Nir Eyal: Beyond Belief and how to change your mind to change your life

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1. 

   S12 · E179 · 3 Jun 2026 · 26 min

   Paul Ford: Writer, developer & "fun Cassandra" on why everything is changing (but not how you think)

   Paul Ford likes to call himself a “fun Cassandra” — someone who, like the priestess in Greek mythology, sees trouble coming, but unlike her tries to make the warning as entertaining as possible. He’s the writer, developer, and co-founder of the tech agency Aboard who saw Claude Code drop last November and immediately understood it was going to change everything — while finding, to his surprise, that most people around him simply weren’t seeing it that way. This is a preview of a premium episode. Find the full interview on our Substack: https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/paul-ford That same…

2. 

   S12 · E178 · 27 May 2026 · 41 min

   Jessie McGuire: National Design Award-winning studio leader on design as a civic tool

   As the United States approaches its 250th anniversary, the Constitution remains the most consequential document in American life — and more people are reading it than ever. But pick up almost any commercial edition and you’ll find the same thing: small type, no imagery, nothing that invites you in. Jessie McGuire noticed this too. Find bonus content and more on our Substack: https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/jessie-mcguire Every copy her studio ordered looked identical — dense, utilitarian, forgettable. So they redesigned it. They printed thousands of copies, donated them to New York City…

3. 

   S12 · E175 · 20 May 2026 · 33 min

   Colin Fisher: The lone genius is a myth

   This is a preview of a premium episode. To listen to the full thing, visit our Susbtack: https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/colin-fisher In jazz, there’s a concept called minimal structures — a rhythmic framework, a harmonic pattern, an implied order of solos. Just enough to hold the band together, but plenty of space for autonomous creativity. It’s a useful lens for thinking about how any team works, and it comes directly from today’s guest. Colin Fisher was a professional jazz trumpet player before he became one of the leading researchers on group dynamics. He’s now an Associate Professor…

4. 

   S12 · E175 · 6 May 2026 · 27 min

   Mason Currey: Mason Currey: Author of Daily Rituals on Making Art and Making a Living

   This is a preview of a premium episode. To the listen to the full thing, head over to our Substack: https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/mason-currey At several points in his life, Eli imagined what it would take to become a full-time artist — a photographer or illustrator free from client work. What he didn’t realize was that he already had an example of a different path right in front of him: his father, a practicing physician whose published poetry earned recognition from luminaries like John Ashbery. Mason Currey’s most recent book explores these alternate paths. He’s the author of Daily…

5. 

   S12 · E174 · 29 Apr 2026 · 48 min

   Etinosa Agbonlahor: Behavioral economist on why pricing belongs in the design process

   Find the full episode and bonus content on our Substack: https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/etinosa-agbonlahor For product teams at startups and established tech giants alike, finding the right pricing and value proposition often feels more like alchemy than science. It’s a high-stakes game of guesswork involving the complex psychology, shifting values, and ingrained behaviors of your customers. While it can take years of trial and error to dial in, our guest today is here to help us decode the pricing formula and understand the behavioral drivers that make a product indispensable. Etinosa…

6. 

   S12 · E173 · 22 Apr 2026 · 32 min

   Paul Dichter: Stranger Things writer on why the writers’ room isn’t so different from the design studio

   Both Aarron and I are official Stranger Things nerds. We watched the show ourselves when they came out, and again when our kids were old enough. As children of the 80s, the way it captured that particular feeling of freedom — biking with friends through the neighborhood, the movies and music of the era — struck exactly the right balance of nostalgia: present enough to feel real, but never forced. For that, much of the credit goes to the writers. So, we were thrilled to get a chance to talk to one of the head writers for Stranger Things, Paul Dichter. This is a preview of a premium episode.…

7. 

   S12 · E194 · 7 Oct 2026 · 40 min

   Randy Hunt: Notion and Etsy design leader on why the best design teams stay small

   In graduate school, Randy Hunt poured his heart and soul into a poster for Milton Glaser’s class, a picture built entirely from hand lettering that read as an image from across the room and as words up close. Glaser glanced at it, said, “Well, that’s not very good,” and moved on to the next student. Get bonus content and more on our Substack: https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/randy-hunt Randy tells that story fondly. What stayed with him wasn’t the sting but the standard: keep the floor high, and the ceiling keeps rising. He carried that idea from Glaser’s studio, where he apprenticed,…

8. 

   S12 · E193 · 5 Oct 2026 · 56 min

   Matt Owens: Athletics co-founder on keeping your creative fire lit

   When Aarron was fresh out of grad school, working at an agency outside Philadelphia, he and his coworkers used to crowd around a monitor to study volumeone.com. Most websites back then had a picture, maybe an image map. Matt Owens’s site had 3D, animation, and experimental graphic design, and none of us could figure out how he made it. Find bonus content and more on our Substack: https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/matt-owens-athletics-co-founder-on Matt launched Volumeone.com in 1997, and it now sits in SFMOMA’s permanent collection. Before that, he was a skater and punk kid from Texas who…

9. 

   S12 · E192 · 23 Sep 2026 · 28 min

   Blaine Billingsley: OpenAI designer on the collaboration problem AI hasn't solved yet

   Blaine Billingsley is a staff designer at OpenAI, and his path there was anything but a straight line. He studied music composition and comparative religion, played guitar in Texas for a living (he remembers checking his bank account, seeing seven dollars, and feeling pumped), then drove to San Francisco and took a data entry job at a startup. This is a preview of a premium episode. To listen to the whole thing, join our premium membership on Susbtack: https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/blaine-billingsley The engineers taught him to script his way through the work in a couple of hours, and he…

10. 

    17 Sep 2026 · 44 min

    Mack Paul: Co-author of Miracle Road on designing places where innovation happens

    In the mid-1950s, North Carolina was one of the poorest states in the country. Its economy ran on tobacco, furniture, and textiles — all three in decline — and its universities were turning out talent that promptly left for somewhere with better jobs. Find bonus content and more on our Substack: https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/mack-paul-co-author-of-miracle-road Today the stretch of pine woods between Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill is the largest research park in the United States. The barcode came out of it. So did AZT, ultrasound, and AstroTurf. Our guest Mack Paul spent years working…

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