Smash Notes

Back to The Curious Case of Henry Modisett, with Henry Modisett.

Why Would Perplexity Build a Browser?

Henry Modisett wants Perplexity to build a browser because most people cannot tell a search engine from a browser, and the product should show up wherever people get information or take action.

Chrome is the most used browser in the world, and Google is baked into it. Open a browser on a phone, even Safari, and it just hits Google. The idea that a search engine and a browser are separate things only holds if you understand the tech. People might be on a phone, on a computer, or using voice. Perplexity should be available in every one of those places. Building one is a design problem he likes: distill the product, then adapt it to the context.

Everybody with a computer or a phone uses a browser, probably at least once a day. A download puts Perplexity on that machine. Once it is there, the work is no longer stuck inside a website. The team can own the browser itself and build a richer experience.

Transcript

The Curious Case of Henry Modisett ·

First of Kind

More from this episode

  1. What Do the Best Designers Want From a Job?Henry Modisett says the best designers want ownership, trust, and accountability from a job. He hires and keeps people by working backward from talent.
  2. What Is Perplexity's Brand Strategy?Henry Modisett's brand strategy for Perplexity starts from the product being about knowledge, and knowledge is everything.
  3. Why Did Henry Modisett Join Perplexity?Henry Modisett joined Perplexity because he had worked with two of its co-founders at Quora and already knew them as some of the best engineers he had ever…
  4. How Did Perplexity Become an Answer Engine?Henry Modisett says Perplexity became an answer engine through truly iterative experiments.
  5. Why Is Craft the Easy Part of Hiring a Designer?Henry Modisett treats craft as the easy part of hiring a designer because the work can be judged before any conversation.
  6. Why Does Perplexity Refuse Design Mocks?Henry Modisett refuses design mocks unless Perplexity really believes it will build and launch the work. A mock can open a project.
  7. How Did Henry Modisett Get Into Software Design?Henry Modisett studied computer science, loved the big concepts such as algorithms and graph theory, and basically failed most of his tests.
  8. What Happened to View Source?Henry Modisett says the great poverty of the web today is that the view source impulse is being lost.
  9. Why Does a Startup Make a Better Designer?Henry Modisett says a startup makes you a better designer because you make hard decisions, ship them, and see the results.
  10. How Can Someone Know a Fact Faster Than Ever Before?Henry Modisett says a person can know something confidently faster than ever before. He calls that property of Perplexity speed to knowledge.

People

More answers like this

More with Soleio

Related episodes

Plays from this note through the rest of the episode.

Note

Weekly highlights

One letter a week.

The notes worth hearing, with the minute they were said.