Pietro Schirano built one of the first AI search engines before Perplexity existed. He created Cloud Engineer, an open source tool with 11,000+ GitHub stars that got him hired at Anthropic.

Now he's building @magicpathai (check it out at https://magicpath.ai).

We talked about their Figma Connect feature that went viral last week, why he thinks vibe coding is "fast food" (and when you need slow food instead), and there's this moment where he describes two AI plugins combining to do something he never programmed — and how it changed how he thinks about what these models can do.

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CHAPTERS:
00:00 - "This thing seems like it understands"
02:03 - Designer to engineer pipeline
02:29 - The urge to create
05:17 - Before Designer GPT
08:35 - The moment two plugins combined on their own
10:40 - "I shipped four apps in 14 days"
11:52 - Bell Labs reached out about Cloud Engineer
13:41 - Will everyone build their own software?
18:41 - Where prototyping fits now
20:01 - How enterprise teams use MagicPath
24:51 - Vibe coding is fast food. This is slow food.
27:13 - Figma Connect and the viral reception
30:49 - What makes a good canvas editor
35:05 - Live demo: Figma to working code
39:48 - Extracting design systems automatically
50:32 - "You're living in the future"
52:47 - Advice for overwhelmed designers
55:09 - "If we remove the love people have for their work, we fail"

ABOUT TOMMY GEOCO
I spent 15+ years in tech and design. Former military. Father of five. Now building Internet Enjoyers, a weird little media + product studio rediscovering soul in creative tech.

ABOUT STATE OF PLAY
Host Tommy Geoco discovers what fuels the internet's most interesting designers and builders.

LINKS:
UX Tools Newsletter: https://uxtools.co
MagicPath: https://magicpath.ai
Follow Pietro: https://x.com/skirano

FOLLOW ME:
X / Twitter: https://x.com/designertom
Instagram: https://instagram.com/itsdesignertom
LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/tommygeoco