I This episode of Hustle is brought to you by designing the best place to find creative talent. Need help with a project posted on designing can receive fruit proposals from the best designers, illustrators and animators joined the hundreds of companies and startups that have been connected with the perfect creative For their project. Go to designing dot com slash hustle and start your project today. Hey, welcome back to the hustle podcast. It's been about a month since I've been in the studio, so I'm sorry for not putting more content out, But I've also been trying to make sure that, you know, uh, don't get too far ahead of myself and make sure that the quality these conversations were good plus south by southwest came in just shat on everything that we're doing. Um, so anyway, thanks for coming back to the show today. I'm here with one of my new friends that I've been excited to talk about. Talk to for a while now,

Um, I'm here with Gabriel Valdivia. He's a ah, product designer at at a Facebook on the V. R team, but, um, he was telling me earlier that he would really rather everyone call him Master Ninja Design Professor. So reach out to him on Twitter after this. And let's get a threat going. Eso Gabriel convention is a designer in the Facebook team. Ah, he's the co host of red time podcast. I've listened to several of shows. It's pretty damn good. Ah,

he's also an active mentor, and he's a founder of ah, Facebook group. Pronounced in pots stories, I believe. Which is a Facebook group aimed at connecting Latin American and Hispanic designers and have conversations with each other. Um, Gabriel, thanks for being here. Don't you say hello

in a little bit of a problem?

Yeah, I've been trying to I'm sorry. I've canceled on you, like, four times. So thanks for, uh, thanks for not losing faith. Um,

yeah. I'm the needy girlfriend that keeps knocking on your door, and you finally have opened up for me.

Uh, yeah, that's funny.

So, uh,

how did you and I meet anyway? Like, uh, think Twitter. So we met. Um,

Believe yeah. Yeah, it's been ah, couple of few months, I think. Just you know, we have some friends in common, and we met through Twitter, which has been

pretty awesome. Yeah. Also thinks for Ah, thanks for stopping by the V our panel at at the converge event we were doing before South by Southwest. We've been actually a lot of really great feedback on it. Well, let's talk about that a little bit later. First, why don't you say hello to our audience and say, Look, you know, let us know what you're up to right now.

Totally. Hello? Hustle lights. Hey, what you call them as well. Now, um, yeah s Oh, yeah. I'm Gabe. I work on Facebook. We are, uh, let's see about me. I have an accent. So, unfortunately,

not a video podcast. There's no subtitle, So bear with me here. Um, originally from Cuba. I grew up in Costa Rica, and I've been working in tech for about 10 years now. So pumped to talk to you. I'm a friend of the podcast, so that's

awesome. Yeah. So, uh, I don't know how many of you are familiar with the things that Facebook is doing a v r, but and I don't even know the extent of your involvement here, but I have a feeling that you were responsible or part of the team that's been working on a lot of the face, the Facebook 360 project. Um, and maybe the 360 photo stuff from understand, Like, I mean, this is kind of big shit right now. Like, you know, everyone's talking about Vieira now, Rain,

for good reason. I mean, but I don't I don't think that a lot of people actually have a whole lot of either. People have a lot of previous experience in it, or they have, you know, a lot of interest, but don't think I don't know that many people. Honestly, they're actually doing a lot of work in the e r space. I mean, like, what can you actually say about what you've been working on?

Sure. Well, first of all, nothing we ever do. A Facebook ever is the work of a single person or even division of a single person. So I'm part of a larger team of designers, engineers and PM's that deliver these things. Um, but over the past year that I've been involved with the PR team. My experience prior to that was in most some of the photos team on Facebook and around visual storytelling. That's something I'm really passionate about and spend some time on Facebook exploring. And naturally, when I joined the PR team, we had explored immersive media through 360 video and fun ourselves, creating some really delightful experiences for with really, like high end publisher. So Lucas film and people are creating 360 video in a way that we found really compelling.

So we thought, as a natural kind of progression to make that more accessible to over users and given my background in photos, um, I let the introduction of 360 photos on Facebook and what that did is, um, gave everyone with a smartphone the ability to create V are content because we made a decision to make panoramas, render them in this fear and wrap them around you. And if you have a gear we are you can't actually views that panorama envy our

is that is that I'm starting a right. But is that the limitation? Right now you have to have your v r Thio to be that

s o we have Facebook's. That's the one of the heads is that we support so far for the mobile, we are space. There are more other headsets that people use, but um, Facebook that remain

focused as of right now. Yeah, but But for those that don't have the headset, that they can still view a pant at 360 Panorama. Just not and, you know, on the DVR sort of setting, right? Yeah,

yeah, yeah. And the fact when people think of the r and immersive media, they think of, like, walking into a new world and, like, you know, navigating through space on that super cool. But we found that there is a lot of value still, and introducing immersive media in the devices that people already like new on their phones and making it accessible to them that way and interesting to consume that way. So, you know, we use the phones gyroscope so that you can you move your phone like a window into another world. Uh, and you can also pen around with your fingers. So even that's just a different way to consume immersive media.

Yeah. Okay, so before you are on the V R team, you were on the photos team on, and when you learned that you're going to be on the V R team, I mean, what? How did you feel? E mean it would do. Is that scary for you? Or were you actually pushing for that? I mean, did you have any, uh, the things that you're worried about about your ability to like, you know, great, great design and mean it in a completely new um, Rome.

Yeah, 100% is right immediately before we are. I actually moved to London for a year to kick start a product product team around visual storytelling. And for a year, I worked in London to build that team and get it kind of set it up for success. And after that year, and that I was scheduled to come back to the States and during a different team. So around that time, I started to really get the H for V. R. I'm a big fan of film and video games as a medium, and V r was just gaining all attraction then, and I just kind of like I got really interested in that in that space. So I started researching on how to get involved and found out that unity is, well, the tools that people use. Um,

and it's free. So I downloaded it and got ah course in you Demi, to learn how to use it, because unity is a game engine that people have been using for years now to make games. So there's a lot of documentation available for people that want to get started. So I did. And I just happened by chance that as I was transitioning to a new team, the V R team notices and reached out to me and said, Hey, I know that you're looking for a new team. You are we At the time, the team was made out of very specialized skill set. So there were only two other designers and they came from a game design, background and industrial design to feels are very like specific in terms of the skill says that they need. And they are never really on boarded A a person with a traditional front of design background like me. So they asked me,

You know what? We can try it out for three months if by the other three months, if you haven't learned the tools and figure out how to essentially be effective in the team, then you know we need to reconsider this, but that's really all I needed I wanted was the chance to play in that space. So So, you know, I kind of took the opportunity to get really immersed in that world. And within a month, my manager was like, Okay, all right. You can stay here. Um, so yeah, that's that's kind of how I got on board.

Is that Facebook's philosophy engine in general, like letting people test out teams and figure out where they are going to be happy and succeed? Or is that just kind of on edge case?

No, it is definitely not uncommon. I mean, I think in general, Facebook really focuses on making people feel like playing two people strengths and interests. So if you feel unhappy with your team or feel like you could be more valuable in a different team, that is definitely something that people consider very often. And we often have. Hackman's where, you know, you spend a month in a new team trying to explore a new problem, and the team is gonna testing you out, and you're testing out the team to see how that works out. In my case, they kind of made up this think will hack 1/4 which wasn't a thing, Um, but ah, but yeah, it happens quite

often. That's that's cool. So if if it hadn't worked out for some reason, you would have probably found another home. You know that that and what you're explained to me almost seems pretty alien. And while you're explaining that, it made me think about other major transitions in my career. Like for example, I remember I was I had worked on the Web for 10 years, and all of a sudden I was trying to do mobile stuff, and I actually found it quite simple, right? Like there is less screen real estate, and I realized, Oh, well, each screen has to do like one task,

and I found it really easy to move quickly. And then I think, over the theme of the last five years in general, I'm just make a general assumption here. The last five years has been about, like, less research and make APS and ship them and generate on them. But when you have the you have something like V R, which is quite the opposite. It feels to me at least like it. You have to you have to. There's a lot of learning involved or there's there's new context and in new, you know, new things you have to think about, like at the conference you guys are talking about, like,

you know, like I don't know, like frame rates and stuff that could have, you know, quote unquote potentially affect people. And, you know, all this other stuff you have to learn. Um, like, how long, in your opinion, like, should if someone was getting into the space? Like, how long of an investment on average do you think the average like great, You know, digital Prock designer is looking at to be effective in the on A V R

team. Yeah, that's a great question. It's still evolving. So um v R. As an industry still kind of separate from product design as an industry right and the traditional app or software design kind of community, V. R is mostly populated by people that are either film producers or game developers and in hardware people, right? I mean, right, how would people and one thing that because it's so close to me, one thing that I've been really focused on for the past year that I've been in the PR team is to kind of merged those two industries, the product design and we are designed industries into one s. So I I I spent a lot of time kind of leading the effort behind Facebook's V R Resource is site. And what that that's Facebook, that the science that we are And what that does is that it gives people with a practice.

I'm background. Ah, few resource is for them to get started without really having to learn how to code or use the tools really having to learn these new tools, really, in a very complex wait, Andi, we also kind of published a lot of articles into that site. You're gonna share what we've been learning with that community, and the idea is so that to help people transition from product design into we are design because the Prada design field or community is so mature now where, like in this golden age of prototyping and making a nap now feels so natural that there's so many resource is for us to use their and we move really fast in that world, and I think it's a lot of talent waiting for that to be explored in V. R. So so we are a company. And me personally, I'm really invested in helping people transition from traditional to the product design into the V R world.

Okay, before I forget, can you repeat that? You're all so people can check it out

totally as Facebook, That design slash pr.

Okay, I'm writing it down right now myself. Okay, so this seems to be something you're passionate about, helping people make that transition? Um, totally. I can think of a few other people that were also equally passionate. You know, his old man and bringing your bring your bring your talent to the web, Remember that? Like, definitely maybe maybe eating to talk to his old man about running a book apart book. Quick, take take your talent to ah, to virtual reality.

That's my dream.

Um, you know, you should do that. Um, yeah, I think you know, and and so my Okay, so my perspective on where this is going is more at a high level. You know, I run a business. I'm not like a practicing designer, but I see my people on my team and people around me, like everyone's definitely talking about this, and there's no doubt about it. Um, but I think like you, like we both said earlier making making ah,

making a web about maybe making a mobile app is fairly fast, right, with all the tools and resources we have. And I've seen a lot of people get really frustrated really quickly because of, you know, some of the learning curves like here. And maybe it's just because we're so used to being able to just figure it out, Really. You know, just hack something together using bootstrap er, you know, like you put something up really quickly that, you know, if we see ourselves, you see a tank taking a couple weeks like man, I I suck,

you know, But, um and I'm not I'm not really sure if everyone really knows where to go for, uh, go, go, go, go to learn. I don't know. Um,

yeah, I think I think it's it's done. Stages were the stage like they are really, really early right now. And, um, you know, it's been around for a few years, but we're still in a fairly kind of nascent state on it takes a certain type of wiring of a person to be satisfied with in that industry. Um, you mentioned this transition between careers, and that's actually something that, um, I've done all the time. So I went to school for graphic design in the you know, education was mostly around branding and marketing and print. And halfway through school,

the iPhone came out, and I just got kind of I fell in love with that field. So after graduating, I kinda pivot it, too. The mobile world. And after spending a few years there, I got a little bit seduced by the Internet of things with connected APS world. And I joined the company called Automatic to explore that, Um, and after a few years doing that, and I got seduced by, you know, the social networks of the world and had a really large scale cos we're joined Facebook. So to me, I I'm always kind of like,

uh, I'm wired this way that I'm I'm excited by new problems are not quite figured out yet. Um, and that's kind of what I thrive. And there's a lot of people like that in the V our community

today I think that I think the fear of God on the client service is side of things is a little bit different because, you know, like maybe in a company like Facebook, where there's you're working on your own products and there's systems in place, toe support people help them learn is ah, learning curve is a little bit more acceptable. But when when a client comes to you said, Hey, and when I want your help figuring out this this thing in V. R, it's it's not so for in right field. It's in the real estate business like, Can you help me do this? And it all becomes it is like, terrifying thing like, How do you like? How do you scope it?

How do you price it like? And then I I think just generally that there's more stress around it, because then you're asking, you know, there's there certain pressures, like in deadlines and stuff, and I don't know, But I think that maybe I guess what I'm seeing is on the client service out of that, like we want meat and we're trying to do that kind of work. And so the reason the way that we're doing work in this area right now is this by using philosophies that, like I use when I first started doing mobile, just like account for your your handicap by just being flexible and costs and stuff like that so that people that are trying to hire great designers to do this can get the great designers to do this. But both people have the flexibility and, like the, you know around learning are unpredictable things that might might arise.

Total. Yeah, but that's such a great point. What I would say to that is, is that, um, you may be leaning into what you do know right? We have a lot of years of experience in developing a visual language for screen interface is, you know, from from desktop to now mobile and hasn't been in vain. There's a reason why everything around us is framed in a rectangle right way. That's kind of how we perceive the world. And I don't think there's anything wrong with with bringing that into V R. And as you think of the R, remember that it's a spectrum right there. There's all the way to the high end of the spectrum where you can actually walk around the world and interact with hand interactions. But there's a very accessible side of that spectrum that is a 360 photo.

Um, are like this fear like, side of the spectrum, where you can just designed flat Plains and figure out ways to interact with the world that way. And that is sometimes very something generates the same or similar kind of wow effect that people respect from the R just by being surrounded by that content

that makes sense. Um, in that totally makes sense. Why you guys would start with that on Facebook in the in, the in the feed where it starts to make this feel more normal, right? Like, um, and less like, far out of reach, right. Ah. Then I don't make sense now. Yeah, I don't really think about that, but yeah, you're right.

And I think a lot of people can can benefit from just those those basic mechanics of, um, like, learning how to. I mean, it seems it seems like it's about asset to correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm just thinking in the way I'm thinking about it. Seems like it's about like learning the how to create the assets like photography and a 360 60 escape, Um, learning how to render three D objects and, you know, honestly, like, um, back. And when I first started in this industry,

like, you know, designers were making things and director, and a lot of times those interfaces that we were designing for seedy rooms were three D and, um and then then that that went to the flash world for just a minute. And then a lot of designers sort of forgot those skill set. So it's like, you know, we're kind of going back on the other side of that curve. Where where were we? It seems like we need to learn some of these other skills related to storytelling, like, you know, 33 D and a different kinds of photographer for one. But also just maybe auditory to maybe make me sound like, maybe enough maybe to supplement that 360 video.

Like the sound of that, you know, waterfall or something. You know, like, helps you feel like you're there, you know?

Well, yeah. I mean, like like I started saying, Everything is I don't believe anything. Any product is comes from out of a single person. I think it's all about teams and playing to each other's strengths, and I think we are. You just have a bit more levers to pull, like audio is huge and the ardent and really helps a lot with the inversion. And depending on what kind of experience you're trying to build, you can rely on, like three D artists and animators to kind of reinforce your design principles. But, you know, again, lean on the things you do know.

I think when people think of we are, they usually think of experiences. Envy are like like the classic thing is, people think of the are interfaces and you think of like my Lord report like Iron Man, just like movie or hands around to do other things. And, you know, sure love. When you when I joined the PR team, that's the first thing I tried. I just put a giant grade of of you in front of me and try to move it around with my hands and um, you, once you try it out, you find immediately why that's not the way we do things today, right? Like the there many that is inefficient.

It is nausea inducing. It is. It's just really hard to parse. Um, and you know, if you separate kind of creating a content or an experience from you I design or you exercising, which is how to help people navigate through that content, right? Most of the absent we make today are containers for content. If you think of something like Facebook or really most APS out there, you're not really responsible for creating the content that people consume. But you're responsible for creating the system that people use to navigate that continent and interact with our content on the tools for the content creators to, you know, to feed into that system. And it's no different NPR you're you're not creating the content. I mean, some people aren't, but I think there's room for designers to create the containers and the systems to navigate that continent. We are as well,

all right, Yeah, makes sense. So I have I mean, I don't want to like, you know, I know there's a lot of things for us to talk about, but I mean, this is the first time we've had any ah topics of v r on the show, so I really wanted, like, really take advantage of this opportunity to speak with you because you're really the only person that I know that's that's working on this in a company that has the resources and the means to actually make a nim packed in the world. Um, and so, first of all, thanks for even be willing to, you know,

to share. I mean, it sounds like you're you're that kind of kind of do that likes to share its That's great. But I do have a few questions for you. Um, some of these air questions and I'm sure you're used to answering all the time, but it would be good to have here recorded. Um What? What do you feel like? Is the biggest opportunity for designers. Um, in between the v r and a our spaces. Do you think that, you know, like, do you think won you?

No one is more relevant. The other, like, where should people focus? Where do you What do you think That what kinds of products do you think companies will be making in the next 3 to 5 years in those spaces?

Yeah, I think I think for the next 3 to 5 years. Um, V r will mostly be a commodity luxury, like a escapism device for a small percentage of people. I think, Ah, this will really kind of take off when a our technology gets there and we can integrate it seamlessly with our of our phones and the technology we use every day. I think that's really where the revolution will happen. However, I think the skill set needed for A are from a design standpoint can be explored in the V R field today. So the probably they are today. It's not lack of ideas or lack of design. But I have actually technology that helps track objects in different lighting conditions and the whole myriad of technological hurdles we need to get through today, like displays and all these things. Um, So in the meantime,

the way I think about it is, you can explore this spatial design world in the V. R space by, uh, Thinking about space is thinking in three D thinking in economics and how everything can relate to each other. We're gonna explore all those problems, envy our today so that when technology is ready, we can just translate that into a R and and really be impactful in that in kind of that moment?

No, that it's it's interesting. When I was an, um, Helsinki went to slash conference. Actually, I went to a lot of conferences this year because my role change. And so I said, Well, the first thing I want to do since I know I'm getting kind of getting back in the cells of seeing what the market looks like so went to Web Summit in London. I mean, I'm sorry, Web Summit in Lisbon, And then I went to a slush in Helsinki, and it was way more than I expected. But I would say at the very least, let it seemed like 10 to 15% of all the startups that were presenting her competing were in the RV,

our space, which I really didn't predict. Um, and it was quite amazing to, you know, like some of the stuff was like, you know, like I saw a company that made like a karaoke a product, but it was like a virtual reality karaoke e experience. Ah, down to things or more. Maybe more, um accessible like tools for architects to be able to tour a, um, a work in progress without physically being there or in. And has someone put it to me like,

you know, being able to recreate this weird moment where one country in another country's military are hanging out together, discussing the price of ordering a bunch of tanks, which which I understand. A lot of people do now about, like, you know, like, you know, like, you know, taking an iPad and on video. And this is what it looks like. There's a 360 view, but now all of a sudden, you can,

you know, like I mean, some of these things seem like they will be happening immediately. And I met this company called Bar Joe. I don't know if I'm butchering that, but it's, ah, a Finnish company. One of the founders, I believe, is the, um I believe I could be completely wrong here. Our misunderstand. But I think he was one of the lead industrial designers of the Hollands, and he could there what what they're creating. I mean,

I you know, I can't say what it is because, like assigned an indie a, um but they scratch the surface a little bit on their website, bar joe dot com, which is V a r j o. And I think you gave would be interested in checking this out. And so and I also think everyone listening will be too because we're looking at, like, you know, two different worlds. One is virtuality. And the one is, um, this mixed reality space Awesome. Anyway,

s Oh, um, in summary, like like you know, where do you like What is a company like, fun size? How do we begin the transition of creating, um, a new discipline? Just enough to be able to meet market demand in 3 to 5 years? Because that's where my brain is right out like every every month. I'm thinking three years out, right. So am I. Are we at a point now where agency owners like myself need to be building these capabilities or not yet

interesting? E, I think you probably know more about that than I would uh, I think that I mean depends on your audience, right. If you're making, uh, pitch decks to try to sell to really try to while people and show the bleeding edge from something I think we are it seems like a good candidate for that. If you're making real estate websites, I think maybe we aren't might not be there quite yet. Um, I think it depends really where you're trying to focus on, um, I and it really depends also if you are bought in with this idea that in the future maybe not three years but five years if you are body with this idea that in five years the world would be we rely less on screens and design will kind of like meld itself throughout many different devices and many different experiences with things like a I voice interface is and things that go beyond the pixels if you if you're bought into that kind of future. I think it's a design that makes sense today to be to kind of familiarize yourself with that language like, what does it mean to design the interface when you don't have the construct of a phone around you, right?

Like, how do you how do you create a stack? How do you create a grid? How do you go back from different modes? I think that those lessons are valuable today as we venture into this future. And I think, uh, it depends where you are personally in terms of like, where you want to spend your time. Is it, like, very pragmatic today? What is people, what people need today? I think if that if that's what you want to focus on, V. R is still not a indispensable part of people's lives. But if you're excited about what the future could be and want to position yourself in the way where you are valuable in that future, that I think you know we are makes sense to explore.

That's awesome. So how so? How are you helping people think about this future and get ready for it? You mentioned earlier that your, um, you're trying to help people make that transition. So what are you doing that through your Facebook group? Or is this through? We just like I mean, tell me more about that.

Sure, So there's a couple of science to that. First, being the Facebook we're interested in connecting people to each other. That's really kind of what brings everyone together in this company. And we're, uh, we bring people together, connect people together through mostly through the stories that they tell. And right now we use the tools we have available to tell those stories that we have a phone. So we take photos and videos. We have a keyboard. So we, you know, we write stories in text. Um, but I think we believe that the the more authentic the stories are them were valuable.

They can be. And, you know, we have the PR team believe that V. R is one the most authentic ways to tell a story. When you remove the frame, when you remove the decision of what to capture and when you capture a moment, everything is capture. I think you bring people along with you, make them feel like they were there with you when you're telling a story. So, uh, so two things happen there. You can kind of break the geographical barrier for connecting with other people. You know, you can be in the same like in the virtual same place with other people,

even though they're far away. Real life and they can feel like they're right there next to you, and that's hugely powerful. And then there's this other dimension of time where you can feel like you're in the moment that happened in the past. So, for example, I'm getting married in a couple months, and I get goose bumps every time I think about capturing that moment and making that available for my my kids in 20 years so they can walk around my wedding.

Oh, ma'am, that's I had I haven't even thought about that. That that's freaking insane, right?

Right. Yes. To say the ad that you can you can capture a moment and make it deliver it to people as if they were there. Uh, and so the obvious thing is its geography. But there's also time, right? And and, uh, it's maybe that it sounds, Ah, little like like, uh, Silicon Valley or whatever. But it's a pretty close to the time machine. You can feel like you're there, And if we can create ways for you to affect that environment and really interact with people in a way that is meaningful,

we see that adding a lot of value. Um, it was pretty aligned with the way we think about products on Facebook. We everything we make, we make it so that people can feel closer together. So So that's kind of how we try to help people through the are like, that's gonna be the overall vision.

Well, my mind is going crazy right now because you explaining the concept of you being able to relive your wedding and then your great great great grand kids being older the same and that that started making me think about all these other sort of parallels. Like what? Well, war reporting look like,

right? Like, oh,

definitely, like a, um, you know, like, you know, news reporting. And like being in a moment like being able to see, like, something in something potentially horrifying or or were amazing, right? Um, man,

I mean that that's only bounded by the tools we have today, right? Like, you see a picture from, you know, the, uh, early 19 hundreds. And it has some effect. You are able to come to transport yourself to that world a bit or you see a painting of the residence on Zahra and you try to think how life was during that time. Um, but I have yet to show we are to someone in its full glory, right? Choice of e. R. Where there's hand tracking and six degrees of freedom and positional tracking. I have yet to do that to someone,

and they come out of that experience and be like, Okay, like there's always a little bit something that they notice from that experience that captures the imagination. And it might not be like, fully fleshed out yet. We might be really early in that in that nugget, but there is something there's always like. They're they're like, intrigued by it, no matter who it is. The White House cynical. They are skeptical, the out of technology and that to me, that's That's the thing that I'm chasing, right, that that,

um, like, intangible nous of that feeling, that something that I only experienced what I'm exposed to, like the highest forms of art. So so that's going well gives me so jazzed about. We are.

So this potentially changes the game for, like Hollywood, right, like it's not just like game game developers that are like putting you in a an environment that you know like this. It's it's now like Hollywood would could potentially be creating these kinds of experiences, like, you know, you're watching a horror movie like the conjuring like it's not just your watching on a screen name or you're like they're right in the room or something. I don't know, Like I'm imagining that, I guess, Um uh, you know, be, you know, putting yourself like on a fly on the wall in any sort of, you know,

it's a story that's that's happening. I actually I can't remember what v r experience it was. I think it it was a demo, I think. But you're going like, room by room. But it's like a story unfolding. You can't really interact with the people, but you're like, you're you're participating in what's what's currently happening. It was freaking terrifying. And then, ah, you know, like I never really thought honestly that I would be that into, like,

a lot of the beer games, But I really am. I'm never I'm not really that big of a game are Ah, minute, honestly. But being in an environment where you're aware of everything around you and you're moving around like not only that, but like I feel like, you know, doing that once a day, I'm actually I'm quite literally getting a workout. I'll be sweating and working out. Maybe that's me That's good for everyone to be moving around a little bit. Warren doing things. It's It's still weird toe like it's still I still get a kick out of watching someone with the headset like, you know, like floundering like,

you know, you know, it's it's still kind of funny, you know, toe like, you know, watch some what the head said. But

yeah, I imagine we'll we'll look back at the head since today, like we look back at, like the giant break cellphones people. You using this in the eighties? Um, you know, it's it's a a victim of its time. We're still kind of developing what it means to consume envy our right. Like we weave to find what that means in the movie theater, right? We we have this format, which is around two hours, which is probably based on how long it takes for someone to like digest Ah ah, glass of coke before they have to pee. Er, the one is now movies,

air two hours and you don't question that. If I told you that a movie is 30 hours, you'd be like, Oh, I I'm never watching that. And if I told you. It was like two minutes. You know, you wouldn't think of it as a movie. So So we we we've over time, we've kind of defined the language what it is to see a movie and even things like like painting. There are galleries that you visit, and you're in a certain kind of state of mind when you experience those, um and so on. And I think v r is no different. We're kind of developing what that vocabulary is today.

Um, so, uh, you know, right now, most experiences air about 20 minutes on. Do you know they're certain there's limited locomotion are given the limitations we have today. But I would expect all that to be experimented on over the next few years, eh? So we can develop a proper language for it.

Well, well, um, we got to stay in touch and talk of the stuff because, I mean, it's, um it's fascinating to me, and I mean any any, any time there's an opportunity to reinvent myself, I think I'm interesting generally interested in exploring what that looks like. I think I think maybe as designers, we we're not all the same like you know, Some of us, though, like, want to, like,

constantly evolve, You know, like after 10 years of designing for the Web, like if it wasn't for the invention of the smartphone, I probably would have switched careers, You know, if it wasn't now for the emerging, you know, you know, conversational world and in augmented reality, virtual reality and probably would lose interest in making mobile app. So, I mean, you know, I don't know. I just, um I'm fascinated with the ability to constantly change

Totally love. You heard it. Here. First. You're you're the Madonna of product design.

What does that mean?

Maybe it's the old reference. Madonna. Always changing, Always reinventing. Okay,

sorry. Well, to get that Oh, man. So, um, so what does the future look like for you and you know, you You you have a fairly diverse background. You've chose this focus now it seems like, at least for the short term, this is where you're living. Are you doing work outside of the ar? Are you really focused on this? What? Like what do you what do you What do you, um, hoping to accomplish? And in whatever this phase of your career as a designer's.

That's a good question. I think one of the great things about the R is that the ceiling for feeling like I know what I'm doing is really, really, really high up. There s o. I have very little confidence that I'm close to being an expert in it, so So that's that to me, is exciting. There's a lot to learn. There's a lot to explore in there, so I can see a long road ahead of me explore in that field and and getting deeper and deeper into it. But but more broadly, um, you know, being in V. R. Over the past year or so,

Um, I've been really kind of appreciative of stepping outside of my comfort zone, and and I really enjoy that. I enjoy what comes after you do that on. There's a bit of a cliche, but it's true. So I like kind of like exposing myself to that and and try to bring people along with me to that. So so outside of we are, I have some sight projects where, like, for example, the park, as you mentioned at the beginning, where I tried to explore topics that are typically not export on dhe. Try to dig deeper than than, you know,

a superficial like, Is that right or wrong? Where is that good or bad or whatever? And try to explore things to the point where, like, more, more deeply. And because I feel like once you cross that threshold is when when the real earnings come. So So I tried so earlier. Last year, I did a project called Talk Turkey where, um, I interviewed a bunch of people and as them pretty candid conversations about, like, anxiety and mental health, or, you know, kind of things that were their background. That kind of forced him to step outside their comfort zone. And I really enjoy kind of those explorations.

Okay, so we gotta talk about this real quick. Um, there's not. There's, you know, everyone's always looking for, like, everyone's, you know, Where can I find great things to listen to and here. So we should We should talk about these things that you're doing. So first bread time. Um, bread time is your podcast. Um, tell us. Tell us about the podcast. Let's let's talk about that for a minute.

Sure s o my friend Charley Dietz, who worked at WhatsApp, would be working in the same kind of space for years, and and we usually take a break every day around 4 30 or 5 p.m. On, eat a snack and just catch up on. And we were both kind of introverted, not the best public speakers on earlier this year. We wanted to work on that. We wanted to explore, uh, how we could get more comfortable in their own skin, talking about things in public on we found ourselves talking about different subjects every day. So we thought, Well, what if we just, you know, bring life,

record these conversations and release them and try to generate ah, broader conversation with a broader community after that? So that's what we've been doing. We every every episode is really short. 15 20 minutes. They're all about different topic. We have a discussion about something like like the last thing we did the village release, actually, today was about, ah, future that that is, snaps a relying on the cloud. Um, we talked about, like is usually about design and technology on. We try to explore those subjects. Um,

one of those is real. Like, I don't know if it's the recent one, but it might might be, but I thought it was interesting. You were guys we're talking about. Well, what is the few? What is the future of the s? And where does that live like, Is it Is it Is it in the cloud? Is it on a Mac book And, uh, and I, Mac? Or is it like, maybe is it on a phone?

And then everything else is just like a screen to that, You know, it's interesting, you know, for something that seems so casual. I've listened to for these episodes. This is great. Um, Thanks, man. I don't know how you're doing this. Like how it looks like you're releasing an episode about every 2 to 4 days.

Yeah. Two episodes a week. Yeah, that's

crazy, man. I mean, ah, you know how hard it is for me to just release one. Like I got it. Well, I guess you're not scheduling guest, so that's the hardest part. But the the I don't know how. I don't know how you're doing that. Um, you

know, I think, man, if you refuse low where your quality threshold. You can ship like crazy. Like if you just, like, make shitty things. Anybody like you can do as many of them as you want

it. That's gonna be the tunnel of this episode. Make a lot of shitty things. Ah, fast, maybe. No, just kidding. But, um, but yeah. I mean, um, I don't know, like, aa lot of people. This is completely unrelated.

But a lot of people come to me, and they're like, Well, how how are you making the show? And I will tell them, and I will give them advice. But just like we were talking about where we started, the tools that I'm using we've been using for about three years now. There's a lot of tools available now. Um, yeah, if anyone starting a podcast, um, you guys should reach out to Gabriel and ask him to share with you the tools, the tools that he's using. Um,

it seems a lot more accessible than you might think. Um, in the check out his podcast bread time. That sounds, um, like you guys were having a good time. And in ah, it's great now, But what I didn't know about was talk turkey. Um, let's talk turkey like we're in. Where can we find talk turkey?

You confront Dr Kitt talk turkey that chat. Um, and it came from an idea. I had to create interviews with designers that went beyond the pixels and really talked about the motivations behind their designs. I find I found myself, like working on these things like, um, working on really, uh, like visual tweaks. Or like you can really reduce what we do to, like, just like making the shape of a button or something like that, but behind it, everyone and really has kind of like a like a life call behind that. They they want to change the world somehow by it, and they want to.

They have, like, just bigger aspirations than then making a button. So I wanted to dig into that, like what people think beyond the details of their work. But what it turned into was a conversation that we were able to dig into kind of like like, really candid topics. So, like I mentioned that we talked about like like whether what it means to be authentic, that was like the 1st 1 I talked to some people about the role of women in tech and and how we can, um, create a curate, the more inclusive environment. We talked about meditation, pond, the role that place in someone's well being,

and I tried to use a different format for it, and I made all the the interviews through text message, write messages or messenger somebody. That and I had a little bit of fun with the design of the site where we skinned it like a message or threat. So you felt like you're like, You're like somebody grabbed my phone and saw all my messages with my friends on. They're kind of like it's kind of a voyeuristic thing where they came through something that's pretty candid.

Yeah, I'm looking at this right now, and and that's what I was about to say. It feels like you are are able to read Ah, conversation on other people's phones or something, and this is quite awesome. There's a lot of cool people in here to, um I've never seen anything like this. I mean, the way you presented, I think it's cool or is this a project? You're still working on our visit, which is pretty time you're done.

Let's say that I that I wrapped up see someone I've thought about bringing the system to sometime in the future. Like you said, the hard thing is bringing guests in or people to interview in and in this case, make them comfortable enough to talk about something that's pretty candid, you know, in a public light. And that's not easy to do. Especially people that I don't know, like strangers did not. My friends, Um, so So I need to figure out how to resume this. But I'm pretty proud of what we ended up making. You know, there's there's about a dozen conversations in there and they all kinda tackle different topic in the way that I feel is really valuable and gives you some insight about people's lives.

That's pretty neat. I mean, I love how you even like, ah, you know, you have get notified about recent interviews. I mean, is this is pretty cool. Man, I can't believe I don't know about this. Yeah. Okay, so that's talk turkey dot chat. Check that out. So, Gabriel So, um,

um, anything that you wanna, you know, you wanna say to those out there that are venturing into space. You're about that you're working in

interview are? Yeah, um, I would just encourage everyone to be as open as they can. The V our community is really, really small. And they're not a lot of designers in there. They're not a lot of people with traditional park design background in it. Um, so those of us who were there try to keep late, share knowledge as much as we can without breaking in the AIDS. Yeah, and and I really like that about it. And so if you're thinking about coming, like stepping into a world or if we're already in that world, you know, kind of leaning into that community But like,

there's there's a few of us that they're super eager to talk to anybody who's interested in joining. And if you're already there, we want to hear your learning. They want to come in, like share how we approach certain problems because it's so early like there are no conventions, right? We don't like the simplest thing Like we don't know how to scroll. Envy are the simplest interaction. We don't know how to create a feed way. We have an idea, and we made some attempts at it. But there's no definitive solution yet, so

that awesome in our interaction design problem, right? Like, you know, being able to create a whole new paradigms for navigating these spaces. Um, my fear and that my fear that, though, is that everyone will have different navigational paradigms. You know, um, that there won't be

much standards. Yeah, Yeah, I'm a bit of about two. Missed. I think everything kind of eventually gonna Iran's to tell about. And the best solution right is up to the top. But that is definitely the dream, right? The that, uh, if you're working than we are right now, you could be the guy. Okay, Orgel, that creates pinch to zoom in v R. Something so ubiquitous that you don't think about that gets adopted by every sort of platform in that

industry. Sometimes people forget that it was a small design team that built the paradigm of albums. Sort of you looking three D and shifting across ah, horizontal spectrum that apple purchased that became like, you know, that changed the way we thought about Paris sells forever, you know? Oh, totally. Yeah, yeah, it's It's all right. Well, Gabriel, Thanks for making time, Thio. Come on.

A podcast. It's awesome. Toa catch up with you. I'll be in. Ah, I'll be in Menlo Park in a couple of weeks. We should Ah, we should get together.

Let's do it.

So, Gabriel, let everyone how weaken how they confined you on the interwebs and, um and hopefully people will reach out.

Yeah, my full name, if you can spell it. Gabriel Valdivia. As with V but yeah, you can That's gonna leave a dot com Is my website Twitter at Gabriel Devia? Um, that's pretty much everywhere. Just reach out to me in and say hello.

All right. Thanks, Kate. Thanks for tuning in the house. A podcast. We'll see you next time. Hustles made by fun size digital design agency that works with inspiring product teams around the world. Learn more about us at fun size dot c e o the season of hustles Brought to you by design the 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 apply also thanks to graveyard teeth for the music and Black River Audio for mixing the show.