Leading through uncertainty: A design-led company - Brian Chesky (Config 2023)

Summary

在2023年Config大会的闭幕主题演讲中，Figma的设计经理Sarah Culver和产品副总裁Sho Kuamoto介绍了应对不确定性的主题。特邀嘉宾Airbnb的CEO兼联合创始人Brian Chesky分享了将设计置于公司核心的经验，展示了Airbnb如何在过去几年的起伏中导航。Brian讲述了他如何重新审视公司的运作方式，通过强调设计的重要性，简化产品和提高效率，将Airbnb转变为一个以设计为中心的组织。他的故事强调了设计不仅仅是美学，而是一种解决问题和应对不确定性的方法，激励听众将设计思维应用于各自的领域。

Takeaways

• 🤔 设计不仅仅是关于外观，它关乎于事物的基本运作方式。
• 🎨 设计师应该拥有决定权，不仅仅是跟随指令行事。
• 🚀 设计可以是解决不确定性的一种方式，尤其在当前充满挑战的时代。
• 🌍 设计思维不仅限于产品设计，它还可以应用于公司的业务模型、组织结构和工作方式。
• 💡 设计是关于创造你想要生活在的世界，而不仅仅是制作产品。
• 👥 设计与技术、市场营销和产品管理应该是协同工作的，而不是孤立存在。
• 🔄 设计师应该从用户研究和数据分析中获得洞察，并将这些洞察转化为直观的设计决策。
• 🔍 设计的本质在于简化，将事物精炼到其本质。
• 📈 设计师不仅可以设计产品，还可以设计公司，甚至有能力成为公司的领导者。
• ❤️ 设计需要从心出发，将人性化思考融入产品和服务之中。

Q & A

Brian是什么样的设计背景?

Brian毕业于罗德岛设计学院工业设计专业。他是一个具有设计思维的CEO。

Brian如何看待设计师的作用?

Brian认为设计师不应该只是执行别人的想法,而应该在公司决策中发挥更大的作用,甚至掌管公司的运行。

Airbnb是如何应对疫情冲击的?

Airbnb的业务在疫情中下滑80%。Brian进行了组织架构调整,采用功能化管理,减少项目数量,集中资源做最重要的事,重新确立设计在公司中的核心地位。

Airbnb现在的盈利状况如何?

Brian表示,Airbnb去年实现了近40亿美元的自由现金流,远超苹果和谷歌的同期业绩。

设计部门如何在非设计驱动型公司中获得更多发言权?

Brian建议设计师应该有底气和勇气,不要总是妥协;要简化工作,提高工艺;用管理层的语言解释设计的价值。

Airbnb的产品路线图是如何制定的?

Brian作为CEO长期掌控路线图。路线图大体覆盖3年,近1年比较明确,2年后较模糊。路线图结合市场、设计、工程等部门制定。

Airbnb是如何改进核心服务的?

绘制全客户旅程图,分析相关的政策文件、运营痛点等,在此基础上针对性改进服务。

Brian如何看待设计师与用户和客户的交流?

这很必要,但设计不仅仅是与用户交流,更需要从全局俯瞰整个体验。

Brian对想创业的设计师有什么建议?

设计不仅仅是界面和产品,还包括商业模式、组织架构等。设计师应该有胆识突破界限,学会整体设计公司的运行。

Brian认为设计对21世纪的重要性体现在哪里?

Brian认为设计是解决不确定性的关键,设计出人们真正需要的产品和服务。

Outlines

00:00

🎤 开场与感谢

这段视频是Config 2023大会第一天闭幕主题演讲的开场。Sarah Culver和Sho Kuamoto对出席者表示欢迎和感谢，提到了一些与会者因容量限制无法参加自己希望参加的讲座的情况，并承诺会对此进行调整。他们也提到了所有讲座都有录像，会尽快通过邮件发送给与会者。此外，他们引入了闭幕演讲的主题——导航不确定性，并分享了自己对于不确定性的看法和设计在解决不确定性中的作用。

05:03

🌟 设计与不确定性

这一段演讲主要围绕如何通过设计来导航不确定性。演讲者提到，在当前充满挑战和变化的世界中，设计不仅是关于创造事物的外观和感觉，而是关于决定我们想要构建什么样的未来。演讲者通过介绍Airbnb的设计为中心的理念，展示了设计如何在公司的发展和面对困难时扮演关键角色。

10:04

🔄 Airbnb的转变

这段讲话讲述了Airbnb如何经历一场关于自我发现和转变的旅程。创始人Brian Chesky回顾了公司从设计驱动到在2019年末感觉失去方向的过程，并分享了他如何在遇到COVID-19大流行带来的挑战时，借此机会重新聚焦于设计和创新，从而实现公司的快速回弹和成功。这个故事强调了在危机中坚持创新和设计原则的重要性。

15:04

🛠 重塑Airbnb

Brian Chesky深入讲述了他如何领导Airbnb在经历重大挑战后进行重大改革。他解释了将公司从业务单元组织转变为功能组织的决定，减少项目数量，并重视设计和产品开发过程中的质量而非数量。他还强调了减少A/B测试并将决策权集中在一小群高层领导身上的重要性，这有助于公司在经济困难时期实现显著的财务表现。

20:05

🎨 设计的力量

在这一段中，Brian Chesky探讨了设计的更广泛意义，强调设计不仅仅是视觉美学，而是关于如何使事物工作的根本方式。他分享了设计可以如何影响公司的商业模式、组织结构和运营方式，进而提出了设计不只是一个部门，而是一种思考世界的方式。他还讨论了设计师如何能够通过拥抱创造力和勇气，来解决业务和社会面临的复杂问题。

25:07

🚀 设计与公司运营

这部分聚焦于Airbnb如何将设计融入到公司的日常运营和决策过程中。Brian Chesky详细描述了设计在产品开发、市场营销和客户体验方面的作用，以及如何通过集成设计、产品和市场团队来优化这些流程。他分享了一个具体的案例，说明了通过深入了解用户需求和市场趋势，设计师如何能够在产品创新中起到决定性作用。

🔍 用户体验全貌

这一段揭示了Airbnb如何通过广泛的用户研究和反馈来持续改进其服务和产品。Brian Chesky强调了理解和改善用户全程体验的重要性，包括客户服务、社交媒体反馈和直接用户研究。他介绍了一种全面的方法来审视和优化用户体验，从而确保公司能够在提供核心服务方面做到最好，同时也为新的创新项目铺平道路。

🌱 对未来设计师的寄语

在视频的最后，Brian Chesky向设计师发出了鼓舞人心的信息，鼓励他们拥抱创造力、勇气和创新。他提出了一个观点，即设计师不仅能够为产品和服务添加价值，而且有潜力领导公司和塑造业务策略。通过分享自己的经历和对未来的展望，他激励设计师们采取行动，成为变革的先驱，并在21世纪的设计和商业世界中发挥关键作用。

Keywords

💡不确定性

不确定性指的是未来发展中存在的不可预测性和变数。在视频中，不确定性被描述为当前世界面临的一个重要挑战，包括疫情封锁、经济影响、以及人工智能的迅速发展等因素。这些都是导致未来难以预测的因素，而设计被视为在不确定性中寻找解决方案的一种方式。

💡设计

设计在视频中被描述为一种解决问题的方法，特别是在面对不确定性时。设计不仅仅是关于美学或外观，更是关于构思和实现未来的一种方式。视频中提到，设计的本质是关于我们想要构建什么、我们希望未来是什么样子的。

💡Airbnb

Airbnb作为案例被广泛引用，展示了一家以设计为中心的公司如何成功导航过去几年的起伏。视频中强调了Airbnb如何将设计置于其产品和文化的中心，以及其创始人对设计的重视是如何帮助公司度过难关的。

💡设计驱动的公司

设计驱动的公司是指那些将设计思维和方法作为其核心战略之一的公司。在视频中，Airbnb被举例说明了如何通过将设计置于一切决策的中心，从而创造出既有吸引力又有功能性的产品，并通过这种方式实现公司的成功和增长。

💡产品管理

产品管理在视频中被讨论，特别是在谈到传统的产品管理如何可能阻碍创新和设计的重要性时。视频中提到，Airbnb的转变包括重新思考产品管理的角色，强调设计和产品营销的结合，以及如何更好地集成设计思维到产品开发过程中。

💡组织重构

组织重构是指公司内部结构和流程的重新安排，以适应新的战略目标或解决存在的问题。视频中提到，Airbnb在面临危机时进行了组织重构，从业务单位组织转变为功能组织，这有助于简化流程、提高效率，并更好地集成设计到每个项目中。

💡创新

创新在视频中被强调为企业成功和持续发展的关键因素。通过Airbnb的例子，视频展示了如何通过设计思维和重新思考传统业务模式来实现创新，以及如何通过简化产品和服务来满足用户需求和提高用户体验。

💡用户体验

用户体验指的是用户在使用产品或服务过程中的感受和体验。视频中讨论了用户体验的重要性，以及如何通过设计来改善用户体验，特别是通过理解用户需求、优化用户界面和流程、以及确保产品满足用户的期望。

💡AB测试

AB测试是一种比较两个或多个版本的方法，以确定哪一个版本在特定指标上表现更好。视频中提到，虽然AB测试可以用于优化产品，但过度依赖AB测试可能会导致缺乏创新和过分依赖数据，而不是设计和用户体验。因此，Airbnb选择在有假设的情况下谨慎使用AB测试。

💡愿景

愿景在视频中被描述为企业或个人对未来的看法和目标。视频中强调，即使在不确定性中，也需要有明确的愿景来指导设计和决策。通过案例分析，展示了如何通过坚持愿景和通过设计实现这一愿景，来应对挑战和不确定性。

Highlights

Sarah Culver and Sho Kuamoto open Config 2023, acknowledging the capacity challenges and promising improvements.

The theme of navigating uncertainty is introduced, emphasizing design's role in shaping the future amid unpredictable changes.

Brian Chesky's approach to putting design at the center of Airbnb's strategy is highlighted as a model for a design-led company.

Brian Chesky, as the only designer CEO in the Fortune 500, emphasizes the unconventional yet successful strategy of Airbnb.

Chesky shares a pivotal moment in 2019, questioning the conventional operations at Airbnb and seeking a more design-centric approach.

The impact of COVID-19 on Airbnb leads to a radical rethinking of the company's structure and strategy, emphasizing design and simplification.

The introduction of Hiroki Asai and Jony Ive as influences on Chesky's vision for a design-driven company transformation.

Airbnb's shift to a functional organization and prioritization of projects to focus on quality over quantity.

The elimination of classic product management roles in favor of integrating design and product marketing for a more cohesive product development process.

Chesky's hands-on approach to product review and decision-making, fostering a 'shared consciousness' within Airbnb.

Airbnb's financial turnaround and success attributed to a design-led, simplified business model.

The importance of designers not just as service providers but as integral to the product development process from the start.

The concept of the 'Airbnb Blueprint' for comprehensive product improvement through understanding the end-to-end user journey.

The role of storytelling and marketing in product development, ensuring that new features are well communicated and understood by users.

Brian Chesky's encouragement for designers to take bold steps, start companies, and influence the future through design-driven leadership.

Transcripts

foreign

[Music]

welcome back to the closing keynote of

day one of config 2023 I'm Sarah Culver

I'm a design manager at figma and I'm

shokuamoto vice president of product

um first of all I just wanted to thank

everybody for being here with us today I

know a lot of you guys have traveled and

taken time of your out of your day to

come here and I also know that not

everybody could get into the talks that

they wanted to get into due to capacity

so I just wanted to acknowledge that and

thank you guys we're going to make some

changes oh now I think they took the

clicker because uh I they gave me the

thing okay anyway they're gonna Advance

it okay this is like a actually this is

a comedy routine you didn't realize this

but it's going to be comedy

um so anyway so we're sorry about that

and uh we're gonna make some tweaks

tomorrow to some of the room assignments

and layouts and things like that so

hopefully that would be better for

tomorrow

and also all the talks are recorded and

we're going to try to email them out to

you as fast as possible so that we can

you can see them when you uh get back so

thank you for sticking with us

but we're not done yet for today we're

back to introduce our closing keynote

sessions uh the theme for this afternoon

is navigating uncertainty what does that

mean to you show

um okay so uncertainty to me well

the world as we know is

um you know going through a lot right

now we've had pandemic closures we've

have an economy that's affected a lot of

people's jobs we have ai which is

exciting but every month every week

There's new news and you know it's hard

to even know what is the world going to

look like 20 years from now or even five

years from now

and the way that I think about it is

that design is fundamentally about what

do we want to build what do we want to

make what do we want the future to be

like and it's hard to think about that

when things are so uncertain

so you know times aren't certain and I

think uncertain times call for more

vision and that's hard but it's

important so design is kind of a

solution to uncertainty ultimately I

like that a lot

um our first Speaker of branchesky has

really taken the approach of putting

design at the center of everything and

his leadership of Airbnb to me Airbnb is

the epitome of a design-led company you

know you can see it in both the product

and in the culture and it's been really

impressive to me to see how Airbnb has

navigated the ups and downs of the past

few years

yep so please join us in welcoming Brian

in conversation with Dylan

[Applause]

[Music]

[Music]

welcome to config Brian well thank you

for having me thank you all and for

being here uh I think that Brian

probably needs no introduction but just

in case uh Brian is the CEO and

co-founder of Airbnb and I looked at the

entire Fortune 500 all the CEOs and I

believe correctly if I'm wrong that you

are the only designer CEO in the fortune

500. if there's another one I'd love to

meet them

so

you know maybe we can start off with uh

we were talking last week about this you

were telling me that at some point in

the company Journey

you sat down and realized

uh that you were doing things in a very

conventional way yeah despite your

design training and uh maybe you can

tell us more about that what that

realization was like

yeah so let me take you back to um

2019 the end of 2019.

I had this suspicious feeling that like

I mean well actually you can go back

further I went to the Rhode Island

School design with um my one of my

co-founders Joe gebbia and

um it was kind of crazy the idea that a

founding team would have two designers

and one engineer it was so crazy that I

remember when we pitched one of our

First Investors he said we love

everything but you and your idea and one

of the things they managed strangers

will never sleep save those strangers

and designers don't start companies

and at RISD in the year 2000 when I was

there I studied industrial design

and there was this whole mantra

how do you get design in the boardroom

and Joe and I maybe we didn't know any

better we thought what if design just

ran the boardroom

and that was the whole premise behind

Airbnb and so we had these magical ideas

of what everybody could become and for a

moment for a while I felt like it was

really special and magical

and then 10 years later it's now 2019

and I wake up one day and I have this

like I have this horrible dream and the

dream is it's as if I've been gone for

10 years I come back to the company and

it's unrecognizable and I go on a hike

in Bolinas California with my two

co-founders Joe and Nate and I tell them

about this dream and they said what

happened and I said that dream that we

had that company that would be magical

that was like an amazing product people

loved that we were starting to lose it

it was starting to wear down wear out

and let me explain what was happening

see I basically was a designer and I

kind of noticed

there's two types of people and

companies never become CEOs Engineers

become CEOs at Silicon Valley marketers

become CFOs Finance people come CEOs

operators become CEOs but the two people

that never run companies are designers

and head of HR

I started thinking why is this

and I think it's because design in some

ways is fragile because companies are

organized around the scientific method

and the creative process is something

that requires nerve and over the years I

started losing my nerve and I brought in

a lot of people from a lot of different

companies and they brought their way of

working towards us so what do we do we

had divisional we basically

divisionalized so we had like 10

different divisions they had like 10

different subdivisions we were very much

run by product managers

we had a plethora of a b experiments and

the thing I started noticing is the more

um people we added the more project we

pursued the less our app changed and the

more the cost went up and I didn't know

what to do it's now late 2019 and I tell

Joe and I'm like this is like I don't

know what to do and they're like well

what are you going to do and I said well

I don't know because we're about to go

public

and so blowing up the company before

you're like ready to go public is kind

of a bad time

so I go back uh home for the holidays

and it's now early 2020.

we're preparing to go public

and I actually it's right before 2020 I

meet two people that changed my life

the first person I meet is a guy named

Hiroki assai

Hiroki assai was the creative director

at Apple and he reported Steve Jobs and

he worked at Apple from like 1998 to

2016. wow and the second person I

already knew but I got reacquainted was

Johnny Ive and Johnny I've ran designed

apple and at that moment I kind of

forgot about the magic of this design

Renaissance that Steve Jobs had and they

described this company to me and the way

of running a company with a design at

the center where like it was a totally

different way of running a company than

everything I was taught everything I was

taught about how you run a company was

opposite of what Steve Jobs and Johnny

Ive and Hiroki did at Apple

so I hired Hiroki Johnny had this firm

we brought him on we became our number

one client and now I have this idea

there's maybe a better rate around

company

but there's still a problem we're going

to go public

so what do we do

all of a sudden

I remember our business drops 80 in

China it's January 2020.

and there was this thing that no one in

the United States was talking about

called covid and I remember thinking wow

if this thing spread Beyond China be

really bad

eight weeks we lost 80 percent of our

business

and when you're our size you lose 80

percent of your business in eight weeks

it's like an 18 wheeler going 80 miles

an hour and then slamming on the brakes

nothing good happens we go from one of

the hottest IPOs in the world to within

eight weeks people running articles like

is this the end of Airbnb will Airbnb

exist eight weeks before we're prepared

to go public

at this point I've never luckily had a

near-death experience but the way it's

been described to me is your life

flashes before your eyes

and that's kind of what happened with

our business our business flash for our

eyes

and at that moment I remember thinking

to myself I don't know what's going to

happen if we can save the company but

how do I want to be remembered if this

Airbnb is like a burning house and I can

only take half the things out of the

house what do I take with me it suddenly

was really clarifying and another thing

happened

I realized that for 10 years I was

apologizing about how I wanted to run

the company because how I really wanted

to run the company was as a designer but

I just didn't have the nerve but the

moment like it was a crucible moment we

did that so what do we do we rebuilt the

company from the ground up we went from

business unit organization to a

functional organization so we had a

design Department a marketing department

engineering department the way every

startup is run

we took all the projects in the company

first of all I asked every leader show

me your roadmap they couldn't even

figure out their road maps because

everyone had a sub road map on sub teams

and those teams had road maps and those

teams had road maps and so I said

there's a simpler rule if it's not in

the road map it can't ship and it must

be on one road map so with this giant

exercise we put every single thing on

one road map then I said we can only do

10 of the things on the road map that

was a wet Reckoning so I said we're only

going to do a few really big things we

took the very best people we put them

all in a few projects and then I said

we're not going to do a B test unless a

B test a b testing is abdicating your

responsibility to the users and so we're

going to do a little bit of

experimentation but if we do a b testing

you're going to only do it if you have a

hypothesis

if B is better than a you have to know

why B was better than a otherwise we're

stuck with that for like the next 10

years and so we are going to focus

number one on shipping things that

you're proud of if you don't put your

name on it you don't ship it the

designers are equal to the product

managers actually we got rid of the

classic product management function

Apple didn't have it either

well let's be careful

hold on we have we we have product

marketers we combined product management

with product marketing and we said that

you can't develop products unless you

know how to talk about the products we

made the team much smaller we elevated

design by the way I started thinking

myself who's the product manager when

you designed a building

the architect

so

we thought of designers very much as

Architects and we started doing these

release Cycles where we'll ship 80

percent of the products twice a year

during these releases and then to be

clear we do do optimizations we do ship

code every single hour of every single

day but that's a budget that's about 20

percent

and this is how we start around the

company

and I started reviewing all the work I

reviewed the work every week every two

weeks every four weeks before people

thought that was meddling and I said you

know what screw it like we're going to

review everything I'm going to be the

chief editor and I didn't push decision

making down I decided to pull decision

making into Orchestra conductor and what

we created was a shared consciousness of

like the top 30 40 people in the company

and it was like one neural network one

brain

so all this is what we're doing while

people say we're going to go out of

business something remarkable happens

not only do we not go out of business

but in the last three years we went from

a company that was Break Even to last

year we did nearly four billion dollars

in free cash flow I think that deserves

a round of applause yeah and

it was like it was totally crazy because

like that is actually more free cash

flow for every dollar earned than Apple

or Google

and the crazy thing is we did that by

not trying to make money

but there's something amazing a designer

can do more than move pixels on a screen

a designer can design a company to have

fewer parts so we were able to State my

competitors are some of them are former

CFOs and yet as a designer we were able

to imagine a way to save more money

because you could design a company with

fewer Parts fewer projects we and so I

think that

you know design is much more than a

department it's a way of thinking about

the world and I think there's a whole

new generation of designers that aren't

just going to work for engineers they're

going to sit alongside Engineers they're

not just going to be told what to do by

product managers they are going to be

helping Drive the product and some of

them are going to choose to drive

companies because ultimately what

everyone wants is to have a product

people love you take a company of The

Head and the Heart and a lot of

companies cut themselves off at the head

and they really focus on one side of the

head but most people are like they don't

think like that they want a product that

is deeply loving and so that's kind of

our story of what we did

I love it thank you

it was it was interesting to hear the

audience reactions you talked because

you're like no way be tested people like

should I applaud limited I don't know we

do a control treatment but like it's not

like we don't well I thought you don't

like responsibility I have a hypothesis

think by first principles and metrics

are not a strategy a strategy is not

growing that's not a strategy yep that's

not a strategy we all want to grow but a

strategy we talk about putting your arms

around the entire company we try to have

one small design team that sees the

entire product and this is critical

because if you have an idea it's like

pulling on a string of a shirt if you

are contained to one surface then you've

got to get the entire company on board

and so that's why I think this

integrated approach is so important so

if you're somebody in the audience yeah

you're an IC designer a design manager

maybe a design leader somewhere and

you're not the founder of the company

uh you're not in a company maybe that

even has a Founder anymore that's no

one's maybe it's a CFO running the

company yeah you know and there's a lot

of great CFOs out there running

companies yeah

how do you push for a design driven

strategy

well

it's a really good question I I think

that um

I've been thinking a lot about this

this something interesting I noticed

lawyers never have to justify their job

like well I'm a CFO doesn't have to

justify like why you need a CFO

and there's very few functions where

people feel like they have to constantly

justify their job and designers seem to

constantly do it designers seem to

constantly justify their job

I think that designers are probably a

little too self-conscious I think the

designers should have a nerve and they

should ask themselves like what are we

trying to solve and be a little less

compromising I don't mean to be

completely difficult inside the company

but I think that design as a function

has probably seated too much ground you

know again in many companies like

Architects don't seem to have this

problem because there's like a thousand

years of History around that field

but we designers a lot of us came late

to the party web designers came after

software designers and a lot of the

great designers stayed in print in other

areas and so these entire functions like

product management got built before a

lot of the design Department came in

make no mistake product managers are

critical but they shouldn't be doing the

job of designer and so I think that it's

really important to really like focus on

a number of principles number one I

would try to make sure if you are going

to do an A B test or experiment it

should be hypothesis driven that if it

works you should be able to say why not

just what I think that Designer should

not be just focused on Services they

should be focused on user flows I think

they should only ship something that

you're proud of don't test something

until after you're happy because

ultimately the artist and you should

first and foremost make something for

yourself and when you love it and you're

proud of it now you're ready to put it

out to somebody else I think that

designers should be trying to simplify

every single thing they do and I used to

think simplifying was removing things in

which Johnny herokid Apple taught me is

that's not what simplifying is about

simplifying is distilling something to

its Essence and to distill something to

its essence you have to deeply

understand it it's physics it's first

principles and then I think there has to

be a sense of craft obsessing over every

single detail and then I think if you're

in an organization you have to use their

language and explain why it benefits

them if people love our products they're

going to want to buy more of them what

is the goal we're trying to do well the

goal goals we need to grow this thing

well why do we need to grow this thing

growth is not a goal growth is just a

direction like like that can't be just

the goal and so these are some of the

things I would do and I would try to

like do it in maybe in as collaborative

a way as possible but like I often tell

our engineers

the best thing for you is to pair you

with design because otherwise it's like

running and one of your legs is shorter

than the other you're not going to go

very fast and so the best thing for

engineers and the best thing for PMS is

to pair them with great design from the

beginning because a lot of companies

design has become a service organization

design should not be a service

organization unless that is explicitly

the intention of the CEO and that means

it's not your job to catch things to

stop them before it goes out it means

it's your job to work from the very

beginning that design challenges

technology and Technology inspires art

it's not more important than technology

it's a perfect harmony from the very

beginning and I think just figuring in a

way to tell the story and helping people

understand that you benefit from me

one of the things that

[Applause]

something that I find truly impressive

about Airbnb is how far ahead you think

and I know that right now you're while

we're probably sitting here

some part of your brain is on okay what

is Airbnb doing in six months 12 months

18 months two years yeah

and I think it's really interesting how

the marketing messages that you have

informed the roadmap and inform the

design

can you break down more for us

the way that you see marketing design

products and Engineering all working

together in harmony exactly so the first

thing is we try to have a road map and I

Am The Keeper of the roadmap is CEO and

I think generally usually the CEO should

be The Keeper of the roadmap our roadmap

is typically about three years out but

it's very fuzzy it's like those video

games where it gets fuzzier the further

over the horizon but I have a pretty

good idea of what we're shipping between

now and next November so we'll have a

release in November we'll release next

April next November and I have a pretty

clear picture and then about two years

out it gets pretty fuzzy now to be clear

it changes and I update the roadmap

every single week now the long-term

roadmap the near term is hopefully not

changing that's churn but the long term

is constantly changing

and okay let's start with this that you

can measure the Health Organization by

the relation between marketers and

engineers

and in most companies marketers are like

waiters and Engineers like chefs if the

waiter goes in the kitchen the chef

yells at them and that is not a great

relationship so the first thing is that

we actually like to start a lot of

product development not just with design

but with marketing because our marketers

we want to actually have a vision and

figure out how they can tell a story

then product marketing again product

marketing is product management plus

outbound marketing it's a smaller

function it's a extremely influential

function they will work with the

designers and us to establish like what

is this project what are the goals what

are we trying to solve then um you know

we often will like try to present

something against the most native form

so if it's going to be a keynote we'll

start with a keynote then we um you know

we go through like a long like depends

on the the roadmap a really long concept

development so like let's say we

launched this product Airbnb rooms

we noticed the original Airbnb was

really slowing in growth and we wanted

to figure out how to revive it and so it

often starts at insight and the Insight

was people are nervous staying in the

homes of other people they don't want to

stay in the same home

as we started realizing wait a second

our listing the person is like

non-existent because we've been

optimizing entire home so we're having

this conversation and we're

brainstorming and that's when we had an

Insight we said what if we elevated the

profile on Airbnb and so then what we

tried to do is we have historical

references we always try to combine data

and research they're equally important

in research not just means the user but

historical references and what is a

historical reference of a profile with

travel it's a passport so we said what

if we make the equivalent of a host

passport for every single host

so then we started doing research on the

kind of attributes you would want to

know to stay with somebody then we

started looking at design language for

how you can create an animation I love

design language systems but the problem

with design language systems is you

should design whatever you want and you

put it in the design language system if

you can only pull from the system you're

never going to be able to take a giant

leap if it is breaks the system and so

there was there were this new animations

we had that opened and closed the

passport but then we started noticing

that people had bad photos so then we

built an operation to take headshots of

40 000 people

if you were a designer in a corner of an

app it'd be hard to convince the

marketing department to spend money to

take photos but when you're integrated

you can start to do this and so these

were the things we were able to start

doing and then we started thinking about

how can you tell the story so we start

thinking about what a marketing campaign

could be to elevate this product because

a lot of products fail because they're

not well marketed if you ship a feature

and no one knows did it really matter

and so a lot of times people give up in

features too soon they ship something

the data says it doesn't work they kill

the feature well did you tell people

about it do they know about it and so

this is kind of a little bit of the life

cycle of how we do it and then once we

ship we unders we try to study how

people are using it we do look at data

we do sometimes do treatments and

controls but again they're always

hypothesis driven

and

I think we can all agree that designers

should be talking with users and

customers yeah

of course then the line starts to blur

when you're really trying to find design

versus product management yes versus

research and how do you much should

design go into product or research in

the situations

let me let me I think that I think that

um we so way we organize it we try to go

really deep with experts so not only do

we have a design function but we have a

workshop group of a few dozen people

that are trying to cover the entire app

we have a studio that is going through a

lot of the like specific implementations

we have like people who focus on haptics

people focus on animation I want to have

people focus on typography and color you

know we put user ux writing under

marketing because marketers historically

are more writers they have more of a

writing background so we really try to

align everything to the functional

expertise and let me tell you a quick

story about how we improve the product

so we recently created this thing we

call the airme blueprint and I was

inspired by something Walt Disney did in

the 1930s he was making this movie

called Snow White it was the first

feature-length animated film and it was

so long he couldn't keep track of the

film so he created this thing called the

storyboard and that's when we realized

what if we do the same thing Airbnb what

if we created a storyboard so we

storyboarded the end-to-end journey for

guess and hose

then why ask the team every single

screen a user sees put it on one wall it

turns out there's 150 screens then I

said every user policy every time you

call customer service what policy

referencing it turns out there were

nearly 70 user policies some of these

are all 700 pages each we map those out

then I asked them to map out every

single operational touch point we map

those out this was really arduous we

call this wrapping your arms around the

company and then we went through like 20

million customer service calls we went

through hundreds of thousand social

media posts tons of workshops and even

our first hand experience again we

believe people make radic products make

products for themselves and based on

that we created a prioritized map and

systematically tried to fix our product

and I was like really focused on I used

to tell a team we can't do new things

unless we have permission and we don't

have permission working on new things

until people love our course service and

if they're complaining on social media

and they're calling customer service

they don't love our core service so we

have to get our house in order first and

so so that's kind of what we did but I

really try to focus on some pretty deep

functional expertise and I I guess like

I would also just be useful like

wherever there's a hole you can fill it

so it's almost like uh talking with

customers isn't enough you really have

to get that bird's eye view of your

entire experience I think so otherwise

how can you do research and I think you

should be systematic about how to talk

to customers like you should talk to

customers you look at the data you

should understand them you should be

using the product yourself becoming the

user in all this is like your intuition

I think being a designer is like holding

5 000 ideas in your head some of them

contradictory and we tend to call this

intuition and we get really nervous

because it seems somehow not systematic

but I actually think a lot of great

design comes from deep understanding of

a problem and so you're trying to absorb

as much information as possible

before we end

I'm sure that there's a bunch of people

in this audience who are inspired by

your story

and are thinking maybe I should go start

something

what advice do you have for them

well I'll just go back to wristy

why does design need to be in boardroom

when it can occasionally run the

boardroom why aren't there at least a

few more designers running Fortune 500

companies

I don't have an answer for that

but I do know a couple things

I think of myself maybe as a designer

but I'm not a designer the way most of

you are but a designed our business

model I designed our expense base I

helped designer organizational chart our

business how we work our story I think

that design is not just how something

learns it's how it's fundamentally works

and I think it is one of the most

important skills that we're going to

need in the 21st century you ever see

like there's two bad options and you're

not trying to pick between two-bit

options sometimes the right path is the

third path and that third path requires

creativity I think that a lot of

business needs more heart and more

imagination and that is what everyone

this room can provide and so I would

just encourage designers to have a Nerf

I would encourage them to know that you

can design the world that you want to

live in and I just want to encourage as

many people as possible whether it is

just

not asking permission for how you want

to run your company for how you want to

do your job speaking up about what you

believe in if you're running a design

Department try to make sure that the

entire company is bracing your phosphate

or at least have a conversation and also

just know that designers can run

companies they can build things they can

ship things and ultimately you know when

I join y combinator Paul Graham said

make something people want well who

knows what people want as well as

designers not many other people I think

that is a core value that we have to the

world and I I just think more designers

should rise up and start companies

foreign

I can't wait to see all the change that

this room will bring and Brian I can't

thank you enough thank you please join

me in giving him a great Round of

Applause

[Applause]

[Music]