This'll episode of Hustle is brought to you by designing the best place to find creative talent. I need help with a project posted on designing and received three proposals from the best designers, illustrators and animators joined the hundreds of companies and startups that have been connected with a perfect creative for the project. Go to designing dot com slash hustle and start your project. Welcome to season for the Hustle podcast. It's been two months since we've been in the recording booth, but we got a great season lined up. Um, we've got some great new sponsors, and I'm really excited to be back at it today is ah, Big one for me. I'm here with one of my heroes, Mike Buzzard. Ah, someone that, um, I've never met face to face,

but he knows my one of my cousins and a couple of my friends. For those of you that don't know who my buzzard is, he was one of the first Web designers and developers that I knew about when I was starting my career in the nineties. Ah, pretty much in my mind, integral to establishing, you know, design community. Back in the nineties through his involvement with sites like A 10 K and news today built ah company called the Cuban Council, which was also very inspirational to me and a lot of people. He's been doing a ton of work with Huff Worldwide for years. And for the last several years, he's been a design manager at Google Building design culture, connecting the dots in helping make Google. Uh um um or design oriented company. Thanks for making time. Michael. How are you doing? What the hell have you been up to?

Yeah, thanks for having me. This is an honor to be a part of this. I've been listening for a while. Um What? I've been up Thio more of the last of what you were talking about, focusing on improving the design culture for continuing to build on the ever evolving design culture within Google. And then how that works with the larger design community.

So why don't you say a little bit? About what? About your group at Google and the kinds of things that, um, that you've been doing on recruiting and education and and some of those areas?

Yeah, So the when I joined about four and 1/2 years ago, I was asked to create my own role being a self taught developer coming up through the design community, building a business. I'm neither by Google standards and engineer a designer or a product manager. So I was a bit on my own, and I started with a focus on talent and for the team that I was on. So involved scouting, recruiting acquisitions just to help bolster up the different disciplines and help cool, understand and appreciate how those disciplines could be applied in sequence on product. Fast forward a little bit that that let me more on the community side, where we weren't doing much in the way of participating with the online or physical design community. A large. And that's a lot of my background. So reaching out to people that I've known over the years just figuring out how can we get involved? How could we contribute to participate, let further upstream to college and university?

So I was looking at What is Google doing on campus? Is it waits to design? What message are we sending? What expectations? A resetting which even lead further to helping to shape the first of its kind undergraduate digital product design curriculum with Savannah College of Art and Design that we launched last year in the fall. So one thing has led to the other, but it's been a lot of back and forth between internal and external culture and community engagement.

Yeah, I think that that seems to be from an outside perspective, a common thread with you in your involvement in culture and education. Um, before we move on and talk more about Google and what you have going on the future, I think it's important to look to look back at the at the past a little bit. So from what I understand, you started getting it in this industry back in 1996. Tell me, let's talk a little bit about how you how you got into this field, how you learned to, you know, design digital things and build digital things. Um, and what sort of inspired you to point yourself in that in that direction? Professionally,

Yeah, So my My dad had three careers. He started as an industrial engineer and then, in the early mid eighties, bought a IBM PC and taught himself programming where he later after consulting. So I grew up with computers and was always comfortable with command line interface, which, looking back, was very fortunate. Uh, and then I was doing a lot of networking and hardware repair in the mid nineties, a matter having dropped out of high school in 10th grade. And then somehow, through that, I came across sort of creative outlets online. So somebody showed me. I think,

front Page, which was the time, was paired with their packaged with image composer and having grown up, everybody's got the same sort of growing up drawing and sketching and planet creative outlet. And I connect those two things and just fell in love, and I started building a site for my dad's consultant to consult, see, And then, as soon as I build it, just like Legos, tear it down, build it again, tear it out again. I got tired of the speed of those cycles and started learning more about the server side. So how can I handle forms are gonna make it more sophisticated, complex,

and I'm a pretty bad visual designer. I have a hard time connecting what I see in my head with what I see on the screen or in real life. And when I found code that this was an opportunity to do something creative, that they didn't have those those same disconnects, and so to me it was just a endless opportunity to explore. And I just dove in and didn't stop.

Yeah, um, that's that's That's pretty interesting. I mean, for me, Like when I was in 1986 I was, I guess I was graduating high school and getting into the field, and I was trying to find a way to merge my interest with computers with art. And I started learning like lingo stuff. And, um, around that time it will, let's say, maybe 1997 or 1998. I remember you know, we were getting building our portfolio, and we're supposed to use these tools that we were learning at school like author,

wear and director. And somewhere somewhere along those lines, you know, I stumbled across a few a few websites Digital Web magazine and Kate and Kay and a few of these like early design communities, and I think it But for me, um, that's when sort of changed for me and I and I sort of. Really. I could see how how these two things really work together. I felt like I was hacking at the time because I didn't know I don't know much about design. I also didn't know much about code, but it was amazing to see that the these communities of people that were that were making these things curating Great design, inspiration, putting it out there. And, um,

you had a lot to do with that. I mean, um, I can't think of any anyone my age that doesn't know the news today sound or remember que tiene que or, you know, remember, you know, visiting the sites daily. What was it like Thio work on those products. And what could you say, toe? You know, the people out there that may not remember those those two communities?

Well, yeah, I guess my involvement with each of them was it was different. But Kate Ince was the 1st 1 that I found the first of inspiration portal. The time that really just completely opened up my imagination. At the time, I was writing code and exploring and tinkering. And, um, you know what I could do And then through Spirit Peanut, which was an agency based in Houston whose founders I'm still friends with Today. I've got ties. Over the years, it's still stayed good friends, but through them is where I found Kate in K. And when I found Kate in K and what they were doing with code what M. Schmidt was doing with code and the sort of super tight pixel layout composition that Toca,

who was crafting on the visual side, I was just endlessly inspired. So I was doing a lot of tinkering on my own and sharing snippets with Emma Schmidt. And we go back and forth, just him nerd ing out on that stuff. And over the years, we collaborate on a few projects here and there. I was hungry, too, partner with anybody who was designing things that I thought were awesome, and then they needed to automate them or put tools behind them or simplify the content, whatever it might have been. So I think the first thing that I built in the design community was a news box for designers. Kinky, huh? Guys Murray and Andrew,

um, out of ah, Sidney who, again, I still collaborate with today. So I build that and that felt a little bit of credibility. And then I was doing some things on the side with Michael in token and those guys and then Jason, Christopher and Fokker Quarter had this idea. They were working together agency dot com in New York. They wanted to create a portal where it wasn't just so the time they'd have these pseudo celebrity design folks around the world that would contribute content for inspiration. And it was very curated. And some news today, the idea was that there would be a curated columns similar to that. And then there would be one that's open to the public for just sharing inspiration and post. And then there would be a forum and they wanted to build this and I had extra time on my hands. I moved to San Francisco.

I was learning to your languages and, uh, the great Khan tune. Who is it? Media Temple. At the time, we got connected and just started building it. So we built news today and launched it. That was the first PHP my school thing I had done. We had some bugs and some performance issues. I looked at the book that I had repeatedly at the time found Chris Lay was based in L. A. Just cold called him, uh, seems like an expert on the platform at the time and got him involved to help optimize a little bit. And then he and I continue to build news today for a number of years in a couple different iterations.

Do you wanna do you want to sing the news today? Jingle? I know, man, but, you know, like, I just can't thank you enough for in all of you guys for this the stuff that you did. I mean, I think it really helped people figure out that there, that there, that there were a lot of people interested in doing this and that there was places to learn. And I miss those days to like, man. I missed the the tiny little pixel fonts and, you know, the kind of compositions that people were doing on the web like pieces of art,

you know, like things were every website was was extremely different. Everything was it was a puzzle to build things back then and make things work. And I was actually talking to Ah, my friend Greg Story about this, Um actually talked to him a lot about this. He was saying that what we really need is a, um ah, like a digital design museum. Like a physical museum somewhere where all of this stuff is is on display, and you can kind of go through things over the years. It seems like an interesting concept. There's the news, M and D. C. I wonder if anyone is,

ah, thinking about, um, capturing the nineties in the early two thousands and, um, letting other people experience it. I mean, do you Do you think that Ah, is any of the old Cates and Kay or news today stuff available online anymore?

I'm the asset of the Internet archive. I'm I'm not sure. And I still have a source code and could probably spend something up. But as far as I know, I mean fully functioning science or features I don't think are available on dhe. I don't know how they would render in today's browser so much more sophisticated and probably rendered better on the phone than in their browser just because of the size.

Yeah, it's what? Those were the days, man. I just remember how satisfying it was to come up with a design that worked because, you know, nothing was temple ties. There weren't a lot of best practices and figuring out something. I don't know what it is and maybe nostalgic, but I felt so much better when I figured something out back then it was just harder.

Yeah, we built our own. We learned number. Many people, if any, had computer science background on the creative community sites that we were learning a lot of these concepts on our own to build out our own libraries of reusable code and howto deal with performance issues. And there were a lot of hacks in place, and scaling platforms was not simply a single command line entry as it is today.

Yeah, for sure, man. Ah, and so OK, so all these years of building these being involved in the creative community and build these tools, you know, a long freelance career, um, you got get really busy. You decide to start an agency with your friends. Um, what's the What's the Cuban council story,

right? Yes. Michael had moved to San Francisco. We were collaborating on a few projects together here and there. I think there was a small record label in the UK was one of them in freelancing. My first, the first sign that I really fell in love with that. There was a brand that I'd grown up on, and I just looked up to his epitaph Records. So the founder owner, the label had come across my name on news today. He had a design background, and it's sort of a tech nerd. And then he reached out. So I was doing that work and I brought Michael in to help with the admin. You I and it just was a really fluid working relationship, like there wasn't a whole lot of back and forth.

You forgot this or overlooked this, and every little detail was covered. And we both appreciate is that in each other's work, and Tokyo was in London at the time, uncertain about what he wanted to do next, I think was having digital on DSO. We talked him into coming to San Francisco to start Cuban counsel, and then it was that same fluidity that Michael and I had in trading the work back and forth. But now, with this visual you, I concept brand creative side. So we had the end end. We could sit down with the client and really do what we thought was the highest level of visual design impaired with the highest and most detailed level production design in front of development and then really customized tools to give us that creative design flexibility. So it wasn't for us. It was the perfect formula.

So what year did you start that business, Kevin? Counsel,

that was so there was a little bit of a transition period because Michael was in Francisco and he was freelancing. I was freelancing, and we're bringing toke over, And we at this time you didn't just go out to I can't grab investors for your tech design, Start up and, um, and get a fancy office. So we we started by freelancing physically, closer together and then coming up with a model to pull money to where, which is over time transition to operating as a single entity from individuals. And we had rented their sub. Let it a little space in the future. Farmers Office, Seventh and Howard in San Francisco, which already had it great design background from the Atlas magazine and future farmers. And so that's where we we formally started in 2003.

2000 and three. Well, um, so how awesome was it toe work with With Brett From Better Religion and Epitaph Records that so jealous personally,

he's become a really good friend over the years. So I I think the star struck thing faded your years ago for me, but I had to walk. And I think the e mail he sent to me was, I'm a huge fan of your work. And I'm curious if you'd be interested in working my label and he provided some background on the label, and I was just I just woken up. I was cutting through a way l A. On my way from San Diego, San Francisco responded. Such material. Here's my number, and I just I didn't know what to think of it. I was so foggy and 30 seconds later, the phone rings. I'm someone over there and I just acted cool. It's okay.

I think I've heard of your label or band, but it's great. I'm Brett is probably one of the best producers, and it probably comes from his decades of experience and music production. There are a lot of similarities that I've observed having gone to the studio with him a few times. Um, but he's an outstanding creative producer and he gets very involved in the projects. His feedback is outstanding. He understands how to balance the business needs and goals with the user needs and goals and then leave the room for the creative side of it. He's not like a pixel director. Anything he's just he's outstanding work with.

Well, that's awesome. Um, so at its height, how what was the size of Cuban council on? Did you guys? I'm asking a few questions at a personal interest, cause I don't even I don't know the whole full story. But were you guys always fully located in in California? Or did you have East Coast Studio as well?

Uh, you know, way spread out of it. So I guess it's important to note that it was very much a lifestyle company, right? We started the company with this passion to make things the way we thought they should be made on. We also did it to to do it in a process that we thought made sense and in the lifestyle sort of flexibility that made sense and and, uh, that really it was visible. When, you know, I think that two thousand's Toca moved to New York. It just wanted to head over and live in New York for a while, he said. Fine. And he said, After a few months,

I'm getting tired of working out of this small room in my apartment. We said, We'll get in office And then he said, Well, I'm tired of working alone Then he said, Open, higher Designer and, uh and we just kind of grew and evolved in in that way, just very circumstantial and, uh and then eventually we opened a Portland offices. We had a developer who moved up there and we hired a few folks there. I think at the largest, I'd say we went through three main stages. The first stage of Cuban council meeting the 1st 3 or four years was building a portfolio and really refining how we worked and then the middle stage was figuring out how we would grow. I think at one point we just took a ton of work from Google, maybe a few others,

and we were, I think, managing 20 some contractors at once. And, uh, the core team was maybe eight people. So the day to day was 30 folks, but we were were only eight full time. But we're afraid of assuming the risk of taking on holding books if we weren't sure we could commit to them. And then one day we realized, you know, we're no longer doing that thing that we set out to do anything that we love. We're just doing a lot of project management, and so we started to get much more strategic about how we ran the business. We we have annual summit. So it's been days looking over the previous years,

goals and strategy and what worked and what didn't work and why and then make plans for the the next year when we did that religiously and so the last stage was really optimizing the company. And at that point, I think we when we wound it down, we're about 15 people in those three offices, and then I'm sure it was living in Illinois, just working from home out there. So four locations. I guess it's for tax purposes, but you have three different offices.

So, um, what was if you don't mind me asking me what was the deciding factor? What What made you guys decide to kill the baby?

Yeah. I mean, we're all getting older, having families, and again, I said we optimize the company was very, very healthy at the time. Um but we were, say, every once a while we'd say, OK, we're gonna work on our own thing, our own project, and we would constantly we treat it like a project. We build a schedule we designed. Resource is, we're about to dig in,

and then Francis Coppola calls, and we're like, Well, shit, we have to take that call. And so you know how often you get the opportunity work something like bad, and so we do it and then next time around, gear up and get ready to dive in. And then, like, Tom Waits would call or get connected and and that just kept getting in the way of us, exploring other ideas and opportunities. And then after a while, the the Tom Waits is in the Francis Coppola's didn't have the same the Lord that they did earlier. And so not that we didn't appreciate all of our clients, all the challenges,

all the projects. But it wasn't the excitement was doing a little bit and again, it was a healthy company. We were doing fine, but we're thinking longer term. If we want to provide really great futures for our staff, we probably need to bring everybody back together physically and think about how we optimize and grow the company to larger scale. And we just thought that that was going against what the Corps cultural values were from the beginning. Honey, at that time, design was becoming ever more popular in the start up world in the tech world. But there was a lot of interest from different companies. We explored a number of opportunities, which was a great educational experience. We worked with Google for many years. They came along and said Way want to expand in diverse fire design disciplines across the company.

And, uh, we're a little behind and so that was an opportunity for us to just put it all on a shelf rather than undoing or or mutating what we had created and then go on to explore these these new challenges and, uh, you know, It's a new growth opportunities for for us.

Yeah, but were you guys how well do you think you did it? Um, adjusting to the way you know, the market demands. Like going from doing websites to doing, you know, software and mobile design and and all of that were you guys able to make some of those transitions in those years fairly easily? I asked because, you know, I think we're hitting another inflection point right now with, you know, a r and all, you know, an aye aye. And in these different mediums that are coming up on horizon, um,

were, you know, as an agency under myself, I'm trying to figure out Well, what do I do now? You know, like, do I stick with this? These core disciplines, or do I need to be on the bleeding edge? And as you know, as things become commoditized, it's hard. It's hard to make the same margins on Ah, a website or mobile out these days. People want the bleeding edge stuff

you had to tow. Um, I don't know. That we looked at the service is that we were focusing on our honing a refining based on market demand. I think we looked at what we loved building and you are split as faras disciplines was always about 60 40 creative and technical. And we built most of what we designed. And a lot of times I would stay online for for five years. And we're pretty proud of how durable lot of the things that you created where, especially when they were backed by some sort of content tool or something like that. So we had a lot of experience building software. It wasn't the same scale. But we still believe in the same values of performance and durability and robustness and all of these things of moving into an environment like who will again. It was much larger scale, much more sophisticated, but we understood the process, and again we had the similar similar language, and then we had similar values.

So I think most importantly, it's people working with people, right? I tell people this all the time. You go to a giant corporation like a hold. He doesn't mean you're moving. She meddled on an assembly line that's still people working with people to align what they think makes a great product and So you just have to figure out how to communicate based on differences in vocabulary, your background or something like that. So I don't think the transition, it was difficult in that way. I think we've lost a little more control. A Cuban counsel. People would come to us because he really wanted exactly what they'd seen us do in the past. So we tend to have a little bit more control. And you had to learn the given. Take Andi how to communicate on a different level because everybody was an equal stake holder at that time.

Or ideally, that's the case. So I think it was more maybe workflow communication culture stuff. Uh, but it wasn't

unfamiliar. Yeah, So the, um you know, you guys worked closely together on all the you know, Kate and Kay and news today stuff. And the company was born out of this desire for collaboration, and it seems like the opportunity that Google was aligned with that. And then, um, it seems like collaboration. We talked about this a little bit earlier is really important to you. Um would tell me what you think about when you think about collaboration and how do you think people need to work together to, um, accomplish solutions that make a difference?

Yeah, I'm for anything to work out anything like it, even from from our joining Google is a perspective of value. That's why that worked, right? And when, uh, you know, Michael and I started collaborating together. If there was a perspective of value, I valued what he did, and he valued that. I listened to that and the things that I made. And so I think it's usually important to understand what you're capable of contributing on and being surprised with the outcome when you when you partner with somebody, that that brings a different aspect to it. For me, that's been the most rewarding thing in my career in so many surprising ways.

It's not just when I'm crafting something, uh, we're building something but physical or building a digital products. And then I got even before shaping a culture or changing a word flora process or something. When you collaborate, other people get their input perspective. It can be extraordinary. And that's what gets me out of bed every day.

Yeah, I am same here because I didn't you know my company was started because, um, I did a nacua hire myself from my former agency to ever note, and I realized that I love product, but I really love client service is So I started freelancing again, but really, I didn't like working alone. You know, I started going down the path of building this company mainly for the collab collaboration I got. My wife had a missing, you know, missing piece of the skill puzzle that I had. And we started building this company in the early days. You know, we were seeing some really good margins and all that. But most of our investment has been into various forms of collaboration just because that's what makes it exciting to go to work.

I mean, you know, you know, for service is business. You can't just throw. You can't just, like, have you always have a you know, a no overwhelming amount of people because of the cost. But we've We've intentionally made some decisions, um, to spend and reduce those margins to make sure that we get toe work on work on cool things with people and and and go through that experience working together. It's not for me and maybe you agree. But it's not just about the thing that you made, but the explosion, the experience that

you had making that Yeah, and you're learning all the time to write. So we learned a ton in building sites and and whatever we would tinker with. But then, you know, when we we took a move to New York as I mentioned that we hired a designer. And then we hired a project manager who grew to become a partner. And so she became my day today partner on the business side, and we were learning so much from each other in running business, maybe taking a similar approach that we might take to design or software and how we structured certain processes. But then, like this whole world of how do we build a great business and optimize a great business for its employees? Like even the collaboration there, when it's removed from their creative side can still have the creative aspects. And that was a lot of fun, too.

Let's yeah, I mean an apology. Speaking of Google, Google voice was ringing me while you were talking hope Hopefully it doesn't screw screw us up I don't I don't think so. But

it's known as the Google Voice. Undid the beautif on your phone and yeah, so it could

be loud. Yeah. Yeah. Um, So what is collaboration look like? A google. Like what? Or what teams look like a google. I mean, I'm sure they're mean. They've got to be all different. But is there Is there a way that you guys think about that? Like the way the the right sort of team size or structure or skill sets that you guys look for put together pods? I mean, how do you guys, How do you guys build design teams there?

I think when you're working on a single problem, two larges, it's dysfunctional, no matter what it is, right. So everything breaks down into smaller, more higher function working groups, depending on what problems they're trying to solve. And so a lot of problems that I'm working on. And like I said, our culture and community related it could be changing programs or processes of the past, thinking about new ways to do things that we might not already be doing. And so I work with all kinds of people from legal and HR to corporate development to design leadership and the people on the outside. So I manage a lot of partnerships in the design agency world is their project needs for different products and teams. It's all over the place. And that's one of the things I love, too.

Is the variety of it. In one day I could I could go and sit down and work with the recruiting and staffing and some design leadership folks. And in the afternoon, I could be talking with a bunch of agency owners trying to understand how their capabilities have changed. You are they're offering or her. You know what they're looking to do in the next year or so. I just got a really We're really broad, Uh, but with 20 years of experience can still go divan each discussion, Paladin things every day. So, to me, that's really interesting. Makes every day, um, very unique and different.

So you you got to design your own role. Basically, um, and do you do you have your own team? Or, uh, are you all over the place?

Yes. And yes, yes. When I came in like it didn't fit any standard hold assassin to create a role. And even after the end of that day's a Cuban council, I was still writing Coach 20% of my time, roughly, And so joining Google, I wasn't making. I think that was maybe one of the toughest. So what I needed to do is make a a structure, a framework to understand how what I was doing this was being marketed and providing value or part of a larger effort. And so we started a talent scouting pretty. I'm just like you mentioned and community stuff. And so that became. They became the pillars of tenants of what shape? My role,

those on talent, culture, community and partnerships. And then we're recently is The U. S teams have continued to grow, so it's a decentralized model. Each product area has Ajax team, and this is quite a large population of people in us that included researchers, designers, writers, managers, all kinds of different roles. And so now I'm part of a horizontal team with two other people. It's called you X Community and Culture and we have a number okay, our objectives and key results for things that we're working on to try to constantly improve, uh, and grow and evolve. The community culture inside and outside of Google is as relates to you.

That's really that's that's really cool. I mean, what is the most exciting thing about working at Google? And what's the biggest challenge?

I would say the most exciting thing is the people. You probably maybe hear that a lot of you talk to folks a little bit. It's just one of those places where you'll rarely ever here or see somebody you know that's too busy to help. Everybody is, uh, everybody wants to help further each other's mission in a lot of ways, and they want to contribute. Everybody gets a everybody in general. It's a lot of satisfaction out of a sense of purpose and whether it's a very small like, Yeah, I have an idea I can contribute a ladder. I can help connect you to the person for that, or it's a larger Constitution SHURIKEN car a couple of weeks to write some code to help build this thing or whatever. Maybe, um, the answer is oftentimes, yes,

so it's difficult. A lot of people can get over subscribe, so it can be tough too to prioritize that what you say yes to you about it. But I think, in general the people is is the best thing. I think that's the hardest thing. I mean, partisan could also be the people, right? It's a really large company. Everybody has strong, very well founded ideas and opinions about things. And that's where this this she sort of respecting other people's perspective and understanding how that overlaps their alliance with what your agenda might be out there, that we're gonna work together. I mean, that's to me that it's fun because there's no there's no standard formula for it. It really is People component.

That's awesome. Well, before we before I took you back in history, you were talking about this this new program at Savannah College of Art Designer. What was the school that you said that you did the net?

Yeah. Scott. Yeah.

Um, tell me about that. Because I mean that that sounds that sounds awesome. And I think that I don't know if they're program is available, but if it is, I mean, I think it would be I'd love to check it out.

Yeah, it's a means publicly marketed in available in their science. I stabbed you is one of the program offering this is believe. It's titled U Ex designing their digital product design. Four year uh, B A. The people enroll in for So it started. I was just doing a lot of visits to different schools and universities. Schools like resilience, school visual art in New York. And then why use I tiki cmu? And they're all over the place and just looking at the different offerings. And there's a fantastic programs around H C I occasional zombie graphic and all the things that we all know. But when I got to Savannah, they also have ah broad spectrum of design discipline offerings. And I was just seeing the right course is just in the wrong stack. Uh,

not for what they were trying to deliver, but if they wanted to cater to where a great demand is an industry now, which it's destroyed. Product design. So it started a conversation with them. They were very open minded and eager to see what what does this look like? What is it? What is a curriculum look like for for that type of role? And so we started which is rearranging and over the course is that they had and then highlighting some of it. Some of the blanks to fill in. And we just went back in Port Generator on pretty quickly. So we came up with, like, a great program. And so it launched a little over a year ago. I think there's about 40 students and rolled so far, which has been a pretty good growth. Could be originally it was maybe 16. So there's a lot of enthusiasm around it. And But we continue to stay involved in steering and in a few projects we sponsored and lead to help make sure that we're that we're having some improvements on processing and some aspects of disciplined they they might continue to evolve over time.

That's awesome. Well, I have a few questions for you, and then we can you You've donated a lot of your time. I don't wanna be mindful that, but I do want to ask a few questions that Ah, a couple of listeners have asked me to ask you if that's OK. Sure. Um, Greg, story wants to know. Um, if you miss running an agency,

um, yeah, people asking me if I hadn't moved out to the suburbs out of San Francisco seven years ago. We're showing people asking if I miss living in soon, it's just going to say I miss living and sandwiches go in my 30. So there was a time in place for Cuban council and there will always be a very special thing for me. But at the same time, I'm also still kind of running an agency. You know, the team I'm on now is it? It was founded on the role that I created, and we are a horizontal and see across Google trying to influence design culture. So very much is like an agency have different projects. I have different clients or stakeholders. I my clever years change. You know something in a lot of ways, it's the same. I mean, it's it's an extension of who I am or who I was, which is how the Cuban Council came about and how this new role came about. So the answer is sort of

well plus, you have a unique position because you get to work with a variety of teams and a lot of different initiatives, not just it's not like you're on Google Male 24 hours a day. You know, for years. You know, Thio impact a lot of different teams. Yeah,

and and I have no deliverables or direct reports. Just kind of funny, but that doesn't mean I'm not doing where I still am very involved in the agency world. So Sean Peterson was a creative director, instrument and cinco and a number of other places on Sean. I have a great friendship. About a year and 1/2 ago, we had this idea of what's going on in Salt Lake City, where the they're these small agencies doing great brand appropriate visual with prototyping and sort of lightweight builds its just the house. Any were coming out. So we reached out to some of and we went out there and hosted a round table, and we sat down with eight or 10 agency owners. Rally

was one of the man being climbs and also awesome

friend of mine. Yeah. So Ben was there, and Anthony came from underbelly

and under bailing

out a handful of others. And Sean and I both have ah passion for education and for community and feel a great sense of responsibility. to give back because because of how much we've gotten out of it. And so we sat down and we started with four angering questions just to kick off conversation throughout the day. And it was all day long. Maybe on Airbnb. You had lunch catered. Anthony did an incredible job of making it a special event, and we just It was just a knowledge share. We just you know, when when we were starting running Cuban counsel, I would go to friends who had started companies in the Bay Area. So, like over a pod was one. Katie M was another, and we would just share information. I would pick their brains like,

Well, we got to get health insurance What we do And this is before you know, it benefits. And all these service is that just packaged everything up where you had to do it on our own, like, Who's your lawyer? Do you like them? And what do they do for Even so, it was all knowledge here, and I got so much out of that and then I thought, like the Salt Lake City, there's a small community. What is the basis of community and How are they sharing one of the problems that they're all facing? How are they solving it collectively versus you know what could they be trading off? That's not competitive. They're not really revealing trade secrets.

They're just like helping each other within a community. And so it was really great. And then we did it again in Omaha. Three grain and mortar folks host that their outstanding. And then we did it, most recently in Charleston, where the fuzz coat folks hosted it. And then, starting with Omaha, we would bring outsiders. So we brought Matt felt from basic, created, great. I didn't put him out of the San Diego area, and we bring We brought James Hobbs from Octopus, and these people were just really passionate,

hungry for the knowledge share component. But Fusco was outstanding again housing in Charleston, and that was just something about the mix of people in the rumor. But the community from that has persisted on slack to the point where people are dealing with heart problems and their businesses are our challenges. And it's a community first thing. People were kicking around ideas about to solve the problem, or they're sharing resource is, and it's been really rewarding for me. So So I'm still very involved in the agency world. It's just in a in a different type of role.

That's that's awesome. It sounds like what you guys were doing and those those towns is really fantastic. If you find yourself thinking about making a trip to Austin, you gotta let me know

if you know that, Shawn. They're actually talking right after this just to think about what we want to do in 27 which city to go to, And we were seen as New York. San Francisco L. A. Portland. These cities have strong design communities already, and we're not trying to change that. We're trying to bring communities together where they're just not happening on their own and create the knowledge or so that we were controlling. Second City's Austin has a strong design community, so I don't know what our next second city might be, but

I have to make sense. Um, and also, I mean, I don't know if this interest you, but if it wasn't for groups like, um, the bureau dizzle affairs, I don't know how Natalie and I would have navigated Ah, lot of decisions and our earlier years of, ah, having our business. E. I don't know if you know about this Mike, but the bureau was started by Greg and Greg from Happy Cog, and they do them an event called Owner Summit, which is,

if you, it's usually like 15 or 20 design owners, a maximum at a time in a round table format, just talking about like, you know, all the heartaches and when in celebrations of running a business. And then they have the digital Project Product Management Summit, creative director, camping operations camp and these. They've just built these, like gigantic communities now on slack. Or it's easy to like the things you're talking about we got to do look, ah, I need training for an apprentice program like what does what's working right? And then you get like, several people respond. It's just awesome. Toa see that happening?

Honey, I wasn't familiar with it, but it's ours. Funny enough, it's called a round table, but it hasn't been packaged, remarked it. But and it's not again like we're talking about what we would do next with. I'd love to learn more about that, and if there's a way to contribute, So that would be it. Sounds like a fantastic

Oh, yeah. Only to connect you with Carl. And Carl is spearheading. It used to be the CEO of engine network engine. Remember, Owner? Yep. Yep, that's it. Um okay, so a couple more. Um Ah, job. You common? Um, Joel used to work at Google,

and now he's at designing this season, sponsor of the Hustle podcast and Joel Ass. What's the biggest outs? Biggest obstacle. You see, for design leaders to be successful in it, an influential in tech companies.

The biggest obstacle. Um, I mean, sad as it is, I think in a lot of ways it's themselves. I think designers tend to be extremely introspective and thoughtful and asking questions about about everything on a on, um or maybe human level and the can get in their way a lot of times, you know, there's an uncertainty, a lack of confidence in the subjectivity of design. And how did they come up with a way to articulate their point of view way that resonates with the audience. They're trying to talk to you with it. They're trying to get across something that they feel is brand appropriate. Well, how do you make it certain for others? Understand that it's been inappropriate. So I had a lot of his communication,

but I think before being able to deliver a convincing argument, they have to take that Israel level of confidence, our ground, it themselves. And so I mean a Google that all of this is done through data, right? Like we're the researcher, collect the data to make the case. It's harder to argue, and so that is not always the way to do it. But we need to figure out how to package and deliver the message that's convincing and compelling. Andi, stop with this yourself. Self doubt, and it stopped questioning of your own decisions, right?

There's a great deal of talent with these designers. Have they have an eye for things that this is natural to them? Well, it is kind funny. When we worked on the Facebook locust early on, Mark's soccer became in the office, and because

you did that. That's so awesome. By the way,

Sorry, didn't think this says relate. It's not just for the name dropping or whatever, but this is really Sean had to take a phone call in and sitting there with Marcus is two of us is kind of awkward. He was, like, 19 at half time. This is what you guys do here. And I was What do you mean? This is what do you do? And I said we did sign and development. What do you mean? And I literally I didn't know if he was testing me or if he was truly just probing, like what is that me? And then So I pulled a Facebook, the Facebook at the time which he had designed and built. And I said,

Well, you know, why did you what did you make this blue? And he said, because I'm colorblind. No shit. Okay, well, why did you Why did you put this words on a rule here and provide the space thing that you get around it because it seemed right. I said, Well, you know, I think on the design side we're doing is what seems right to most people. Most of the time. I don't know how to better explain it in the way that he was framing his questions, but But I think the designers need to trust in that right.

They need to trust a lot of times that they do focus on these details that other people don't they need to believe in. They're doing with what is right for most people most of the time, and then you can test it and get dated is supported. But you gotta take confidence and that you're gonna be able to deliver that confidence when you deliver the work or the you know the rationale behind it. And I think Designer's having a getting in the Oscar leading around this. No way is that sort of lacking confidence or lack of packaging and delivery. And what the company about,

Wow, what an awesome story. And that's Ah, that's a that's That's really great advice. That's that's awesome. Um, and then that you know, the last question I'll ask you, Mike, is you know, um, question for me. What? It would it what's next for you? Like what? What do you What do you hope to do this year?

Well, well, now I have this this team that I'm working with, we have a very clear objectives. And the results, like I said, related to the community and culture stuff, but I also just want to see the continue to see the positive impact that I have. I love matchmaking design problems with great designers. So on the partnership side, I love it when people inside of Google or even outside of court, will come to me and you know, they're still. I don't think you can counsel site up for a couple of reasons, but they're still inbound projects. We've been shut down for four and 1/2 years, and it's dwindled down to maybe one project every two weeks or something like that.

But I still feel the emails, and I try to match make them because I want to see somebody who understands, appreciates what they think. They need a design with not just the right capabilities but the right chemistry set of like, Who's the shop that's going to be able to do that to wear and really understand how this person is articulate what their needs are, and they're gonna disintegrate. So for me, it's continuing to just kind of give back in that way again. I like that matchmaking. I love the work that we're doing an education. I love seeing students again that comes back to the confidence thing when they're sitting in cross functional collaborative groups working on a prompt that we give them using some process and tools that we teach them. And you could just see the lights coming on. And when you see each of them contributing in their own way and recognizing each other for doing that like this hugely rewarding likely go from a an optimism about, I'm gonna have a career and designer of necessary know what that means to get 10 weeks later or something, having a much clearer idea of how they can apply their skills and a certain environment. And I don't know howto how to articulate the sense of purpose and satisfaction that comes from that. But if it means a great deal to meet, so I just want to continue to live all the things that I have, then you're fortunate to receive myself in my career and sort of spread that.

That's awesome. Well, you've done a lot for the community, and, um, Google is doing some awesome things. I'm I'm sure and having a blast. And, you know, you know I have to I have to say you know, Thank you for for the things you did, cause I'm not I'm not quite sure. I would have turned out the same way If you know, some of things you guys were making were available to me When? At the right time. The right place. And I also really appreciate you. Ah, taking time out of your very busy data. Come on, the podcast and have a conversation with me.

Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for inviting anything. What you're doing with hustle is outstanding of Probably listen to the last dozen episodes of your show and they're all you can create and definitely not appreciate something. You

Oh, no problem. Some one of these days we gotta hang out. I mean, you know you know my cousin Mark Armendariz and ah, my friend Christian Rochambeau used to work with you. Ah, they all say great things about you. I hope I get to meet in person sometimes.

I gave him the nickname Rochambeau.

Huh? Okay, so we have to know the background on that, Then

I don't know. I attended nickname people. I don't know how or why, but, bro Sha just makes us. We're working on a project together. He was working at what was tumble in Studio Polychrome. He was working a problem for years in Pasadena, and they brought me in as a developer on the project. And I know when you see Rocha and your mailbox after 14 hours of coding in here a little delirious, you start going upwards. And so I just start calling motion. But

that's awesome. I didn't know that. I didn't know that. I don't know that story at all.

Yeah, it was. It was probably 2000 wonders. It was a long time ago, but yeah, we should get together. Tell Bugle Men Thio, send a bottle of whiskey pistol Geo coordinates and,

well, that sounds good. Well, thanks again, Mike. Have a good weekend and let's chat soon.

Sounds good. Thanks, Anthony.

Thanks for tuning in the Hustle podcast. We'll see you next time. Hustles made by Fun Size, A digital design agency that works of inspiring product teams around the world. Learn more about us at fun sized dot CEO Season of hustles Brought to you by Design Inc. Best place to find creative talent and receive free proposals for your project. Go to designing dot com slash hustle and get started today. If you're a designer and you'd like to join, you can apply it designing dot com slash supply Also thanks to graveyard teeth for the music and Black River Audio for mixing the show.