Geoffrey Litt - The Future of Malleable Software

How do LLMs change the way that we think about digital products and the core deliverables that we're bringing to the table as designers? What I realized was I think we're we're in a time of such volatility right now with AI just kind of forcing everyone to reimagine how things work that there's actually going

to be a serious platform shift over the next few years. >> What does it look like to create personalized software that users can bend and shape over time?

>> Natural language text is really good for human AI input, especially with voice.

It feels really good. But for the AI coming back to us, you know, I think we can be much more creative with non-extual representations and data visualizations.

>> What's next for AI interaction patterns? >> Ask chat GPT or notion like how much money am I going to have when I retire? I want to get back like an interactive chart that I can mess with myself, not just like a number. Welcome to Dive

Club. My name is Rid and this is where designers never stop learning. This

Club. My name is Rid and this is where designers never stop learning. This

week's episode is with Jeffrey Lit, who's a design engineer at Notion and one of the people really leading the charge on malleable software. So, this

episode's going to be a deep dive into the future of AI interfaces and some of the core ideas underpinning Jeffrey's design philosophy. But to understand that, we first have to go back to the beginning to understand where his design

journey started. My first job out of college, I was doing engineering and

journey started. My first job out of college, I was doing engineering and design at a education tech startup. And you know, we we did typical SAS stuff, right? We would sit in our office and try to imagine what our users wanted and

right? We would sit in our office and try to imagine what our users wanted and ship them software that they like. The problem is we were shipping to thousands and thousands of schools across the country and I had never been a teacher or you know worked in a school, right? What I found is man it is so so so hard

to really know what's going to be good. No matter you can you can do all the tricks in the book. Go visit and do ethnography. can do user testing all the time. You can hire former teachers to be on your team. And yet I found it was

time. You can hire former teachers to be on your team. And yet I found it was just really really difficult without having been in my users shoes in a really substantial way. And so this was this was kind of plaguing me. Why are we

making these choices for all our users? And then I started noticing this really interesting pattern where sometimes we would ask users, you know, what do what do you think of our product? And they would say, oh, I actually don't use your data reports. I just export the data to Excel and do it myself.

data reports. I just export the data to Excel and do it myself.

And we're like, "Huh, okay, that kind of that burns a little bit, but tell us more." And they would show us these these crazy spreadsheets. They're like

more." And they would show us these these crazy spreadsheets. They're like

really ugly. You know, maybe had bugs, but they would do exactly what that user wanted them to do, right? They would like organize the data differently. They

would use different colors that fit their school's colors, whatever. And I

started thinking, man, it's so cool that a random principal at some school can actually in some sense build their own software tool that works for them rather than having us dictate every little decision. When you're in your own

spreadsheet, like the default is that you have the control over everything, right? Um, and it's sort of a flip of the typical SAS model. And so I just

right? Um, and it's sort of a flip of the typical SAS model. And so I just couldn't get that idea out of my head of like why can't more people build software tools for themselves in their local context. The rest of my career since then has kind of been like a really really long rabbit hole on um

being obsessed with that question. So um I ended up going to grad school at MIT to do research on how do we enable people to do this with better tools and interfaces. Um I worked at a independent research lab called Incin Switch where

interfaces. Um I worked at a independent research lab called Incin Switch where we also explored that through research prototyping um very kind of uh out there ideas around this stuff and then now I'm at notion you know where uh the company mission is to do exactly this. So, that's kind of been my my journey.

>> Real quick message and then we can jump back into it. So, Granola just launched a new feature called recipes. And I already can't imagine life without it.

It's a simple way to run advanced prompts across all of the context of your Granola notes. And they have some pretty great defaults out of the box, too. You can even use the prompt that I made for Inflight called gather product

too. You can even use the prompt that I made for Inflight called gather product feedback, which looks at all of your user interviews or customer calls and pulls out product related feedback with clear and actionable themes, including

direct quotes, which is one of my favorite parts. I use it all the time and it's just another reason why I'm completely obsessed with Granola. If you

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prompting. No more setting up databases, authentication, file storage, API keys,

prompting. No more setting up databases, authentication, file storage, API keys, things like that. You can get an entire backend set up and running in a single

prompt. No external dashboards or configuration screens. Everything just

prompt. No external dashboards or configuration screens. Everything just

works. And you can add AI features to your app just by asking for them. Things

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So if you're a designer and you have ideas that you want to build, head to dive.club/lovable

to get started. Okay, now on to the episode. Can we dig into some of the experiments that you were doing at Incan Switch and how that continued to shape these ideas that you have? >> Sure. I'll tell you about a couple of them. One experiment that we we built is called Embark and Embark was this idea

them. One experiment that we we built is called Embark and Embark was this idea of you know when you do travel planning um you have all of these apps that you tend to use like you might use Google Maps, you might have calendar events, you might have a notion doc or an Apple note where you're like thinking through

what you want to do. Um you have your email where your flights live and there's all these apps, right? and and in isolation each of the apps can be pretty nice. But there are all these ways in which they fail to combine and

pretty nice. But there are all these ways in which they fail to combine and work together with one another that tends to be really really frustrating.

So, for example, like why doesn't your weather app know that you're going to be in London next week? Like why is it that you have to manually select that even though it's it's in your email, right? And I think this is an example of where when we think of apps as the unit of software and there are these teams each

focused on their little part of the problem. You get really good solutions for the parts, but you don't actually get the composition of parts that works for your problem that you're trying to solve. People have tried to build the mega travel app, but turns out most of them are terrible because it's hard to build really good versions of all those parts and every trip is different. So

like your business trip to a conference and my, you know, weekl long vacation with my family just have kind of different needs, right? And so we thought we tried to think about like how could we build a futuristic software operating system where when you go on a trip, software just kind of feels like

it works for that trip for you and you get to mold it around your trip. What we

landed on somewhat surprisingly actually was starting with just a note like a document sort of like a notion document actually. You just start writing stuff like write your plans just like you would you know normally but then our

idea was you could start pulling in bits of functionality into your note directly. So instead of going to look up the weather, you just type weather in

directly. So instead of going to look up the weather, you just type weather in your note and magically the weather forecast appears and it knows where you're going cuz it's in your note, right? Same thing with like routing and maps. And so we imagined this system called embark where you could do all

maps. And so we imagined this system called embark where you could do all this stuff from within a document. It's like document ccentric computing. Then

we used it to go on a bunch of trips ourselves which was really cool and we we learned a lot and iterated from that and we never released it as a product but we wrote a a really in-depth essay explaining the thinking and showing the demos. You know I didn't switch that was sort of our methodology is like by

demos. You know I didn't switch that was sort of our methodology is like by avoiding the needs of shipping to users today we had a little more freedom to imagine like what should this thing really feel like if we think a decade out. Yeah,

>> I want to get into what it looks like to close the gap between like decade long ideas and practical next steps for today's interfaces, but maybe to set the stage for that type of discussion. Can we just continue your story a little

bit? You're what only like a couple months into notion, right? I think the

bit? You're what only like a couple months into notion, right? I think the answers for why that was attractive are probably pretty clear. It's literally

just the box of Legos that you get to shape and assemble, but can you talk a little bit about your motivations for joining and then also just the nature of what your role will look like there? One thing that I was really excited about joining Notion is that a lot of the things that I care about around

malleable software aren't things that any one application so to speak can easily solve. They're more platform level things that really require

easily solve. They're more platform level things that really require thinking of like a new operating system or a new fundamental way that we think about software. And those shifts don't happen very often. They they last a

about software. And those shifts don't happen very often. They they last a decade or more. And what I what I realized was I think we're we're in a time of such volatility right now with AI just kind of forcing everyone to reimagine how things work that there's actually going to be a serious platform

shift over the next few years. I think everyone feels it coming. There's the

the tectonic plates are shifting. >> Totally. >> And I felt that timing wise that was a really unique opportunity that's not necessarily going to come around again anytime soon. And I wanted to find a place where I could help take advantage

anytime soon. And I wanted to find a place where I could help take advantage of these shifts to enact the values that I want in the software that I use. And I

think notion is in really good position to be competing for being one of those platforms. It already is a really successful product and it is a platform where people build on top of it. But it's also has this really interesting new AI angle that's growing and kind of changing how we think about the product.

And so um I was just really excited to participate in that and you know hopefully help have uh help nudge the world of real software towards what I want it to be when you daydream about the future of a product like notion on the other side of this platform shift. What are some of the things that come to

mind? Well, you know, it's funny bringing it back to um my work at Switch

mind? Well, you know, it's funny bringing it back to um my work at Switch like a lot of what we explored was this documentcentric computing as I mentioned and notion in my opinion is the best incarnation of documentcentric computing

that's out there and when what I mean by that is like you don't go to notion and see a blank box where it says says like build an app because the reality is actually most people don't wake up in the morning wanting to build apps people just want to get stuff done right if you listen to actually the notion origin

story of Ivan and Simon talking about how it came about. I think some of their earlier explorations looked more like build any app and they sort of pivoted famously to this more documentcentric model which I think is really the right way to go about this. And so um when I daydream about the future of notion,

there's a lot of things that I've explored in my research work that I think could make sense in notion. So for example, you know, when you plan a trip in notion, what if somehow that document came alive with all the tools you need to plan that trip living in that document? You know, really thinking

about how can we um take things that currently require hopping between different applications and gluing things together and manually like copy pasting stuff and bring it all into one place. That's that serves as kind of a a

context hub so to speak for like whatever you care about in your work or in your life can be in that one place and you can work with it right there.

This isn't really a question, but something I've been thinking about recently is how, you know, naturally tech as a whole has this cycle of bundling and unbundling. And it kind of feels like we're entering potentially

the greatest bundling ever because so many of these products get to outsource a heck of a lot of functionality to the general models. And everybody can kind of do everything. And so all of a sudden it's like where you sit in the value

chain and the quality of the core like not to use the word rapper but like shell for all of this functionality matters so much. And so in that world gosh

I think I kind of agree like all arrows kind of do point toward a document in some ways. The value of having all of your context in one place has never been

some ways. The value of having all of your context in one place has never been more clear. It was always valuable. But with AI, we just see now, oh man, the

more clear. It was always valuable. But with AI, we just see now, oh man, the more this thing knows about everything I care about, the better it can work for me. Now, you know, I think there's some nuance there. Like, um, the reality is

me. Now, you know, I think there's some nuance there. Like, um, the reality is no one application, I think, can or should like fundamentally have every feature and all of your data in there. There there has to be kind of this

bridging to other pieces of software. And, you know, um, I think there's a lot of room for interoperability and stuff like that. I I'll give you an example like with with notion my first week at the company I was introduced to the value of notion AI which we use a lot internally right and basically 80% of my

onboarding questions I had I just go to notion AI and I ask and it searches our internal notion workspace which is obviously like really well organized all of our Slack you know it can search the internet and that combination of notion

Slack internet is like an insane repository of context like most questions can be answered that And so I think it really just um yeah highlights the value of context. >> Can you talk a little bit about your role? I'm particularly interested

because your background is pretty wide. Like you can wear a lot of different hats.

>> This is the first time in my career that I've ever had designer as technically part of my title. You know, I I have a software engineering background. I did a PhD in computer science which is pretty technical, right? But I think what I really care about is the conceptual design of software. Like getting the

primitives right, making things that work well. You know, there's a famous Steve Jobs quote, right? design is how it works, not just how it looks. And I

think um I'm less of a visually oriented designer and I'm more interested in thinking about designing toolkits that enable people to build stuff for themselves. And that's a really deep and interesting design problem to me. And so

themselves. And that's a really deep and interesting design problem to me. And so

technically my title is design engineer. I was telling you before this call, you know, I don't think um what I do is that similar to what a lot of design engineers do. I'm not an expert at crafting every detail of an animation

engineers do. I'm not an expert at crafting every detail of an animation or, you know, um pixel perfect visual design isn't isn't where I live. It's

more um how do we thoughtfully design this box of Legos so that people can build stuff and they know what the Legos can do and it feels like they always fit together seamlessly. In some ways that's almost closer to designing a programming

together seamlessly. In some ways that's almost closer to designing a programming language than designing a typical application. You have to think >> um very um abstractly about building blocks and how they might be used. But

you also have to think really concretely about are they actually going to fit together and make sense. I I that tension is just I think where all of the interesting problems that I care about they live. >> It actually leads me to something that I saw in your writing that I like that I wanted to ask about which you talk about

the importance of exposing structure. I'm just going to read the quote. You

say good design exposes systemic structure and trust that people will figure out how to use it. So given your interest in the systems and primitives, can you share a little bit more about your thinking there and how it connects

to this vision for more malleable software? That quote comes from a blog post titled The Nightmare Bicycle. And I want to share the story of the nightmare bicycle cuz I think it's I think this story is really against the grain of common wisdom in Silicon Valley design, but it's really important. So there's

this book that I adore called Changing Minds by Andy Desessa. It's published a couple decades ago, I think, and it's it's about how to teach kids to think about deep problems in a computational environment. It's it's not really a design book. It's more of an education book. And one of the ideas in the book

design book. It's more of an education book. And one of the ideas in the book um he he talks about how he has this nightmare about this bicycle where instead of having numbered gears where you can shift 1 2 3 4 5, there are these buttons that's like gravel mode, downhill mode, uphill mode, like I don't

know, I'm just making it up now, but like crossing the railroad mode. And the

reason this came out is that some product manager or designer said, "Hold on, people don't understand numbers. People don't understand math." Like, you got to tell them what it does and put it on the put it on the tin, right? Um,

teach them to use the thing. The problem with this way of thinking is what do you do when you want to go uphill on graph? You don't actually know what these buttons do exactly there. There's no coherent structure that you see. You

just see these modes that magically are supposed to do a good job in some situation. So, you have no general framework. And you know what do you do

situation. So, you have no general framework. And you know what do you do if your chain falls off? Like how do you repair it? You don't even know what's going on there, right? And what this points out is actually humans are pretty

damn smart. And kids can figure out what gears do. Maybe they're not thinking

damn smart. And kids can figure out what gears do. Maybe they're not thinking about it as numbers and math, but you just feel it and you learn, oh, okay, like when I do this, it gets harder to pedal and that has this effect and now I know I can use that in all these situations. It's not that difficult. And

when the design of a bike exposes that structure, people pick it up and they learn to use it for a lot of situations. When you look at software, I think this is um a lot of software looks like the nightmare bicycle to me. It's teaching

people these very specific bits of functionality. It's not teaching them deeper structures that they can use to do more more stuff themselves. And so

that's one of the things that excites me about notion as a product actually is that notion does expose a lot of structure. And it's a product that I've used for many many years for all sorts of different stuff in my life. you know,

planning many different kinds of projects, keeping track of books that I've read, a lot of things. And the reality is, you know, it takes really thoughtful design to get people to the place of understanding, but once they get there, you've really empowered them much more. And so that's just a design

philosophy that I find really exciting. >> What do you think it takes to maintain some level of simplicity given that overarching objective then?

>> Well, I would say that's how you get simplicity. So the bicycle, the nightmare bicycle has a million buttons. Your bike that you use probably has one or two knobs with numbers on it. And there actually is deep simplicity there.

I think that's what true simplicity is when you expose the fundamental structure and let people take advantage of it. I think there is a challenge of how do you get people to the place of virtuosity with those structures. Um

what's the on-ramp look like? You know, do they need some examples to start? Do

they need like some structured education around how to use these things? And it

may be the case that on day one, the nightmare bicycle is like quote unquote easier to use. But I think, you know, Don Norman has a great book called Living with Complexity, lesser known than his most famous one, but he talks a lot about I think he talks about instruments like um you know, like a

piano, right? A piano is actually a very simple design in a way, but you can't

piano, right? A piano is actually a very simple design in a way, but you can't just walk up to it and play it. Takes a lot of actual skill to play that thing.

But one one phrase that I like is like designing for the 40th hour of use. real

simple, I think, is when someone's invested that full-time week and they feel empowered and comfortable, not the first minute. >> My brain naturally goes towards like AI chat as a primitive that you see everywhere that I actually have been using in notion much more. Even just the other day, I had this behavioral shift

where I was trying to find good leads in a database of a few thousand and I just turned to chat and I said, "Here's my criteria. Create a list. Here's how you want me to format it and I was like, "Oh my gosh, this is so much different, but it's better." You know, it's better. And yet, it's like kind of the perfect

it's better." You know, it's better. And yet, it's like kind of the perfect example of this tension that you're talking about where it's like the the chat itself is exposing the raw system and yet um you know, we've talked a lot

about even on this show of just how that has all of its own complications and you know, what the heck do I do with this blinking cursor? That kind of a thing.

So I don't know how do you even think about that in terms of like so many designers are working through how to create systems to enable users to collaborate with AI effectively and trying to think about the level of UI

that needs to exist in that world. Do you have any thoughts there?

>> I think you're hitting on something really real which is that I think you're totally right that AI chat is actually a very power user interface. People think

that it's like a simple consumer interface, but actually it is. In some

ways, I think you could say, yeah, it's like a good bicycle that shows you the gears. Like you're just talking to the raw machine for the most part. And if

gears. Like you're just talking to the raw machine for the most part. And if

you're really virtuosic and you know how to get good results, uh you can get really you can go really far towards crafting the the details of how you work with this thing. And you don't need to be like technically minded or anything.

I think you can read lots of posts on the internet, you know, people on Reddit who figured out great workflows for using AI. I think the flip side is yeah, it's a lot harder to learn when you don't have the buttons to click. Like

the question of how to use this thing is not very easy to onramp into. And I

think that's something we think about a lot with notion AI actually is once you figure out the workflows that work for you, it's insanely powerful and I use it every day. Um, but yeah, it's true. Like when you see a text box on a blinking

every day. Um, but yeah, it's true. Like when you see a text box on a blinking cursor and this machine that is somewhat intelligent but somewhat dumb and it's really hard to know the difference. Um, especially if you don't spend all day

tinkering with these things. I think in some ways that's the fundamental challenge. And another thing I'll add is I think chat is often a good interface,

challenge. And another thing I'll add is I think chat is often a good interface, but it's often very limiting. Two things that are really important is you need to be able to point to stuff. So when we have a conversation, I can point to things and we can have shared attention on some artifact. Um, and I think that's

something we think about a lot at notion. You know, you have a chat and a shared artifact, right? So how do you ergonomically work with >> that? Just like people talking and pointing. >> And it goes both ways, by the way. I need to point at things out to the AI.

pointing. >> And it goes both ways, by the way. I need to point at things out to the AI.

AI needs to point things out to me. The other piece is just text I think is a really limiting data abstraction for visualizing information. We have a whole field of graphic design, right? And um I think natural language text is really

good for human to AI input, especially with voice. It feels really good. But

for the AI coming back to us, you know, I think we can be much more creative with non-extual representations and data visualizations. And this is not a new idea. Like when I ask Siri what the weather is today, it shows me a weather

idea. Like when I ask Siri what the weather is today, it shows me a weather forecast card with like a sun icon, right? And so I think that's the sort of thing that gets me really excited is pushing into that direction further.

What sorts of imagine, you know, ask chat GPT or notion like how much money am I going to have when I retire? I want to get back like an interactive chart that I can mess with myself, not just like a number, you know. Hey, really

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How much exploration have you done with canvas based UIs for AI? Because that's

kind of where I naturally go for this. Like even when you're talking about like the spatial context, I I I almost want to be able to like Figma comment style tap on things and then push it to the AI, but then have them maybe like have the model generate

something that is visual like you're saying, but maybe it's also maybe I can branch, you know, it's like that is in so many ways like the ultimate power user interface, but it has so much potential. get so excited about it, but

part of me is like has this little bug in my brain where I'm just like, am I vastly overestimating the amount of complexity that an average user wants when interacting with AI? I love that provocation. Canvases aren't something that I've personally explored, but I think they are very promising. And I

think some some work that I've seen there's this project Spellburst by our mutual friend Tyler Anger who worked with some folks at Stanford on this and they basically had this canvas where you could work with AI to make these these kind of animated sketches and processing and you could create variations and

alternatives of existing ones and kind of branch out on this canvas and have this tree of exploration. Um, and it's I think it's very powerful to have a visual way to represent that thought process and see it unfold in space in some ways. You know, people do this in Figma all the time, right? you have this

some ways. You know, people do this in Figma all the time, right? you have this like you zoom out and you see this kind of like trail of artboards and the whole process is just like laid out there in space and I think that's a very powerful pattern and I think it applies to both humans creating and co-creating with AI

both. This is actually a theme that I think a lot about is um one lens that I

both. This is actually a theme that I think a lot about is um one lens that I find very powerful is that humanity collaboration is fundamentally a version control problem. And what I mean by that is not people think version control they

control problem. And what I mean by that is not people think version control they think oh it's like version history or something but really when I say version control I mean the creative process is about exploring different ways of doing stuff and trying things out hitting dead ends coming back somewhere trying

something new in Figma you can do this in space in Git you have tools to like make branches and stuff there have been some really cool research projects like a quick pose by Eric Ron where he kind of like um mashed these ideas up and had variations that you can arrange on a canvas so you can say like these are the

good ones and these are the bad ones. They correspond to like some underlying version control system. And so even without AI, I think people in all creative fields deserve better version control tools. Um software engineers have the best ones right now and more people could use branching and history

tools. But then when you're working with AI, it's insanely powerful because the

tools. But then when you're working with AI, it's insanely powerful because the AI mostly does bad stuff. Occasionally does good stuff, but mostly does stuff I don't like. Right? And if I'm in an environment where it's hard to undo or

don't like. Right? And if I'm in an environment where it's hard to undo or or suggest or review, that feels terrible. Whereas if I'm in an environment um like coding agents would get, it feels fantastic because 50% of

the time my little alien intelligence shows up with awesome stuff and I'm happy and other half I just iterate or I throw it away. This is a theme that we're thinking about at Notion too is how do we enable really ergonomic human AI collaboration by having really powerful tools for version control. One

of the reasons I like talking to you is you're you have this database of different experiments or products or things that you're like looking at for inspiration. So I I guess I'm kind of just curious if there are any others in

inspiration. So I I guess I'm kind of just curious if there are any others in this topical ballpark that you find interesting or maybe even personal experiments that have kind of shaped the way that you're thinking about this set

of software. One of the biggest projects I worked on together with the team there

of software. One of the biggest projects I worked on together with the team there was called patchwork. And patchwork was basically us playing out this hypothesis that version control is the thing that matters. And so we built a collaboration

environment for ourselves. Our our goal which we achieved was to do basically all of our work at the lab in this collaboration environment in the browser. You can think of it kind of like a a notion clone in a way. And we

browser. You can think of it kind of like a a notion clone in a way. And we

had you know markdown editing, whiteboarding, spreadsheets, all sorts of stuff. But at the core was this idea that it was going to be really easy to

of stuff. But at the core was this idea that it was going to be really easy to create alternatives and suggest and review. So on any document in patchwork, you can hit a button and get a branch. There's no like weird commands to run.

It just happens. That's your private copy off in the corner that you can work on in, you know, isolation, right? You can send a link to someone so they can review your branch. Kind of like a GitHub pull request but with less

ceremony. And then when you feel good about your branch, you can merge it. and

ceremony. And then when you feel good about your branch, you can merge it. and

Incan switch patchwork runs on this data sync library that we developed at the lab called automerge where the whole point of the library was to help merge together work that had happened on different branches in a nice way so you didn't end up with these terrible merge conflicts that you have to fight with.

And so we kind of invested full stack from like that lowest layer of the system all the way up to the thinking about the user interface of like how do you show branches? Should they even be called branches? >> You know, and we use this every day. It

was awesome for like reviewing blog post drafts or essay drafts. We wrote a lot on it. We also tested the ideas. So there's some ongoing work to test them

on it. We also tested the ideas. So there's some ongoing work to test them with kids. So we built a version of patchwork for game development and it's

with kids. So we built a version of patchwork for game development and it's being tested in classrooms right now. Can you know 12-year-olds understand branches? Turns out actually yeah, they totally can. Oh, and then the last piece

branches? Turns out actually yeah, they totally can. Oh, and then the last piece which I haven't mentioned is at some point we were like wait AI is a thing.

So we added AI bots that use all this shared branching infrastructure, right?

And so, and it was a really really beautiful fit because we'd nested in this for humans and it worked well for AI too. And if you're used to using branches and reviewing stuff, then moving to using AI bots with that isn't

a big leap. That's actually what is we're seeing in coding. Every software

engineer knows how to use GitHub already. So AI is not a big leap. I

think this is the kind of Trojan horse that you need to pull off to really get AI collaboration right is get people used to thinking in terms of variations and review for any kind of work and then use that for AI. The last piece I'll

mention just to kind of close out the patchwork thing is that this might sound cool and ambitious but actually this was all everything I've said so far was just a means to a much crazier end which is that our idea was that any of these bits

of software in patchwork you should they should be malleable. You should be able to live edit the software from within the software. And so we had all these custom tools. You know, while we were writing essays, we would make up new

custom tools. You know, while we were writing essays, we would make up new ideas for tools and vibe code things and you could live deploy them into this platform. But guess what? You need version control there, too. Because if

platform. But guess what? You need version control there, too. Because if

we're using an app, like let's say we're using this podcast recording app and we're, oh, I have a new idea for a feature and then we like live code it and it breaks. That sucks, right? Like you can't really like live edit software like you can a Google doc because it's going to break a lot. What you need is

the ability to like go clone it, try out stuff, and when it feels good, share it with your team. Same concept. It's just branches, right? So, if you get people used to thinking in version control terms who are who are not technical, but

just normal document editor of people, that's actually a key building block to getting people to the place of editing their software together with their teams. >> It's interesting even just looking at your career and when you started working on this kind of thing. I'd imagine it was mostly through the lens of well, you

probably have to have some level of development expertise in order to accomplish these. And all of a sudden, you had this LLM moment. Everybody's

accomplish these. And all of a sudden, you had this LLM moment. Everybody's

talking about it and you're like, wo, the thing I've been thinking about is applicable to literally everybody. That's exactly how it feels to me. And

you know, it comes way before me. People have been thinking about this stuff for many decades. Like in fact, the origins of personal computing, Alan K has been

many decades. Like in fact, the origins of personal computing, Alan K has been thinking about this stuff for, you know, since the 80s, right? um his his vision for personal computing was kids are live editing the rules of a video game while they're playing it.

>> Um but I think you're you're you're totally right. There's there was kind of this hard question at the heart of the whole thing which was like how do you get people to get the fuzzy intent in their head translated to something a

computer can formally understand and run. And it turned out that was just like a really difficult problem that people were biting around the edges with all these, you know, Apple script macro recording or programming by example and

demonstration. Nothing really worked. And then LM came along and boom, all of

demonstration. Nothing really worked. And then LM came along and boom, all of a sudden all of these great ideas people have had for decades in this field that by the way most people today don't know about are suddenly relevant because LM

exist. So you can just like start a lot of what I think about is just taking

exist. So you can just like start a lot of what I think about is just taking good ideas that people had that actually work now and making them real.

>> There's a couple related topics that often come up together.

On one hand, it's more like malleable or moldable software that is inherently permanent. Uh actually our friend Tyler, I think he said something along the

permanent. Uh actually our friend Tyler, I think he said something along the lines of it's like moving the furniture around in your apartment in the first month of living there or something like that. And then on the other end, there's this idea that comes up, which is like, well, the models themselves know what

you're trying to accomplish and maybe are actually spinning up potentially even more disposable interfaces on your behalf. So, I'm kind of curious like where do you gravitate toward uh do you have any thoughts on what maybe even has

a more realistic possibility of being introduced into more general purpose mainstream tools like a notion? Even >> I'm so glad you asked about this cuz I think people are very confused about this and I I want to clarify something.

So, when I say malleable software, I do not mean only disposable software. The

main thing I think about with Malleable software is actually much closer to what you just brought up with Tyler's point of yeah designing my my my interior space in my house. Let's say when I come home I don't want everything to be rearranged, right? I want it to be the way it was. And if I want to move the

rearranged, right? I want it to be the way it was. And if I want to move the furniture or put things on the wall, I want to have the right to do that. And

so I think of it much more as kind of um crafting an environment over time that's actually more stable and predictable, not only for myself, but also for my team. Having shared environments that we all work in together that are

team. Having shared environments that we all work in together that are predictable is also really important, right? Ironically, actually, in some ways, I think sometimes malleable software results in more stable software because I have more control. So people really far away in some corporate office

aren't like pushing weird redesigns on me every day. I get to kind of organize my own house and keep it the way I want. You know, I think about longlasting software that evolves gradually through use as the primary lens for thinking

about malleability. Can I ask a clarifying question on that? So, how

about malleability. Can I ask a clarifying question on that? So, how

often do you think that is the user having some level of intent or it's like, hey, I want to change this or I want to mold this versus the underlying models themselves observing the behavior. Maybe they look at how you're using the AI chat over time and you're like, you know what, actually, let's

make you a corresponding interface because you're trying to accomplish these things frequently.

>> Where do you think that we might fit on that spectrum? I think the idea of proactively suggesting is cool because not everyone is the type of person who tends to think about opportunities like that or notice them. One of the reasons I care about malleability is that I think it cultivates a mindset for

people. It's a mindset of agency of believing that you can change your

people. It's a mindset of agency of believing that you can change your environments and your surroundings. And if you're a certain type of person, you start noticing those opportunities more, right? And I think the way that starts

is by having the opportunity to try something and have it have an effect and to feel that loop close. So, you know, I have I have a young baby now and when I think about the future of like how I want to raise her, it's like okay, like if she wants to like I don't know decorate her room or something, instead

of saying like no, like we choose how your room is decorated, it'd be cool to say like yeah, you can within these boundaries do that because then >> that's the kind of thing that encourages people to do more of that behavior, right? And so

>> I think sure like practice suggestions are are cool and I want people to increasingly live their entire lives thinking what can I change and not like here is what is handed to me. I just want to come back to the disposable software. Maybe it's a subcategory of malleability. I'm not quite sure. I

software. Maybe it's a subcategory of malleability. I'm not quite sure. I

think it's there's a time and place. I don't think all software is going to become disposable generated on the fly. And I think there is really value in these quick ephemeral tools. I do a lot of it in my own software engineering practice. I try to think about if I have a lot of money to spend on tokens and a

practice. I try to think about if I have a lot of money to spend on tokens and a lot of time for them to work overnight, like what can I get out of that? For

example, I'll give you one cocker example. I have a project I'm working on to port my personal website to a new framework. And the first attempt at it, I thought, you know, I'm just going to have Claude write me a script that does it. And it kind of worked, but I had to review this really long script, and I

it. And it kind of worked, but I had to review this really long script, and I found it hard to tell if it was really doing what I wanted. So then I said, can you make me a command center that will walk me through the process of doing

this port myself but visualize the entire process? So, there's like this crazy Bloomer terminal thing that has like two columns up, which is like the old and new website preview running live and then I click through steps and there's a little file preview thing too and each step it would say here's what

I'm doing and then I would see the files appear and then I would see my my new website version reload and I was okay like I see that that part is done now and it it kind of guided me through right and it was almost like if I had you do it and then I asked you to explain your work like that's you

wouldn't just send me the script you might like show me a bit and teach me and that tool is a onetime thing just for this one PR essentially. But I was able to economically build that cuz AI exists. And I call these tools jigs from woodworking. You know, you make like a tool just for the purpose of making one

woodworking. You know, you make like a tool just for the purpose of making one project. And I think that's also a really cool pattern. Like obviously you

project. And I think that's also a really cool pattern. Like obviously you built that from scratch, but thinking about something like a jig through the lens of notion, I do think it connects back to what you were talking about with the importance of primitives too because it's like you have to even within one

product ecosystem create something that is very composable and yet the primitives have to be flexible enough to be able to accomplish a lot. So there's

like this compounding familiarity, right? So it still feels like you're using the products but it feels like you did just spin something up for this one thing that you're trying to attach maybe. Yeah, absolutely. Having the

right toolkit can accelerate you so much in building jigs. And not only it's not just about familiarity, it's also about interoperability, I think. And what I mean by that is if you already have a bunch of existing tools and existing data, I'm not going to make a new disposable tool if that requires me to

totally like migrate all my data or like start over from scratch. I need my new tool to fit with my existing ecosystem. So, one analogy I like is like if I buy a new knife, I can bring that into my existing kitchen. I don't need to like

move to a different knife, right? Because in the physical world of kitchens often things just kind of interop that way. Um, in the world of bits, often you end up with such silos. And I

that way. Um, in the world of bits, often you end up with such silos. And I

think one of the greatest sins of typical SAS software is it makes it really hard to extend your existing universe with new custom tools. In

notion that's like kind of the whole system design is built around this idea that when I have a new way I want to see stuff or represent stuff or work with my data it's already in this flexible kind of universal format that I can bring new

new tools to bear upon whether that's you know new database views new automations or even you could go as far as like customcoded tools through the API like it's all going to work with this one ecosystem. >> All right let's zoom out for a second here because you've been thinking about this whole malleable software thing for

a while. All of a sudden, the level of attainability has skyrocketed with LMS.

a while. All of a sudden, the level of attainability has skyrocketed with LMS. When you kind of think about the vision for where this could all go, like where are we at on the curve, you know, and and what's it going to take for these

concepts to actually make it into mainstream products? >> So, one frame on this question is where are the bottlenecks now? >> I like that coding and technical ability

was the bottleneck before and now we see it opening up. I think the the other bottlenecks are now infrastructural more. The entire way that we build and distribute software was built around an old assumption that most people can't

code. You know, if you look back at the earliest history of software, actually

code. You know, if you look back at the earliest history of software, actually most software started out custom. So like as a company, you would hire a dev shop to build software for you and then at some point they realized, man, like dev times are really expensive and actually wait, there's like 10 companies

that have the same need. we're just going to package up I guess at the time it was like a floppy or something and sell it to you and holy we have great margins on you know the 11th CD uh floppy disc that we sell right

>> and we've kind of played out I think many decades of that way of thinking and in some ways it's gone really far like um if you have an iPhone you can't make software for the iPhone on the iPhone it's become very difficult even if you can code to distribute software so you have to go through app stores which are

designed for the needs of big corporations Right? It costs money to distribute. You have to pass a lot of like

distribute. You have to pass a lot of like protects and you know solve real problems that companies have shipping.

But that's not an appropriate mechanism for you to share some weird little tool that you made with your friend, right? So I think the the thought experiment we have to do is when everyone's constantly editing their tools and making new

tools, how do we share those? And this is what I explored a lot in Switch and why I'm really excited about notion which is that notion is one answer to that. Notion at its core is a platform where you make custom tools for yourself

that. Notion at its core is a platform where you make custom tools for yourself and your team and you share them with each other. And when you ship a new tool that you made in notion to your company, it doesn't have to go through some app store, right? It's literally it just feels like sharing a document. Another

store, right? It's literally it just feels like sharing a document. Another

analogy is like when you make a new spreadsheet tool for your company like in Google Sheets, you don't ship through an app store. You just like send a link around. Boom. Mhm.

>> You have a new tool and the editor for that tool is available to everyone using the tool. That's like the fundamental conditions that are required to enable

the tool. That's like the fundamental conditions that are required to enable malleability. And I think notion has that that foundation. And so we will

malleability. And I think notion has that that foundation. And so we will have to see how far that plays out. My view of the long term would be that eventually we should have every layer of computing built around that new assumption. So whether it's operating systems, app stores, the platforms we

assumption. So whether it's operating systems, app stores, the platforms we live in every day to do our work are going to have to grapple with that that reality. Yeah, it's interesting to think about where value and usage occurs in a

reality. Yeah, it's interesting to think about where value and usage occurs in a world where more of the software we're experiencing is malleable. There's like

a real pull towards the OS level in my mind. I agree and I would question like what do we mean by OS? So when I think of operating system, you can define it in a systems sense very technically of what an operating system is. For me as a

a more designoriented person I think of it as what are the fundamental concepts and metaphors that people think with when they use a computer today a lot of that's defined by the desktop operating system but also you know the browser defines some of it and even when you live a lot of your computing life in a

particular app that sort of can become an OS. I think that the term OS is overused but it actually does apply to certain platforms that you really kind of learn to think in terms of their concepts. So I agree with you that I

think general platforms with primitives are going to have an advantage in this new era. Yeah.

>> Let's play this out a little bit. So how does all of these changes change the role of designer and the way that we think about deliverables in a world where the interfaces we're designing, you know, they're they're changing and much more fluid.

>> One of my favorite inspirations for this is um Christopher Alexander. I think

he's somewhat famous among software designers, but he is an architect who believed that everyone could design their own house. And he wrote this very famous book called a pattern language, which and and it's sort of paired with this other book called a timeless way of building where he lays out this

philosophy around if you look at ancient European towns, they were not all built by like a developer, right? And yet they look beautiful, really, really beautiful. and everyone loves these old European towns. Like you can feel

beautiful. and everyone loves these old European towns. Like you can feel there's something there that's like very deeply beautiful. He dedicated his life to this problem and his belief about how that happened is that there was this set

of patterns in any local context that people use to make stuff or to design houses in this case. And normal people would be steeped in that set of patterns and they would know oh like you know we use this color brick here and oh like we

do town houses that look kind of like this but then they would adapt that to their specific site their specific needs as a family. They would just make stuff for themselves.

You would not have any cookie cutter copy paste but you also wouldn't have total chaos. It would be patterns. The role of Chris Alexander as an architect

total chaos. It would be patterns. The role of Chris Alexander as an architect or designer isn't to design your house. is to design a set of patterns and teach you that set of patterns and then you go design your house. And he actually did this like he wrote this whole book about how he and his team went to Mexico and

helped a bunch of families design their own houses and they developed a pattern language for that local environment and worked with the families to teach them enough architectural thinking so that they could then make their own choices.

And I absolutely love that way of thinking about the role of a designer because I think it does a better job dividing the line between what users know best and what designers know best. There is a role for design expertise, but it's more about designing the system and then teaching the user to do it, the

actual design themselves. >> Can we go all the way back to the beginning of your career then with your education startup and you're designing this software that teachers are using? What are some of the changes that you

would make if you were following this idea of focusing on patterns rather than the constrained software itself? So one idea I have there is very often um in schools they would have some strategic priorities right that is really the

things they care about and they're going to map those to metrics that are what they're measuring to it's it's like in some ways similar to working at a company you know different KPIs but might be you know we want students to feel engaged at school and we're going to run quarterly surveys to see how they

feel about that. I think we we thought of this as like can we make five dashboards around key topics that a lot of schools care about that are awesome.

I think now with the tools that are available, I want to flip it more to build your own dashboard. So what are the building blocks we can give you, it's on you to decide what you care about and kind of decide how you're going to measure it and how you can use our tools to achieve that. We need to

educate you around what tools are available and also we can educate you around things that we're experts in like you know statistical analysis so that you don't draw mistaken conclusions for example or you know benchmarks against national data that we have. But ultimately the ball's in your court like

it's your school. figure out what you care about. Design the interface that prioritizes the metrics you care about, I think, is how is how I would go about it. Now,

>> I'm trying to envision this dashboard now. And I think it's natural to go to this place of, well, you got to have good defaults as a way to teach people what something can be. And I'm like, well, is the defaults basically the

product that you would make to begin with? And is that just like the new way of thinking about it where the product design is more or less a set of defaults and then you have the building blocks and systems around it. Does that feel does that resonate?

>> Totally resonates. I think it's it's like 70% of the way there and there.

>> Give me the other 30. Yeah. First of all, absolutely this totally resonates and it really fits what I think of as malleable software which is it's not everyone's starting from scratch every time. It's more that you you start somewhere that someone else already thought about and then when you want to

tweak, you can, right? And so I think I would mostly say it the way you did.

There there's one issue though, which is that when you get a big piece of software handed to you, it's not always clear how to go about changing it. And

in fact, like if you're not as familiar with the building blocks already, you might not even think about what you would change. I think, you know, you see this like people who are more familiar with the creation of software as a process tend to have stronger opinions as users, right? And so I think this is

relevant for notion. If you clone a big notion template that's a really useful piece of software and then you have an idea for something you wish it could do.

How do you actually enact that? And this is where I think AI can play a really key role which is that so a it can be your dev for you so to speak and help you make the changes when you want to make them. But I think there's a much

deeper thing too which is can AI help you learn about the primitives and help teach you to actually be creative and virtuosic in arranging them in your head to do new things for you because ultimately the really best tools are

only going to come if you actually are becoming fluent in the primitives right and so >> I think part of that is thinking about ways to use AI that don't just feel like automation and getting as far away from the details as possible and are closer

to like working with the AI and it's teaching you how to do it yourself and unblocking you so that you are actually developing these deeper thought patterns.

>> I like that. It almost feels like you have to loosen the grip on time to value as a core measuring stick for some kind of like a new user experience because as you were talking even I was changing the picture in my head from one set of

defaults to maybe there's a little bit more of a lengthy onboarding where the AI is learning about someone and you can see it like pulling from maybe you know I don't know three or four different sets of defaults and it's actually like

shaping your product for you in the beginning. You can see it changing. All

of that is interesting, but it's like, you know, it's going to take more time, but maybe that's actually a good thing. >> This is a fascinating tension, right? I

think the reality is some users want to get to value immediately and if you force them into a slow process, they're they're just going to leave cuz they're not invested. On the flip side, I think it's funny to imagine like imagine you

not invested. On the flip side, I think it's funny to imagine like imagine you work with a design consultancy and you're invested. You're like, I want to make the best app. And you show up to their office and you're like ready to go. And then they just say, here you go. and they just give you the software that

go. And then they just say, here you go. and they just give you the software that they made yesterday and they kick you out, you would be like, "What?" Like I I wanted you to like at least ask me like one question about what I want, right?

And I think when you imagine how we expect that process to go, it's like, "Oh, I think this is going to take a few weeks where like in the first meeting, we're just going to talk about what I need and you're going to understand me.

Maybe you'll come back tomorrow with like some sketches on a napkin of like ideas and I'm going to have an opportunity to like guide you towards one of them." Right? And the reason I'm going through that process is because I believe that it's worth it to have something custom for me and that time is

worth it. So I think there's a spectrum there and maybe some of it's going to be

worth it. So I think there's a spectrum there and maybe some of it's going to be resetting expectations around how this stuff happens. Computers are often really bad at reading the room. Am I in a rush just trying to get this done? Do

I want to go deep and make a beautiful thing? I think better understanding of how the user feels on that spectrum is something that we need to think about. I

want to take a hard left because you had a tweet that I loved recently and you talked about your practice of coding like a surgeon. So, I'd love for you to just unpack that. What are some of the things that you're thinking about? How

have you evolved the way that you work with some of these new AI tools?

>> Yeah. So, coding like a surgeon, intentionally weird tagline, right? What

I was reacting to is I think there's a bit of a a strand in the discourse around AI right now that goes something like, "Oh, every IC is becoming a manager, right? Because oh, you're gonna have all these agents and we're all

manager, right? Because oh, you're gonna have all these agents and we're all going to be like living manager life, which is like you're on Slack constantly like talking to your reports and like unblocking them and stuff." I'm thinking

about, you know, two things I find frustrating about that worldview. One, I

don't really want to do that. >> Sounds not like there there's a reason I'm not a manager, right? and and that's a personal preference thing, but two, I'm not convinced that that's actually a path to producing my best work. Even as

AI gets better, you know, maybe at some point, but I think given the current capabilities that AI is really, really useful to me, but that's not how I want to use it. And so the idea of coding like a surgeon is very simple. A surgeon

does the damn surgery. They don't like sit in some admin office while someone else does the surgery. They are in there. I don't really, you know, want to get into like gory details, like they're doing stuff, right? They're uh and they

have assistants in the room who are helping them live with lots of auxiliary parts. They have prep that happens before they walk into the room cuz their

parts. They have prep that happens before they walk into the room cuz their time is really valuable. They're, you know, probably not spending a lot of their time on like less leveraged things because they have such specialized

expertise, but in a way they're like a highle individual contributor at the core is how I see it. And a lot of people have quibbles like I've people have responded to tweet being like, "No, you didn't quite like get how sources work." It's like I'm not I don't mean this in a super literal sense. I just

work." It's like I'm not I don't mean this in a super literal sense. I just

mean how do we think of AI as a way to leverage our time better and stay connected to the work and doing it ourselves but having prep work done for us, having tools in the moment helping us do it so that we can really focus on

the stuff we love to do and do less of everything else. And that's, you know, how I'm trying to use coding agents for my core work that I care about today, which is like when I show up, sit down at my desk in the morning and work on a

feature, I want to be prepped with like a brief on all the code I'm going to be touching today, how it works, what the what the traps are. Maybe I'll see a draft that the AI did for me overnight, sketching out how the coding could go.

Uh maybe some ideas for me. All the bugs that were there in the protype yesterday have been fixed for me overnight. I didn't have to do that part. And now I just get to go play and be creative >> and do that that you know that

three-hour sprint that really is like what I love to do and what I'm uniquely like positioned to do as as me with my human skills. It really resonates

because I'm someone who is very excited about how like coding with AI has unlocked me as someone who kind of I had a decent understanding of code but I I most of the syntax has escaped me over the years and all of a sudden it's like

wow you know I can really participate. That being said, sometimes it feels choppy like it's really difficult for me to get into a flow state coding. And so

that I think was maybe why your post resonated because I don't know if I've cracked that yet.

>> 100%. And and you see this tooling spectrum around these different ways of working. Like when I'm coding like I use cursor because cursor is a product

working. Like when I'm coding like I use cursor because cursor is a product that's committed as their philosophy to this interactive loop with the human.

They prioritize latency and visibility. Cursor tab complete is really snappy and helps me stay in flow. Coding agents not so much. it's more choppy and um feels more like delegation and so I do use them but I try to be very mindful of how

these different tools play different roles in my creative process because like you said being in flow is a really important part of getting to good work for me. I think sometimes people have this really mistaken view of the

for me. I think sometimes people have this really mistaken view of the creative process where they imagine like if you're making ceramics, these people would think you can just say like, "Oh, I want a pot that like looks like that."

And then a robot could go make it and it looks it comes out. But no, like when you do ceramics, you're like feeling the clay and like you're in a feedback loop, right? And like you're you're >> you're shaping something and as it takes

right? And like you're you're >> you're shaping something and as it takes shape, you're responding to the way it is now and quickly acting with your hands. And there's this very magical creative thing that anyone who does

hands. And there's this very magical creative thing that anyone who does creative work has felt at times where you're kind of like in this loop and things are just clicking somehow and I don't want to lose that. I think um

losing that would not allow me to do my best work. >> Yeah. I was like the friction drives the thought and so much of what we try to do at a system level is eliminate friction cost.

>> Exly. Exactly. H before I let you go, I want to tap into your experience as someone who really is able to kind of straddle the the fence here of design and engineering. You have the rich coding background. You're working with these

engineering. You have the rich coding background. You're working with these tools. You're pushing things forward. So, do you have any lessons learned or

tools. You're pushing things forward. So, do you have any lessons learned or tips for designers who are not as far on that journey? Maybe they've just started dabbling in cursor or clawed code. they're actively trying to invest in

this part of their practice as a designer, but it still feels kind of early. Anything you want to share with them before I let you go? >> I think the thing I would say is

early. Anything you want to share with them before I let you go? >> I think the thing I would say is something that applies to me, too, which is that when I'm using AI tools, I'm always trying to think about how can I be picking up stuff as I go and learning from this experience and getting more in the details faster using the AI rather

than staying away from the details. And I think it requires active effort to use AI tools in this way, but it is absolutely possible to do it. So

concrete example, maybe when I ask claw to do something, sometimes they'll say, "Give me the plan and then I'll go do it." Then if I get stuck, I'll ask you for help. And I'm doing that intentionally because that's forcing me

for help. And I'm doing that intentionally because that's forcing me to go through the friction of actually learning what's going on here. And maybe

I'll have it do stuff I already know how to do. But for stuff that I don't know how to do, I'll do it myself, right? And I think for anyone on any point on the technical spectrum, there's always new stuff to learn, always new things to pick up. We have the best learning machines ever invented now, but they

pick up. We have the best learning machines ever invented now, but they happen to also be cheat on your homework machines at the same time. And so every day we get to make a choice. Are we going to cheat on our homework? Are we going to get better?

>> Something I've been very aware of recently is the difference between when I'm using cursor and cloud code in default settings where I have to approve everything.

you know, like cloud code out of the box kind of slows you down in a way that maybe I don't know, maybe that's how it ends with flow state, but it is that's learning mode for me, you know, like I'm trying to get a little bit more intentional about, okay, you know what, I'm I'm actually going to read this.

Like, I'm going to try to make sense of this, maybe ask a follow-up question, and then I'll hit approve rather than sometimes in cursor, it's a little bit easy to kind of just start scrolling more quickly down the chat history.

>> Yeah, that's funny. I mean, I would even push further on that and say, "So, yes, approving commands is one way, but can we do better, right? So, maybe it just goes and does the whole thing, and then it comes back to you with some learning experience. It knows your context. It knows how much you know, and it's going

experience. It knows your context. It knows how much you know, and it's going to try to teach you how this thing works. So, what if it like puts together a 10-minute video teaching you how it works with interactive diagrams and then quiz questions that you have to answer to check for understanding, right? Like,

why aren't we doing that?" I mean, it's that sort of stuff is on the edge of current capabilities, but I think it's absolutely doable and we should be demanding really, really good explanations of what the AI did that bring us along as humans. And I think, you know, that's a very underexplored area.

>> Wow. I hadn't really thought about that before. And immediately the picture in my brain was almost like Tik Tok style, you know, like just make it as engaging as possible. show me what you did and have me participate in that ideation

as possible. show me what you did and have me participate in that ideation process. That is very there's so much in that world. >> And there are there are simpler versions

process. That is very there's so much in that world. >> And there are there are simpler versions of it too. Every time I review a code PR now, whether it's one by a human or an AI, I ask AI for help reviewing it. So I'll say what's basically going on here.

Give me an overview. What file should I read in what order? What are some things that I should look out for? You know, AI can help us be more critical with our thinking, not less. which I'm sure that you are in the throngs of experiencing that at notion onboarding to a very large codebase. >> This is a huge thing for me on boarding

this codebase like it is very in my first months at the company. It's really

useful to me to actually learn how the damn thing works. >> Yeah.

>> Uh rather than just like have everything done for me, right? So, um it's both like a huge accelerant and like a bit of a dangerous crutch if I don't use it the right way, I think. >> Well, Jeffrey, you've left me with a lot to think about. I really appreciate you coming on and taking the time today to

share some of the things that are rattling around in your brain and congrats on the role at Notion. Very excited to see what you bring into the world.

>> Thanks so much. Great to talk to you. >> Before I let you go, I want to take just one minute to run you through my favorite products because I'm constantly asked what's in my stack. Framer is how I build websites. Genway is how I do

research. Granola is how I take notes during crit. Jitter is how I animate my

research. Granola is how I take notes during crit. Jitter is how I animate my designs. Lovable is how I build my ideas in code. Mobin is how I find design

designs. Lovable is how I build my ideas in code. Mobin is how I find design inspiration. Paper is how I design like a creative. And Raycast is my shortcut

inspiration. Paper is how I design like a creative. And Raycast is my shortcut every step of the way. Now, I've hand selected these companies so that I can do these episodes full-time. So, by far the number one way to support the show

is to check them out. You can find the full list at dive.club/partners.