Design Better: Experts in Residence – Roundtable at Sequoia Capital

Podcast: Design Better
Hosts: Aaron Walter, Eli Woolery (The Curiosity Department)
Guests: Irene Au, Kevin Bethune, James Buckhouse
Date: January 14, 2026
Location: Sequoia Capital, Silicon Valley

Overview

This live roundtable episode convenes design luminaries Irene Au, Kevin Bethune, and James Buckhouse at Sequoia Capital to explore the evolving intersection of design, technology, and creativity. Through candid reflection and debate, the panel addresses the transformation of design roles, team structures, and the growing influence of AI—while wrestling with timeless questions about beauty, craft, and the uniquely human spark in an increasingly automated world.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Evolution of Design’s Role in Tech

• From Specialist to Multidisciplinary (Irene Au, 04:18)
  • Early internet era design pulled from adjacent fields and focused more on user navigation than visual adornment due to technical limitations (e.g., slow modems).
  • “The big design insight was that the successful design was one that was performant… and brought insights about people and psychology to the development team.”
  • Design matured in organizations like Yahoo and Google from usability to incorporating human-centered research at the core.
• Collapsing Roles and Blended Skills (Irene Au, 08:55)
  • Now, roles like product manager, researcher, and design engineer are increasingly hybridized:

    “Product managers are doing more user research... There’s a new job title… called design engineer, the mashup between the front-end engineer and designer.” (08:55)

  • Startups and large companies alike are seeking talent with multidisciplinary abilities.

2. Design’s Strategic Impact in Venture & Industry

• The Power of Transformation (James Buckhouse, 00:00 & 13:50)
  • Design isn’t just about the product but about transforming the user:

    "Startup is always designing a product that is going to transform its customers." (00:00, 13:50)

  • At Sequoia, design is considered when evaluating whether founders have insight, drive, and transformative vision.
• Business Buy-In for Multidisciplinary Teams (Kevin Bethune, 09:48)
  • Successful teams harness design, engineering, and business case perspectives.
  • There’s a challenge in convincing larger organizations to move beyond silos toward more collaborative, evidence-driven multidisciplinary work—though volatile markets (and AI hype) sometimes sideline this progress.

3. Efficiency, AI, and the "Creative Friction" Dilemma

• AI & Automation Create Room—but at What Cost?
  • Tools like Figma AI and design systems increase individual contributor efficiency—but may reduce beneficial friction.
• Balancing Speed and Creativity
  • "Design also needs space for ambiguity, uncertainty, exploration, discovery, which is very unique with our discipline." (Aaron Walter, 19:55)
• Three "Buckets" of Design Work (Kevin Bethune, 21:03):
  1. Stakeholder management
  2. Asset production
  3. Precious: creative problem-solving
  • AI/ops can shrink the first two, making more space for true creativity, but only if organizations intentionally value that time.
• Making Vision Tangible:
  • “Your job is to make vision tangible as a designer. That's what you're supposed to do.” (Irene Au, 24:32)

4. Job Market Shifts: Surviving as a Designer

• Lean Teams, High Demands (Irene Au, 25:30):
  • Startups want all-in, 6-7 days/week “996” commitment—yet still struggle to fill roles despite talented designers in the market.
  • Designers should cultivate blended skills, curiosity, problem-solving tenacity, and the ability to explore options independently.
• Hope in an Era of Consolidation (James Buckhouse, 26:11):
  • “My hope is… we can create more with these hybrid roles. Instead of, ‘This means we can keep headcount low,’ the answer is, ‘We can create more.’ That’s my hope.” (26:11)

5. The Rise of AI Browsers: Agency, Privacy, and the Filter Bubble

• AI’s Seductive Power and Risks (Irene Au, 33:01):
  • Hyper-personalization comes with privacy tradeoffs and the danger of deepening echo chambers.
  • Delegating tasks to agents may erode our own decision-making “compass” and sense of agency.
  • “We are becoming so reliant… Younger generations almost don’t have an internal compass around what to do next.” (33:34)
• Neuroplasticity and Cognitive Decline (James Buckhouse, 36:59):
  • Outsourcing thinking to AI tools can measurably blunt cognitive skills, raising the need for intentional mental “exercise.”
  • “With every piece of stimuli that comes in… that’s a design problem. How are we designing what we bring into our lives so that we can have the kind of brain we want?” (38:53)

6. Craft, Beauty, & the Enduring Human Touch

• Re-emergence of Human Craft (Aaron Walter, 41:00):
  • Parallels drawn to the Arts & Crafts movement’s response to industrialization; future may see similar pushback—a reclaiming of hands-on, authentic creative practices.
• Embodied Intelligence: Drawing and Dance (James Buckhouse, 46:00):
  • “The job to be done of drawing is to access the wisdom in your body… To solve a problem, to think through an idea, to express your understanding of the world.”
• Energy, Healing, and Synesthesia (Irene Au, 47:53):
  • Movement, color, sound, and even environmental aesthetics play subtle but powerful roles in creativity and well-being.

  • “When we engage the senses, we are effectively moving energy within ourselves… That’s the essence of creativity. When energy moves, that’s when new inspiration comes.” (47:53)

• Tuning Forks & Rituals (James Buckhouse, 50:01):
  • Stories of Google execs and Marie Kondo using tuning forks and ritual as ambient preparation for focused, creative work.

7. Beauty, Imperfection, and Nature’s Curriculum

• Truth and the Golden Ratio (Irene Au, 52:00):
  • Natural fractals and harmonious proportions have measurable “healing” aesthetic effects; humans intuitively resonate with imperfection and natural forms.

  • “There have been studies that have found that gazing at naturally occurring fractals can have a very healing effect on the body… There’s this balance between complexity and simplicity.” (52:00)

• Art/Science Division Is Artificial (Irene Au, 55:54):
  • “There’s no separation between the qualitative and the quantitative, or art and math and science. It’s all the same.”
• Historical Ratios & Design (James Buckhouse, 54:11):
  • From Vitruvius to Archimedes to Islamic architectural traditions, different cultures leveraged ratios and proportions as design bedrock.
• Nature as Curriculum (Kevin Bethune, 56:28):
  • Reference to the Eames “Powers of Ten” film as depiction of scale, pattern, and design inspiration.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• James Buckhouse on Transformation:

  “The startup isn't just making a piece of software or a piece of technology... [It's] taking the customers from the person they were before they used your thing to the person they're going to become because they have your thing now.” (00:00)

• Irene Au on Design’s Changing Landscape:

  “Everything’s just getting compressed.” (09:33)
  “Now… even in larger companies, there’s a desire to have people with blended skills.” (08:55)

• Kevin Bethune on Automation and Creativity:

  “My hope is that with efficiency, with automation… we can allow the first two buckets to reduce to expand our bandwidth… around creative problem solving.” (21:03)

• Irene Au on Making Vision Tangible:

  “Your job is to make vision tangible as a designer. That’s what you’re supposed to do.” (24:32)

• James Buckhouse on Neuroplasticity and Design:

  “With every piece of stimuli that comes in… that’s a design problem. How are we designing what we bring into our lives so that we might have the kind of brain we want?” (38:53)

• Aaron Walter, on Human-Craft Renaissance:

  “There are some things we want the tedium taken out of our lives and some places where we want to feel a human connection.” (41:00)

• Kevin Bethune on Authenticity:

  “People are going to value more—the less than obvious human touch.” (42:17)

• Irene Au on Beauty and Harmony:

  “If we study what we naturally find beautiful, that can point us to a lot of interesting solutions… Whether it’s a beautiful flower or… the shapes those assume... it’s about harmonizing two extremes.” (52:00)

Timestamps for Important Segments

• 00:00 - James Buckhouse on design as transformative process
• 04:18 - Irene Au's history of design roles in tech companies
• 08:55 - Shift to hybrid/blended roles and design engineering
• 13:09 - Design’s value in the eyes of venture capital
• 21:03 - Kevin Bethune’s three design “buckets” and creative time
• 24:32 - Irene Au: Making vision tangible and design’s promise
• 33:01 - AI-powered browsers and privacy/agency
• 36:59 - AI, cognitive decline, and the need for intentional brain exercise
• 41:00 - Historical precedents for a craft comeback
• 46:00 - Embodied wisdom: drawing, dance, ritual
• 52:00 - Beauty, truth, nature’s curriculum, golden ratios
• 54:11 - Vitruvian Man: history across cultures of design ratios
• 55:54 - Collapsing disciplines: art, design, math, and science

Final Thoughts

This wide-ranging roundtable charts how design is becoming more blended, fluid, and strategically vital in today’s volatile, AI-accelerated world. While efficiency and automation offer new possibilities, the panel urges that creativity, beauty, and the distinctive qualities of human-made work remain essential—not only for business impact, but for personal growth, well-being, and collective meaning.

For more: revisit this episode’s referenced topics in the show notes and earlier Design Better episodes, and follow guests Irene Au, Kevin Bethune, and James Buckhouse for deeper exploration of design’s evolving frontiers.