like, you know, in the design circles that we respect and love to.
And that's the power, I think, of marketing and being involved in the work at that level, too.
00:46:32.190 — 00:46:45.960 · Speaker 2
I've finally learned to step away from the work, which is a little, and allow people to come in who are much more talented than me and, and and participate there. But it immediately fills me with, wait a second,
00:46:47.040 — 00:47:02.920 · Speaker 2
my identity. We just talked about design identity. My identity starts to become challenged and I say, well, what am I? Am I still this thing and what label do I attach to? And it's a weird psychological thing we have to attach to that identity of of the design role.
00:47:03.120 — 00:47:59.880 · Speaker 1
Totally. And like, well, that's kind of why I think about the imposter syndrome of it all too. You know, I really do believe that, like, as a great leader, you've got to still be able to talk the talk right and walk the walk. Like really showing people that you still care about the craft itself and the work itself, rather than just talking around it and being some sort of figurehead.
And I struggle with that on the daily because I don't want to just be that, um, and, you know, I'm so lucky that this team feels so closely. A lot of us have known each other for such a long time that that doesn't haunt me every day. But I still think about it a lot, and that I still want to do the work at the end of the day.
Like if if some day I was like, you know what, maybe I don't want to manage anything anymore. I would still be doing the work and deepen the work of what it is, hopefully picking the thing that I'm most interested to work on.
00:48:00.960 — 00:48:55.360 · Speaker 2
Well, and you know what's interesting too, is so there's this other side of the industry that's really been rocked. And so we've seen a lot of folks being laid off. I've seen I know a ton of talented designers who had very rich careers and found themselves by forcing function, starting an agency or starting their own startup now and doing extremely well.
But it's new territory. They're having to learn a lot of new skills. And I know that you've done some mentorship through Meta Labs venture fund with these types of teams and companies. And I guess the question I have for you is for people who are coming from maybe having been an individual contributor, even at a high level for a long time, and now finding themselves in the positions that that I'm in, leading the team for the first time in this manner.
What do you tell those people? What are some of the things that they can do to really enable those teams and to build good culture, kind of for the first time.
00:48:55.560 — 00:51:03.490 · Speaker 1
My biggest advice is build the personal relationships and trust as much as you can and really care about people's lives. Care about what's happening on the other side is I think that like, what you want is somebody who will break down doors for you. You want somebody who is like 100%. This person has got my best interest in mine, and I believe in what they're trying to do.
Somebody who really believes in what you're trying to do and somebody who feels deeply, emotionally connected to you, that they trust you. Trust is so important. And how like, how do you scale? Trust? I think you have. You have people that you trust who then build that same sort of culture, right? And it's not it's not a culture only of caring.
It's just like one component of it because we're not here to babysit. We're not here to placate people. We're here to hold them to the responsibility of being adults, to delivering on the expectations, but also to care deeply for who they are in the context of their human experience. Because if people don't think that you don't care about that, they're ultimately just going to feel like you're a robot in a lot of ways.
And that's not how you create an incredible culture. Um, so that's my biggest piece of advice. And it's actually like, it's tough because when founders might hear this, it might sound a little soft, right? Because it's like, oh, here's fucking Sarah and she's a female. And yeah, of course she's going to talk about trust and caring.
But when you get that, you get more out of people. And I truly believe that. That's why you do it. You do it because you get the most out of people, but it also helps me sleep at night. Those two things are incredibly important because when you feel like you did everything you can as a leader and you enable people as much as you can and you held them responsible.
It's like I sleep like a baby when I feel like I didn't do that for my team. I stay up at night because I know I messed up in some way. And to me, that's more important at the end of the day than any sort of like, other highfalutin tactic for building highly effective teams.
00:51:04.250 — 00:52:35.460 · Speaker 2
I think that's so true, and I'm learning that as well. And I'll tell you the other thing that that I'm also acknowledging. And we both we talked about making space. And so someone who's always worked on teams in a lot of capacities and always been like, oh, I wish I had more space here to do a thing or to mess up.
Um, you know, I'm trying to foster a culture where failure? Failure is okay as long as we are learning from it. Moving quickly through that. But but the. Putting your money where your mouth is is the thing that I'm seeing on the other side of it, which means making space for people to fail means I need to allocate budget to fail.
I need to make sure that I actually can financially afford that space. So it's like, okay, I've always wanted this myself. Well, now I'm the person who can create it or who can choose not to. I need to account for a month of failure for this project or this activity, and that's going to be okay. And so, you know, now, now me as the person who has to make that decision and say, okay, you go ooh.
And then you go, you know what? No, no, no, this is this is the right move I want to experiment with. We do it. And it has turned out wonderful so far. Just giving the creative freedom for people's ideas to test something and to move in a direction and to say, hey, guys, right now we're not we're not optimizing for process.
We are optimizing something I say was we're optimizing for chaos right now. Just be if you've got an idea, let's just be chaotic with it. And and you know, let's not let's not anticipate process. Let's create process once we really feel the pain.
00:52:36.100 — 00:53:52.260 · Speaker 1
I love that. Well, it shows that you're being so intentional with the outcome you're trying to get because you're inviting that and making it safe to fail, which is like, I think a really important part of making something that is different and changes the game in whatever game you're trying to change.
Right? The thing about you, though, being like a business owner, like I didn't know your team was seven people. And so then it's kind of like, right, what's my measure of a healthy business? And how do I hold that line while I then have that space for the experimentation? And in our business, we've got like, um, a utilization target, basically, it's like when we know we're at this target, we know we're running a healthy business, right?
And we're not because like, the majority of our costs are just salary at the end of the day, like, because we run a remote company. And so if we're able to stay at that measure, then the other percentage is all gravy and we can do what we want with it because we're basically delivering on our financial expectations.
Right. And that's at the end of the day. It's like you talk about it running a business and you don't think about those things. They're going to find you quickly. So I'm curious, like, are you able to figure out what that looks like for you and your team yet?
00:53:52.380 — 00:53:57.860 · Speaker 2
No no no no. I and I need to and it's it's something it's it's the thing keeping me up at night. Yeah.
00:53:57.900 — 00:54:00.100 · Speaker 1
Okay. Okay. We can talk more about that.
00:54:01.260 — 00:54:07.900 · Speaker 2
Yeah, I'm learning a lot. I'm learning a lot on how to, uh, how to stop the bleeding and then to start the bleeding strategically and then to.
00:54:08.340 — 00:54:32.020 · Speaker 1
Totally. Yeah. Yeah. And and also, um, maybe a subsection of who should be working on those experiments, you know, while you're still maintaining on the other side to, to meet whatever, like performance goals that you have set. You know, that's another thing that you can do to like it doesn't have to be everybody all at once.
You know.
00:54:32.540 — 00:54:46.380 · Speaker 2
It has been incredible talking to you about this. I feel like there's a reason why you are such a influential voice in the industry. And we got to take that today because, I mean, I could I could continue to have this conversation with you for the next hour. I know.
00:54:46.700 — 00:54:47.580 · Speaker 1
It's over.
00:54:48.100 — 00:56:10.870 · Speaker 2
So much insight, and I'm going to take you up on it. Um, thank you so much for for being with me. Sarah said something that hit me hard. That speed is really just about somebody measuring whether they're getting a return on their investment. And, I mean, that's the whole game. And the faster you can build confidence that you are on your way there, the more goodwill you earn to make space for the kind of work you'll be proud of.
And that reframes a lot of the tension that I've experienced through most of my career. It's it's not speed versus quality. It's how do you earn the space for quality? By demonstrating momentum and her take on AI and junior designers, she's optimistic in a way that makes sense to me. She's not saying the tools will replace people.
She's saying the tools are unlocking the ability for people to do what was typically locked behind the heads of seniors with 15 years of pattern recognition. But what really stood out to me was her honesty about imposter syndrome. She is the CEO of the most respected design studio in the industry, and she still feels like a fraud when she's not in the work.
That's reassuring, actually, because maybe that feeling just never goes away. Maybe the point is to use it to stay close enough to the craft so that you can lead the people doing it. It's something to think about, and I hope you do. I'll see you next time.