Excel runs the world — the cottage industry opportunity

The Good Stuff Episode 33: On AI and Design**Hosts:** Pete and Andy **Guest:** Jarrad Grigg, Chief Product Officer at Adapter

Pete and Andy sit down with Jarrad Grigg to explore how AI is transforming design. From Figma Make to DreamFlow, they discuss the gold rush for next-generation design tools, whether AI can be truly creative, and why craft still matters. The conversation challenges assumptions about delegation vs. doing, reveals why Excel runs enterprise, and explores how iteration speed has become the new competitive advantage.

## Key Moments:* [03:22] Jared's "oh shit" moment: train station photo with watch, GPT tells him which train to catch

* [04:46] The design tooling journey from Photoshop 6 to Figma's workflow revolution

* [10:00] The AI design tools gold rush: Figma Make, DreamFlow, and who will win

* [11:03] Hot take: design systems are mostly a waste of time (except now with AI training data)

* [13:42] Why every AI design tool starts with a text box—and why designers hate it

* [17:40] DreamFlow's approach: infinite canvas + prompting + fine-tuning controls

* [20:00] Where does the user come into the design process with these new tools?

* [23:00] Pete's sovereign engineering experience: shipping a new app every week in 5 hours

* [26:00] The $94 million Bureau of Meteorology website disaster story

* [31:00] Will AI lead to standardized, homogenous design everywhere?

* [35:00] The creativity question: AI-generated purple gradients and training data limitations

* [36:08] Pete's pipeline experiments: AI personas walking and talking through problems

* [38:44] Set and setting for AI: changing how we interact beyond the text box

* [42:37] Creativity needs time to breathe—dialogue over delegation

* [46:00] Why UI isn't dead and voice interfaces won't replace visual design

* [49:01] The typing vs. speaking debate: Andy filters ideas through writing

* [50:04] Pete's Excalidraw whiteboard workflow: red boxes, green boxes, organized chaos

* [54:04] Uncomfortable truth: loosely-coupled Excel sheets run the entire world

* [56:45] The cottage industry opportunity: building better tools for individual problems

* [1:00:10] Enterprise problems aren't technical—they're risk, compliance, and people

* [1:05:00] The craft question: does AI destroy or enable it?

* [1:08:18] The essay analogy: learning happens in ancillary exploration, not the output

* [1:10:11] Doing vs. delegating: why delegation produces mediocre results

* [1:13:40] The horse drawing meme: craft is passion and effort over time

* [1:15:01] AI gives designers more time for craft and exploration

* [1:16:32] Pete's realization: work becomes fulfilling when you own the creation process

* [1:19:53] Energy drain vs. energy gain: doing what you want with AI scaffolding

* [1:22:32] It's all about loops: iteration speed is the new competitive advantage

* [1:23:34] The quality triangle shifts when you change the underlying technology

**Quote:** "It gives us more time for craft. It's a freeing tool. If you really enjoy something it's not a job—you're constantly playing with it."