Near Future Podcast

49:22

Ep #19: Big News. Near Future Is Now Mostly Working....

Near Future Podcast ·

2026/10/02

Tom and Jonny announce that the Near Future Podcast is becoming Mostly Working. They explain why they're closing the consultancy to back the podcast, unveil the Mostly Working Summit at Monzo on 22 October, and go behind the scenes of a new brand built with Claude Code.In this episode:The Near Future consultancy is closing, and the podcast carries on every week as Mostly Working.We explain the three tests behind the decision: founder fit, how hard the work was to sell, and how much energy

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60:30

Ep #18: Gabriella Hachem (CEO, Dessn): Design should...

Near Future Podcast ·

2026/09/25

Tom and Jonny sit down with Gabriella Hachem, co-founder of Dessn and the podcast’s first design tool founder. They dig into why Dessn runs your codebase in the cloud so you can design on production, unpack the read-only decision that shaped the product, and go behind the scenes of building a design tool while the models caught up.Key takeawaysDessn runs your codebase in the cloud so you can design on top of the real thing. No local setup and no coding, and the page you pull onto the canvas

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49:45

Ep #17: Frank Bach (Anthropic): Building Your Own...

Near Future Podcast ·

2026/09/17

Tom and Jonny sit down with Frank Bach, a product designer at Anthropic who built his own design tool during onboarding week. They dig into why he prototypes in HTML instead of Figma, unpack his Swiss Army knife career from Red Bull to Headspace to Instagram, and get his advice for designers feeling the AI squeeze.Key takeawaysBuild the tool while you build the work. Frank made his design tool feature by feature during his first project at Anthropic, adding each part the moment he hit the

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53:13

Ep #16: Jonny and Tom: Guest recap, Learning Loops,...

Near Future Podcast ·

2026/09/11

Tom and Jonny catch up after the summer with a roundup of August’s four guests, from Monzo’s fake app to Poem/1’s self-learning fulfilment agent. They ask whether designers are giving away their leverage to agents, answer a listener who wants the show to branch out, and share what they built, including Labyrinth rebuilt in two hours.Key takeawaysBeing deliberate about what you give away is most of the job now. Every August guest drew the line somewhere different, and every one of them drew

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72:18

Ep #15: Matt Webb (Inanimate): Building an Inventor's...

Near Future Podcast ·

2026/09/04

Tom and Jonny sit down with inventor Matt Webb, the man behind Berg, Little Printer and the poetry clock Poem/1. They dig into how he built a practice around human-computer interaction, small groups and the physical world, unpack the retro charm of his ageing AI clock, and go behind the scenes of the Claude-powered agents running Poem/1's Kickstarter fulfilment.Key takeawaysShape your role around your practice. Matt focuses on human-computer interaction, small groups and the physical world,

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45:16

Ep #14: Patrick Lewis (Klay): Founding Designer x4,...

Near Future Podcast ·

2026/08/27

Tom and Jonny sit down with Patrick Lewis, founding designer at Klay. They dig into why "good" and "right" aren't the same thing, how AI has flattened the design experience curve, the pun-named playground he built to prototype without baggage, and why saying no might be the most important design skill right now.Chapters0:04 — Meet Patrick Lewis, founding designer at Klay1:05 — Building Clay: an AI music app made by musicians, not sales bros2:27 — Content still has to resonate with humans,

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52:18

Ep #13: Randy Hunt (Notion & SVA): Speed as a Quality...

Near Future Podcast ·

2026/08/21

Tom and Jonny sit down with Randy Hunt, Head of Design at Notion and chair of MFA Design at SVA. They dig into why speed and quality were never a trade-off, unpack the weekend build that turned into a two-week code review, and go behind the scenes of how a graduate design programme is rewriting itself around AI.Chapters0:04 — Two institutions, one calendar: how Randy keeps both plates spinning3:00 — Agents that absorb the busy work so he can stay close to the craft5:29 — Dogfooding vs

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69:07

Ep #12: James Storer (Monzo): Fake Banks, Real...

Near Future Podcast ·

2026/08/14

Tom and Jonny sit down with James Storer, who leads design in Monzo's AI and personalisation collective and is the biggest token burner in the whole company. They dig into the fake Monzo his team built to prototype with, why he stepped off the leadership track to get back in the tools, and what he went to Config to ask Figma.CHAPTERS00:00 Introducing James Storer02:12 Why go back to doing the work after leading teams10:13 The founder's fight: ship it, or make it better14:47 Being a loud

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60:11

Ep #11: No Shortcuts. Backyard Designers, AI Slop,...

Near Future Podcast ·

2026/08/07

Tom and Jonny are back for a duo episode after a month of guest interviews — Jonny has just about got the internet back after a house move and a camping trip. They reflect on what the recent guest run has taught them, dig into Backyard Designers Club and the hooha it sparked, and talk through why design and engineering leadership is such a hard place to be right now. Plus: Tom built a 3D chess game for his 5-year-old using Opus 5 and Three.js, and Jonny's Ooda gets a quiet YC

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59:14

Ep #10: Ini Abiodun (AirOps): Designing at AI Startup...

Near Future Podcast ·

2026/07/30

This week Jonny moves house, so Tom hosts solo. He’s joined by Ini Abiodun, lead product designer at AirOps, to discuss designing inside a fast-moving AI startup and the systems she’s built to move faster. Ini explains how her 90-day onboarding plan collapsed almost immediately due to pace, and how internal AI assistants like Fantino and Clara helped her learn the codebase, accelerate a listening tour, and ship early, including a widely adopted UX writing “skill” that encodes brand voice,

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47:14

Ep #9: Hollie Lubbock & Josh Payton (Wise): How Wise...

Near Future Podcast ·

2026/07/23

Hollie Lubbock (Design Director) and Josh Payton (VP of Design) at Wise join Jonny and Tom on the Near Future Podcast to unpack how their design org has rewired itself around AI — from prototyping kits that let anyone "hold" an idea, to the hidden operational grind behind every flashy AI demo. They dig into why disciplines aren't collapsing (they're specializing further), why AI is "an averaging machine," and what it takes to stand out when everyone has the same tools. Plus: a rapid-fire

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48:32

Ep #8: Domingo Widen (Fin): Why Fin's designers now...

Near Future Podcast ·

2026/07/16

Tom and Jonny are joined by Domingo Widen, Staff Product Designer on the Front-End Infrastructure team at Fin (formerly Intercom)Domingo shares how designers at Fin have moved from prototyping in sandboxes to shipping directly to production, and unpacks his team's mission to build the platform and tools that let every team move from concept to production faster with AI.The conversation traces the story of getting designers into developer environments — from a top-down mandate and painful

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58:20

Ep #7: Going AI-first as a design org with Avi...

Near Future Podcast ·

2026/07/10

Tom and Jonny sit down with Avi Ashkenazi, Senior Product Design Director at Deel, for the podcast's first-ever guest episode. Avi shares the story behind Vidit, an internal screen-recording tool he built (and vibe-codes on weekends) that now has 600 daily users and 10,000+ videos produced — and which he's now made free for anyone at viddit.video.The conversation dives deep into Deel's AI-forward culture: designers losing Figma seats after 30 days of disuse, "super users" burning through

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51:30

Ep#6: Figma Config, Source of Truth, and Craft in AI...

Near Future Podcast ·

2026/07/03

Tom and Jonny share updates from Tom’s Mostly Working meetup in London with Kate Pincot (Multiverse), focused on scaling design impact through tooling and agents, and preview upcoming podcast guests in July.They reflect on how the meetup format has evolved as more people have hands-on AI experience, shifting from first experiments to practical, scaled adoption inside teams, with more focus on token costs and measurable value.They discuss Figma Config releases (Motion, Figma Weave,

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50:30

Ep#5: Are middle managers actually finished? Plus:...

Near Future Podcast ·

2026/06/26

Tom and Jonny are back for another wide-ranging episode. Jonny starts by recapping his golf trip to Mallorca — where a non-technical friend used Lovable to vibe-code a fully functional scoring app for their annual 16-man Ryder Cup-style tournament, the Stryder Cup. It's a perfect case study in personal software.From there, Tom brings a meaty topic: the "death of the middle manager" narrative gaining steam in the press. Drawing on his five years as Director of Product Design at Monzo, Tom

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42:34

Ep4: Who Controls Your AI? Europe's Sovereignty...

Near Future Podcast ·

2026/06/17

Jonny and Tom dig into the uncomfortable reality of Europe's dependence on US-controlled AI — sparked by Anthropic's Fable 5 being banned outside America days after launch. They explore what the dystopian narrative Europe 2031 predicts for the continent, debate London's surprising rise as an AI talent hub, wrestle with what it means to build a business in the age of AI, and Tom reveals his open-source design tooling project, Kazam.0:00 — Introduction & the content pipelineJonny and Tom

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53:21

Episode #3: Kazam! From 15 minute etch-a-sketch to 70...

Near Future Podcast ·

2026/06/12

Tom and Jonny reflect on their live workshop at Product Unleashed in London, explore the history of designers building their own tools, and dig into how AI can be used as a counterbalance to your own working style — not just an amplifier.ChaptersBuilding a Design Tool in 15 Minutes at Product UnleashedTom and Jonny recap the workshop they ran at Product Unleashed, where they built retro design tools (Etch A Sketch, MS Paint) live in front of an audience — twice. They discuss how the

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42:22

Episode #2: AI, Figma's Future, and Why Design Teams...

Near Future Podcast ·

2026/06/12

Tom and Jonny dig into the outcomes of Tom's Mostly Working event featuring James Storer from Monzo, unpacking how leading design teams are using AI not to ship faster, but to learn faster — and why the language of "design vs. product" is getting in the way. They get into the state of Figma: is it losing its grip on the design workflow, or is it actually thriving? And they draw an unexpected parallel to the smartphone camera era to ask whether AI will democratise design the same way. Plus:

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51:14

Pilot: Tom and Jonny find their feet (and microphones)

Near Future Podcast ·

2026/06/12

Near Future Podcast – Pilot EpisodeWelcome to the Near Future Podcast, where Tom and Jonny explore what they're building, learning, and experimenting with as AI reshapes how we work.In this episode:Agentic Murder MysteryJonny walks through his experiment building a six-agent murder mystery game using NanoClaw. He created a cast of AI suspects — each with their own secrets, personalities, and email inboxes — and ran a live session with a group of exited startup founders. The conversation

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