What happens when design isn’t an afterthought but made a priority from the very start of an organization? What kind of impact can it have? I chat with Sasha Orloff, founder and CEO of Puzzle, about the fundamental role design plays and how its influences range from attracting top talent, keeping happy customers, and turning financial chores into superpowers.

Sasha Orloff is the founder of Puzzle, accounting software designed for startups. Sasha is a serial founder whose companies have raised over $1B, including LendUp, the first mobile lender in the US and Mission Lane, the first venture backed credit card company, and was a board member at Revolut, the largest global fintech startup. Previously, Sasha worked at Citigroup, The World Bank, Grameen and a few venture backed startups. He currently lives in San Francisco with his wife and two children. Connect with Sasha on LinkedIn.

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When the products you create are used by billions of people around the world, careful consideration is required for every decision. In this episode, I chat with Lauren Zou, a senior software engineer at Google, about what goes into designing and developing large scale products including sharing responsibilities, technical feasibility, and the importance of trust.

Lauren Zou has been a Senior Software Engineer for the past 8 years. She currently works on Google Search, having previously spent 6 years working on Google Ads. Prior to starting at Google, Lauren graduated early with computer science and mathematics degrees from Columbia College, Columbia University. A long-term New Yorker, Lauren loves dining out with friends and drawing on her iPad curled up with her cat Pepper at home. Connect with Lauren on LinkedIn.

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How do we improve our processes to do better work? In my conversation with software developer and consultant, Nathan Ladd, we discuss how to deeply understand a problem, fostering better habits, and being guided by a true north.

Nathan Ladd is a software developer and consultant hailing from Austin, TX. He is often guilty of writing evented microservices in ruby using the Eventide framework, of which he is also a co-author. He also wrote Test Bench, a BDD inspired test framework for ruby. When his focus isn’t improving software systems, his hobbies include RV living, calisthenics, and guitar. Connect with Nathan on LinkedIn.

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