品味、AI 与决断力：一位设计师从 X 到独立之路

我认为品味引领者知道何时打破规则，何时突破现有边界，又何时安静下来随波逐流。而这正是当前 AI 所不具备的核心能力——把握那种平衡。它知道何时深入探索大量不同提示来真正塑造和构建新事物，同时也明白不必事事较劲，并非所有东西都需要创新。这种缩放聚焦的过程，我认为正是品味的来源。

I think the tastemakers know when to break the rules and when to push beyond the boundaries of what exists today and when to quiet and to go with the flow. And I think that is actually the core ability that AI doesn't allow for right now is knowing that balance. It's knowing when to go super deep into many different prompts to really shape and build something new versus, you know, it's okay to not fight every battle and to say not everything needs to be new. That process of zooming in and out, I think, is what creates taste.

欢迎来到 Dive Club。我是 Rid，这里是设计师永不停止学习的地方。今天的嘉宾是 Brandon Jacoby，他曾在早期 Cash App 担任重要设计角色，是 Capital 的第一位员工，最近则在 X 任职。但这次对话的重点将是 Brandon 下一步的计划——他正在启动一个全新的独立实践，帮助创始人超越“够好就行”。他分享了一些关于品味、用 AI 进行创作需要什么，以及如何在从零到一的环境中蓬勃发展的非常有趣的想法。但在深入这些之前，我必须先了解一下在 X 做设计是什么感觉。

Welcome to Dive Club. My name is Rid and this is where designers never stop learning. Today's episode is with Brandon Jacoby who's had some seriously high-profile design roles at early Cash App as the first hire at Capital and most recently at X. But the focus of this conversation is going to be about what Brandon is doing next because he's starting an all new independent practice to help founders push past good enough. He shares some really interesting thoughts on taste, what it takes to be creative with AI, and how to thrive in a zero-to-one environment. But before we get into all of that, I had to know what it was like designing at X.

我刚加入时，脑子有点被震住了。我知道会很疯狂，会很辛苦，那正是我加入时的兴奋点之一。但它真的彻底颠覆了我的所有预期，尤其是在质疑一切方面。很多人谈论 Elon 的方法论和工作方式——质疑每一个需求，从第一性原理思考。虽然你看到过、读到过，如果你是那种工作方式的粉丝也会尝试模仿，但除非亲眼所见，否则你根本无法真正理解。我记得在我最早和他的一次设计评审中，我们正在审查来自整个组织、整个业务部门不同人的各种东西。有一件事，我想在我加入公司之前已经周复一周地被报道了大概几个月。一个新想法出现了，因为这件事有很长的历史背景，所以一直在追踪某个指标。当时有一个疑问，或者应该说是一个观点：我们不能改变它，因为它有这段历史。你会变得非常习惯于看同样的指标、同样的产品，周复一周地迭代和改进。然后有人质疑：我们为什么还要追踪这个指标？为什么不看看另一个能用完全不同的方式讲述同样故事的东西？如果我们改变它，可能会惹恼很多用户，可能会彻底改变产品。但如果我们做了呢？我记得在任何一个我待过的组织里——大公司、小公司、初创公司、上市公司、大型设计团队——回应总是：好吧，我们来深入看看。在大公司里，并不总是说“不”。大公司最难的地方不是你什么都做不成，而是每件事都要花很长时间才能做成，或者要花很长时间才能知道能不能做成。而在 X、Twitter，一切都是即时的。所有事情都凭一时兴起发生。是或否，没有委员会，只有决策。尽管这对我既有的现实认知来说既疯狂又颠覆，但真的很酷。我认为这是你永远无法从教科书中学到的，或者即使我读了那么多关于 Elon 的东西，亲眼看到一个人如此无情地辨别并果断推进某件事——无论是正面还是负面——你都必须质疑每一个需求。如果有人说了任何阻碍质疑需求的话，那它本身为什么就是一个需求？没有障碍，没有围墙。这需要一点时间来适应，尤其是在设计东西的时候。我认为设计是由无数微决策组成的。我发现自己设计界面时，深陷在具体的设计工作中，每时每刻都在质疑自己：好吧，为什么我不决定去做这个我通常不会想到的疯狂事情呢？设计师在做那些微决策时，工作方式已经变得如此麻木，约束条件就像是被动漂浮在脑海里的东西。能够关掉那种惯性，是我职业生涯中第一次能够不加思考地设计，这是一座需要攀登的大山。

It broke my brain a little bit when I first joined. I knew it was going to be crazy. I knew it was going to be a grind and that was part of the excitement that went into me going there. But it really blew any expectation that I had out of the water, especially around just questioning everything. A lot of people talk about Elon's methodology and way of working and questioning every requirement and thinking from first principles. While you see that and read about it and try to emulate it if you're a fan of that way of working, you truly just can't wrap your head around it until you've seen it firsthand. I remember in one of my first ever design reviews with him, we're reviewing a bunch of different things from all different people across the org, across the business. There was something that has been reported on, I think, week over week for probably months long before I got to the company. A new idea came up and because of this long historical journey that this thing has been on, this metric was being tracked. There was just a question of or an opinion, I should say, of well, we can't change it because there's this history with it. And you become so comfortable with looking at the same metrics, with looking at the same products, and iterating it and trying to improve it week over week. And someone questioned like why are we even tracking this metric? Why not look at this other thing that's going to tell the same story but in a completely different way and it might piss off a lot of users if we change it, it might change the product completely if we change it. But what if we did it? I remember the response like in any other organization I've been at, big company, small company, startup, publicly traded, large design org, the response always would have been, well, let's get into it. And it's not always no in big companies. The hardest part about big companies is not that you can't get anything done, it's just that everything takes a long time to get done or it takes a long time before you find out if it can get done. At X, Twitter, it was just instant. Everything happened on a whim. Yeses, no's, there's no committees, there was just decisions. As crazy and disruptive as it is to my preexisting ways of reality, it's really cool. I think that's something that again, like you I would never be able to learn in a textbook or as much as I could read about Elon, like seeing someone just ruthlessly discern and ruthlessly pay forward on something, whether it's in a positive or a negative way, you just have to question every requirement and if someone says anything that would get in the way of questioning a requirement, why is that a requirement in and of itself? There's no barriers, there's no walls. That took a little bit of getting used to, especially like designing something. I think design is made up of so many micro decisions. I found myself designing interfaces, deep in the weeds design work, questioning myself at every second saying, well, actually why am I not deciding just to do this crazy thing that I wouldn't normally think about? Designers have such a calloused way of working in those micro decisions where constraints are just like these passive things floating around in the back of your mind. Being able to turn that off was a really big hill to climb to be able to design without thinking for the first time in my career.

实际上，我最近一直在关注的一个关键词就是“决断力”。即使只是思考不同组织未来的一些成功特质，在一个我们能够获得更多想法、为这些微决策创造更多空间的世界里，决断力在今年及以后真的非常重要。听到它已经在如此程度上发生，很有意思。

It's actually one of the keywords that I've been paying attention to recently is decisiveness. And even just thinking about some of the successful traits in different orgs moving forward, again, a world where we can get more ideas and create more real estate for these micro decisions to exist, decisiveness actually is a really, really big deal for this year and beyond. It's interesting to hear the extent of which that was already happening.

快速插播一条消息，然后我们继续。好了，Framer 刚刚发布了两个非常棒的 AI 功能，我必须告诉你。第一个是 Wire Framer。你可以与 AI 聊天，跳过空白画布，激发各种想法。没有比这更简单的方法来快速生成一个带有结构和可编辑起始内容的响应式页面了。第二个功能是 Workshop。这是一种使用自然语言创建高级组件的方式。因此，你可以快速制作各种新型视觉效果，无需编码。这又是我向所有人推荐 Framer 的另一个理由。你今天就可以开始使用这些功能。只需访问 dive.club/framer。另外，Jitter 刚刚发布了“图片转视频”功能，这相当重要。你只需上传一个素材，Jitter 就会借助 AI 立即生成一个短视频片段。这是一种为静态背景添加动感和深度的简单方法，也许可以为品牌视觉制作小片段，或者通常让任何场景通过微妙的运动显得更有活力。玩起来非常有趣，今天就可以使用。只需访问 dive.club/jitter 试试看。现在，回到正题。

Real quick message and then we can jump back into it. All right, Framer just released two killer AI features that I have to tell you about. The first is wire framer. You can chat with AI to skip the blank canvas and spark all kinds of ideas. And there's no easier way to spin up a responsive page with structure and starter content that's ready to edit. Now, the second feature is workshop. It's a way to create advanced components using natural language. So, you can spin up all types of new visual effects, no coding required. It's just another reason why I recommend Framer to absolutely everyone. And you can start using these features today. Just head to dive.club/framer. So, Jitter just released image to video and it's a pretty big deal. All you have to do is upload an asset and Jitter will instantly generate a short video clip from it with the help of AI. It's an easy way to add motion and depth to static backgrounds, maybe create little clips for brand visuals, or just in general make any scene feel more alive with subtle movement. It's super fun to play with and available today. Just head to dive.club/jitter to try it out. Now, on to the episode.

在我们离开 Twitter 这个话题之前，还有一条推文我几个月来一直想问你。Nikita 刚加入担任产品负责人，我想你引用转发了它或者回复了之类，你说在他入职的第一周，他就已经带你去上了“入职学校”。带我们回到那个场景一下吧。

Before we move on from Twitter, there's one other tweet that I literally have been wanting to ask you about for months. Nikita had freshly joined as head of product and I think you quote tweeted it or replied or something and you said that like in his first week he had already taken you to onboarding school. Put us into that room for a second.

你学到了什么，那是什么样的体验？

What did you learn and what was that like?

是的，有趣的是，这实际上与我们之前讨论的“辨别力”密切相关。先说点背景，我职业生涯早期在 Cash App 负责增长团队的设计，很大一部分工作就是新用户引导。那是一家大公司，我在的时候最多有大约 4500 万用户。我们做微优化、大型实验和重大改动，希望能显著推动指标，同时也做小规模 A/B 测试来摸索。我接触新用户引导流程很久了，这大概是我作为设计师说过的最书呆子气的话。但说实话，我其实受不了设计引导流程，这只是顺便一提。我为其他初创公司和产品设计过很多引导流程，包括消费类和 B2B 类。总之，我觉得自己对新用户引导还算了解。有一次我和家人在夏威夷旅行，Nikita 刚加入公司，他冲进酒店房间开了一个短会，因为我们正在做 X 的引导流程。我们花了很长时间反复讨论不同的设计方案，公司里不同的人提出了各种方向。对于 X 这种规模的产品，引导流程是不能搞砸的，它太珍贵了，你不能破坏互联网上最重要的流程。我和 Nikita 通了电话，他打开了一个文档，就像 Nikita 大脑的内部构造，人们从外部知道并喜爱它，但看到内部就像宝箱和潘多拉魔盒。引导之神降临，揭开了面纱，那真是最疯狂的事情。令人惊叹的是，所有内容都让我觉得，“哦，好吧，这完全合理，我之前没想到，也没人想到。” Nikita 之所以擅长他的工作是有原因的。之后不久我就离开了公司，与此无关，但时间上，他研究的很多引导方案最终都上线了。我知道深入 X 的细节有时是个棘手的话题，但既然你现在又在做不同的产品，我很好奇那次会议是否影响了你对其他产品引导流程的思考？有没有什么精华可以分享给今天的听众，是你从那次会议中一直带在身上的？

Yeah, it's funny because it actually really connects to what we were talking about with discernment. For some historical context, I led design for the growth team at Cash App for a good chunk of my early career. Onboarding was a big part of that. It was a big company. There were at most like 45 million people using the product when I was there. We were making micro optimizations, doing big experiments and big changes that would hopefully move the needle in big ways, but we were also doing small A/B tests and figuring things out. I've been around onboarding flows for a long time, which is like the most nerdy thing I've ever said as a designer. But I actually can't stand designing onboarding flows, just as a side note. I've designed a lot of onboarding flows for other startups and products, consumer and B2B. All that to say, I felt like I knew onboarding a little bit. I was on a trip in Hawaii with my family, and Nikita had just joined and ran into the hotel room for a quick meeting because we were working on onboarding for X. We had spent a long time going back and forth on different designs. There were different directions being proposed from different people across the company. With a product at X's scale, onboarding is something you don't want to break. It's so precious. You don't want to break the most important flow to the internet. Nikita and I hopped on a call and he just pulled up this doc that was like the inside of Nikita's brain that people know and love from the outside, but seeing the inside of it was like a treasure chest and Pandora's Box. The onboarding oracle came down and opened the veil. It was the craziest thing ever. It was wild because it was all things that I thought, 'Oh, okay, that completely makes sense and I wasn't thinking about it and no one else is thinking about it.' Nikita is good at what he does for a reason. I left the company shortly after that, not connected to that, but timing-wise, a lot of the onboarding stuff he was looking at ended up getting implemented. I know it's a tricky subject sometimes going into the weeds of X, but now that you are working on different products again, I'm curious if that session has shaped the way you think about onboarding for other products. Is there maybe some nugget you could impart to people listening today that you carried with you from that session?

我整个职业生涯中，对于增长相关的事情，比如新用户引导和产品中更实用的流程，最大的收获是：存在一些有效的模式，出现在 90% 的产品中。这些模式存在是有原因的。很多设计师，包括我自己，都会重新发明轮子。虽然重新发明轮子其实是件好事，我们可以再深入聊聊，但我认为我们行业现在面临的一个大问题是人们过于拘泥于模式，过于回归平均值。有那么多大型增长团队和产品团队专注于优化他们的引导流程，所以有大量信息可以借鉴，尤其是对年轻设计师来说。关键是要知道什么时候该重新发明轮子，什么时候该遵循模式。我认为，知道何时做其中任何一种的能力，是任何设计师，尤其是初级设计师，现在可以拥有的最重要的特质，我认为这能让他们走得很远。

The biggest takeaway in my whole career for growth-related things like onboarding and more utilitarian flows in product is that there are patterns that work that show up in 90% of the products out there. Those patterns are there for a reason. A lot of designers, and I'm guilty of this myself, reinvent the wheel. While reinventing the wheel is actually a really good thing and we can talk more about this, I think a lot of the issue our industry faces right now is people trying to stick to the pattern a little bit too much and revert to the mean a little bit too much. There are such large growth teams and product teams hyper-focused on optimizing their onboarding flows that there is so much information out there to pull from for something like that, especially for young designers. It's like know when to reinvent the wheel, know when to follow patterns. I think that skill of knowing when to do either is the number one trait that any designer, especially junior designers, can have right now that I think will let them go very far.

我们进入下一章吧，因为你最近离开了 X，开始自己创业。跟我聊聊这段旅程是什么样的。我知道你现在已经到了这样的阶段：“是的，这就是我想做的事，这就是我职业生涯下一阶段的样子。” 那么，离开 X 后的这几个月，你认为哪些方面凸显了你作为设计师的价值，以及你未来想在职业生涯中加倍投入的方向？

Let's move ahead into this next chapter here because you somewhat recently left X and ventured out on your own. So, talk to me a little bit about what that journey has been like. I know you're now at the point where, yeah, this is the thing that I want to do. This is what this next part of my career is going to look like. So, what about the months after X do you think highlights what you bring to the table as a designer and what you wanted to double down on moving forward with your career?

离开后我花了一点时间，真的不确定自己想做什么。从 X 的倦怠中走出来，加上对下一步的不确定，这是一个相当困难的挑战。我开始帮助一些朋友的初创公司，并孵化一些副业项目。非常探索性、开放、独立，有很大的灵活性。我以此作为一种探索形式。我给了自己 3 个月的时间，在真正做出任何实际决定之前先这样做。我发现的、也让我惊讶的是，那个探索阶段实际上是我职业生涯多年来做过的最充实的事情。每天醒来可以探索不同类型的角色，涉及设计、产品设计、品牌设计、创意指导，以及完全超出设计范围的产品事务。能够思考所有这些不同的事情，即使是为了探索我下一步想做什么，本身就已经很充实了。有趣的是，那段时间模型刚好达到了一个临界点，让人觉得任何人都可以随时构建任何东西。工具发展到一定程度，我突然重新受到启发，坐下来捣鼓一个想法，这非常强大。所有这些共同催化了下一章，我基本上转向了独立的个人实践，并认为探索是好事，自主是好事。AI 工具比以往任何时候都更能让人们自主，因为它们可以填补人们觉得自己做不到的空白，让人们更快、更高效地行动，同时专注于我擅长的事情。所以，我在探索和编码，而我历来是个相当非技术的人。技术程度刚好足以惹恼过去合作过的工程师。但第一次，我真的觉得自己可以构建一些东西，并尽可能推进，而不必冒离开 Figma 的风险。我喜欢 Figma，我每天都用它。我认为摆弄和拖拽矩形对我来说仍然是探索 UI 设计的最佳表达方式。

I spent a little bit of time immediately after I left really unsure what I wanted to do. Coming out of the burnout of X mixed with the uncertainty of what I wanted to do next, it was a pretty difficult challenge. I started helping some friends' startups and incubating some projects on the side. Very exploratory and open-ended, independent, with a lot of flexibility. I did that as a form of exploration. I gave myself 3 months to do that before really ramping up any actual decisions. What I found, and what I was surprised by, was that exploratory phase of life was actually the most fulfilling thing I had been doing in my career for years prior. Being able to wake up every day and explore different types of roles, across design and product design and brand design and creative direction and product stuff outside of design entirely. Being able to just think about all those different things, even though it was for the purpose of exploring what I wanted to do next, was actually fulfilling in and of itself. What was interesting is that was at a time where the models kind of hit a threshold where it really started to feel like anyone could build anything whenever they want. The tools getting to a point where I suddenly felt re-inspired to just sit down and hack on an idea that I had was really powerful. All of that together was a catalyst for this next chapter of leaning into the independent solo practice essentially, and saying exploring is a good thing, having autonomy is a good thing. AI tools more than ever allow people to be autonomous because they can fill the gaps of what they feel they can't do and allow them to move quicker and more efficiently, but at the same time focus on what I was good at. So, I was exploring and coding, and I've historically been a pretty non-technical person. Just enough to piss off engineers I've worked with in the past. But for the first time, I could actually feel like I could build something and take it as far as I could go, but not at the risk of no longer being in Figma. I love Figma. I use it every day. I think tinkering and dragging rectangles around is actually still the best form of expression for exploring UI design for me.

但能够构建、探索并利用 AI 来补充我真正擅长的事情，那是有史以来最酷的事。我认为，只有经历了那段未知和不确定的阶段，才可能发现这一点。

But, being able to like build and explore and use AI to like supplement what I feel like I'm really good at was the coolest thing ever. And that was I think only discovering that was only possible by going to that chapter of not knowing and uncertainty.

我正想说，你自己的探索期与这些模型的爆发恰好完美重叠。在整个技术史的光谱里，这其实堪称天衣无缝。

I was about to say you probably had the perfect overlap between your own period of discovery and then all of these models just exploding. Like in the whole spectrum of tech history, like it was actually kind of flawless.

是的，而且因为模型已经发展到现在的水平，有很多争论：有人说他们要删掉 Figma，只用 Claude Code 来构建和设计；另一些人则站在另一个极端，大声宣称模型不擅长设计，人类的品味和触感将永远存在且至关重要。我觉得，这其实无关紧要。伟大的设计一直是伟大的设计，与工具无关。当然，每个时代流行的工具确实会引导和塑造当时的美学趋势。但设计始终关乎决断力和判断力。在一个突然有更多人具备设计和构建能力的世界里，设计的艺术和科学依然存在，让人们可以说：我就用我想要的工具，结果自然会呈现。我认为，走上这条独立道路的另一个好处是，我有一个智能体帮我处理后勤、客户管理和邮件；我每天醒来都会收到项目夜间进展的简报；当我遇到创意瓶颈时，Figma Make 和其他 AI 工具会给我帮助。然后我在 Claude Code 里构建东西，我虽然在使用这些工具，但感觉我的工作并没有真正改变。我仍然是一个伟大的设计师，帮助塑造世界，把产品打磨成对客户和用户真正有价值的东西。

Yeah, and because the models have gotten to where they're at, there's so much debate around people saying that they're deleting Figma and they're only building things and designing things in Claude Code and or some people are the extreme other end of the spectrum and, you know, like to stand on the hill and yell how the models aren't good at design and, you know, human taste and the human touch is going to be there forever is super important. And it's kind of like, I don't know, the way I look at that is it doesn't really matter. Like great design has always been great design agnostic of the tools. And like sure the tools that are popular at any give one given time are help guide and shape especially like aesthetics that are kind of in trend at any given moment. But, design has always been about decisiveness and judgment. And in a world where suddenly a lot more people are equipped to design and to build, there's still the art of design and the science of design that allow people to say I'm just going to use whatever tool that I want and the results are going to be what I get. And I think that's actually like another benefit of kind of being in this independent path is like I have an agent that helps me with like logistics and some client management and my email and I wake up every day and I get a little recap of stuff that happened on a project overnight and I get help from, you know, Figma make and some of the other like AI tools to help when I have a creative block. And then I'm building things in Claude Code and it's like I'm using the tools, but I feel like my like job hasn't really changed. I'm just like being a great designer that's helping mold the world and shape products into something that's really valuable for for customers and people that interact with those products.

既然我们已经盯着这个兔子洞了，我想干脆一头扎进去。那么，我们开始吧。在这段探索和调试的时期，关于如何在实际客户工作中利用这些不同的 AI 工具，你学到了什么？特别是从一个非常看重在画布上自由挥洒的人的角度，你如何思考何时为某个目的使用哪种工具？

I kind of want to duck all the way down this rabbit hole now that we're staring down it. So, Let's let's jump in. During this period of exploration and tinkering, what did you learn about how you wanted to utilize these different AI tools in actual client work? Especially from somebody who sees a lot of value in being able to sling things around on a canvas, how do you think about when to reach for what tool for what purpose?

AI 对客户工作最大的帮助，其实是能够构建我自己的设计工具。我想你之前的嘉宾也提到过类似的观点。我认为这正在成为一种趋势，我认识的最优秀的设计师都如此：终于不仅能使用现有的设计工具（包括 AI 工具），还能利用 AI 为我们自己的特定目的构建工具，这是我职业生涯中感受到的最具创造力的赋能。约翰·拉塞特（John Lasseter）有句老话我特别喜欢，早在 AI 出现之前我就经常引用。他在谈到《玩具总动员》的创作时说：技术启发艺术，艺术挑战技术。我认为我们正处于一个关键时刻：用技术创造所需工具来打造我们脑海中那些伟大想法的限制已经消失了。这再次让我作为创作者感到无比自由。

The single biggest way that AI specifically has helped with client work is actually the ability to like build my own design tools. And I think you've you've like had other guests on that or seen like kind of a similar note. And I think that like that is becoming a trend that I see with like the best designers that I know is like being able to finally not only have design tools that exist including AI tools, but using that AI to be able to build our own tools for whatever specific purpose we have is like the most creatively empowering feeling that I think I've ever had in my career. There was this old quote by John Lasseter that I absolutely love and long before AI like I would come back to it all the time. And John Lasseter said it with regards to the creation of Toy Story. And he said the technology inspired the art, the art challenged the technology. I think we're at this pivotal moment where the limit of technology to create the tooling that we need to like create the things that we see in our head that we think are that are great, that limit's gone. And that again has just been the most like freeing feeling as a creative.

我微笑有两个原因。第一，我是个彻头彻尾的皮克斯迷，尤其是早期皮克斯，约翰·拉塞特在我心中地位很高。第二，就在过去 24 小时里，这句话完美地代表了我的经历：我在做一个网站，有个想法，完全不知道怎么做，甚至不确定是否可能。我就想：这可行吗？然后 Claude 说：嗯，我觉得可行。我就说：好，我们试试？按下回车，然后就想：会发生什么？会发生什么？结果我做出了一个很酷的粒子效果，它组合成功能卡的图标。我仍然不懂背后的技术，不知道它怎么工作的，但它就是我脑海中的样子，而且很美。我不断有这样的时刻：天哪，我几乎什么都能做。人们利用 AI 到一定程度后，会想：我希望我知道怎么用 AI 在我正在构建的工具里做某件事。比如我希望知道怎么用 AI 构建 WebGL 3D 渲染。但问题是我不知道怎么问问题。那就问 Claude。

I'm smiling for two reasons. One because I just am a complete Pixar nerd. Especially OG Pixar like John Lasseter high regard in my book. But then also, even down to the last like 24 hours that quote has been so representative of my own experience where I'm like working on this website and I kind of have this idea and I literally have no idea how to make it. I don't even know if it's possible. But, I'm kind of like, is this possible? And then, you know, Claude's like, yeah, actually I think it kind of is. And you're like, okay, cool. Can we just like try it? And you just hit enter and then you're just like, okay, what's going to happen? What's going to happen? And it's like sure enough I made this really cool like particle effect where it assembles into icons for these feature cards. And still I have no clue what the tech is. I have no idea how it works. But, it was like kind of what was in my brain and it's beautiful. And I just keep having those moments where I'm like, oh my gosh, I I can do almost anything, you know. People are leveraging AI enough to like get to a certain point and then they're like, oh, I wish I like knew how to use AI to do XYZ thing in this tool that I'm building. Like I wish I knew how to like use AI to build this like WebGL 3D render. And it's just like I don't know how to like I don't even know what questions to ask. Ask Claude.

我自己也经常这样：我到了某个点，心想：我希望我能让智能体做某件事，但忘了具体是什么。然后我靠在椅子上想：哦，我应该直接问 Claude 怎么做。然后我就解决了。实际上 Claude 做了大部分工作，我不太清楚自己做了什么，但它确实做到了。这又让我想起在 X 的经历，那种质疑现实的感觉。我觉得 AI 挑战了很多人的现实观——你不再受任何束缚。

And like I find myself doing that myself where I'm like, oh, like I wish I could, you know, I got to a certain point. I'm like, I wish I could figure out how to like get an agent to like do something or other I'm forgetting. And I remember sitting back in my chair and being like, oh, I should just ask Claude like how to do this. And I figured it out. And actually like Claude did a lot of it and I don't really know what I would work, but it did. And it's like I it's kind of tie it back to like the experience at X of just like questioning reality. Like I feel like AI's like kind of challenged a lot of people's reality where it's like you're no longer bound by anything.

好了，在离开 AI 话题之前还有一个问题。之后我想拉远视角，聊聊你的实践以及你如何定位自己。我们经常把 AI 比作放大器。我最近在想，并不是每个人都能获得同等程度的放大。这是一个光谱。有些人借助 AI 简直变成了火箭飞船；而另一些人可能有所收获，但天花板有点低。我很好奇，你认为决定设计师在这个光谱上位置的主要变量是什么？今天谁从 AI 中获得了最大的放大效应？

All right, one more question before we move on from AI. And then I do want to zoom out and talk a little bit about your practice and how you're thinking about positioning yourself. But, you know, we talk a lot about AI as an amplifier. And what I've been thinking about recently is that you know, not everybody has the same level of amplification. There is a spectrum. There are people that are absolutely, you know, turning into rocket ships with AI. And then there are people who, you know, maybe get something out of it, but their their ceiling is a little bit capped. And so, I'm curious if you have a take on, you know, what are some of the dominant variables that dictate where a designer is on that spectrum? Who gets the most amplified with AI today?

有趣的是，我们刚才在讨论 AI 如何让我们摆脱束缚，消除了设计过程中通常存在的许多障碍。我合作过很多人，早在 AI 出现之前，他们就向我展示了那种状态。

It's funny because we were talking about how AI has like allowed us to like become unbound and like it's removed barriers in a lot of ways that would typically be there in a design process. I've worked with a lot of people that have like shown me what that looks like long before AI.

回想早期 Cash App 的设计阶段。Cash App 在设计上备受推崇是有原因的——那里的团队，尤其是早期团队，非常有才华。这很大程度上归功于人们敢于向前推进、开辟道路、冲破障碍。回顾我有幸共事过的每一位杰出人士，他们都有一个共同特质：冲破障碍，不接受拒绝——不是性格上的固执，而是我之前提到的 Elon 那种方式：质疑一切，质疑为什么某个东西是需求。如果遇到阻碍，他们会想办法解决。早在 AI 出现之前，如果他们自己无法构建，就会与工程师合作，发明新技术来解锁新的设计路径。这种特质一直存在。AI 让它变得更容易、更好了。我认为那些之前就有这种倾向的人，现在正处在一个上升斜坡上，拥有更大的自主权——他们需要合作的对象变少了。但那些害怕冲破障碍的人，会把障碍外部化，然后陷入困境。我不确定 AI 是否突然就能赋予他们这种能力。你仍然需要主动出击，不接受拒绝。

I think back to the early Cash App design days. Cash App is held in high regard from a design perspective for a reason — the team there, especially the early team, is so talented. A lot of that had to do with people just moving forward, blazing trails, and running through walls. If I look at the golden thread between every great person I've had the pleasure of working with, they all share this common trait of running through walls, not taking no for an answer — not from a character standpoint, but the Elon thing I mentioned before: questioning everything, questioning why something's a requirement. If they get stuck on something, they figure out a solution. Long before AI, if they couldn't build it themselves, they'd work with an engineer to build a solution, inventing new technology that would unlock some new design path. That thing has always existed. AI has made it way easier and way better. I think the people who had a tendency to do that before are now on an upward slope of having even more autonomy — there are fewer things or people they need to partner with to run through those walls. But the people who were scared to run through walls would externalize blockers and get stuck. I don't know if AI is suddenly going to empower them to do that. You still have to take the initiative and not take no for an answer.

另外我想说的是，尤其是从视觉设计角度来看：视觉设计需要创造力、品味、感受和同理心——能够退后一步问自己：“别人看到这个会有什么感觉？”如果页面上是一堆文字，对齐奇怪，基本规则被打破，很容易就能判断出用户使用这个产品时不会感到舒适。但这并不意味着随便用一套柔和的中性色调和大地色就能让他们突然感到平静。有太多视觉设计的基本原则会影响用户与产品互动时的感受。这些原则依然非常正确。那些“氛围编码”的产品或者直接跳向 AI 来填补视觉设计空白的人——我认为，主动的视觉设计，即知道如何通过你创造的产品让人产生某种感受，仍然是关键。

The other thing I would say, especially from a visual design perspective: visual design requires creativity, taste, feeling, and empathy — to sit back and say, 'How is someone going to feel when they look at this?' If it's a bunch of text on a page with weird alignment and broken basic principles, it's easy to say someone won't feel at peace using this product. That doesn't mean throwing a soft, neutral color palette with earth tones will suddenly make them feel peaceful. There are so many visual design fundamentals that change how someone feels when they interact with a product. Those principles are still very true. Vibe-coded products or people jumping to AI to fill gaps in visual design — I think active visual design, knowing how to make someone feel a certain way through the products you create, is still key.

我们来深入探讨一下你是如何利用这一点的，但也许先退一步，设定一下背景。你现在正全力投入这个独立实践。考虑到当今市场的疯狂，你如何看待定位一个新的 solo 实践？你想与什么样的客户合作？你希望它发展成什么样子？

Let's dig into how you're leveraging this, but maybe first zoom out a second to set the stage. So, you're at the point now where you're going all in on this independent practice. Given the insanity of today's market, how do you think about positioning a new solo practice? What types of clients do you want to work with? What are your hopes for what this could become?

品味正当时。像 Greg Brockman 这样的人都在谈论品味是新的核心技能。我们科技行业顶尖的人们，终于——我想很多设计师都会这么说——开始认同他们一直强调的东西：设计很重要，品味很重要。但很多设计已经变得同质化——设计师为其他设计师而设计，试图用文字或图片来描述品味是什么。很多人可以指着 Apple 或其他优秀设计公司的界面说：“哦，那是一家有品味的公司，因为它极简，有左对齐的粗体字体和下面干净的排版。”但品味更多是关于设计的旅程，而不仅仅是结果。在“天生就有”和“可以学习”这个光谱上，我更倾向于前者，但我认为它可以被影响和塑造。我不认为品味无法学习，但它是需要培养的。它是一块肌肉。有些人天生有运动天赋，但他们仍然需要去健身房刻苦训练才能在某个运动上表现出色或变得强壮。品味也一样。也许有些人天生更有能力成为品味创造者——不仅仅是看到品味，而是创造品味——但你仍然需要培养它。环境有很大关系。仅仅看着某样东西然后复制是很难的。品味比视觉要深刻得多；你需要让它沉淀在你的内心深处。

Taste is having a moment. People like Greg Brockman are talking about how taste is the new core skill. People at the pinnacle of our industry in tech are finally, I think a lot of designers would say, coming around to what they've been beating the drum on: design is important and taste is important. But so much of design has become homogeneous — designers designing for other designers, trying to put into words or pictures what this taste thing is. A lot of people can point at an interface designed by Apple or another great design company and say, 'Oh, that's a company with taste because it's minimal and has a left-aligned bold font with clean typography below.' But taste is so much more about the journey of design, much more than the result. On the spectrum of 'you're born with it' versus 'it can be learned,' I fall closer to the first, but I think it can be informed and shaped. I don't think it's impossible to learn taste, but it's something you have to foster. It's a muscle. Some people are genetically gifted to be athletes, but they still have to go to the gym and train hard to be great at any sport or to be strong. Taste is the same way. Maybe some people are born with a bit more natural ability to be a tastemaker — not just to see taste, but to create taste — but you still have to foster it. Environment has a lot to do with it. It's hard to just look at something and copy it. Taste is so much deeper than something visual; you have to let it sit with your innermost being.

过去一年，Dive Club 让我非常清楚地认识到一点：设计的实践正在改变。旧的反馈流程在当今世界已经行不通了。这就是为什么我很高兴地宣布 Inflight 正式进入公开测试阶段。它是我一直想要的反馈工具，专为以 AI 速度运转的世界而构建。我可以分享我的原型，通过视频演示提供背景信息，Inflight 让我轻松获得推进所需的精确反馈——无论是投票选择方向，还是获得批准发布新想法。所有这些都可以通过一个链接完成，我可以把它丢进 Slack，或者分享给高级用户来测试新原型。我每天都在用 Inflight，它彻底改变了我分享工作的方式。我很期待你们试用这个产品。如果想一起讨论，请发邮件到 rid@inflight.co。

One thing that Dive Club has made abundantly clear to me over the last year is that the practice of design is changing. And the old process of getting feedback just doesn't quite cut it in today's world. That's why I'm excited to announce that Inflight is officially in open beta. It's the feedback tool that I've always wanted, built for a world that moves at the speed of AI. I can share my prototypes, give context in video walkthroughs, and Inflight makes it easy to get the exact feedback I need to move forward — whether it's voting on directions or getting the green light to ship a new idea. All of this is available in a single link that I can drop into Slack or share with power users to test a new prototype. I use Inflight every day and it's totally transformed the way I share work. I'm excited for you to try the product. If you ever want to jam about it, just email me at rid@inflight.co.

我们能深入探讨一下“看到品味”和“创造品味”之间的区别吗？作为一名设计师，要实现这种跨越需要什么？

Can we dig into this differentiation between seeing taste and creating taste? What does it require to be able to make that jump as a designer?

我认为看到品味是每个人都有的能力。你看到它时就知道，感受到它时就知道。也许你需要达到某个门槛，才能分辨出你正在使用的东西是否经过精美和深思熟虑的设计。但还有另一个层次：能够识别——正如我之前所说——何时遵循现有模式，何时开辟新道路，知道在现状中遵循什么是有意义的，何时应该突破界限。这并不是一个硬性规则，说品味创造者必须打破所有规则并重新发明轮子。

I think seeing taste is something everyone has. You know it when you see it, you know it when you feel it. Maybe there's some threshold you need to get to before you can tell when you're using something beautifully and thoughtfully crafted. But there's another level: being able to recognize — as I said before — when to follow existing patterns versus when to blaze new trails, knowing what makes sense to follow within the status quo and when to push the boundaries. It's not a hard and fast rule where tastemakers break all the rules and reinvent the wheel.

我认为品味引领者知道何时打破规则、何时突破现有边界，也知道何时安静下来、顺其自然。而这正是当前 AI 所不具备的核心能力——把握这种平衡。也就是说，这仍然是 AI 工具需要人类输入的部分：知道何时深入多个不同提示来真正塑造和构建新东西，而何时不必事事较劲，明白并非所有东西都需要创新。这种拉近拉远的过程，我认为正是品味的来源。

I think the tastemakers know when to break the rules and when to push beyond the boundaries of what exists today and when to quiet and to go with the flow. And I think that is actually the core ability that AI doesn't allow for right now is knowing that balance. It's like you can, you know, that's still the part of AI tools that require human input. It's like knowing when to go super deep into many different prompts to really kind of shape and build something new versus, you know, it's okay to not fight every battle and to say not everything needs to be new. And that process of zooming in and out, I think is what creates taste.

我喜欢这个区分，因为我们正在进入这样一个世界——或者说可能已经身处其中——当你看到好东西时，你几乎可以复制它。你知道，AI 很擅长复制。所以我经常看到某个设计时会想：“这很好。”但也许我知道它好，是因为我有一个完整的 Notion 数据库，里面全是类似的东西，而我已经判定它们很好。但偶尔你会看到一些东西，让你觉得：“这很好，而且我从未见过类似的东西。”要达到那种境界，需要一定程度的创造力。

I like that distinction because we're entering this world or maybe we're already even there where if you see something that is good, you can kind of replicate it. You know, like AI is pretty good at replicating things. And so, all the time I'll see a design where I'm like, "That is good." But maybe I know that it is good because I have a full Notion database of things that look like it that I have decided are good. But then every once in a while you see something where you're like, "That is good and I've never seen anything like it." And it takes a level of creativity to arrive at that.

我甚至不确定那是不是我的强项。我更像一个混音师——通过策展和细微调整来体现品味。但有时我会看到一些东西，比如不知为何现在想到了 Tonal 这个应用。我记得第一次体验它的引导流程并使用它时，我心想：“这太不可思议了。”它远远超出了我作为设计师所借鉴的框架。我不知道，我经常思考如何达到那种境界，但那不是一块容易练就的肌肉。

I don't even know if that's necessarily a spike of mine. I'm more of the remixer, you know, I'm taste by curation and then subtle tweaks. But then I see something like for some reason the app Tonal comes to mind right now. I remember the first time I went through that onboarding and used that app and I was like, "This is unbelievable." And it exists so far outside of the box that I draw from as a designer. And I don't know, I think a lot about how to get there, but it's not an easy muscle to grow.

人类的创造力远不止于设计。当我们谈论品味时，很容易就跳到有品味的产品设计或有品味的品牌设计上。但品味远远超出了我们所做的工作。你很少会遇到一个精通自己手艺的人，却不在工作之外也活出那种手艺。我想，工作只是你作为一个人本身的延伸。

Human creativity is so much bigger than just design. When we talk about taste, it's easy to jump into tasteful product design or tasteful brand design. Taste exists so far beyond the work that we do. Like it's very rare that you meet someone who's an expert at their craft who doesn't live that same craft outside of the work that they produce. And I think, I don't know, work is just an extension of who you are as a person.

你知道，我对职业生涯的下一个篇章感到兴奋。我一直是一个充满好奇心和探索精神的人，我很高兴终于有了一个独立实践、独立工作的方式，可以同时做很多不同的事情，与非常优秀的人合作——可能这周或这个月是一群人，下个月就完全是另一种思维方式、另一群人、另一组问题。我认为，找到一个非常符合自己本性的方向，是迈出伟大职业步伐的重要因素。

You know, I'm excited in this next chapter of my career. I've always been a really curious person and an exploratory person and I'm excited to finally have a solo practice, an independent way of working where I can work on a bunch of different things and work with really great people and that might be one group of people one week or one month and then the next month it's an entirely different way of thinking, a different set of people, and a different problem set. And I think that's a big part of what makes for a great career step is finding something that's very true to who you are.

好了，那么跟我聊聊你实际上围绕“贩卖品味”来构建商业模式的计划吧。我知道这么说有点粗鲁，但归根结底就是这么回事，对吧？大多数有想法、有产品的人，并不具备那种区分真正伟大设计师的能力。那么，你如何看待带着这样的东西进入市场？它又如何影响你想要提供的服务类型，或者你与客户合作的方式？我们就深入聊聊你希望这个实践如何运作吧。

All right, so talk to me a little bit about your plans to effectively build a business model around selling taste. I know that's a little bit of a crude way to put it, but at the end of the day that is kind of what it is, right? Like most people who have an idea, who have some kind of a product, they don't have this ability that separates truly great designers. And so, how do you even think about going to market with something like that or how it impacts the type of services you want to offer or the way that you work with clients? Like let's just get into the weeds on how you want this practice to operate.

我听过另一个播客，但我忘了是谁说的，所以如果那个人碰巧听到这个，我先道歉，因为我完全是在转述，可能还会说错。但那人说，如果房地产的材料和劳动力成本一夜之间降到零，假设法规允许大量建房，那么住房会突然爆发，有无数的地方可以居住。但人们仍然会选择住在哪里。人们仍然需要做出选择：他们想住在哪里，想待在什么地方，住在那里与别处相比会给他们带来怎样的感受。我认为软件也是如此。软件是一种款待形式，你是在欢迎用户进入一个产品。随着 AI 和行业的发展，材料和劳动力成本正在迅速下降，这是事实，但我认为同样的情况也会发生：在一个任何人都可以随时创建任何东西、每个人都有能力构建满足自己需求的东西的世界里，我们该如何选择要构建什么？产品的消费者如何选择是自己构建，还是使用别人已经创建好的东西？这些模型如何知道要为特定需求构建什么？这仍然需要人类的输入。人类并不只是我们创造的技术的奴隶——也许将来会，但我们现在还没到那一步。所以，在一个构建“足够好”的东西超级容易的世界里，我卖的是如何做到卓越。这并不是说我是某种神谕，我没有点石成金的能力。我希望我有，我希望我能触碰任何东西就让它变得卓越，但我认为我有相当丰富的经验，曾在大小公司工作过，涉及产品、产品设计和品牌设计，在像 Elon 和 Jack Dorsey 以及其他一些伟大的创业领袖手下工作过，因此我能够说：在一个构建“足够好”的东西非常容易的世界里，我们如何构建出卓越的东西？

There's another podcast I was listening to and I'm forgetting who said this, so I apologize if that person happens to hear this because I'm going to totally paraphrase it and probably butcher it. But they were saying, you know, if the cost of materials and labor for real estate went to zero overnight, assuming regulation is okay with growing a lot of housing. Like if that were to happen, suddenly housing would explode and there are, you know, there are infinite more places to reside. People would still choose where to live. There would still be a choice that people have to make in where they want to live, where they want to be, how it's going to make them feel when they live there versus somewhere else. And I think software is no different. Like software is this form of hospitality where you're welcoming a user base into a product. And with AI and where the industry is going, like that thing of cost of materials and labor rapidly decreasing, and that is happening, but I think the same is going to be true where it's like in a world where anyone can create anything whenever they want and everyone's empowered to just build something that solves a need they have, how are we going to choose what to build? How are consumers of that product going to be able to choose to build it themselves versus use something else that's already created? How are these models going to know what to build for that specific thing? It still requires human input. Humans aren't just like slaves to the technology that we create, maybe yet, but like, you know, we're not there yet. And so in a world where it's super easy to build like good enough, the thing that I'm selling is how to be great, and that's not to say that I'm some oracle that can make, you know, I don't have a Midas touch. I wish that were true. I wish I could touch anything and make great, but I think I have a good amount of experience that I've been able to lean on working for big companies and small companies across products and product design and brand design and working under people like Elon but also Jack Dorsey and some other great startup leaders to be able to say in a world where it's really easy to build like good enough, like how do we build something that's great?

当你回顾你在一些高产公司的经历时——我是说早期阶段，我记得 Party Round 刚出来的时候，那应该是 Capital 吧。Party Round 的设计太酷了。当你第一次推出它时，我心想：“天哪，这是谁做的？”结果发现是你。所以，当你回顾这些不同角色中的一系列经历时，我很好奇有没有哪些时刻特别突出，这些经历如何塑造了你作为设计师的身份，以及你希望通过独立实践与这些新公司合作时想成为什么样的人。比如，哪些是真正让你成长为设计师的 formative 时刻？

When you reflect on your journey working at, you know, some of these prolific companies, being early I mean, I remember when Party Round first, which I guess that was Capital. Like Party Round design was so sick. Like when you first rolled that out, I was like, "Oh my gosh, who is behind this?" Turns out it is you. So, when you reflect on this set of experiences in different roles that you've been in, I'm curious if there are any moments that really rise to the top in terms of how that set of experiences has shaped who you are as a designer, who you want to be in working with these new companies through the solo practice. Like what were some of the more formative times that really grew you as a designer?

我觉得我的职业生涯非常奇特、有趣且多样化。它混合了一些大公司、初创公司，还有一些中间的风险投资项目，以及像 X 这样更混乱的公司，和更温和的公司。这种混合塑造了我作为设计师的身份，比我能在任何一段经历中指出的某个具体时刻都要多。

I feel like I've had a really weird, interesting, diverse career. It's been mixed with some big companies and startups and some venture things in between and companies that are more chaotic like X and companies that are more mellow, call it. That mix has shaped who I am as a designer more than any one moment that I can point to within any of those experiences.

确实有一些人对我产生了无法形容的影响，我非常感激能与他们共事。来自 Cash App、Party Round、Capital、X 等公司的许多人。我的导师之一，Block 的 Owen Jennings，在设计之外教会了我很多。在 Cash App 的四年里我们紧密合作。作为设计师，很容易去寻找设计领域的导师，但设计之外的东西对职业发展的推动远大于从你仰慕的公司的人那里获得设计批评。像 Owen，还有 Jordi——Party Round 的 CEO、TBPN 的主持人，我们一起在战壕里打造产品。他让我做我擅长的事，我也从他擅长的事中学到了很多。

There are people who have impacted me on a level I can't even describe. I'm super thankful to work with many people from Cash App, Party Round, Capital, X, and others. A mentor of mine, Owen Jennings at Block, taught me so much outside of design. We partnered closely for the four years I was at Cash App. It's easy as a designer to look for mentors in design, but there's so much to learn outside our craft that propels your career forward more than a design crit with someone you admire. People like Owen, and Jordi, CEO of Party Round and host of TBPN, we built things together in the trenches. He let me do what I was great at, and I learned from what he was great at.

即使是建立个人实践，也会以类似的方式拓展你——突然之间，你的交付物和需要考虑的事情不再局限于你正在做的产品，而是如何把它作为一个生意做起来？

Even just building a solo practice stretches you in similar ways where all of a sudden your set of deliverables and the things you have to think about aren't confined to whatever product you're working on, but it's actually like how do I even make this happen as a business?

既是也不是。好处是感觉可以完全做自己。在大公司里，设计之外和我喜欢做的事情之外，需要忍受的东西比个人实践多得多。当然，有高层管理、项目管理、上下文切换、税务和会计这些实际事务。但我宁愿让这些成为烦人的边角料，然后深入做我热爱的事情，和可能改变世界的优秀伙伴一起，而不是去应付大公司或任何全职结构化组织里的那些事。

Yes and no. The nice part is it feels like I can fully be myself. There's way more you have to put up with in a big company outside of design and what I enjoy doing than in solo practice. Sure, there's practical stuff like high management, project management, context switching, taxes, and accounting. But I'd much rather have that be the annoying side stuff and then go deep on things I'm passionate about with great people who might change the world, versus dealing with things you get at big companies or any structured organization in a full-time capacity.

有没有什么具体的项目和客户可以谈谈，能突出你如何融入这些公司的方式？

Are there any specific projects and clients that you can talk about that highlight the way you like to insert yourself into these companies?

我一直在和 AngelList 合作。他们的领导团队找到我，让我打造一个他们思考了很久的全新产品，现在终于到了合适的时机。这个项目集中体现了我在 Cash App、Party Round 甚至一点 X 的经验。这是最有趣的项目，因为我可以从所有这些不同的经历中汲取养分。它是我所有经验的集合，我可以全身心投入其中。这就是我在个人实践中的梦想：立足于我迄今为止的成就，满足好奇心，应用我所知道的，并围绕在比我聪明得多的人身边，他们推动我学习新事物，而不是一遍又一遍地重复同样的事情。

I've been working with AngelList. Their leadership team approached me to build a pretty net new product they had been thinking about for a long time, and now it's finally the right time to build it. This project was at the center of my experience between Cash App, Party Round, and even a bit of X. It was the most fun project because I got to pull from all these different experiences. It was the sum of all my experience, and I could pour my heart and soul into it. That's the dream for me in solo practice: to stand on what I've done so far, scratch the curiosity itch, apply what I know, and be around people much smarter than me who push me to learn new things, without just replicating the same thing over and over.

我们之前聊的时候，你提到了“工艺与结果相遇”这个概念。能解释一下你的意思吗？

When we chatted earlier, you talked about this idea of craft meets consequence. Can you unpack what you mean by that?

“工艺与结果相遇”这个概念挑战了我们行业的现状：为其他设计师而设计。很多作品集看起来很棒，出于各种原因能吸引招聘经理的注意。作为设计行业，我们擅长理解用户，尤其擅长理解其他设计师并产出让他们觉得好看的作品。另一方面，团队和角色有时会与新设计师想做的事情冲突：他们想做新颖的、需要大量时间的事情。AI 的美妙之处在于它让其中一些事情更自然地发生。但历史上，PM 和设计师之间总是有摩擦：PM 说要在某个日期前交付以推动指标，设计师想推出新颖的领域。对我来说，我一直把设计视为打造业务和产品的工艺，这些产品能销售并改善人们的生活。“工艺与结果相遇”意味着这两件事可以同时存在，它们并不互斥。你可以做一件有影响力的事情，塑造世界、改变生活，从商业角度看也能赚很多钱，同时拥有深刻、深思熟虑的工艺和意图。我希望更多人明白这两者可以和谐共存，而最好的产品正是在这种和谐中诞生的。形式追随功能，但工艺追随结果，结果也追随工艺。它们越是和谐共存，任何事物就能变得越伟大。

Craft meets consequence is an idea that challenges where our industry has gone: designing for other designers. Many portfolios look fantastic and stand out to hiring managers for XYZ reason. As a design industry, we're good at understanding our users, and we're especially good at understanding other designers and producing work that looks great to them. On the other end, you have teams and roles that sometimes conflict with what newer designers want to do: something novel that takes a lot of time. AI is beautiful because it allows some of those things to happen more naturally. But historically, there's always a toil between a PM and a designer: the PM says ship by this date to move metrics, the designer wants to ship a novel new area. For me, I've always viewed design as my craft for building a business and products that sell and make people's lives better. Craft meets consequence means those two things can exist at the same time. They're not mutually exclusive. You can take something consequential that shapes the world and changes lives, and from a business perspective makes a lot of money, while also having deep, thoughtful craft and intention. I wish more people understood that those two can live in harmony, and that's where the best products are created. Form follows function, but craft follows consequence and consequence follows craft. The more they live in harmony, the greater anything can become.

你说了很多关于理解业务、什么能推动产品战略的正确指标，以及在诸多约束下很难达到的创造力水平。我把这些归结为你设计时所处的阶段之间的关联。

A lot of what you're saying about understanding the business and what moves the right needles in product strategy, but also this level of creativity that is very difficult to achieve given a lot of constraints. I'm bundling this into a correlation between the stage at which you are designing to.

因为如果你要加入一家晚期的大公司，真的很难产生这种影响或这样设计，或者进来说‘我有一个关于视觉识别的完全创意的想法’。你知道，人们可能会有点把你笑出房间。你看到这种关联了吗？你是不是因此更倾向于早期阶段？

Cuz if you're going to join like a late stage giant company, like it's really hard to make this type of impact or design this type of way or to come in and be like, 'I have this totally creative idea for the visual identity.' You know, it's like that people are just going to kind of laugh you out of the room a bit. Do you see that type of correlation? Like do you gravitate more early stage as a result?

我发现自己倾向于新事物。有时这个新事物的规模看起来像一家公司，世界构建只有我和创始人在一个房间里，我们在设计公司，不仅仅是公司的产品，而是公司是什么？组织设计是什么？品牌识别是什么？在比 Logo 更深的层面上，这个东西是什么？你知道，创始人说，我有一个想法，但公司是什么？那就是我喜欢介入的地方。然后当然，以此为基础，构建它的衍生品：核心 MVP 是什么？产品的五个英雄界面是什么？用户将要交互的核心用户流程是什么？品牌识别是什么？MVP 品牌看起来像什么？所以，从这个意义上说，新事物就是公司，是从零到一的世界构建。但是，也有大公司在做新事物。AngelList 就是一个很好的例子。去年年底我还在 Coinbase 待过一段时间，那里有一个非常大的新事物正在发生，但思考这个新事物的团队非常小，我得以嵌入那个团队，帮助塑造和告知这个新事物将是什么。是的，无论是像 Coinbase 或 AngelList 这样的大公司，还是刚刚起步、甚至还没有完成一轮融资的小型初创公司，概念都是一样的：构建新事物并精心打造它。我认为作为设计师最美好的部分之一就是那个时刻，感觉像魔法一样，你盯着一张空白画布，闭上眼睛，想这张画布上应该有什么？然后在最好的情况下，它发生了。然后其他人看到那张画布，其他人与之互动。同样，无论在大公司还是小公司，那都是一个神奇的时刻，最初让我想要设计，现在我得以一次又一次地复制它，与许多不同的优秀团队和优秀的人一起，在众多不同的地方，带着真正酷的想法。是的，感觉就像魔法。我活着就是为了那个时刻，你可以按下 Command N，从头开始。这可能是作为设计师我最喜欢的部分。

I find myself gravitating towards new things. And sometimes the scale of that new thing looks like a company, and world building with just me and a founder in a room where we're designing the company, not just the product of the company, but what is the company? What is the org design? What is the brand identity? And on a deeper level than the logo of like what what is this thing? And, you know, the founder says, I have this idea, but like I what is a company? That's where I like plugging in. And then of course taking that and building the derivatives of that with what is the core MVP? What are like the five hero screens of the product? What are like the core user flow that someone's going to be interacting with? What is the brand identity? What is that like MVP brand look like? So, it's like the new thing in that sense is like the company and like the zero-to-one, you know, world build. But, there are big companies as well that are doing new things. And, you know, AngelList was a good example. I also did a stint with Coinbase late last year where there's a really big new thing that was happening, but it was a really small team that was thinking about this new thing and I got to embed with that group and help shape and inform what this new thing was going to be. And yeah, whether it's like a big company like like Coinbase or AngelList or a small startup that's just getting started and hasn't even raised a round of funding yet, it's still the same concept which is building something new and crafting it. I think like one of the most beautiful parts about being a designer is like the moment that it happens that feels like magic where you're staring at a blank canvas and you like shut your eyes and you're like what should be on this canvas? And then in the best case scenario like it happens. And then other people see that canvas and other people interact with it. And again, whether it's at a big company or a small company, that is like a magical moment that got me wanting to design in the first place and now I get to replicate it over and over and over again with with a bunch of different great teams and great people with with really cool ideas at a bunch of different places. And yeah, it feels like a feels like magic. I live for that moment where you kind of get to hit command N and just start from scratch. And it's probably my favorite part about being a designer.

那么，也许我们可以再深入一点，跟那些可能没有处于那种情况的人谈谈。要么他们职业生涯早期，要么他们过去 10 年一直在为大公司工作。是的，他们对加入更小的公司感兴趣，尤其是在当前市场状况下，在那里你设计公司，而不仅仅是设计产品中的界面。你知道，你担任过很多次这样的角色。不仅与客户合作，而且在一些重要的职位上。我想我很好奇听你谈谈，在那个环境中作为设计师茁壮成长是什么样子。以及如果有任何具体的事情，那些想要锻炼这些能力的设计师可以做什么，来成为在这个从零到一的早期角色中表现出色的人。

So, maybe we could go a little bit deeper there for a second and speak to somebody who perhaps hasn't been in that situation. Either they're earlier in their career or maybe they've been you know, working at big companies for the last 10 years. And yeah, they're interested especially given the state of the market of joining something smaller where you are designing the company and not just designing the interfaces that exist within this product. And you know, you've been in that role so many times. Not only with clients, but in you know, some of these big time roles. I guess I'm curious to hear you talk a little bit about what it looks like to thrive as a designer in that environment. And if there are any specific things that designers who do want to grow these muscles can do to become someone who excels in this zero-to-one early stage role.

我要对那个人说的第一件事是：找一个你喜欢与之共事的人。无论是超级早期的公司，比如 CEO 或创始人在雇佣你，只有你和他们，还是围绕初创公司组建的小团队。找一个你喜欢与之共事的团队，因为你在公司年龄上介入得越早，与团队在设计之外合拍就越重要。比如，如果你是唯一的设计师，你将与之合作的人是领导层、CEO、创始人、工程主管、CTO，也许还有一些市场人员。也许没有。也许只有你和另外几个人。找到能激发你最佳作品的优秀思想伙伴是最重要的事情，尤其是对于没有经历过那种环境的人来说。我认为，在那个房间里作为设计师信任自己是另一个技能，真正推动自己的是拥有对想法的信心和对自身灵感的信心。如果你觉得灵感来自观察其他优秀产品并复制它们，那是一个可以接受的起点。我觉得空白画布设计过程中最难的部分是从哪里开始以及如何开始，尤其是有了 AI，但即使在具体工具之外，进步是从零到一最好的事情。你可以坐在那里，闭上眼睛，在脑子里想，然后等待某事发生，但除非你动手做点什么，否则它永远不会发生。在我职业生涯早期，我非常害怕犯错。我非常害怕尝试。不是说要发布东西然后犯错，然后艰难地发现没人想用你设计的产品，而是即使只是为自己。我盯着空白画布，不知道要创造什么，我一定不适合这个。我在职业生涯中成长了很多，也反思了自己的工作，现在我可以 100% 确定地说，即使我能最终做出看起来相当不错的产品，我知道我第一次设计的东西看起来绝对是垃圾。我创造的一切的第一个版本都非常糟糕。我现在有信心能把它做到一个好的状态，它会很棒。这是我对自己设定的标准，但起点不是终点，也不必是终点。创造一些糟糕的东西来把想法落在纸上，就像让雪球滚下山坡。你永远无法找到最佳解决方案，也无法找到那个灵光一现的时刻，让你觉得‘哦，是的，这是金子’，除非你先尝试一些东西。尤其是因为，就像我们说的，你可能与一个对大局愿景有清晰想法的创始人紧密合作。

The number one thing that I would say to that person is find someone who you enjoy working with. Whether it's a super early company and it's like a CEO or founder that's hiring you. It's just going to be you and them or there's a small team that's forming around a startup. Finding a team that you enjoy working with because the earlier that you go in like a company's age that you're going to be working with, like the more important it is to like jive well with the team outside of design of course. Like if you're the only designer, like the people you're going to be collaborating with are leadership, CEO, founder, head of engineering, CTO, maybe some marketing people. Maybe not. Maybe it's just, you know, yeah, like you and a and a couple other people. And finding great thought partners that will bring the best work out of you is like the most important thing, especially for someone who hasn't been in that environment. And I think being able to trust yourself in being a designer in that room is like the other skill I think to really push yourself on is like the ability to have confidence in ideas and confidence in your own inspiration. And if you feel like that inspiration comes from looking at other great products and copying them, it's like an okay place to start. I'm like the hardest places or the hardest part in a kind of a blank canvas design process is where to start and how it I mean especially with AI, but even outside of like the specific tools, it's progress is the best possible thing from going from zero to one. And it's like you can sit there and try to like close your eyes and think of it in your head and then wait for, you know, something to happen, but like it's never going to happen unless you just do something. Earlier in my career, I think I was like really afraid of being wrong. And I was really afraid to just try something. Not even for shipping something and being wrong and like learning the hard way that no one wants to use the product that you're designing, but like even just for myself. Like I'm staring at this blank canvas. I don't know what to create. I must be I must not be cut out for this. I've grown in my career enough and reflected upon my own work enough to say that like I know with 100% certainty that even though I can get to a product that looks like it could be pretty good at this point, I know that I will design something the first time that looks like absolute garbage. And the first version of everything that I create is so bad. I now again am confident that I can like get it to a good spot and like it's going to be great. That's the bar that I hold myself to, but starting is not where you finish and doesn't have to be where you finish. And like just creating something that's terrible to get a idea on the paper is what like starts the snowball rolling down the hill. And it's like you're never going to figure out how to like find the best solution and find that like moment that it clicks for you to be like, 'Oh yeah, this is this is gold.' without trying something first. Especially just because like we were saying, you can be working so closely with a founder who probably has a decent idea of the big picture vision.

但尤其是当他们不是设计师时，细节以及实际看起来的样子有时并没有完全想清楚。所以我甚至觉得，尽可能多地拥有所谓的“坏主意”或“错误想法”，也是帮助他们梳理自己思路的好方法。他们看到某样东西后会说：“哦，我没意识到我是这么想的，但我看到这个，这不对”——出于各种原因。这时你几乎是在帮他们思考。你产出的原型越多，实际上就越能加速创始人的思考，我认为这也是成为好伙伴的一种方式。

But especially if they're not a designer, the details and what they could actually look like in practice sometimes isn't all the way flushed out. And so I even find that having as many quote unquote bad ideas or wrong ideas as possible is a good way for them to help them navigate their own mind, too. They can see something and be like, 'Oh, I didn't realize that I thought this, but I'm looking at this and this is wrong' for XYZ reasons. And now you're almost helping them think. Like the more artifacts you can produce actually accelerates the founders thinking in a way that I think makes a good partner as well.

我认为这就是雇佣设计师的好处，而不是说“我们不需要设计师，我们自己 vibe code 一下就行”。因为尽管这些模型在生成产品方面很出色，如果你给它们正确的人工输入，它们能产出相当不错的结果。但那种探索的过程，你在 Figma 画布上移动元素时获得的中间时刻，才是真正发现发生的地方。你可以来回提示，vibe code 出一些东西，再花一个小时提示它，得到一个相当精炼的想法。但我感觉你会错过那些只是摆弄的瞬间。

Well, I think it's like the benefit of hiring a designer instead of just saying we don't need a designer. We're just going to vibe code something ourselves. Because as great as these models are at generating products, if you provide them with the right human input, they can produce pretty good work. But that journey of exploration, the in-between moments that you get when you're moving things around on a Figma canvas, that's where the real discovery happens. You can prompt something back and forth and vibe code something, spend another hour prompting it to get to a pretty refined thought. But I feel like you miss out on those moments of just tinkering.

把这和品味联系起来，我认为品味的形成来自于摆弄和发现新事物。当你在提示之间时，能够发现——不仅仅是 A 或 B，而是某个你最初没想到的、偶然发现的奇怪 C 选项。这就是魔法发生的地方，也是我觉得自己能产出最佳作品的地方。这就是雇佣设计师与说“我们不需要他们，我们自己来”之间的区别。你几乎总是要跨过“这大概够好了”那条线，才能发现那个奇怪的 C 选项。

And to kind of connect this all to the taste thing, I think that taste making comes from tinkering and discovering something new. When you're in between the prompts essentially, being able to discover — it's not just A or B, but it's some weird C thing that you didn't think of originally that you stumbled upon as a happy accident. That's where the magic happens, and that's where I feel like I've been able to produce my best work. And that's the thing that I feel like you get when hiring a designer versus just saying we don't need them and then we'll do it ourselves. And you almost always have to cross over the 'this is probably good enough' line in order to get to the some weird C thing that you discover.

100%。而且，可悲的是，对大多数人来说，“够好了”就足够了。这不是坏事。世界上有很多“够好了”，很多人只需要“够好了”。但总有一些人会把事情再往前推一点。有时你必须打破规则才能做到。有时你得撞穿墙壁。但对于那些不满足于“够好了”的人来说，我认为在另一边有非常有趣的事情可以体验。回到你之前的建筑类比，“够好了”就是预制房屋或你反复看到的复制粘贴公寓楼。就是现代农舍风格，你知道，我在密歇根到处都能看到。到处都是。就像，是的，过去几周我看了 90 次。然而，也有整个成功的企业是围绕内部质量建立起来的，无论是酒店还是餐厅。也许现在你处于一个位置，你几乎必须向公司推销这一点。

100% and, you know, the sad part of this is for most people, good enough will be okay. That's not a bad thing. There is a lot of good enough in the world and many people just need good enough. But there's always the ones that push it just a little further. You sometimes have to break rules to do that. Sometimes you have to run through walls, but for those that aren't comfortable with staying in the good enough, I think that there's a really fun thing to experience on the other side of that. Even going back to your architecture analogy from earlier. It's like, well, good enough is the prefab house or the copy and paste apartment complex that you would see over and over. It's the modern farmhouse, you know, that I see all over in Michigan. They're everywhere. It's like, yeah, I've seen that 90 times in the last few weeks. And yet there are whole successful businesses that have been built around the quality of the interior, whether it's a hotel or restaurant. And maybe now you're just in the position where you kind of almost have to sell that to companies anyway.

是的，这里有一个奇怪的元素：伟大的产品是否自动意味着它们是奢侈品？用你酒店的例子，许多高品味的酒店与到处复制粘贴的东西相比，也许它们是为特定人群服务的，不是每个人都能接触到。但我实际上认为并非如此。如果你看看苹果，苹果是品味和高质量产品的终极例子。无论你是否争论液态玻璃，它仍然是深思熟虑设计的绝佳例子，尤其是在硬件方面。我认为世界上三分之二的人拥有 iPhone。你不能否认，品味很大一部分实际上是弄清楚如何以可及的方式提供高水平的工艺，让尽可能多的人体验到。如果你拿房地产中复制粘贴的农舍新开发项目来说，你必须设计出足够好、人们想要的东西，并且让它足够实惠，这样当人们确实有选择时，他们如何选择伟大的东西而不是现代农舍。

Yeah, and there's a weird element to it where it's like, well, do products that are great automatically mean they're luxury products? Using your hotel example, a lot of the high taste hotels compared to the things that are copy and pasted everywhere, maybe they're for a specific set of people that are not accessible to everyone. And I actually don't think that's true. I actually think if you look at Apple, Apple is the ultimate example of taste and high quality products. And whether you argue about liquid glass or not, it's still a great example of great thoughtful design, especially on the hardware front. Two-thirds of the world I think have an iPhone. And you can't deny that a big part of taste is actually figuring out how to deliver high levels of craft in an accessible way so that as many people as possible can experience it. If you take the copy and paste farmhouse new development example for real estate, you have to design something that is so good that people want it and make it affordable enough that when people do have the choice, how do they choose something that is great versus just the modern farmhouse.

是的，我认为说得好。伟大不仅仅在成本和奢侈的轴线上。伟大甚至可以来自无情的简化，超越模型开箱即用所能提供的。这也需要一位出色的设计师来接手并主导它。我一生中创造的许多伟大产品，通常是无法接触到的，或者只为高净值个人保留体验，然后才带给大众。而能够做到这一点本身就是一种品味和工艺的行为。我想以 Uber 为例。Uber 可能是使用软件发明的最大发明之一。显然现实世界是其中的重要部分。当任何人基本上可以在世界上大多数国家的任何城市站在任何街角，按下一个按钮，一辆车在 10 分钟内出现在他们旁边时，交通世界被颠覆了。这是大多数人在 Uber 和 Lyft 创建之前从未体验过的事情。这就是品味。这就是工艺——能够说这是人们需要的东西。

Yeah, I think that's a good call. Like great is not only on an axis of cost and luxury. Great could even come from ruthless simplification beyond anything that you would get out the box with the models. And that also requires a phenomenal designer to come in and own it. So many of the great products that have been created in my lifetime were things that were typically inaccessible or reserved for high net worth individuals to experience and then brought to the masses. And that is an act of taste and craft in and of itself of being able to do that. I think of Uber as an example. Uber is probably one of the single biggest inventions that uses a software invention. Obviously the real world is a big part of it. The world of transportation was flipped on its head when anyone could stand on any street corner basically in any city in most countries in the world and press a button and a car shows up next to them within 10 minutes. That's something that most people could never experience until Uber and Lyft were created. That's taste. That's craft to be able to say that that's something that people need.

我们涵盖了很多内容。在我让你走之前，我给你一个机会闭上眼睛，想象一下你的未来可能是什么样子。所以当你想到自己潜在的结果时，你知道，Travis 能够想象出 Uber，你在想象什么？你认为这个独立实践会变成什么？

We've covered a lot of ground. Before I let you go, I'm going to give you an opportunity to kind of close your eyes and imagine what the future could look like for you. So when you think about the potential outcomes for yourself, you know, Travis is able to imagine Uber, what are you imagining? What do you think this independent practice could become?

是的，我认为世界正在转变——尤其是设计行业——变得越来越充满独立人士。我觉得我可以说出五个我现在知道的最伟大的设计师，而他们恰好都是独立的。还有很多伟大的设计师仍然是全职的，这没什么不对。但我认为在一个更多人独立的世界里，AI 和工具已经进化到让人们比以往走得更远。我认为我的未来看起来很像与优秀的人合作。

Yeah, I think the world is shifting to be — especially with the design industry — shifting to be more and more filled with independent people. I feel like I could name five people who are the greatest designers that I know in the industry right now and it just so happens that they're all independent. There are many great designers that are still full-time and it's nothing against that. But I think in a world where a lot more people are independent, where AI and tooling has evolved to push people even further than they could go before. I think that the future for me looks a lot like collaboration with great people.

不仅是与其他优秀设计师合作，还要与那些想要开创一番新事业的创始人、产品负责人以及人们合作，共同带来更多品味，对抗那些粗制滥造的内容。但如果快进几年，我认为没有人能预测世界会变成什么样，因为事情发展得太快，变化的速度也太快了。但我希望的是，在一个软件更多、选择更丰富的世界里，能有一样带着我印记的东西脱颖而出——在粗制滥造和泛滥的世界里，依然有伟大的作品存在。我想不出比“对抗粗制滥造”更好的结尾了。所以我就说到这里吧。

And not just collaborating with other great designers, but collaborating with founders and leaders of products and people that want to start something new, and collaborating to bring more taste to fight the slop. But if I kind of fast forward a few years down the road, I don't think any of us could predict what the world is going to look like with how fast things are moving and the rate of change that's happening. But the thing that I hope for is that in a world of a lot more software and like in a world of abundance and choice, that there is something with my signature on it that can stand out, that in a world of slop and abundance, there's still something great. I can't think of a better way to end it than fight the slop. So I'm going to hang it up there.

Brandon，这真是太棒了。感谢你来做客，分享你的经历以及你正在思考和探索的一切。真的非常有趣。非常感谢你。

Brandon, this has been amazing. Thanks for coming on and sharing a little bit about your journey and just everything that you're thinking about and exploring. It's been really, really fun. So appreciate you.

非常感谢你邀请我，是的，这是一次很棒的对话。

Thank you so much for having me and yeah, it was an awesome chat.