How design at Airbnb creates a culture of craft at scale - Alex Schleifer (Dive Club S6 | E2)

Alex Schleifer was the long-time Chief Design Officer at Airbnb where he grew the team from ~35 to over 600 people. So this conversation is an inside look at what makes design at Airbnb so special. We discuss:
- How to create a culture of decisiveness
- Why great design leaders are like chefs
- How to succeed in executive CRITs at Airbnb
- How designers should prepare for an AI future
- What it means to operate with a “first team” mindset
- What it takes to achieve Airbnb’s level of craft at scale
- Which elements of the Airbnb culture you can instill for your team
- + a lot more
Show notes:
Alex’s Twitter - / alexoid and Linkedin - / alexoid
Alex’s “People vs. Algorithms" - pod.link/pva podcast
Mentioned Airbnb alumni:
- Katie Dill - / katie-dill-79168b3 (Head of Design at Stripe)
- Ethan Eismann - / ethaneismann (SVP Design at Slack)
- Karri Saarinen - / karrisaarinen (CEO at Linear)
Partners:
Framer: How I build websites (join.dive.club/framer-ad-podcast)
Jitter: How I animate my designs (join.dive.club/jitter-ad-podcast)
Raycast: How I do everything on my computer (join.dive.club/raycast-ad-pod...)
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Chapters
0:00 Jitter
0:37 Intro
1:50 Alex Schleifer
12:47 Why the design management track is a bit insane
13:35 Great design leaders are like chefs
14:23 Shipping designs you're proud of
20:59 The importance of executive design reviews
22:40 How to succeed in Airbnb CRIT
27:58 Importance of cross-functional product runthroughs
29:23 Operating with a "first team" mindset
30:48 Why PM is a title not a career path
31:28 How AI impacts the strategy for design leaders
34:28 How designers should prepare for the future of AI
39:18 Why saying the tools don't matter is bullsh*t
42:28 Where Alex is looking to adopt AI
44:49 What Alex is working on post-Airbnb

[@rugu16]

Idk how every designer is not subscribed to this channel

[@joindiveclub]

tell your friends 😉

[@_easter]

Nice episode. I love how Alex articulates his thoughts and way of working. Really admirable

[@joindiveclub]

Couldn't agree more

[@RafaTeobaldo]

Awesome video!

[@claudioalmeida4623]

Awesome interview!!

[@joindiveclub]

glad you liked it!

[@irvro]

I loooooved this episode, the tone of the conversation felt pretty casual and comfy It was in the vercel episode were one of the guests mentioned the evolution of the design/engineer role as just "builders" and here Alex I think that mention a similar idea talking about the importance of having a team of 90% of people who can build. Really interesting :D

[@joindiveclub]

definitely a trend I'm noticing 👀 think you'll like next week's episode too 😉