Taste, Craft, and Design in the Age of AI, with Avi Ashkenazi (ex Samsung & Shopify, now at Deel)

Avi Ashkenazi is a design leader who’s spent his career moving between hardware, software, and strategy—always focused on how teams turn ideas into real products. He’s led design at global companies and helped build teams that work across both physical and digital experiences. Today, Avi leads design at Deel, where he’s shaping how millions of people get hired, paid, and supported around the world. His work is about creating simple, human experiences in complex systems and helping designers stay curious while scaling their impact.

Timestamps:

• 00:00 – Intro
• 05:10 – Lessons from working across hardware, software, and physical spaces
• 09:20 – How curiosity and iteration shaped his approach to design leadership
• 13:40 – Building design teams that collaborate across disciplines
• 17:55 – The role of storytelling and empathy in influencing business outcomes
• 22:30 – Designing for trust and simplicity
• 27:45 – How Deel approaches product design
• 33:10 – Balancing craft with speed
• 38:20 – What good design leadership looks like in distributed teams
• 43:00 – Reflections on curiosity, growth, and keeping design human
• 55:34 – End of show questions

Connect with Avi
LinkedIn

Selected links from the episode
Shape Up, by Ryan Singer
Multipliers, by Liz Wiseman

Tools Avi mentioned
NotebookLM
Genway AI
Bagel AI
Whisk AI
Weavy AI
Mobbin