Low/no-code is democratizing creation and shifting power into the hands of the designer. Here’s how design tool startups will evolve.
Special thanks to the many designers, investors, founders, and startup operators who spoke with me over the last few months about the space: Paul, Toby, Mark, James, Toi, Frances, Erhan, Alison, Jill, Matt, Yiliu, Darren, and others.
In this post, I’ll be discussing…
- How the tech “hero narrative” has shifted from IT professionals to developers, and why designers are next
- How the definition of a designer has evolved over time
- Why the Figmas, Miros, and Zeplins of the world are just the tip of the opportunity iceberg
- Key inflection points happening in the design tool space
- What successful design tools of the future will look like
Democratization of Creation & Resulting Power Shifts
Ten years ago, TechRepublic published an article describing the advent of the decade of the developer, after years of tech progress being largely propelled by IT professionals. This may not seem prescient now given the market has grown into 26M software developers across the world, but back then this was not a crystal clear future. From a survey of CIOs in 2010 on developers vs. …
You can see my original article on the Two Sigma Ventures blog here. Thank you Mickey, Villi, Colin, Dan, Lindsey, Frances, and Natalie for helping review!
Though we’ve had our fair share of global health outbreaks in recent history, COVID-19 most closely parallels the 1918 flu pandemic in scale and impact — a once-in-a-hundred-years type of black swan event. Overwhelmed hospital systems, a lack of extensive contact tracing, enforced mask coverings, and quarantine and isolation were all hallmarks of the 1918 experience, which is not too different from what we’re seeing today. But if there’s any silver lining that comes out of these pandemics, we believe it’s human ingenuity. In 1918, this took the form of much-needed healthcare system overhauls across the globe: Rather than relying on self-employed private doctors and religious groups, many countries shifted towards varying degrees of increased government and public intervention. …
Defending against adversarial attacks in the midst of the AI/ML gold rush
Special thanks to Lucy Wang for her mentorship on this topic!
More than 4,300 AI startups have raised equity funding since 2014, raising over $26.6B in 2019 alone. As we continue to burn through an almost decade-long funnel of VC funding into the next “AI for ____” startup, these applications have become increasingly palpable at the consumer level — evident in controversial facial recognition plays, helpful AI physician support tools, and growing autonomous vehicle (AV) tests on the road. This unprecedented amount of VC financing has been majorly responsible for enabling AI/ML applications to become more closely intertwined with everyday consumer interactions. Yet investment into AI/ML-specific cybersecurity infrastructure has not been developing in tandem with innovation. This overlooked area, however, will be a defining pillar in the new decade of AI/ML. …
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