- Dive Club
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- 🤿 spontaneous software
IMO Replit is one of the most interesting companies in the world right now. And this week we get to go deep with their first design hire Tyler Angert.
He gives a fun behind-the-scenes of what it’s like at a hyper growth startup but even more interesting is what he’s doing now…
Because last year Tyler left Replit to start Patina and right away I knew it would be a big deal.
So this episode is the first time he unveils his vision for the future of “spontaneous software” 👀
Some highlights:
Why the camera roll is pivotal for AI
Tyler’s advice to his 23 year-old self
Tactics for learning to code with Claude
What it takes to design complex systems
The skills that will be most valuable in 2025
The biggest design challenges for AI products
Strategies for learning more technical skillsets
How to succeed as a young designer at a startup
+ a lot more
🤝 WITH PLAY
A clear theme from these episodes is that the best designers aren’t just drawing rectangles… they’re working directly in the medium
Which is why I’m so excited about Play 2.0.
It allows you to create ultra realistic prototypes because for the first time you can design interactions with native iOS gestures and Apple’s Core Animation.
So your prototypes feel real because they are real…
And most of the time I see these incredible prototypes on social media they’re all in built in Play for that reason 👇
🎓 KEY TAKEAWAYS
What does “spontaneous software” mean?
So much of the discussion around dynamic interfaces focuses on "disposable" software.
In that world the AI spins up an interface to solve a specific problem and then you discard it after you're done.
But Tyler is more interested in something else instead…
His vision with Patina is all about empowering users to make gradual changes to the core utility apps we use every day.
And these gradual changes are most likely permanent (vs. disposable).
Take the camera app for instance… You know how you have "Photo", "Portrait", "Pano", etc... What if you could prompt the creation of a totally new option?
Or if you think about the photos app for a second… something I’ve always wanted is the ability to create a new type of photo album that unlocks at a certain date.
That way my wife and I can contribute during a trip and then look at all of the photos together after we return. Almost like a trimmed down Dispo but without requiring a whole other app.
In the (near?) future, I should be able to "build" that on my own directly within the app I use for my photos. It’s a more casual take on software creation—Tyler likens it to gradually decorating a new apartment over time.
After enough changes are made, my photos app evolves into something that is totally unique to me.
Scott Belsky calls this “conforming software”:
So that’s why Tyler’s goal with Patina is to build “core utilities that are designed to be extended”. And he has a compelling argument for which utility app is best suited for AI (but I’ll save that for the episode 😉).
And this week’s episode is the first real glimpse of what that might look like 👇
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Dessn → How I ship like a design engineer
Framer → How I build my websites
Genway → How I do research
Jitter → How I animate my designs
Play → How I design mobile apps
Raycast → How I do most things on my computer
Visual Electric → How I generate imagery
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