As the head of design at Cursor, Ryo is at the cutting edge of designers who ship code instead of mocks. He showed me how he built a retro OS with AI and did a live demo of adding a new feature using Cursor’s new agent mode. We also covered how to avoid AI design slop and how the Cursor team reached $29B valuation without full-time PMs.
Ryo and I talked about:
(00:00) Why designers should go directly to code
(02:06) Building a retro calculator app in one shot with plan mode
(08:04) How Ryo manages multiple AI agents at once in Cursor
(15:18) How Cursor builds without PMs and who does the PM work instead
(16:43) How to avoid creating purple AI design slop (it’s not prompting)
(20:01) Inside RyOS: A beautiful retro operating system built with AI
(30:22) How to turn vague ideas into detailed specs with Cursor
(37:47) The fastest way for PMs and designers to learn Cursor
Thanks to our sponsors:
Reforge: AI prototyping tool for product builders - https://reforge.com/peter
Linear: The best platform for AI agents - https://linear.app/partners/behind-the-craft
Get the takeaways: https://creatoreconomy.so/p/design-to-code-with-cursor-head-of-design-ryo-luWhere to find Rio:
X: https://x.com/ryolu_
Website: https://ryo.lu/
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