From Graffiti to CEO: A Creative's Guide to Leading Creatives

In this episode of UX Leadership By Design, host Mark Baldino speaks with Pablo Stanley. Pablo, a designer and artist, shares his journey from being a graffiti artist in his teenage years to becoming a creative director and founder of multiple companies. He discusses the challenges and triumphs of leading a team of creatives, including the balance between guiding them and allowing them to explore new ideas. Pablo also emphasizes the importance of bringing one's full self and passion to work, promoting work-life integration rather than separation. He highlights the benefits of integrating personal interests and hobbies into the creative process, leading to more motivated and efficient employees. Pablo thoughtfully emphasizes the importance of collaboration, autonomy, and allowing others to make decisions. Pablo also shares his perspective on AI in design, highlighting its potential to unblock creativity and free up time for more impactful work -- while acknowledging the concerns around AI and the need for ethical and legal regulations.

Key Takeaways

• The transition from being an artist to a leader in the creative field can be gradual and natural, with experiences like being in a band or playing video games helping to develop skills in teamwork and collaboration.
• Leading a team of creatives requires finding a balance between guiding them and allowing them to explore new ideas, while also fostering trust and respect.
• Promoting work-life integration and allowing employees to bring their personal interests and passions into their work can lead to more motivated and efficient teams.
• Creatives often crave control and perfection, but it's important to embrace the culture of making mistakes and learning from them.
• Work should feel less like work and more like fun, where employees can bring their full selves and passion to what they do. Leadership involves bringing people together, fostering collaboration, and avoiding silos and isolation.
• As a leader, it's important to let go of control and allow others to contribute and make decisions.
• AI in design can unblock creativity and free up time for more impactful work, but human input is still necessary for selecting and refining ideas.
• There are concerns and ethical considerations around AI, particularly in terms of artists' work being used to train models without consent.
• Learn how Pablo's tool, Lumi, offers AI-generated assets for creative projects.

Resources & Links

• Connect with Pabloe on LinkedIn 
• Pablo's AI design tool companies: https://musho.ai/ and https://www.lummi.ai/

Fuzzy Math: fuzzymath.com

Mark on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markbaldino/

Transcript

Mark Baldino (00:00.866)
Hello and welcome to UX Leadership by Design. I'm your host, Mark Baldino. I'm also the co -founder of Fuzzy Math. Fuzzy Math is the user experience design consultancy that brings consumer -grade UX to business applications for B2B and enterprise tools. Today, I speak with Pablo Stanley, an artist, a title he only recently became comfortable calling himself. And we get into the trials and tribulations and triumphs of leading creatives, but especially what it means and what it takescreatives to lead other creatives. And of course, some of the areas of joy that could only come from leading a creative team. We start the conversation discussing his formative years he spent in a gang as their, quote, creative department, which was AKA the graffiti artist, and then into his journey of becoming a creative director and now is the CEO and founder of multiple companies, including Musho and Lumi, both of which are AI tools aimed at helping people unlock their creative potential. So of course we get into AI and creativity. Should designers be afraid, excited, a bit of both. But Pablo is, as he likes to say, a techno -optimist. And while we discuss both sides of these equations, he really sees a bright future ahead of us. We cover a lot. It's a great conversation. Pablo is part storyteller and part philosopher. So I think you're going to enjoy it. And thanks as always for listening.

Mark Baldino (00:01.458)
Pablo, welcome to the podcast.

Pabs (00:04.494)
Hey, thanks for having me, Mark, man. So cool.

Mark Baldino (00:07.634)
No, thank you for joining me. We've had some pre -conversations and they've been a good laugh. And part of the podcast is, as a guest said to me last year, this should be fun, right? We should have a good time. So I'm looking forward to our conversation today. Hopefully it's enjoyable for you and the audience. You are up to, or have been up to a lot in reading your bio. Can you give the audience a little bit of your background?

Pabs (00:36.334)
How far do you want to go? guess we could go. Yeah, you're right. There's been a lot of stuff. Well, I mean, I'm a designer. I can say that I think I'm an artist that found his way into design stuff because that's... very soon realized that being an artist was not going

Mark Baldino (00:38.086)
Hahaha!

Pabs (01:04.588)
make me a living. So it's like, I need to do something different. So yeah, I've been doing design for a very long time, from, mean, we can go back to when I was a teenager and I used to do graffiti. Like I consider that like part of my design adventure, Yeah, I was a creative director.

Mark Baldino (01:26.438)
Yeah, design career for sure. What got you into doing graffiti?

Pabs (01:32.118)
Yeah. And I mean, back in those days, was like the graffiti was part of the, I mean, I'm from the hoods in, Mexicali, like a little town in a border town. And back in those days, there was no internet or anything. So what do you do if you are a teenager and those not so great neighborhoods, you join a band, like a gang. So like, Hey, we had a gag.

Like, I don't know, part of our, there was the creative department in the gang, let's say that. And I was, I was the head of, I was the head of the creative department, the creative director of our gang. like graffiti was part of that thing, you know, other than going in, being angry at other gangs, which we didn't know. I still don't understand the whole point is like, you live in a different neighborhood. I hate you now.

Mark Baldino (02:10.266)
You were on the creative team.

Thank you.

Pabs (02:32.558)
It was so dumb. But what really attracted me was like, well, I suppose the sense of community, like those who you grow up with, are like live close to you, there was no internet. So those were the people that you knew, you know? So hey, we form our gang. But for some reason, all our neighborhoods were the enemy.

So dumb, such a, I don't know, like old school mentality. anyway, yeah, ever since then, I've been trying to just put my creative side to work.

Mark Baldino (03:18.032)
What, were you like an artist before you started doing graffiti or was that your first like artistic?

Pabs (03:24.79)
I mean, like, I suppose, like, I suppose we all drew when we were kids, you know, we'll doodles and we're like, paint and, and do stuff. just never stopped. Usually they, there's someone to tell that tells you stop, stop doing that. Now do serious things like math and English. So, I suppose like nobody said you should stop Pablo. You should stop doodling.

So yeah, I suppose like a lot of artists, that's just what happened. That nobody or somehow they just like never stop doing that creative stuff that we all are born with and we're all born with the need to express ourselves with stuff. So yeah, I mean, I'm at that age where I'm okay calling myself an artist.

I, it's, it's been a struggle for forever because I've always said like, no, I'm not an artist. know, no, no, no artists are real artists. Like, I don't know, like the whole thing where you, you always like compare yourself to others. You see others that are great artists and you're like, those are the real artists, you know? So only until now I'm like, no, maybe you are an artist, probably. And it's okay to be an artist. Maybe, the standards are lower to become an artist.

Mark Baldino (04:52.048)
No, maybe you're, I don't speak for you, maybe you're more comfortable. You feel less like an imposter these days. I mean, you've made it a career. How did you, you mentioned the transition of no one's going to maybe pay me to be an artist. how did, what was your transition from it being an outlet as a teen in a border town to it's kind of like you have professional aspirations that you want to make a career out of this. Was that a gradual transition or did you really just set your mind to

Pabs (05:22.978)
There's, I don't know, like it's, it's, it's, it's a cliche of the artist. It doesn't think about those things. am totally that cliche. I really don't think about like, how, how am I going to monetize this? I never, I, my mind doesn't go to that and it should. I, like, there's some switch that I need to turn on in my head to be able to turn on the capitalist.

the artist capitalist that like thinks of like, let's put a value to this. It's just like my mind has never been able to think that way. But on design, just like, it's, I've been fortunate. I think we're all being very fortunate just like whoever is like out there who's a designer. I'm willing to bet that those who choose that path, that career is because they're.

There's a little bit of passion towards that. there's also a little bit of edge and a little bit of coolness of being a designer. hey, I don't know. It's been something that it just becomes natural because I enjoy it and I like it. like doodling and putting things together and make sense out of stuff. So it's never been like a really

like consciously thinking about how this will become a career. It has never been like that in my head. I don't know, like I suppose that's also why when you have that mentality, maybe you allow yourself to do like more stupid stuff. Which stupid stuff that suddenly becomes less stupid and more real?

Mark Baldino (07:14.016)
Yeah, it's the freedom you granted yourself or you were able to grant to sort of explore and maybe not have

component to it. But you obviously took it seriously. mean, you've founded a number of companies. You're not just an artist or creative. You lead groups of human beings and you're designing and building tools. Like, that all gradual over time? It's like, okay, I'm now going to go from being an artist to a leader? Or like, what was that transition like

Pabs (07:23.489)
Yeah.

Pabs (07:35.725)
Yeah.

Pabs (07:49.998)
I mean, it just became natural to like right now, by the way, I don't know. You can see, but this is not my usual place. I'm actually at my parents' house and it's like weird paintings. My mom. But I'm here and I'm back in my border town. I don't live here anymore, but I'm here back to play with.

a band that I used to play when I was a teenager. We still play. It's a punk rock band that we have been playing ever since we were teenagers. Now we're old and fat. We're still playing and we still find it fun. I was the other day, I was like talking to one of my bandmates and I told him, dude, we weren't aware of this,

We were 16, 17, and we're already preparing ourselves for the world, you know? Because it was like different minds with different musical tastes getting together to do music, you know? To do music together, being in sync, like to be in a band. like every weekend we had a show, you know? And to be ready for the show,

you had to rehearse and you had to rehearse like almost daily, you know, and you had to like get in there and create like I will be the one they would create the songs and all that stuff. So I'll have to come in and convince the other guys, hey, this is how it is, you know, and this is how the song should be. Be open to feedback and then say, your feedback sucks. Like, no, do it my way. Yeah, even then, you know, like

I wasn't planning on, I'm going to create a band now to prepare myself for being a leader in the future. You know, it's just like, Hey, I just wanted to make a bad, you know? But, like looking back, I was, I was selling my friend, dude, that, was preparing us for a lot of stuff that you live as an adult. You know, that as an adult, you have to deal with other teammates, you know, and, and there were bandmates and we're

Pabs (10:13.91)
like different and we have different opinions and different tastes. But we all have to like, even when all those different successes, like a have some kind of bend diagram between our ideas and just like pull forward, then push forward and just like create something. And it was like, dude, like we didn't realize that, but that prepares for a lot of stuff in the future. Then now we apply just like in our jobs and professional stuff and everything.

We were doing it then, like we're doing a lot of the things that we're already also doing. is just like push a product, have a deadline. And the deadline was the gig that was like that Friday. And sometimes same Friday, we had like three gigs that we had to go to. So it was like preparing a lot and just like rehearsing and all that stuff. I don't know. It's like, and I'm pretty sure that those are things that.

Mark Baldino (11:03.378)
I think that's where it goes up.

Pabs (11:08.458)
Exists maybe not just in a band, but also exists like in sports or now kids like play a lot in video games and they get together and I see my nephew that that's all he does. He's always getting his headphones and just playing Roblox. But it's like, what are you doing there, man? And it's like, no, he starts telling me like, Hey, well, I'm getting together with my friends and we're like,

going into tournaments and stuff, like, cool, man. Like you're doing stuff that I used to do too, you know, that it's prepared me to the world to deal with other human beings. And so, yeah, yeah, I suppose like what I'm trying to say is like, we sometimes don't realize that a lot of stuff that we're doing is preparing us for other things in our lives. And now, like,

Mark Baldino (11:48.24)
Yeah,

Pabs (12:06.698)
Like being like now I'm a well, I have a couple of companies and I get to be Mr. CEO. And the whole idea just like a forming a team, it's just like other people and creating a culture. It's hard, know, it's fun, but it's hard because like, people are different, people have their own things

And it's hard to everyone get aligned to with a common goal. And even though we all have our lives and our opinions and our visions and our passions and our own things, we'll have to come together as a team and bring whatever makes sense of our own things and put it together with the rest of them and build something together. And that is a, I don't know.

I don't know. just been lucky, man, that I just found really nice people and really cool people and talented people that I somehow convinced them to come do stuff with me.

Mark Baldino (13:10.603)
We'll

Mark Baldino (13:16.624)
joining. Yeah, well, that's great. I mean, it's it. I think it is an interesting sort of connection to what you're doing as a as a teenager now being putting on the sort of CEO hat. And if I'm reading between lines, you're a little bit of the CEO of the band, at least in terms of like you were kind of directing some things. I don't know that's right where it's never been in a band. But like, what is the what are the unique like benefits or challenges of of doing that with a group of creatives versus

not non -creative people, but I mean, people who are artists, consider themselves artists, take that seriously. Like, what are some of the challenges, but also some of the triumphs of leading a team of

Pabs (13:56.76)
I mean, when you're a creative, there's a lot of hands -on work. When you're a designer, you're, I don't know, maybe a painter. Let's talk about designers specifically, or maybe even coders or developers. You value

yourself sometimes, with the amount of pixels you push, you know, and the amount of screens you build and the prototypes and the connections you make and the presentations you make. So it's a, suddenly you're. Well, your value comes from all the craft that you put in and all those things you put out there. And suddenly when you are on more on, on the manager side, well, you're doing way less from that, you know, and so.

You might feel lost because you as a creator, well, you were creating before and now you're not creating. You're more like allowing others to create and you are pushing others to do the stuff that you know that you could do. You know, you could just like open the file and just do it yourself and maybe even quicker and sometimes even better, you know, but that's because.

these other people are like going through that process to, learn all those things that you have also took you some time to also learn. And so the challenges are like, Hey, like, like being hands off, you know, like that's, that's one of the main challenges that I found. And I, for example, recently, man, I, we've been working on a new UI stuff on a product that we're building.

And I will find myself just getting in the Figma file and just like doing it myself. And, but I feel guilty of doing it because like there's designers who are supposed to do that. And my job should not be there build it for them. should be just well guiding them so they can just build it. And also all

Pabs (16:14.454)
I don't want the designers to just like follow exactly what I tell them to do. So what does I do? So this is like, just do what I want you to do. Just don't iterate.

Mark Baldino (16:18.587)
So.

Right, right. It doesn't feel very creative, does it? Just do what I want you to do. I'm going to stand over your shoulder here, or I'm going to follow you around in Figma, and no, no, no, no, do that, do that, do that. Yeah, that doesn't feel very creative, which it creates a little bit of attention, right? You want to foster creativity on the team, but it's like you're trying to also kind of direct them as

Pabs (16:25.646)
I know it's just like trust me Yeah, yeah, no no

Yeah!

Pabs (16:42.156)
Yeah, there's like this kind of a balance between what is a like macro managing and guidance, you know, where it's like, sometimes you it's, easier to just sell it. Don't do that. It's a mistake. Don't even try it. And I'll explain to you later. We have to move on. We have a deadline. We have to like be quick, you know, and for, for people to, and if you do that,

you might be able to move faster, you know, but also people might resent you for you just telling them that and not allowing them to make those mistakes or, or it might not be a mistake. Maybe it's just my bias that sometimes it didn't work. Maybe one time it didn't work and now it will never work. You know, now my, my head is stuck with that idea. So I'm not allowing it. If you get in.

And you start putting those kinds of things, you're not allowing them to explore new things, discover new ideas. And also maybe also make that mistake that you made back then, you know? So I think it's little bit of that, just like knowing when to guide and when to just tell them, that's not the right path. This is why.

Don't try it. Don't do it. Do it this way and just trust me and you'll see why later. Maybe it's not so obvious right now. So, and to do that, you have to also build that trust, know, like on the other side, if they don't see you, if they don't respect you, if you don't respect your work, you're gonna be like, shut up. So for that, have to, well,

as a leader, like as cliche as it sounds, like you have to lead by example sometimes too. And just like do it yourself, be there and get your hands dirty a little bit so they can see that you know what you're talking about. You know how to use the tool too, you know, you know how to push the pixels, but it's like, hey, all of that stuff, all of that crap, I'm leaving that to you. And just trust me more on the guidance and more on the vision.

Mark Baldino (18:54.13)
Yeah.

Pabs (19:07.554)
So that is one thing, the micromanaging, the being hands -off. I mean, there's other things that are just like regular manager stuff that is not exactly for creatives, but which I suppose, no, hold on. It might actually be a little bit regarding creatives because it's a little controversial, but I actually...

Mark Baldino (19:07.794)
Right.

Pabs (19:38.318)
I kind of promote work life integration and not so much about separation, not so much about balance. It's like, what, do you want to bring from, from your life, from your hobbies, from your interests into work, you know? And, and it's like a, that way work feels less of work and feels more like something that is, that is yours too. And that is, that is based on your interest and your ideas too.

Mark Baldino (20:00.732)
as much as I think is.

Pabs (20:07.906)
And that applies to creatives because they, well, creatives, might have their own interests. They might have their own new techniques or new technologies that they're learning. And they might, sometimes you just need an excuse to learn more, you know? And it's like, hey, well, bring that here and let's experiment here at work and do that stuff. But that is

That is promoting something that is usually the opposite of what they tell you to promote. Hey, you want to have a balance. You want to have a separation between work and life. And for me, sometimes for creatives, it's actually cool to be like, the lines are a little bit blurry and it's okay that they're blurry. And so it's okay that some of this stuff feels personal and make it personal and just convince us and show that passion that you have for something.

we're all going to follow you on that passion because if something is interesting to you and that feels close to you, we're all going to want to get in on board and just like follow you on that thing that is interesting to you. So that is one thing that I also, that I think we try to promote where it's like, whenever it makes sense, it's not like a suddenly

your work is your life. It's not like that. It's more like promoting more like the lines can be blurring. That's okay. Yeah.

Mark Baldino (21:38.162)
Yeah, bring your kind of more long lines of kind of bringing your full self to what you're doing and some of your passion versus, hey, if you're going to be part of this initiative, you you're going to work whatever, 80 hours a week. It's not, that's, I think when people hear Work -Life Balance, they're like, wait, wait, wait, I'm, that to me says something that doesn't sound like a lot of fun. And what you're advocating for is like trying to leave parts of you behind in your work. And if you can bring...

things you're passionate about integrated into your creative process. Like that's probably going to produce a better result, probably more traction and communication and, you know, decision -making alignment on your

Pabs (22:13.621)
Yeah.

Pabs (22:20.302)
for everyone, Whereas for the company is better because like, hey, well, we have more motivated employees. They're working on something that they like doing. So as a cold -blooded capitalist, well, more efficient employees, good. But also, what was that?

Mark Baldino (22:40.967)
Right, right, right, right.

Mark Baldino (22:45.104)
No, I said right. Just agreeing.

Pabs (22:47.458)
Yeah, it's like, well, more motivated employees means more efficient, and that's good. But also, I think for the employee, for the one crafting the stuff, well, they feel more motivated and feel like it's, I don't know, it's suddenly work feels less like work, and it feels more like fun. So we try to do that. Sometimes it's not possible, because we just have a deadline. We have to do it.

we have to do it if we don't like it and we just have to push it. but, we, we try to do that, you know, and I, and yeah, just like a, a lot of different things that you start realizing as you go. when you start wearing the manager hat, and I think, another thing that maybe we, well, designers, creatives, or

I think we crave control. think people don't remember this, back, Figma took a while for designers to accept it because of the whole idea of sharing the file. People don't forget this, but it took a while for Figma to be accepted by the design community because for a very long time,

We like the idea of working isolated, of working at a place where I have control and don't look at it until it's perfect. It's not ready there. It's not finished, so please don't open it. I know that there some designers that still do that, where they will have their private file, where they do the stuff. No one is invited.

And they will only copy paste the stuff once it's ready to the Figma file that everybody's invited to. Which is like so insane. But there's a little bit of that too, right? Where you want to have that perfection and control. I don't know, there's some kind of a culture of making mistakes. And if you make mistakes, well, there's shame on that. And well, nobody likes shame,

Pabs (25:13.56)
So I think there's a little bit of that. I don't want people seeing something that is unfinished because then they're going to judge my unfinished pixels. if my pixels are unfinished, then my values is less or something. So like when you are on the leadership role, what you want to bring people together, you know, you, you don't want those kinds of silos to happen. That's number one. And you don't want that isolation to happen. You want

people to collaborate. and so you have to fight that, that part and that part that is maybe not on your team, then maybe it's just on you too, that even you, when you make decisions and stuff and instead of, trying to put in those decisions or that strategy, that thing that is like brewing in your head, put in on the table so we can discuss

you only present it until you think it's ready, you know, which is almost like I will only present you the design file when it's ready. It's a little bit like that also when you have, I, let me think about this planning now. We'll present it once it's ready and it's your, I don't know. It's a, your suddenly decisions get centralized where you create a bottleneck because like,

people are waiting for you to decide what to do instead of putting it on the table. like, this is what I'm thinking. What do you guys think? Maybe I'm dumb, you know? And so that is one problem that can cause like that I seen myself get into that trap. I seen myself get into a trap of centralizing decisions where because of that control that sometimes I crave where

You should actually let others to contribute on what they want to contribute, you know, and just allow them to make the decisions that they will potentially know better what to do because they know the context, they're right there with the problem, they live it daily. So for them, they will potentially have a better understanding of what to do. So you have to give that autonomy to people. You have to give

Pabs (27:37.238)
authority to say like, hey, you have the authority to make decisions and feel confident then. And if you make a mistake, well, we'll discuss those mistakes. Try to be right. But if we make a mistake, we'll talk about it later and that's okay. Don't worry. so like I said, it's either coming from that culture of perfectionism. I think I still struggle with that where it's like a perfectionism is the enemy.

Mark Baldino (27:52.378)
Yeah.

Pabs (28:06.442)
Perfectionism is a myth and you should allow people to make mistakes. You should allow yourself to make mistakes. You should allow to collaborate and not crave that control that maybe you had with your design file that was hidden in a secret folder that nobody could see. It's not like that. As a leader, you have to share all that stuff. So,

Mark Baldino (28:12.562)
Thank you.

Mark Baldino (28:32.05)
It's tough though. mean, like it's, I have a hard time, especially when I feel like I'm responsible for other people on my team and them paying their mortgage and, you know, living the life they want to live. The idea of giving up a lot of control is really, and this is from a creative, this personality perspective, right? Like it's just hard to do and trust that it's going to work. But I've, I've found, and I've, I think the biggest mistakes I've made as a leader.

is when I, in those moments when I've gripped really, really tightly, tried to control everything, it ended up creating a bunch of problems and just disaster. And it's when I've stepped back a little bit to breath and let other people handle things and do things, even if we're facing a challenging time from the business or with a challenging client, when I've given them that space to grow and learn, make mistakes, but also to deliver, because I really trust my team. Like it always ends up better, but my personal first inclination is I'm going to grab this as tight as possible.

Pabs (29:07.854)
Mm -hmm. Yeah. Yeah,

Mark Baldino (29:31.578)
and hold on for as long as can. It's really

Pabs (29:32.054)
Yeah. Yeah. And, sometimes it's not a, it's not because you don't trust your team or something. It's because like you, you, since you feel like it's your responsibility, I have to fix this, you know? And, and no, you have to let go. No, it's yeah, it is kind of your responsibility, but it's more your responsibility to allow others to, to solve that problem. Right.

Mark Baldino (30:00.464)
What are the flip side of this equation? What do you love about or enjoy about leading creatives? What are some of the triumphs that you've shared with your team that if you weren't... I know you have obviously probably have, at this point, non -creatives on your team, but specifically speaking about those folks that are creatives, what are the joys of

Pabs (30:23.99)
by the way, all this time I've been talking about creatives. said specifically the stereotypical who is creative and who isn't creative as in like the artists or the designers. I, think, on, on our team, at least out of the company, we try to strive for everyone is creative. You know, we, just like creative in a different way. and I, I seen that actually like, developers are really creative and then like

Mark Baldino (30:43.622)
Yeah.

Pabs (30:53.802)
once you start realizing what they're actually doing, it's like, my God, how do you get to that? Anyway, just wanted to say that, but sorry, what was the question now? And I got distracted, I'm sorry.

Mark Baldino (31:03.89)
We've been talking about some of the challenges of leading and maybe going from where you were an individual contributor up to a manager to a leader. And I always think that's helpful because I think people can resonate with that. But what's the flip side of it? What have been some of those moments of joy or triumphs in your leadership

Pabs (31:22.836)
I think, I mean, there are some things that I feel proud of that we have been able to work with. mean, number one, I love working with my team and I feel just blessed on everything they do and how committed they are. one thing that you have to learn is to take a...

See their successes as your success to as like a that's something that you also like contributed to so Their success for me is like a it's really I don't know It's really empowering me empowering to me and just like I feel really proud. So I Have learned to do that So it feels really good because then when people are striving and doing their best then I don't know. It's really cool to just see people

Like learning, grow together and do stuff together. But, some, some stuff that, that I feel now years later than, this thing that we, these things that we have tried and that now it's like, Hey, yeah, this kind of work. What is like, we, we try to at least have one day a week where it's like no meetings allowed, you know, like a Friday, no meetings are allowed.

Sometimes we have to break the rule, we try to keep it and that's a I don't know like that's That's nice Also, no Sorry, my puppies this barking. I don't know what like ghost or something There's we have no performance reviews like I've always hated that stuff dude, and I mean we

Mark Baldino (33:14.058)
wow.

Pabs (33:19.586)
We do.

I don't know if you can hear the puppy. It's kind of barking. don't know why. More like a...

Mark Baldino (33:25.231)
No worries.

Pabs (33:32.418)
Like we promote people to ask for feedback, but like being action, I mean, more proactive and not waiting until the end of the year or until like the second quarter when that happens. Because that, like, I don't know, it's always been just like very stressful, that stuff. And it feels like it's forced and you don't really get like actually good results.

I don't know, everyone feels bad from that stuff. So it's like, what do you want to do that kind of stuff that just makes everyone feel bad? But promote the idea. mean, feedback is valuable and just asking for feedback. But ask for it right away. Don't wait for it later. So we promote that instead of waiting for a performance review and just like, hey, just.

And if there's also something that needs to be, there needs to be, but just give it, don't also don't hold it, you know? And so that's another thing that I think we tried on the flip side as like, when you pray your own team and your own culture, you get to make those kinds of decisions, you know? And you get to say, this is how we think we should work. So that is something

I think we're all, we'll feel really proud of different little things. So how we think that we work a little bit differently. And even, I mean, we were, COVID era company. That's when we started. So we were forced to, to work remotely and, and, but, that's, that's also there. We just something that we have kept it just like a promoting.

working from anywhere and just allowing people to even travel, know, and just like, get inspired and go see the world, you know, and just show off for the slack threads, you know, and just like comment on the slack threads that are important because like sometimes a lot of discussions happen there, but that's it. Just do your work and that's it, you know. so I, that's another thing that I feel really proud that we have been able

Pabs (35:55.758)
to work that way. There's still a lot of value in just like getting together and that's so important. But also just like, hey, allowing people to not be checking on them and just like, hey, are you doing your work? Just trusting that they will do it and from wherever they are. It can be challenging with all the time zones, man, because sometimes we have a person in Australia and I feel

Mark Baldino (36:00.082)
Yep.

Mark Baldino (36:23.772)
Tough one. Yeah.

Pabs (36:23.862)
He gets the worst hits off of or him. He's it's or afternoons or other people's more that because we have also people in Europe. So it's just like for him is just really he does a struggle.

Mark Baldino (36:42.17)
Yeah, you got to get your asynchronous collaboration like kind of down and make sure that there's there's space for that stuff. It is it is true. But I like I mean, obviously love this idea of kind of fostering creativity within your your team. I would personally be remiss if I didn't ask you about some of the tools you're creating because they're AI design tools. And I think and I'd love to hear your take on how

what you see AI and sort of unlocking and pushing and promoting creativity because I see a lot of tension in the design community around generative AI tools and some people embrace it, some people are terrified of it, some people are right in the middle. Like you're in the space, right? And it sounds like you're building tools that are helping, that are leveraging AI to help people with creativity. So if you could just talk about the tools and then if

balance makes sense of where people fall on the spectrum of love, hate, fear in terms of

Pabs (37:45.91)
Yeah, I understand the opposition and understand the concerns and the fears. I totally see why.

I consider myself more of a, I don't know if that's the right term, but more of a techno -optimist or I guess you technology with a very optimistic thinking, which sometimes has led us to, I don't know, to some places where we don't want to be a civilization, I guess. But we have also dealt with technology in a way that has kept us alive.

and, and, and thinking on those doomsday scenarios are, it's almost like not like ignoring everything we have gone through and ignoring that we have been able to just, we have been able to adapt to everything. So I, I, I, there's going to be a turbulent time

And that turbulent time arrived really quickly, but I'm sure that we will adapt and this will be for the better. So, and it's specifically for creatives and designers. Like I can see why the concerns were like, my, my craft is obsolete and my, my, nobody's going to need my work, but I don't know. Has anyone actually used these things? Like.

They're okay. They're good, but they're not, they don't make a lot of the things that you still need a human, you know, for a lot of these things. And these are more like ways to just unblock yours. I see them like, suddenly like there's no excuse for me to being creatively blocked, you know? Like this thing can just help me get the creative block out of the way.

Pabs (39:54.806)
and overcoming that and just like, there's no excuse for me to not try a lot of different things and see how multiple different things look. And then from there take a direction that I really like. Because these things are really good at that. Really good at just like giving you a lot of crappy ideas or like so -so ideas, know, generic stuff. And then from there, just

Mark Baldino (40:17.884)
Yeah.

Pabs (40:23.162)
You still need the human who selects the good stuff. if anything, we have already been doing this for a while. The mood boards have existed for a long time, and mood boards are that. Take AI as a really quick mood board maker, where it creates a lot of same thing. It just puts it in different styles and puts it in different ways.

for you to choose. And it's like, okay, I like this, I like this. And then you start crafting and like, for example, I see that like in the development of a product or anything, you have your strategy when you're thinking of pre -production, you know? Then there's the stage where you're doing the production. And then there's that stage

You're doing all the finessing, all the little details. you're going back and just, Ooh, what about this? What about this other thing? And traditionally without AI, I think we have been like the middle part has been taking so much of our time, which where is, all the production stuff, all the putting the blocks together, and, and

recreating blocks that we, that are already established and patterns that are already exist and, just recreating them for the sake of recreating them. And I think AI actually just like makes that part way shorter. And that way suddenly we have a lot of time on the finessing, which traditionally usually is, since this is the last part, it's usually the deadline is tomorrow. So

Mark Baldino (42:15.109)
it.

Pabs (42:16.978)
All the details, all the, Hey, did you try it in a different way? Did you try it like this? Well, push that, you know, because like we didn't have time for, for other ways to do it. Suddenly we have a lot of time for doing that. And I see it that way where it's like, no. Yeah. It's, doing a lot of the, it is getting really good at that middle part, but humans are still needed on the, all that

Mark Baldino (42:35.214)
Thank

Pabs (42:46.324)
And that's suddenly we have more time for that. now we have, even for the strategy, see that AI is really good at that stuff too sometimes. So even on the strategy, at least get us started on ideas and just like ideating like what a product could be, what directions we could take. I think AI can help us on that stuff, but it's really the human part is on that last part that has usually been really

that the things that we just spend so little time in, we wish, we always wish, man, I had just one more week, if I had just one more hour, would have finished this little thing in this little detail, you know? Now suddenly we have the time for that. That's how I see it. I know it's an oversimplification of that, but that's suddenly like

Mark Baldino (43:41.66)
you

Pabs (43:43.595)
on what we spend our time on has shifted. That's how I see it.

Mark Baldino (43:46.448)
Yes. Yeah, it's I like that idea. The first part of like unblocking if we're stuck. The other part of that is like there's things in my job I don't love to do that AI is like really good at. And that is a way to unblock me or unstick me from something. And then to your last point that frees me up to do things I'm really good at or maybe even I enjoy or are the most valuable in what I'm trying to do. And so it's like when you can kind of flip the equation of no, it's going

free, it's going to give me more time, it's going to give me more freedom, it's going to allow me to be more impactful at what I'm doing, and maybe even allow me to be more creative. It's a good kind of flip of some of the kind of negative connotations that think Gen AI is getting these

Pabs (44:32.184)
Yeah, it's, I mean, negative comments on this, by the way, I do understand all the comments on image generation on, for example, photographers, illustrators, where they have seen that their work has been used to train some of these models. I totally understand that. And I

I mean, a court will have to decide what is going to happen with all that because it's shit. Because usually artists are the ones who get screwed always. On this, it's very clear that artists are getting screwed. so I'm all for models that are trained on all human knowledge. I am like super stoked for

Mark Baldino (45:15.1)
Yes. Yep. Yep.

Pabs (45:31.512)
But it does worry me that all of those who have created all that content that has helped these things to be super fast and super good at just like knowing everything that they're not being compensated. and I think, I think artists are right on being concerned about these, lot of these models being trained on their work.

without their consent. I think that's not for us to decide. That will have to be, I don't know, in a court, there has to be some regulation that says what is the right way about this and what is the ethical and lawful way that this should have been done. The thing is that these companies are in a race to see who is the one that gathers the most data because the more data you gather,

the more data you scrape, the more data you grab, the better your models become. so it's typical Silicon Valley behavior, where it's like a don't ask for permission, ask for forgiveness later, which has created this. Now suddenly we realize, hey, machine models are really good.

how did they become that good? Like where's all this data coming from? it wasn't just, well, it was obviously with all the knowledge that exists, all the stuff that we or civilization has created. so, I don't know, I'm looking forward to knowing what this will be decided on all this. I feel like we're in that

early 2000s Napster era where we didn't know what was happening with suddenly we were able to just stream music. Well, not even stream, just download all the MP3s in the world. like, my God, we're going crazy with all the downloads that we're getting from the internet. a, a court of law had to decide what was fair, you know? And, and so we'll see what is fair. I.

Mark Baldino (47:42.054)
Yep.

Pabs (47:56.29)
I'm going to say something controversial. I see it on the other side too. I see the other side of where it says like, Hey, well, these things are trained on, on all the art and all the knowledge that is out there, just as any other human is just like when you go and read a book as a human. Well, a lot of that knowledge will get into your brain and to your brain model. And then suddenly you will speak out and say words.

that are kind of based on what you just read or there are also maybe you go into a museum or you buy a book from an artist you like and you see that stuff and it gets into your brain and suddenly a lot of that stuff is, we call it inspiration, you know, and that inspiration gets into your brain and your output is inspired. There's a, a lot of that stuff gets into your brain and suddenly you create something new,

That's the claim that I see that I hear from the other side. Well, it's just the same. It's just these models are just like a brain that is also grabbing stuff and then creating something new inspired by other work. I kind of believe that too. was like, eh, that kind of sounds fair too. I kind of agree too. So, hey, we'll see what happens.

Mark Baldino (49:18.042)
Yeah, I think your techno -optimist approach and also pragmatic as well, which I appreciate. Well, I think it's a good way to wrap up the conversation and thanks for allowing me to drag us into AI because I think your views on it are really interesting and I think the audience is really going to enjoy it. If people want to reach out and contact you, connect with you, we're the best places for that,

Pabs (49:47.71)
man, well, we're working on a tool called Lumi. So you guys should check it out. It's that Lumi with double L U I dot AI. And that's just like an for whoever needs images. Now we're doing illustrations, we're doing music, we're doing a lot of different assets for whoever needs the stuff for their creations. We have AI generated stuff from other artists. So it's kind of cool.

So you should check it out. And me, myself, Pablo Stanley, anywhere.

Mark Baldino (50:22.61)
anywhere. Awesome. We will link to you, to your LinkedIn, and definitely to Lumi so people can check it out. I just want to say thank you so much for your time and energy and the conversation today. I much appreciate

Pabs (50:35.256)
Thank you, Mark. This is so nice. And thanks for thoughtful questions. it's always nice to talk about all those things because I never get, I don't know, you build this platform for others to talk about these things because I work on this stuff, but I don't get to really philosophize about it too much, you know, and just like talk about it. So thank you for creating a platform for that.

Mark Baldino (51:00.519)
You are welcome. I love it. These conversations are my favorite part of my day. So it's been fantastic for me as well. And I know the audience will enjoy it. So thanks again, Pablo.

Pabs (51:09.496)
Thank you.