I'm joining an AI startup
Last week I mentioned I was sitting on some news. Now I can finally share it:
I'm now Head of Design at Atlas UP, an AI startup building business intelligence tools. I'm leading design across the company—product, brand, marketing—and building the design team from the ground up.
And the best part: I'm reuniting with Adam Little, my co-founder from 45royale, and Jere Simpson, Atlas UP's founder, who was a client and friend from back then. The timing was serendipitous, and getting the team back together just made sense.
I'll be sharing what I learn along the way—designing for AI systems, scaling a team from scratch, and the real lessons from inside an AI product company.
Most Interesting
Onlook is Cursor for designers
This is the design-to-code tool I've been waiting for someone to build properly. Onlook is an open-source visual editor that hooks directly into your codebase and writes the changes to your actual files in real time. No export step, no Figma-to-code translation guesswork. If you've ever been stuck in the loop of design → handoff → implementation → "that's not what I meant!" → repeat, this collapses that entire cycle.
Why you should care about design context
Your messy Figma file just became a liability. Not because designers will judge you (and they will), but because AI systems reading your files to generate code depend on clear naming, proper auto layout, and logical component structure. Figma's pushing better organization because they know design tools are becoming the source of truth for AI-assisted development.
Sam Altman's making the case that compute capacity—not algorithms or talent—is the real constraint on AI. His argument: we need gigawatt-scale infrastructure buildouts now to avoid a future where we're rationing AI between cancer research and education.
A new (or rather, old) approach to typography on the web
Daybreak Studio is pushing back against the "everything must scale infinitely" approach to typography. Their argument: context-specific, opinionated type systems serve language better than flexible, token-based approaches. TOOLS WORTH EXPLORING
TabTab: Supercharged Windows & Tabs Manager for Mac
Command+Tab has needed an upgrade for years. This replaces it with something that understands context—recent windows and tabs across browsers, code editors, design tools, with search instead of endless cycling.
Craft: Personal Space for Notes, Tasks, and Big Ideas
Craft sits in the sweet spot between Apple Notes and Notion. It’s a Mac App of the Year winner with offline sync, on-device AI, and includes Readwise integration.
Stripe and OpenAI built an open protocol for AI agents to handle purchases. Businesses stay merchants of record, agents manage checkout across any payment processor. Infrastructure for a world where buying is delegated to AI. FUNDAMENTALS
How to create a typographic hierarchy
This is a really solid reference for type decisions: start with content structure, scale intentionally, use weight and spacing for contrast, test in black-and-white, repeat styles consistently. Nothing revolutionary, but it's the kind of guide you bookmark and return to when setting up a new project and need to make fast decisions without overthinking.
