Dive Club 🤿

Ridd

Where designers never stop learning 💪

Dive Club is an interview series hosted by Ridd that is designed to unlock knowledge from today's most prolific designers. We go deep into craft, storytelling, tools, design engineering, startups, and much more.

You can find all of the episodes, key takeaways, and bonus resources here 👉 Dive.club

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212 episodes
Updated Wednesday
Explicit

Episodes212

Newest first

May 2, 2025 · 1 hr
Mig Reyes - Harsh truths that designers need to hear
Mig Reyes is the VP of Product Experience at Duolingo (and a design director at Instagram before that). In this episode he shared a behind-the-scenes of how design operates at Duolingo (as well as some harsh truths designers need to hear). Common portfolio review mistakes How communication skills build influence Mig’s strategy behind hiring junior designers How to succeed in executive product reviews Mig’s mandate to raise the design bar at Duolingo How Mig revamped design management at Duolingo Why Duolingo changed from “UX” to “Product Experience” a lot more Jacob Nielsen (commented on LinkedIn post) Brett Westervelt (VP of Design at Instagram) Ryan Sims (Chief Design Officer at Duolingo) Luis (CEO of Duolingo) Companies mentioned: Instagram, Airbnb, Coinbase, Meta, OpenAI, Figma
Apr 29, 2025 · 8 min
How experienced designers drive alignment💡
I talk to a lot of designers at the pinnacle of their career… So I’m always trying to figure out how they’ve evolved the way they practice design over the years. Once I hear the same answer from a few different people I start to pay attention 👀 So here are a few trends I’m noticing for how the best designers get alignment on their teams. Alex Cornell (Gen AI at Meta) Yuan Wang (Head of Design at Maven) Rich Arnold (Design Manager at Coinbase) Michael Wandelmaier (Principal Designer at Dropbox) Aashman Goghari (Design Lead at Palantir)
Apr 25, 2025 · 1 hr 1 min
Kyle Turman - Designing Claude and collaborating with AI
Anthropic has quickly become a category-defining company and in this episode Kyle Turman (their first full-time designer) shares a behind-the-scenes of what it was like designing Claude. If you’re interested in startups, AI products, or the art of prompting then this conversation will be right up your alley. Some highlights: Kyle’s story of wearing every hat for Claude What it’s like designing conversational UX flows How Kyle uses Claude in his personal design process Why Kyle only half-finished his Claude designs in Figma How Kyle thinks about designing for emotion and feeling How Kyle thinks about the future of design as a discipline Kyle’s thoughts on whether chat should the dominant pattern for AI a lot me We mentioned Tuhin Kumar’s episode (Head of Design at Luma AI) We mentioned Julius Tarng We talked about the Sesame conversational AI demo Machines of Loving Grace by the Anthropic CEO Dario Recommended Episode: George Kedenburg III (former designer lead at Humane)
Apr 22, 2025 · 8 min
The window of opportunity for designers
There's a parallel I'm noticing between what's happening today with AI and what happened way back in 2013. So this episode studies the early days of Snapchat, the emergence of high-fidelity prototyping tools, and answers the question “what does it look like to have agency in 2025?” Jack Brody (Chief Product Officer at Suno) Jorn van Dijk (CEO of Framer) Julius Tarng (Research engineer at Anthropic) Tuhin Kumar (Head of Design at Luma AI) Maheen Sohail (Gen AI at Meta) Meng To (Founder of Design+Code)
Apr 19, 2025 · 1 hr 5 min
Tuhin Kumar - From Airbnb to Apple to designing with AI
Tuhin Kumar has designed at some of the most prolific companies in the world (early Facebook, Airbnb and Apple). But everything’s changing in his new role… Because now he’s the Head of Design at Luma AI which is one of the companies leading the charge on generative AI. So this episode goes deep on how the value prop of design is shifting. Some highlights: The #1 trait of craft-oriented companies Why you can’t think of AI products as just a tool How to invest in the right skills as a designer today What created Tuhin’s career tipping point at Airbnb What Tuhin is pulling from Apple and Airbnb’s culture How working with AI as a material is changing everything The biggest lesson Tuhin learned while writing system prompts a lot more Tuhin mentioned Maheen Sohail’s “Unprompted” podcast with AI Ammaar Reshi (former Head of Design at Eleven Labs)
Apr 15, 2025 · 6 min
The strategy I’m stealing from Granola💡
There are two goals that designers almost always group together: Make a useful product Make it easy to understand But my interview with Sam Stephenson changed my thinking completely 👀 So this episode breaks down Granola’s go-to-market strategy and why I’m copying it for my own startup. Sam Stephenson (Co-founder of Granola) Colin Dunn (Co-founder of Visual Electric)
Apr 11, 2025 · 1 hr 1 min
Jack Brody - Designing Snapchat and the future of music
Jack Brody joined Snapchat as one of the early designers where he spent 10 years and eventually became Head of Product. So this week’s episode features a lot of lessons learned from the early design team at Snap and an inside look at what makes their culture so special. But we also go deep into Jack’s new role as the Chief Product Officer at Suno where he’s helping design the future of music. So we end up having quite the discussion on creative launchpads and the impact of AI. Some highlights: Suno’s vision for the future of music How AI flips the design process on its head Jack’s viral Kim Kardashian moment at Snap How Jack grew his strategy muscles at Snap The 3 types of competitive advantages with AI The big unlock while designing Suno’s creation UX a lot more Suno is hiring!
Apr 9, 2025 · 12 min
6 tips to make your portfolio stand out💡
I’ve interviewed a lot of designers who have landed some pretty high profile roles and I’m starting to notice some trends 👀 So this video breaks down 6 portfolio tips that you can use to stand out.
Apr 4, 2025 · 54 min
Nad Chishtie - A new way to design and build with AI
Lovable has quickly become the go-to way I build my ideas with AI and this week we get to hear from their first designer Nad Chishtie. We go deep into what it takes to succeed as a founding designer and all of the ways AI is shaping modern product teams. Some highlights: Nad’s tips for collaborating creatively with AI tools How designers can be enablers instead of bottlenecks How Nad balances Figma with new AI tools like Lovable Why Lovable built and deleted a Figma-like layers panel What it’s like at the fastest growing startup in European history a lot more Nad mentions one of his favorite AI tools Granola I talked about Unicorn Studio
Apr 1, 2025 · 9 min
Designing on expert mode
My #1 source of imposter syndrome is when I see designers prototyping beautiful interactions like this or even this. It’s one thing to create gorgeous interfaces, but crafting complex interactions from first principles is designing on expert mode. And it’s a big reason why Linear lists interactions as a requirement three separate times in their job description for principal designer. So this week’s episode is all about how to unlock the skill of interaction design 👇 Gavin Nelson (Mobile designer for Linear) Janum Trivedi (Prototyping specialist at Airbnb) Alex Cornell (Gen-AI designer at Meta) Dennis Muller (Founder + designer at Amie) Dan LaCivita (Co-founder of Play)
Mar 28, 2025 · 51 min
Sam Stephenson - The journey of designing an AI product
I use Granola every single day and it’s quickly become a beloved product in the tech community. But it was a winding journey to get there… So in this episode their co-founder and designer, Sam Stephenson, gives a behind-the-scenes of what it was like going 0 → 1 with Granola: How to navigate the idea maze for an AI product What Sam has learned about prompt engineering What it takes to succeed as an early stage startup designer How they arrived at Granola’s breakthrough interaction pattern A glimpse of Granola’s future product roadmap and teams strategy The piece of advice that reshaped how they think about onboarding a lot more ⭐ Granola is offering 3 months free for you and anyone on your team(!!) using this link They’re also hiring a founding designer Sam mentions Soleio who was their first investor Daniel Kahneman is the psychologist Sam mentions The Science of Managing our Digital Stuff David Lee is the YC Partner who gave them onboarding advice If you liked this episode then you’ll enjoy the interview with Colin Dunn (co-founder and designer of Visual Electric)
Mar 25, 2025 · 7 min
How Ramp and Plaid create a culture of craft💡
I’ve spent a lot of time studying how the best design teams operate and two of my favorites are Ramp and Plaid. So this episode shines a light on specific practices they put in place to create a culture of craft 👇
Mar 21, 2025 · 56 min
Ellis Hamburger - Storytelling for today’s top startups
What do Raycast, Daylight, Amo, The Browser Co, and Mainframe all have in common? They all hired Ellis Hamburger to help tell their story. So this episode is a bit different... We're going to get away from the pixels and go deep into how you can use language to tell a compelling story about your product. Some highlights: How to tell a story that people care about Lessons from the Language team at Snapchat Breaking down specific copywriting strategies Questions to help you figure out your product’s story What we can learn from the CEOs of Snapchat vs. Browser Co. How to make your product onboarding unforgettable a lot more Ellis talks about the Browser Company’s “Peek” video Jordan Singer’s Mainframe website Daylight computer website Ellis mentions the 222 onboarding The Permanent website (”design is how its made”) Ellis quotes the Build book Amo’s “Where did our friends go?” manifesto Raycast’s “Why” page and Focus mode
Mar 18, 2025 · 10 min
The challenge of designing AI products💡
AI introduces an opportunity for all kinds of novel interaction patterns. But it creates a whole new category of design challenges too… And this episode breaks down the biggest challenge of all. Colin Dunn (Founder and Designer of Visual Electric) Maheen Sohail (Gen-AI designer at Meta) Tyler Angert (Founder of Patina Systems) Maggie Appleton (Design engineer at Normally) Ammaar Reshi (Head of Design at ElevenLabs)
Mar 14, 2025 · 46 min
Alejandro Matamala Ortiz - Designing the future of AI video
This week’s episode is with Alejandro Matamala Ortiz, the cofounder and Chief Design Officer at Runway—one of the leading generative AI companies in the world today. The way they work is incredibly unique. So a big focus of this interview is digging into how AI is shifting the way products get built and what it all means for designers: How the lines are blurring between roles How AI flips the order of building new features What it means to “carve” AI products vs. build them How Alejandro believes the role of design will change Why the embed frontend engineers on the design team Where the film and video industry might be headed next a lot more
Mar 11, 2025 · 6 min
How to pitch your designs like a pro💡
Most designers fall into the same trap when presenting their ideas. So this ~5 min episode breaks down how to pitch your designs like a pro. Chris Abad Gabe Valdivia
Mar 7, 2025 · 55 min
Christophe Tauziet - Plaid’s culture of craft, tips for CRIT, and lessons from early Facebook
This week’s episode is with Christophe Tauziet who is the Head of Design at Plaid—one of today’s leading fintech companies. We go deep into the ways he’s building a culture of craft and the rituals they’ve evolved to consistently sweat the details. There are a lot of practical processes and ideas in this episode. Some highlights: Keys to a great async video share out How to foster a winning CRIT environment Why Christophe implemented “polish reviews” Ways to foster collaboration within a design org Practical advice for giving better design feedback How Christophe changed what he looks for in design candidates a lot more Brian Lovin’s article “Teams should work with the garage door up”
Mar 4, 2025 · 7 min
2 ways to make your design ideas compelling💡
You can have the greatest design concepts in the world, but none of that matters if they don't make it into production. So this episode is all about how to create an aura of inevitability around your ideas. It features stories from early Facebook, Webflow, and Figma 👇 Vincent van der Meulen (Design engineer at Figma) Soleio pt. 1 / pt. 2 (second designer at Facebook) Kevin Wong (Head of product at Webflow)
Mar 1, 2025 · 59 min
Aashman Goghari - Tackling complex design challenges at Palantir
Palantir is one of the most powerful products in existence today. It provides critical government and enterprise infrastructure from the factory floors to the front lines. You can literally build your own Airbnb on top of their development platform. But with great power comes lots of complexity… So in this week’s episode, Design Lead Aashman Goghari gives us a behind-the-scenes of what it’s like designing products at Palantir. Becoming better at “problem decomposition” Two patterns for handling complex interfaces How to think through systems like a developer How data models can impact your design process Designing new user experiences for “Ferrari products” How to collaborate more effectively with backend engineers Finding the balance between edge cases and the golden path a lot more Aashman mentions the Concepts app for sketching on iPad Palantir is currently hiring designers You can follow Aashman on Twitter
Feb 25, 2025 · 7 min
4 brand strategy tips from Smith & Diction 💡
When comes to brand design, Mike and Cara from Smith & Diction are pretty much top of the game (you might recognize them as the ones who did the brand identity for Perplexity). During our interview, it didn't take me long to realize that these two have more hacks and mental models for creativity than just about anyone I’ve met. So here are a few of my favorites. Watch the full episode with Smith & Diction here: https://www.dive.club/deep-dives/smith-diction

Dive Club 🤿

Mig Reyes - Harsh truths that designers need to hear

How experienced designers drive alignment💡

Kyle Turman - Designing Claude and collaborating with AI

The window of opportunity for designers

Tuhin Kumar - From Airbnb to Apple to designing with AI

The strategy I’m stealing from Granola💡

Jack Brody - Designing Snapchat and the future of music

6 tips to make your portfolio stand out💡

Nad Chishtie - A new way to design and build with AI

Designing on expert mode

Sam Stephenson - The journey of designing an AI product

How Ramp and Plaid create a culture of craft💡

Ellis Hamburger - Storytelling for today’s top startups

The challenge of designing AI products💡

Alejandro Matamala Ortiz - Designing the future of AI video

How to pitch your designs like a pro💡

Christophe Tauziet - Plaid’s culture of craft, tips for CRIT, and lessons from early Facebook

2 ways to make your design ideas compelling💡

Aashman Goghari - Tackling complex design challenges at Palantir

4 brand strategy tips from Smith & Diction 💡