Blaine Billingsley: OpenAI designer on the collaboration problem AI hasn't solved yet, and why the best way to have influence is to be influenced
Blaine Billingsley is a staff designer at OpenAI, and his path there was anything but a straight line.
Podcast profile
By The Curiosity Department
Design Better co-hosts Eli Woolery and Aarron Walter explore the intersection of design, technology, and the creative process through conversations with guests across many creative fields, helping you hone your craft, unlock your creativity, and learn the art of collaboration.
Latest episode
28 min
Topics
Product discovery, prioritization, roadmaps, growth, positioning, and product management.
Company formation, founding, product-market fit, scaling, and startup operations.
Interface design, design operations, systems, patterns, accessibility, and product experience.
Formats
Host-led conversation where a guest supplies most of the subject matter.
Audience level
Assumes basic technology literacy and familiarity with common products, roles, and terminology.
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Blaine Billingsley is a staff designer at OpenAI, and his path there was anything but a straight line.
In the mid-1950s, North Carolina was one of the poorest states in the country. Its economy ran on tobacco, furniture, and textiles — all three in decline — and its universities were turning out talent that promptly left for somewhere with better jobs. The barcode came out of it. So did AZT, ultrasound, and AstroTurf.
When Samsung’s CEO asked Federico Casalegno to redesign the cameras on the company’s phones, Federico told him he was the wrong person for the job. He wasn’t an optical engineer. He didn’t understand cameras.
Jonathan Adler was one of our favorite guests, so we’ve been angling to get him back ever since. He started as a potter and now designs furnishings and interiors that are decadent, but layered with meaning and humor.
We all know that there is something fractured about the workplace, that makes it inefficient, and at times inhumane. Clay has spent close to two decades on this problem — first at the consultancy undercurrent, and today as Head of Org Design and Development at Airbnb.
A few years ago, Dropbox redesigned its website and revenue dropped by thirty percent. It was an all-hands-on-deck moment: people working weekends, everyone hunting for a systemic failure. Angel Steger noticed that her eye kept landing on the white instead of the words.
Like a lot of parents, Eli struggled over the years to get his kids more into reading and away from screens. He wasn’t necessarily on the search for a technological solution, but then an interesting device came our way: the Yoto Player, a screen-free audio player for kids.
This is a special bonus episode, an interview with Rivian’s Chief Design Officer, Jeff Hammoud. We recorded this one live in Miami, in the Rivian Pavilion during Art Basel, with a R1T truck in a new eggplant-purple called Boreal parked just over Jeff’s shoulder.
Fifteen years ago, Eric Ries handed a generation of founders a playbook. When Eli was in a Palo Alto-based startup accelerator in 2011, The Lean Startup felt like the only book anyone in that ecosystem was talking about. It was in the middle of a wildly optimistic moment for tech.
A few years ago, Ian Bogost wrote what he thought was a throwaway Atlantic piece about how electric vehicles would finally kill the manual transmission. It went off like a bomb — and the reaction told him people weren’t mourning a car part.