- You Cannot Mandate an AI TransformationA complete 10-step guide to pulling it off with care and human agency
Julie Zhuo
Co-founder of Sundial; former vice president of product design at Facebook; author of The Making of a Manager; writes The Looking Glass.
Julie Zhuo did not write this page. What is this?
It collects the places they publish and what they have said there, each linked to the source. They have no account here. Is this you? Claim it, correct it, or ask us to remove it from ppll.
Where they publish
Newsletter The Looking Glass Essays on building products, teams and taste, and on AI.
Recent
- You Cannot Mandate an AI Transformation 1 Sept 2026 A complete 10-step guide to pulling it off with care and human agency
- Eye, Hand, AI: a letter to my daughter 5 Aug 2026 The value of trying when AI makes things so easy
- How life was different during the early Internet 6 Jul 2026 AI for nostalgia's sake
Show 17 more
- To All the Folks Who Are About to Be Rich 13 Jun 2026 Because of IPOs, acquisitions, or just doing some damned good business
- The Art and Excellence of Sales 9 Jun 2026 7 Lessons from former Meta Chief Revenue Officer David Fischer
- I am an idiot 21 Apr 2026 Notes on idiocy, in the age of something smarter.
- How to Spot a World-Class Designer 14 Apr 2026 7 lessons from designer, inventor and angel investor Soleio on what separate excellent from mediocre
- What Excellent Growth Teams See That Others Miss 11 Mar 2026 Watch now | A conversation with Brian Hale, Chief Growth Officer at Doordash
- Playing Authentic Games 15 Jan 2026 Intentions for 2026
- The Lost Art of Crying 6 Nov 2025 How to build and dismantle a kingdom of ice
- Unsent Letter #25 16 Sept 2025 To the arrogant young, newcomer
- You're definitely going to be a manager now 9 Sept 2025 Book launch! + Predictions for the manager in the era of AI
- The Making of a Founder 21 Aug 2025 On conviction and the hero's journey
- Unsent Letter #11 2 Jul 2025 To the maestro who passed me by
- When AI Has Better Taste Than You 24 Jun 2025 How machines conquered our skills, infiltrated our aesthetics, and left us with one final advantage
- Unsent letter #47 3 Jun 2025 To the corporate jobber with a faraway gaze
- The Thing You Are Expert at Will Be Your Career Downfall 27 May 2025 AI will disrupt some of us more than others.
- Conversational Interfaces: the Good, the Ugly & the Billion-Dollar Opportunity 12 May 2025 The five biggest problems with today's conversational chatbot design
- The AI Quality Coup 24 Apr 2025 What exactly is "great" work now?
- The Death of Product Development as We Know it 25 Mar 2025 Goodbye three-legged stool, 2-pizza teams, and "managers"
Link verified 6 Sept 2026. Recent items update automatically from the channel.
Beliefs
Korrents What they believe 15 beliefs — each backed by an exact quote.
Each is a — compiled by korrents.com, not by them: the one-line wordings are korrents', the quotes are theirs.
Recent
Okay design improves what is put in front of it; excellent design changes what is possible.
Okay design improves what is put in front of it. Excellent design changes what is possible.
How to Spot a World-Class Designer Said 14 Apr 2026
Excellence in design is not just craft quality; it is whether a designer is both willing and allowed to create impact.
Excellence in design is not just about craft quality. It is about whether a designer is both willing and allowed to create impact.
How to Spot a World-Class Designer Said 14 Apr 2026
The most powerful rule for an exceptional interface is that it feels obvious to use; novelty, minimalism and simplicity are means to that, not the end.
Sometimes designers will go to great lengths to make a user interface novel, or minimal, or simple. This is the wrong goal. Novelty, minimalism or simplicity are good heuristics for obviousness, but do not mistake the means for the end.
Conversational Interfaces: the Good, the Ugly & the Billion-Dollar Opportunity Said 12 May 2025
Show 12 more
ChatGPT exploded because of its obvious chat interface, not its technology, which had launched earlier in a different wrapper that few noticed.
The technology powering ChatGPT had already launched prior to November 30th, 2022. It was just wrapped in a different interface. Very few people paid attention. Why did ChatGPT explode in popularity? Because of its obvious chat interface, which everyone intuitively already knew how to use it.
Conversational Interfaces: the Good, the Ugly & the Billion-Dollar Opportunity Said 12 May 2025
A blank chat box is lazy: it violates the first rule of a good user experience, that it is obvious what you can do.
The problem with a blank chat box on a blank page is that it violates the first rule of a high-quality user experience: it isn’t obvious what I can do.
Conversational Interfaces: the Good, the Ugly & the Billion-Dollar Opportunity Said 12 May 2025
Conversational interfaces get to the first seventy percent quickly and are bad at iteration; the future is chat married to traditional direct-manipulation controls.
Conversational UIs are great at quickly getting to the first 70%, but suck at offering easy controls over narrower areas for iteration.
Conversational Interfaces: the Good, the Ugly & the Billion-Dollar Opportunity Said 12 May 2025
Mocks and docs are dying: AI-native teams prototype and prune with code-first prototypes instead of static mocks and product requirement documents.
Say goodbye to cycles of mock and doc feedback, and say hello to code-first prototypes with constant iteration (on prompts, models, etc) to answer three key questions.
The Death of Product Development as We Know it Said 25 Mar 2025
Taste is the ability to distinguish excellence from mediocrity, and the hand can never consistently produce better than the eye can discern.
Good taste: taste is the ability to distinguish excellence from mediocrity. The hand can never consistently produce better than the eye can discern.
The Death of Product Development as We Know it Said 25 Mar 2025
AI favours tiny teams of high-agency individual contributors with blurred roles, and the coordinating manager is not needed until it is time to polish.
Welcome to the era of AI-native companies, where individual contributors (ICs) reign supreme.
The Death of Product Development as We Know it Said 25 Mar 2025
Do not judge a product's beauty by its aesthetics; judge it by how it made you feel.
Do not judge a product’s beauty by its aesthetics; judge it by how it made you feel.
The Looking Glass: How to tell if work is beautiful Said 16 Nov 2023
If the people a product is designed for cannot generally agree that the design is good, it is not good.
If you cannot get a group of people for whom your product is designed for to generally agree that your design is good, it’s not good.
The Looking Glass: How to tell if work is beautiful Said 16 Nov 2023
Obviousness comes from conforming to people's existing mental models: do not reinvent a common UI pattern unless the new one is at least twice as good.
Obviousness comes from conforming to people’s existing mental models. Don’t waste time reinventing common UI patterns or paradigms unless they are at least 2x better, or you have some critical brand reason to do so.
The Looking Glass: How to tell if work is beautiful Said 16 Nov 2023
Better design does not mean more design: the most obvious designs are often invisible.
Better design does not mean more design. Often, the most obvious designs are invisible.
The Looking Glass: How to tell if work is beautiful Said 16 Nov 2023
Design is not how a product looks; it is how it works, and all builders are designers.
Design is not the way it looks, or beautiful colors and animations. It's not the brand or the logo. It is how the product works. Designing is the the process of exploring and arriving at a solution. I believe all builders are designers.
The Looking Glass: What AI Won't Change Said 20 Apr 2023
The more your target audience does not look like you, the more you should be skeptical of your design intuition.
The more your target audience does not look like you, the more you should be skeptical of your design intuition. Despite having seen thousands of a/b test results for minor design details, I am still regularly surprised and humbled by my intuition being wrong.
The Looking Glass: What AI Won't Change Said 20 Apr 2023
What is a korrent?
A korrent is a belief a person has stated in their own words: one sentence stating the claim, backed by a quote and a source, kept at korrents.com.
Under a name here, the quoted block is what they actually said. The korrent beneath it is the claim those words support, in korrents' wording — tap it to see the record, its source, and who else holds it.
Nobody here wrote their own korrents. They are compiled from public statements, and a person can change their mind, which is recorded too.
Feed
As its own page →Hiding
1 September
5 August
- Eye, Hand, AI: a letter to my daughterThe value of trying when AI makes things so easy
6 July
- How life was different during the early InternetAI for nostalgia's sake
13 June
- To All the Folks Who Are About to Be RichBecause of IPOs, acquisitions, or just doing some damned good business
9 June
- The Art and Excellence of Sales7 Lessons from former Meta Chief Revenue Officer David Fischer
21 April
- I am an idiotNotes on idiocy, in the age of something smarter.
14 April
- How to Spot a World-Class Designer7 lessons from designer, inventor and angel investor Soleio on what separate excellent from mediocre
11 March
- What Excellent Growth Teams See That Others MissWatch now | A conversation with Brian Hale, Chief Growth Officer at Doordash
15 January
- Playing Authentic GamesIntentions for 2026
6 November 2025
- The Lost Art of CryingHow to build and dismantle a kingdom of ice
16 September 2025
- Unsent Letter #25To the arrogant young, newcomer
9 September 2025
- You're definitely going to be a manager nowBook launch! + Predictions for the manager in the era of AI
21 August 2025
- The Making of a FounderOn conviction and the hero's journey
2 July 2025
- Unsent Letter #11To the maestro who passed me by
24 June 2025
- When AI Has Better Taste Than YouHow machines conquered our skills, infiltrated our aesthetics, and left us with one final advantage
3 June 2025
- Unsent letter #47To the corporate jobber with a faraway gaze
27 May 2025
- The Thing You Are Expert at Will Be Your Career DownfallAI will disrupt some of us more than others.
12 May 2025
- Conversational Interfaces: the Good, the Ugly & the Billion-Dollar OpportunityThe five biggest problems with today's conversational chatbot design
24 April 2025
- The AI Quality CoupWhat exactly is "great" work now?
25 March 2025
- The Death of Product Development as We Know itGoodbye three-legged stool, 2-pizza teams, and "managers"
16 November 2023
-
Better design does not mean more design. Often, the most obvious designs are invisible.
-
Obviousness comes from conforming to people’s existing mental models. Don’t waste time reinventing common UI patterns or paradigms unless they are at least 2x better, or you have some critical brand reason to do so.
-
If you cannot get a group of people for whom your product is designed for to generally agree that your design is good, it’s not good.
+ 1 more
-
Do not judge a product’s beauty by its aesthetics; judge it by how it made you feel.
20 April 2023
-
The more your target audience does not look like you, the more you should be skeptical of your design intuition. Despite having seen thousands of a/b test results for minor design details, I am still regularly surprised and humbled by my intuition being wrong.
-
Design is not the way it looks, or beautiful colors and animations. It's not the brand or the logo. It is how the product works. Designing is the the process of exploring and arriving at a solution. I believe all builders are designers.
Nothing matches.