Rewind: Julie Zhuo: Facebook's former VP of Product Design on what she got right and wrong as a leader

Hi folks!

We hope your summer is going well. Aarron and I are traveling and spending some time with our families this week, so we thought we’d rewind to one of our favorite episodes, with Julie Zhuo. The episode came to mind because one of our listeners asked us what episodes we’d recommend to someone who is growing their team, and Julie’s book The Making of Manager has a lot of helpful advice. 

Find the full episode, transcript, and more on our Substack: https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/rewind-julie-zhuo

We also suggested Tony Fadell’s episode to our listener…the inventor of the iPhone and iPod has some great tips about hiring people who are skilled but don’t necessarily have the experience that ticks all the boxes of the posted job description.

We first aired the interview with Julie back in 2019, when she was the VP of Product Design at Facebook. Since then, she’s gone on to found her own company called Sundial, with the mission to help teams make faster, smarter decisions with data.

Original episode description

Listen as Julie Zhuo, former VP of Product Design at Facebook and author of The Making of a Manager, recalls some of her earliest professional experiences at one of the fastest growing companies on the planet. She reveals how she got her start and grew to be a highly influential design leader renowned for building top-notch teams. Julie talks about the difference between leading and managing, and shares personal examples that can help you advance your career.

Bio

Julie Zhuo started building products as employee ~100 at Facebook and went on to head up product design for the Facebook app for many years. She’s kept a blog called The Looking Glass, about design, technology and leadership for much of that time. In 2019 she wrote a bestselling leadership book called The Making of a Manager. Currently, she’s living the entrepreneurial journey with her start-up Sundial whose mission is to help teams make faster, smarter decisions with data.

***

Premium Episodes on Design Better

This ad-supported episode is available to everyone. If you’d like to hear it ad-free, upgrade to our premium subscription, where you’ll get an additional 2 ad-free episodes per month (4 total). Premium subscribers also get access to our monthly AMAs with former guests, ad-free episodes, early and discounted access to workshops, and our new enhanced newsletter The Brief that compiles salient insights, quotes, readings, and creative processes uncovered in the show.  

Upgrade to paid

***

Visiting the links below is one of the best ways to support our show:

Zeplin: Few things frustrate designers quite as much as seeing the UI they’ve meticulously designed, botched when built out. But Zeplin can help you make every design-to-dev handoff efficient and accurate so you nail every release on time and on budget. Design Better listeners can get their first month of the Basic Plan free. Just go to zeplin.io and use code DESIGNBETTER to get your first month of the Basic Plan free.

Greenlight: Years ago, Aarron and Eli set up their kids with Greenlight, a debit card and money app made for families. Their allowance is automatically deposited into their account and is divided into three buckets: spending, saving, and giving. With Greenlight’s investing tools, we’ve helped our kids learn how to invest in stocks and mutual funds and they can see those investments grow. Sign up for Greenlight today and get your first month free: http://greenlight.com/designbetter

Babbel: Babbel’s quick 10-minute lessons are hand-crafted by over 200 language experts to help you start speaking a new language in as little as 3 weeks. Here's a special, (limited time) deal for our listeners: Right now get up to 60% off your Babbel subscription by visiting http://babbel.com/designbetter. Rules and restrictions may apply.