0:01

In some ways, you could argue that

0:04

empathy outperforms passion when it comes to

0:06

product design. And sometimes as technologists, we're

0:08

like, oh, if the technology can do

0:10

that, we're just going to apply it.

0:12

But people may not be ready for

0:14

some of these things, especially with the

0:16

ramp of capability right now. So I

0:18

think empathy is a big part of

0:20

actually driving utilization of all these new

0:22

features and capabilities. We

0:26

live in an era where

0:28

it's easy to get overwhelmed by

0:30

the pace of new technology. As

0:32

designers, creatives, technologists, we have a

0:34

wealth of tools at our disposal

0:36

that people in our roles just

0:38

a decade ago couldn't have even

0:40

dreamed of. Yet it can be

0:42

daunting to know where to focus

0:45

our efforts. What new skills and

0:47

workflows should we be learning to

0:49

stay relevant? Scott Belsky, co -founder of

0:51

Behance and chief strategy officer at

0:53

Adobe, calls the rapid spread of

0:55

generative AI tools a Cambrian explosion,

0:57

referring to an evolutionary event 500

0:59

million years ago when many new

1:01

animal species appeared in a relatively

1:03

short period of time. We talked

1:05

to Scott about how we might

1:07

navigate this explosion and why it

1:10

might make sense to move toward

1:12

a more boundaryless workflow. We also

1:14

talked with Scott about his book,

1:16

The Messy Middle, and how to

1:18

manage emotional turbulence during challenging parts

1:20

of our career. This is Design

1:22

Better, where we explore creativity at

1:24

the intersection of design and technology. I'm

1:27

Aaron Walter. You can get

1:29

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1:32

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1:34

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1:42

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1:44

support our work here. Visit

1:46

designbetterpodcast.com/subscribe to learn more. We'll

1:56

return to the conversation after this quick

1:58

break. And

2:06

now, back to the show. God

2:09

Belski, welcome to Design Better. Thank

2:11

you for having me. Yeah, it's

2:13

such a pleasure to talk to

2:15

you. We were just saying before

2:17

we hit the record button how

2:19

we've been playing with a lot

2:21

of Adobe AI tools as of

2:23

late. So we can talk about

2:25

that a bit more in our

2:27

conversation here, but we often like

2:29

to start with a little bit

2:31

of an origin story because it

2:33

helps people just... kind of understand

2:35

where people are coming from and

2:37

their perspective. Clearly you have a

2:39

design background, you founded Behanst, you

2:41

know, that was acquired by Adobe,

2:43

but I don't know if a

2:45

lot of people know that you

2:47

also worked at Goldman Sachs, that

2:49

you have an NBA, so it's

2:51

kind of a unique collection of

2:54

skills. I wonder if you could

2:56

tell us a little bit about

2:58

that. NBA can be a dirty

3:00

word in the creative industry. But

3:02

you know, I've always felt like...

3:04

the people that I admire that

3:06

are extremely creative, like their challenge

3:08

is not coming up with more

3:10

ideas, but executing them. I've always

3:12

been interested in the sort of

3:14

overlap between ideas and execution and

3:16

what's in one's mind's eye and

3:18

applies rails to it and puts

3:20

it into process and makes things

3:22

actually happen. My frustration throughout life,

3:24

which has been a repeated source

3:26

of inspiration for me, has been,

3:28

you know, ideas lost that should

3:30

have materialized. No, I think that

3:32

the business side for me has

3:34

always been the sort of the

3:36

tool set to make ideas happen,

3:39

whereas the ideas themselves, like many

3:41

others, I've always had tons of

3:43

ideas and consider myself a very

3:45

creative person, but I got frustrated

3:47

unless I feel like I can

3:49

put things into action. So after

3:51

the Behan's acquisition with Adobe, what

3:53

guided your path there and how

3:55

did you sort of see your

3:57

role in the opportunity with that

3:59

transition? Well Behan's was a seven-year

4:01

journey. It was five years of

4:03

being a bootstrapped company and two

4:05

years being a venture backed company

4:07

and all of the years focused on

4:09

helping organize the creative world. It was

4:12

an incredible journey when we had the

4:14

opportunity to join Adobe. The question of,

4:16

okay, do we want to continue to go

4:18

alone or do we think that we could

4:20

achieve something bigger and better? as a combined

4:22

company and would it be an amazing outcome

4:24

for the team? And the answer to that

4:26

was yes. And Adobe seemed like a really

4:29

good fit for us, given the company, you

4:31

know, was now in the creative cloud

4:33

business and really wanted to have a

4:35

closer connection with the actual community, you

4:37

know, of its customers. And at the

4:39

time, the answer is probably less than

4:41

two million people, and now it's 55

4:43

million people on the platform showcasing their

4:45

work. So I think it was the right choice.

4:47

I would say that the product is better than

4:50

it's ever been ever been now. as a result

4:52

of all the work and ingenuity that

4:54

the team has poured into it over the

4:56

years. You know, and I still hear stories

4:58

of people, you know, getting found and discovered

5:00

on Behan's and getting hired and that sort

5:03

of thing. But when I came into Adobe,

5:05

I wasn't really sure. Am I going to

5:07

just stick to Behan's and kind of play

5:09

it safe and do my time in a bigger

5:11

company and then leave or will end

5:13

up being inspired by a lot of

5:15

the other problems and challenges, you know,

5:17

you know, around the organization. There were

5:20

just so many opportunities to build

5:22

services like Creative Club libraries

5:24

that connect all of your assets

5:26

across the products you use or

5:28

exploring early AI capabilities like content

5:30

to wear a fill and then

5:32

later ones like neural filters and

5:35

then even later ones like firefly

5:37

and generative AI. It was amazing to me

5:39

how when you have the workflows that

5:41

people used to create and you take

5:43

new technologies and find awful ways

5:45

of infusing them. you know you

5:47

can allow people to create more like

5:49

better and faster you know it's all about

5:52

time for all of us so that's what's

5:54

kept me around. Scott I've been reading

5:56

your sub stack implications which has

5:58

been really great and a lot of the

6:00

topics right now, understandably, revolve

6:03

around generative AI. And you

6:05

had an article or section

6:07

of one of your writings

6:09

last spring about navigating a

6:11

Cambrian explosion. For folks, I'm not

6:14

familiar with that term. I think

6:16

it was around 540 million years

6:18

ago, ish. There's this great divergence

6:20

in species and the fossil record.

6:22

You can see this just explosion

6:24

of life and it's just explosion

6:26

of life in some sense. Maybe

6:29

you could talk a little bit about that.

6:31

And in particular, there was a quote that

6:33

Aaron I both liked, which was that the

6:35

faster your industry changes, the more you must

6:37

ground yourself with customer empathy and

6:39

natural human tendencies. And that designer

6:41

has really resonated with us. Well, it's interesting.

6:43

We tend to get very motivated by our

6:45

passion for the solution to a problem and what

6:48

we kind of see in our mind's eye

6:50

as a solution and then we are tempted

6:52

to stay behind our screens and design that

6:54

exactly as we see it. And oftentimes we're

6:56

30 degrees or so off of

6:58

product market fit. And the question

7:00

is why. And I believe that it's

7:02

because we failed to have empathy with

7:04

the person actually suffering the problem. And

7:06

in some ways, you could argue that

7:08

empathy outperforms passion when it comes

7:11

to product design. And what does

7:13

empathy mean? You know, it means not

7:15

just asking the customer how they do

7:17

the workflows and what they need from

7:19

your product, it's more so observing them

7:21

at work and understanding what are the

7:24

things that are... triggering them or making

7:26

them feel good or making them feel

7:28

bad. Like what's the nuance of this

7:30

product as it relates to how they

7:32

appear to their peers or to their

7:34

friends or to their boss. I mean,

7:36

these are all aspects of our product

7:38

that determine whether we want to use it

7:40

or not. And yet they're not ones

7:42

that can just be imagined or necessarily

7:44

inferred. You have to kind of.

7:47

be shoulder to shoulder and feel the

7:49

pain or the struggles or the aspirations

7:51

of the customer to get the intuition

7:53

to design the right thing. So now

7:55

we're in this Cambrian explosion of

7:58

sorts where there are just so many

8:00

new models and

8:02

capabilities and apps and all

8:04

these things. I

8:06

feel like every few weeks,

8:09

orientation changes about what's the

8:11

best this and what's the best that,

8:13

and it's hard to keep up with. The

8:16

only thing I believe our teams

8:18

can go back to is just understanding where

8:20

our customer is. We've learned this the

8:22

hard way in some instances. What a technology

8:24

is capable of and what a person

8:26

is ready for are two entirely different

8:28

questions. Sometimes as

8:30

technologists, we're like, oh, if the technology

8:32

can do that, we're just going to

8:34

apply it. But people may not be

8:36

ready for some of these things, especially

8:39

with the ramp of capability right now. I

8:42

think empathy is a big part

8:44

of actually driving utilization of all these

8:46

new features and capabilities. What's

8:48

that look like when it's a

8:51

brand new product, it's a

8:53

brand new space, and we don't

8:55

really have a core problem

8:57

that we're aware of, but the problem is

8:59

there. How do you think about that in

9:01

the team and the creative relationship with a

9:03

customer base? There's always a problem

9:05

to solve. It's just a question

9:07

of whether it's a known problem or

9:09

an unknown problem. Sometimes it's a

9:11

technology that solves that problem that people

9:13

didn't know they had. For

9:15

example, some productivity tools, you

9:18

didn't actually know you were

9:20

not being productive until this tool emerged,

9:23

and you're like, oh my gosh,

9:25

I was being so unproductive before

9:27

I actually had this capability at

9:29

my fingertips. So I believe that

9:31

products need to appeal to basic

9:33

human tendencies in order to

9:35

be adopted at the onset. And

9:37

I actually even take that back

9:39

to the first mile experience that we all

9:42

have with products and my argument that I've shared

9:44

before, that we're all in some ways lazy,

9:46

vain and selfish in our first mile experience of

9:48

any new product. We need

9:50

to be met where we are before we find

9:52

a deeper value and build a relationship with a

9:54

product that's new to us. And

9:56

so the lazy and vain and

9:58

selfish thing, that's appealing to... very surface

10:00

natural tendencies and desires

10:03

we have to look good to get more

10:05

done with less time to be very prudent

10:07

with our time. So those have to

10:09

be taken into account. The other thing

10:11

I would like to say though is sometimes

10:13

products take off because of the

10:15

things that they do that you didn't

10:18

expect as opposed to doing the

10:20

things you expected very well. Tesla

10:22

is probably a great example where

10:24

people used to talk about. Tesla

10:27

having all its Easter eggs and the

10:29

Rainbow Road thing on the dashboard when

10:31

you pull the stick a few times

10:33

or whatever. I mean, these are great

10:35

examples. I always wonder why more products

10:37

don't incorporate things that people

10:40

will talk about because they were things

10:42

that they didn't expect to see. If

10:44

we're all trying to achieve product-like

10:46

growth, you know, which is ultimately

10:48

people talking about or sharing products

10:51

readily, I would imagine that's a

10:53

very important lever to pull that we

10:55

sometimes forget. that talked about the

10:58

breakthroughs we're seeing on AI aren't

11:00

necessarily getting mass consumer engagement or

11:02

use at the moment, but for builders,

11:04

it's really making huge strides for

11:06

the work that we do. And maybe

11:09

that's kind of intuitive because you always

11:11

find these groups are like hackers or

11:13

people are willing to experiment with new

11:15

things in the kind of builder community,

11:18

but maybe you can build that thought out

11:20

a little bit further for us. Well,

11:22

you consumer products are very... psychological,

11:24

whereas I think that building products

11:27

are very logical. And you

11:29

can automatically screen your code

11:31

for errors and automatically improve

11:33

them. Like who wouldn't do

11:35

that? Spell check, like very few

11:38

people turn off spell check, like

11:40

they want it, right? I think

11:42

that tools for builders, creators, writers,

11:44

that sort of thing. AI is just

11:46

amazing for that world. And I think we're

11:48

still in the early stages. Applications

11:51

will be developed with natural language. I

11:53

mean, essentially any software capability can now

11:55

be generated by all of us just

11:57

by describing what we want. It's pretty.

12:00

pretty wild, but I haven't

12:02

seen as many consumer applications

12:04

beyond just chat ones that are

12:06

just leveraging LLLMs really

12:08

work. I've seen a lot of apps,

12:10

for example, where you have conversations

12:13

with AI or various reasons, whether

12:15

they're coaching or tutors or social

12:17

apps where people kind of comment

12:19

on your content, but they're all

12:22

fake people and whatever. And I

12:24

just can't help but wonder that.

12:26

We want to feel like we

12:28

are having an engaged experience with

12:30

a human in consumer products.

12:32

You know, you appreciate a movie because

12:34

of the story behind it, because of

12:36

the actors behind it, what you know

12:38

about their lives. I mean, there's so

12:40

much that we maybe don't readily realize

12:43

or admit, but makes us resonate

12:45

with something because of the story

12:47

and the craft and the meaning behind

12:49

what we're doing. So a lot of these

12:51

AI consumer apps lack any of that.

12:54

human story or a craft, scarcity,

12:56

real meaning, and they're made to

12:58

sort of be like novelty or

13:00

AI-based engagement products, but for some

13:02

reason there's something missing, I think,

13:04

for the consumers that's making them

13:06

really click. It's something I'm thinking

13:08

about. It was just an observation.

13:10

I haven't seen many new consumer

13:12

apps emerge as much as the building, the

13:14

picks and shovels. I want to rewind a

13:17

little bit to your origin story. We talked

13:19

about how your skills are a hybrid in

13:21

a unique way. boundaryless work

13:24

where designers and developers

13:26

can move between spaces,

13:28

you know, without territorialism.

13:30

It's my observation that, you know,

13:32

some of the people that I

13:35

have worked with who have been

13:37

the best product designers, the most

13:39

effective at making really great things

13:42

that people want, they are the ones

13:44

who cross the boundaries very

13:46

fluidly. And yet so many companies,

13:48

especially as a company scales,

13:50

They don't really permit that

13:52

or they don't encourage that.

13:54

I'm curious from your perspective,

13:57

why isn't that a more

13:59

common phenomenon? The best teams

14:01

that I've ever worked

14:03

with had, you know, what I've

14:05

come to call collapsed talent stacks

14:07

where you have tighter

14:09

conduits in the form of an

14:11

actual brain that does two critical

14:14

functions Engineering and design

14:16

or design and copy or whatever. It's

14:18

just, you know, it breaks down any

14:20

of the lossy -ness in the process And

14:22

finding those people and empowering them to do

14:25

their greatest work is one of the best

14:27

things you can do as a leader of a

14:29

new product, especially. You're right, as companies

14:31

scale their departments And you know, there's all

14:33

sorts of things that happen that make

14:35

it harder for people to work like super

14:37

tightly together I do think that modern

14:39

companies have come back with this notion of

14:41

the squad Finding a very tight -knit group

14:43

of people who are all the functions

14:46

represented on a tight squad and they operate

14:48

together Hopefully they sit together. Hopefully

14:50

they get to know each other really well,

14:52

you know, that sort of thing There's also

14:54

a cultural thing about whether companies specifically

14:56

for design are willing to be

14:59

like design driven or design led or not What

15:02

that term means to me is three things,

15:04

I guess. Number one, basically the ratio of

15:06

designers to PMs and engineers is healthy Number

15:09

two is that designers are always present

15:11

at the table and ultimately put their

15:13

stamp of approval on anything that ships

15:15

at a leadership level and then number

15:17

three is That the design

15:19

work the prototype leads the process the design

15:21

a lot of the design work is done

15:23

up front It's not like in order to

15:25

do this and then it just hand it

15:27

over and built like it's design is done

15:29

up front But then it's constantly the standard

15:32

for what we're trying to build and ultimately

15:34

it's the bar that the actual You know

15:36

product work has to clear That's

15:38

just the best practice that many companies, you

15:40

know struggle to employ But to your point,

15:42

I mean having these folks work together tightly,

15:44

you know That's a hack right and how

15:46

can you achieve that? I mean squads is

15:48

the best way I've found in big companies Clapsing

15:51

the stack as much as you can always helps

15:53

in smaller businesses as well Scott

15:56

if you're listening to this and you're

15:58

earlier in your career and you're trying to prepare

16:00

yourself for these roles where

16:02

the disciplines are more blurred. What

16:05

advice would you have for somebody like that

16:07

that's a little younger? And also if you're

16:09

a manager and you want to just empower

16:11

your ICs and your employees to work in this

16:13

way, what are your thoughts there? I think

16:15

it's hard to have a mastery in all of these skill

16:17

sets that we're discussing. But to be

16:19

able to speak the language of them, I think is

16:22

really helpful and brings you half of the way

16:24

there. An engineer that can

16:26

actually design and has some

16:28

basic design skills, has empathy for their

16:30

colleague, but also has just natural

16:32

intuition that will really serve them in

16:34

their role. Being a great writer,

16:37

designers I've worked with who are also great writers,

16:40

it's an amazing thing when some of

16:42

the intuition around what the copy should

16:44

be happens at the moment of the

16:46

design of the experience. Because

16:49

it's part of the experience, it's part of the

16:51

design. Like why should it be done

16:53

by somebody else who's out of the moment

16:55

without the context of where the user is?

16:57

What I would want to advise someone who's

16:59

starting their career is, first of all, develop

17:01

a curiosity for the different disciplines of

17:03

making. Try to take some

17:05

basic classes or online things that

17:07

give you some sort of introductory

17:09

to basic principles so you can

17:11

speak the language of whether it

17:13

be coding how a stack is sort

17:15

of architected for a technology product

17:18

if you're going into that world,

17:20

developing some good writing skills, becoming

17:22

interested in that space. I

17:24

just think that these are really helpful, practical

17:26

skills that allow you to get those

17:29

benefits that we're talking about. We'll

17:33

return to the conversation after this quick

17:35

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22:31

now, back to the show. Let's

22:33

talk about some of your writing.

22:36

Your most recent book

22:38

is called Making Ideas

22:40

Happened. And you sort

22:42

of alluded to this

22:44

that there's creative work,

22:46

lots of ideas, and

22:48

so many ideas fall

22:50

on the floor because

22:52

they aren't. Turned into something

22:55

they're not executed upon there's

22:57

lots of great examples of

22:59

Xerox Park Innovating doing great

23:01

things, but until Steve Jobs

23:03

and Apple sort of Saw those things

23:06

and then operationalized those things and

23:08

brought them together They couldn't be

23:10

anything of significant impact One of

23:12

the things that stood out for

23:15

us in making ideas happen is

23:17

this idea of organization in the

23:19

creative process. Can you talk a little

23:22

bit about that? That book was done really

23:24

around a lot of research of

23:26

especially productive creative teams. And what

23:28

I was interested in is why are some

23:30

teams so prolific and so productive and

23:32

other artists or creative teams really struggle

23:34

to get anything out the door? You

23:37

know, I don't think it had anything

23:39

to do with the quality of ideas

23:41

or the creativity. It had to do

23:43

with something else. And there's a lot

23:45

in there about the actual structures and

23:48

processes or divide and conquer partnerships like

23:50

there are all just sorts of different

23:52

mechanisms. But the common theme of these

23:54

especially productive creative teams is that they

23:56

really valued organization and they kind

23:58

of recognize that. organization times ideas

24:01

equals impact. And if you

24:03

have zero organization and all the best ideas

24:05

in the world, you'll have no impact. If you

24:07

tinker the equations a little bit, even if your

24:09

ideas are not as good, we have some really

24:11

good organization around them, you can really have quite

24:13

an impact with your ideas.

24:15

And that really struck me. So

24:17

I went out to start

24:19

to understand what the culture of

24:21

taking action and having a

24:23

bias towards action meant within creative

24:25

teams, how they would practice

24:28

that, the tools they would use,

24:30

the mechanisms that encouraged people

24:32

to feel accountable. You know, people

24:34

oftentimes, they don't know what

24:36

to do first every day and

24:38

leveraging this tool of merchandising

24:41

to get people to focus on the things that

24:43

matter most. You know, it's funny, we

24:45

all spend money on marketing products

24:47

to get people to buy them

24:49

and use them, but we don't

24:51

really use the same tools to get people to do

24:53

things in our teams. Like things are

24:55

hidden on spreadsheets or on lists somewhere, but

24:58

merchandising is actually a very effective way that

25:00

a lot of these teams would get people

25:02

focused on the few things that matter most.

25:04

Anyways, long on your list, but organization I

25:06

think is a competitive advantage of creative people

25:08

that ultimately are successful. And I think that's

25:10

why I felt it needed to be discussed. Were

25:13

there any teams in particular that

25:15

you researched that kind of came up

25:17

and you thought, okay, this is

25:19

perfect example? There are many

25:21

and that book was written quite a

25:23

while ago, but I remember chronicling

25:26

some artists or writers like

25:28

James Patterson. You know, this

25:30

is someone who has written so

25:32

many novels. Like he runs a

25:34

factory of writers, maybe

25:36

an example of someone who's maybe compromised

25:38

a little bit on the genuine new

25:40

idea front, but has over -indexed on an

25:42

organization and yields a tremendous impact and

25:44

outcome. If you're a literary

25:47

critic, you might have opinions of the

25:49

work, but nevertheless like prolific without dispute

25:51

and how does this person sort

25:53

of empower his team and have a

25:55

cadence of being able to impact

25:57

the plots and the sort of general

25:59

out. lines but have support over

26:01

the execution. And there were some people

26:03

like that where I was like, wow,

26:06

that's something like anything I've ever seen.

26:08

Could you talk also a little bit

26:10

more about the merchandising idea and

26:12

what kind of artifacts might that

26:14

entail or examples of those? The

26:16

symbol metaphor, you know, was if you're

26:18

working on a particular project or task,

26:20

you know, if I put a post it note

26:23

on your computer screen every

26:25

single morning with that one task, I

26:27

hope you complete. you're more likely to

26:29

complete it, right? Because it's intrusive and

26:31

it's like big in your face and

26:33

it's coming from one of your colleagues.

26:35

I think actually that the mechanism of

26:37

prioritization by natural selection, like the things

26:40

that we nag each other about, the

26:42

things that we surface to each other,

26:44

actually has a purpose in prioritization in

26:46

an organization and a healthy organization. Like

26:48

some might call that nagging, but it

26:50

actually is like, it's helpful to have. people

26:52

around you, especially as our creative whims

26:55

and like going down tunnels that aren't

26:57

necessary or lead to nowhere or aren't

26:59

productive. Like that mechanism of a culture of

27:01

people around you kind of nagging you a

27:03

little bit, a lot of people swore on

27:06

the benefit of that, which I thought was

27:08

interesting and relates to this notion of merchandising.

27:10

But also just some of the best program

27:12

managers, like the people who are just helping

27:14

things move. You know, they'll devise mechanisms, whether

27:16

it's a daily email with like funny

27:19

stuff that people actually read. There's all

27:21

kinds of tools you can use to

27:23

get people to actually focus on the

27:26

work that needs to be done and

27:28

where you're actually at in the

27:30

process. Is there a pushback? Is

27:32

there ever a risk of over

27:34

operationalizing where the creative process maybe

27:37

gets stifled because of operations?

27:39

Is that something you've seen? It's

27:41

all a bit about. I like to kind

27:43

of boil it down to the doers and

27:45

the dreamers, even though that's a very like

27:47

blunt generalization of anyone. But in essence, we

27:49

all have a bias towards either doing or dreaming.

27:52

And these people can sometimes be at odds, right?

27:54

The dreamer goes to bed at night thinking about

27:56

what new things they can introduce to the project

27:58

or the piece of work. or whatever the

28:00

next day. The doer goes to bed

28:02

at night hoping that there's no surprises

28:04

and then nothing comes out that isn't

28:07

already planned and expected.

28:09

So they're already diametrically

28:11

opposed to one another. And then there's

28:13

a process where the doer and the dreamer

28:15

are kind of like, you know, hopefully

28:17

challenging each other and getting the right amount

28:19

done. If you have a organization that

28:21

only empowers the doer, right, then the

28:24

dreamers quit or they never actually

28:26

can materialize what they have in their

28:28

minds eye. I think the healthy thing to

28:30

do is to have an immune system

28:32

in every team that is on a

28:34

regular basis managed by the doer, but

28:36

on a periodic basis suppressed for

28:38

the dreamer to take hold, much

28:41

like an organ transplant, the doctor

28:43

suppresses your immune system so you

28:45

can take on literally a new

28:47

organ. And so... That's a pragmatic way

28:49

of thinking about it, right? I

28:51

mean, the doer needs to be

28:53

managing this immune system because so

28:55

many ideas can get us over

28:57

a budget or off track and

28:59

can really compromise our impact ultimately.

29:02

But there are times when you're

29:04

problem solving, when you're coming up

29:06

with something new, where you have

29:08

a cycle where the doer needs to

29:10

be suppressed and the dreamer needs to be

29:12

able to do their thing. It's

29:14

managing that chemistry that is the

29:16

puzzle. turbulence and I'm sure in

29:18

a career that runs through startups

29:20

and a large organization like Adobe,

29:22

you've run into your share of challenging

29:24

passages. How do you manage your

29:27

own emotions during those periods? Team

29:29

has been always a very big part of

29:31

it for me. You know, the people you're along

29:33

for the ride with, that's what determines

29:35

whether you can stick together long

29:37

enough to figure it out. And by the way,

29:39

I think that's the ultimate secret sauce

29:42

of successful startups. It's just. people

29:44

who suck together long enough. Now

29:46

the question is how do you stick together

29:48

very long when you have fits and starts and

29:51

you fail to get product market fit and

29:53

you run out of money and all these

29:55

are the things that are about liable to

29:57

happen along the way? A lot of that comes down.

29:59

down to culture, you know, and a shared

30:02

commitment and the end result, conviction,

30:04

you know, and whether it's building or not

30:06

based on what you're learning. Sometimes

30:08

you're gaining conviction in the result in

30:10

the solution, even though the things you're

30:12

trying are still not working. And that

30:15

means you have to stick with it. But

30:17

if you are losing conviction based on all

30:19

your learning by trying, then you should not

30:21

stick with it, right? So in my

30:23

experience, what has helped me in the most

30:25

volatile periods is just a team that you

30:28

know, shares a goal and a

30:30

culture where we genuinely enjoy being

30:32

together enough or will still be

30:34

together even if things aren't really

30:36

working. Do you have any personal methods

30:38

that you use to sort of like

30:40

manage stress level? There's kind of a

30:43

point in one's career as you reach

30:45

higher and higher levels that it gets

30:47

pretty stressful sometimes. My

30:49

mechanisms are number one, I

30:52

try to run every morning a little

30:54

bit, clears my mind. And it has

30:56

an impact on my body that is

30:58

important, I think, for stress. Number two

31:00

is I do try to preserve what

31:02

I call Windows of non-stimulation in my

31:04

day. I'll hold a little block and

31:06

I'm not allowed to look in my

31:08

email. I'm not allowed to look at

31:10

any of the inboxes coming into my

31:12

life from around me. I am only

31:15

allowed to focus on a list of

31:17

things that I feel are important over

31:19

the long term. And it's during that period

31:21

of time. you know, I will read a

31:23

report, I will read a PDF I had

31:25

held for a while, I'll read a book

31:28

that I'm reading. It's a

31:30

really interesting way to break

31:32

the cadence of an otherwise

31:34

like overwhelming inputs, inputs, inputs,

31:36

inputs type of day. But

31:38

we have to be very

31:40

proactive in holding those windows

31:42

of non-stimulation and

31:44

sometimes they get taken away from

31:47

me. That's what I do. That's

31:49

what I do on our own calendars

31:51

is... find times where we just walk

31:53

out any kind of meetings or other

31:55

extraneous stuff so you have that focus

31:57

time to work on deeper creative projects.

32:00

I mean, one of my creative projects these

32:02

days is this implications newsletter where I

32:04

give myself this exercise of synthesizing a

32:06

lot of the things that made me

32:08

think the most in meetings I was

32:10

in or things I was reading and

32:12

just write a once a month like

32:14

a newsletter that sort of brings some

32:16

of these things together. The exercise forces

32:18

me to actually apply language to it

32:20

and connect dots. It's just like a

32:22

very healthy thing. I never have the

32:24

time for it, right? So to your

32:26

point, it's always about. you know, blocking

32:28

out a couple hours at one point

32:30

to just synthesize. But it's amazing to

32:32

me how often we just let our

32:34

to-do list dictate in our inbox, like

32:36

dictate our attention. You know, we're totally

32:38

giving up our energy to the whims

32:40

of others as opposed to controlling it.

32:42

Now I'm getting more and more serious

32:44

about that as I get busier and

32:46

older, and I think it's something that

32:48

I would like to tell my younger

32:50

self to like take seriously more soon.

32:52

So you talked earlier about... merchandising that,

32:54

you know, there's certain things you want

32:56

to keep visible for teams. And in

32:58

the messy middle, you talk a bit

33:00

about vision and how we create that

33:02

vision. How do you think about, you

33:04

know, when you've got a vision for

33:06

a product, keeping that front and center

33:08

for the team? Because in debates and

33:10

conversations day to day, it's super easy

33:12

to sort of creep off half a

33:14

degree. to the left and before you

33:16

know it, you're not going in the

33:18

same direction that you intended. I always

33:20

encourage the teams that I work with

33:22

to have a slide in the beginning

33:24

of every review deck that is called

33:26

the Zen slide. You know, and the

33:28

Zen slide states the Zen of this

33:30

product. What is it intended to really

33:32

do? Not like a marketing description, but

33:34

really like, what is the Zen of

33:36

this product? It's important in front of

33:38

every presentation, because then you kind of

33:40

jump into some part and you're reviewing

33:42

some feature set or some aspect and

33:44

you're starting to make decisions without remembering,

33:46

what is the end of this product?

33:48

Is this to help people win clients?

33:50

Is this to help people tell them?

33:52

their story is

33:54

just to help people

33:56

brainstorm and come

33:58

up with a better

34:00

idea that they

34:02

want to execute in

34:04

another product. Those

34:07

sorts of stakes in the ground,

34:09

I find pretty useful. I think

34:11

the other thing is, I like to say

34:13

in every product review, in every screen that

34:15

you look at, there are three questions you

34:17

should always ask yourself. How

34:19

did I get here? What do I do now? And what

34:21

do I do next? And it's a

34:23

great way of testing the object model of

34:25

a product. You know, is it clear how

34:27

to get home? If I got lost, how

34:29

do I know where to go back to?

34:32

What am I supposed to do now? Is

34:34

it clear, like, which action is most important

34:36

than all the actions I could choose from?

34:38

If they all look the same, then I

34:40

have this anxiety as a new user. Like,

34:42

what am I supposed to do most likely?

34:44

And then where do I go next? Like,

34:46

if it's unclear, like what's the progress in

34:48

my journey, I start to get anxious. You

34:50

know, those sorts of questions to me at

34:52

every moment of product review, you

34:54

know, help ensure that you're synthesizing

34:57

like an end -to -end product experience

34:59

that matters. Now, listen, like Adobe has

35:01

a lot of very complicated products

35:03

for very, you know, experienced

35:05

professionals. But as we've gotten

35:07

into new products like Adobe Express,

35:09

for example, it's been really important to

35:11

ask this question in product reviews

35:13

because they're intended for everyone to be

35:15

able to use them. If you're

35:17

a designer who wants to be able to animate something,

35:20

you don't want to learn some

35:22

very complicated animation program, you should be able

35:24

to come to Adobe Express and just do

35:26

it, right? That's, I think, any sort of

35:28

consumer -oriented product, especially, but even other products

35:30

for bigger companies, you know, enterprises, you need

35:32

to be asking that question to build

35:34

a great product. There's another

35:36

point in the book, the messy middle where

35:38

you talk about embracing pain. I'm a surfer,

35:40

as you've probably made tell from the surfboard

35:42

in the back of the hat I'm wearing.

35:44

And just recently our, you know, seasonal swell

35:47

came in and we had some really good

35:49

surf. And the first day out, my rail

35:51

aboard to my ribs. And I don't think I broke

35:53

anything, but it's been really painful. But I've just found

35:55

like dealing with it and getting out

35:57

there and I just feel so good afterwards. It

35:59

makes it worth it. And I'm just wondering for

36:01

you, are there lessons that you

36:03

take maybe from your running, which

36:06

at least for me, it can

36:08

be painful sometimes that help you

36:10

accommodate, you know, that pain that

36:12

you might face if you're trying to

36:14

launch a new product or do

36:16

a startup? Yeah. I mean, I identify

36:19

with that a lot. When I feel

36:21

like I'm doing something special and

36:23

in building products. whenever

36:25

we hit a wall, there's a side of

36:27

me that's like, oh, I'm happy that we

36:29

hit this wall because if we overcome it,

36:31

you know, that's many more people who

36:33

won't be able to like that

36:36

differentiates this product and market. So

36:38

you want hard stuff because it means

36:40

that whatever your building will have some

36:42

lasting to it, some power to it.

36:44

You know, similarly, just personally, you

36:47

know, running is an area where I like to

36:49

push myself and in some ways by

36:51

pushing through my own like mental barriers,

36:53

oftentimes. pain is involved. In some ways,

36:55

I'll make building a muscle that I

36:57

can leverage in other parts of my

36:59

life. So I'm sure you identify with this,

37:01

like, you know, whatever you overcome and

37:04

teach yourself you can do in surfing,

37:06

it's like a transferable muscle that you

37:08

can bring to other parts of your

37:10

life that you're daunted by. And your

37:12

role at Adobe is sort of

37:14

a contradiction. I'm curious how you

37:16

think about it. There's focusing on

37:18

strategy, defining strategy for the company

37:20

and many teams. But then there's

37:22

also emerging products. and looking to

37:24

the future. So there's a now

37:27

focus and a later focus. I

37:29

think probably many people could put

37:31

their head into what a now

37:33

mentality looks like. It looks like

37:36

okay ours and communication and meetings

37:38

and decks and so forth. But

37:40

how do you think about what

37:42

the future looks like, especially at

37:45

this crossroads that we find ourselves

37:47

and Dobie at a very key

37:49

point in its history? How are

37:51

you looking at? what might the future

37:53

look like in five years because it

37:56

could look very different than today? I

37:58

think there's two parts of this. One part

38:00

is identifying what has momentum.

38:02

One humbling thing I've learned as a

38:05

product builder that always wants to

38:07

build something new that reaches escape

38:09

velocity is that momentum is its

38:11

own kind of product. Like momentum

38:13

has its own advantage, right? And

38:15

it sounds obvious, I guess, of

38:17

course, it's moving, but it's hard to

38:20

compete with momentum. There actually are so

38:22

many products that are probably not

38:24

so great that have momentum and

38:26

they just win anyways because they

38:28

have momentum. Part of strategy is

38:30

understanding what has momentum in what

38:32

user preferences have momentum. Like people

38:34

are using YouTube now and that's

38:36

growing so fast that YouTube's gonna

38:39

be increasingly important. It doesn't matter

38:41

if there's a better site or

38:43

option around. YouTube's just gonna be

38:45

more important. So as a strategist,

38:47

you have to really understand and

38:49

have a really great appreciation for

38:51

the present and what has momentum now

38:53

and what's real and what's working now.

38:55

You also simultaneously have to have

38:58

a deep curiosity about the

39:00

edges that may someday become the

39:02

center. Now the crazy thing about edges

39:04

is they all seem a little

39:06

strange, right? It's not exactly in

39:08

the zeitgeist, it's not exactly so

39:10

popular. You know, five years ago, one

39:13

of those edges for us at Adobe was

39:15

3D. You know, 3D was sort of something

39:17

that people who knew math would do, you

39:19

know, and you kind of had to understand

39:21

physics and stuff to make things

39:24

in 3D. But we felt like because

39:26

of the democratization of

39:28

gaming to some extent, the increased

39:30

use of 3D assets for

39:33

2D purposes and illustrations and

39:35

branding and graphic design, the

39:37

advent of virtual reality and

39:39

the possible future of

39:41

augmented reality and immersive

39:43

experiences, that 3D was going

39:46

to be something very important,

39:48

if not the center in the future.

39:50

So fast forward, we do have an

39:52

incredible 3D and immersive business now of

39:54

products that are used to make, you

39:56

know, 3D objects with photo realistic with

39:59

textures and materials. and that sort of

40:01

thing, and we're building AR tools and

40:03

that sort of thing. But it's still

40:05

an edge, right? It's still not really

40:07

center. But if in 2030, we're all

40:09

walking around with glasses, and that's the

40:11

new iPhone, and every creation that any

40:14

of us makes is three-dimensional by default,

40:16

then these three-d products are going to

40:18

be as important as Photoshop. You know,

40:20

so it's important to socialize these edges

40:22

that make somebody to become the center.

40:24

actually have meetings with a team in

40:27

the strategy organization called Edges. And what

40:29

we do is we just discuss these

40:31

edges that may or may not become

40:33

the center as an attempt to socialize

40:35

the possibilities with ourselves. There's another article

40:37

you wrote about, or part of it

40:40

was about the meaning economy versus the

40:42

creator economy. And for those of us

40:44

in our audience who may be in

40:46

that creator economy track and are curious,

40:48

like, where's this heading? Now that AI

40:50

generates so much content, how can I

40:52

still stand out? a big part of

40:55

that as you say is about developing

40:57

taste and being able to curate. Aaron

40:59

wrote an article about this recently for

41:01

our newsletter and there's also a great

41:03

clip from Ira Glass about that gap

41:05

between the taste you have and how

41:08

you execute on it depending on how

41:10

experienced you are. But you mentioned this

41:12

and I was just curious because I

41:14

wasn't sure what you meant by it

41:16

exactly, but it sounded interesting. Taste development

41:18

tools. What are the kinds of tools

41:21

you see that might help somebody develop

41:23

their taste? That's a great question. I

41:25

think we're all kind of trying to

41:27

understand now, right? Where does taste come

41:29

from? If content will be created infinitely,

41:31

right, and all be inundated with personalized

41:34

content constantly from brands, everyone's going to

41:36

flood the zone because they can. What's

41:38

going to actually engage us is probably

41:40

less so the engagement of the content

41:42

or how like crazy it is, and

41:44

more so the meaning of it. I

41:46

think we're going to be craving storycraft

41:49

and meaning more than ever before. as

41:51

a response to the deluge. Just like

41:53

when shoes become commoditized and we all

41:55

start buying designer shoes or branded shoes

41:57

like Nike or whatever, like anything that

41:59

becomes. commoditized to some extent, we end

42:02

up like craving a more scarce version,

42:04

a more thoughtful, more tasteful version. And

42:06

if that's happened with every product that's

42:08

ever been commoditized, now that content

42:10

is being commoditized, which it has

42:12

never been before because it's always

42:14

taken a human to write everything. But

42:17

now that computers can write and make

42:19

content, like the same thing's going to happen.

42:21

So a creative professional needs to rise to

42:23

that occasion. Like it just means that you

42:25

need to create. a better, more special shoe

42:28

with a story behind it and a

42:30

brand that people resonate with, and then

42:32

they will pay 100X what they could

42:34

pay to get that better shoe. Like,

42:36

you know, I'm not bearish on creativity.

42:38

I just believe that we're only focusing

42:40

on the four going down, we're not focusing

42:42

on the ceiling going up, and that is

42:45

what we're all capable of with some of

42:47

these new tools as well. So taste is

42:49

a huge part of it, of course. whenever

42:51

I talk to great photographers, sometimes they'll

42:53

admit to me that their secret is

42:56

just taking a lot of photos and

42:58

picking the right one. That's taste. It's knowing

43:00

which one with the right shadow, with the

43:02

right lighting, you know, which one is perfect.

43:04

That's always going to be taste, right. And

43:07

I have no idea where it comes

43:09

from. I'm sure it's our upbringing, it's

43:11

all of our inputs, everything we've exposed

43:13

ourselves to, the history we've lived, the

43:16

art we've consumed, all that we've consumed,

43:18

like all that stuff. could conceivably have

43:20

some tools though that help us aggregate

43:22

the things that are interesting to us

43:25

and start to mix them together, maybe

43:27

even using tools like AI. This is

43:29

something we're exploring at Adobe now. You

43:31

know, I think it's something that we're

43:33

going to start seeing these new

43:35

concept development tools emerge that helps

43:37

someone. At first diverge across many

43:39

options and then increasingly converge around

43:41

a particular approach that they might

43:43

want to then take an illustrator

43:45

or Photoshop or another product like

43:47

that. I think it's a huge

43:50

opportunity and I think humans are going to

43:52

want it. Scott, what are you reading, watching,

43:54

listening to that Has Your Wheels Turning?

43:56

I enjoyed Rick Rubin's book. I recently read

43:58

that. Love that. I'm reading. some of

44:00

Carlo Revelli's books really just about the

44:02

joy of physics. You know, I always

44:05

love kind of understanding how time works.

44:07

I feel like you almost get a

44:09

new understanding of the dimension of the

44:12

world in which we live with some

44:14

of these books by physicists. You know,

44:16

I'm trying to push myself to listen

44:18

to new music. I wish I listened

44:21

to more podcast. I just don't have

44:23

the time. Maybe on your run. You

44:25

got that run. Throw it. Throw it

44:28

on. Thanks so much for joining us

44:30

on the show. Where can people learn

44:32

more about you and what you're thinking

44:35

about? Well, listen, thank you both for

44:37

having me, but also, more importantly, just

44:39

for this podcast and its existence and

44:41

all the conversations and guests you've had,

44:44

it's just good for the community. My

44:46

writings at implications.com, and I'm just at

44:48

Scott Belski on your platform of choice.

44:51

Fantastic. Scott, thanks so much for joining

44:53

us. Thank you for having me, you

44:55

guys. This

44:59

episode was produced by Eli Woolery

45:01

and me, Aaron Walter, with engineering

45:04

and production support from Brian Pake

45:06

of Pacific Audio. If you found

45:08

this episode useful, we hope that

45:10

you'll leave us a review on

45:13

Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you

45:15

listen to finer shows. Or simply

45:17

drop a link to the show

45:20

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45:22

Better podcast.com. It'll really help others

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discover the show. Until next time.