Sam Stephenson - The journey of designing an AI startup

In this episode of Dive Club, Ridd interviews Sam Stephenson, co-founder and designer of Granola, about the journey of building the AI-powered meeting notes app. Sam details their initial exploration of AI applications, the trap of top-down design, and the importance of user research through observing actual workflows. He shares insights into early experiments, the evolution of Granola's core interaction, and the decision to focus on a seamless, spatial user experience that prioritizes personal notes over transcripts. Sam also discusses the challenges of prompt engineering, future plans for team collaboration and task management, and the constant need to balance innovation with the simplicity of Granola's core functionality, emphasizing the importance of creating something users find genuinely useful and repeatedly pick up.