Finding Our Way

Journalist, technologist, and Aboard co-founder Paul Ford joins Peter and Jesse with the perspective of someone running a services firm in the middle of being remade by AI. The conversation covers the collapsing cost of software, blurring roles, what machines do well and badly, what design's value proposition becomes, and Paul's practical advice for staying upright through indefinite change.

Design consultant John Gleason returns to explore the leadership skills design needs to claim greater strategic influence. The conversation covers vulnerability and psychological safety, translating design value into business outcomes, the boldness required to assert a larger value proposition, and how to avoid burnout while navigating organizational complexity.

Jesse's surfing metaphor opens a conversation about discernment and collective action in the liminal moment. Peter and Jesse explore why not every wave is yours to catch, how to find fellow travelers across functions and beyond your organization, and why sustainable pace — not anxious intensity — is what keeps leaders navigating when uncertainty has no end date.

Information architect and consultant Jorge Arango returns five years later with a pointed question at the center of his practice: when AI can handle the surface work, what is design actually for? The conversation explores first principles, the conditions for skillful AI adoption, and why going faster without clarity just accelerates you in the wrong direction.

Show Notes About the episode: Dan Saffer—designer, author, and CMU professor—joins Peter and Jesse to take stock of design education at a moment when everything is in flux. What’s worth teaching when the tools change weekly? How do you define quality when AI can spin up a passable prototype in minutes? And what are today’s […]