Jason Yuan
@jasonyuandesign
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cofounder @newcomputer. ex @apple design team. creator of https://t.co/pkxICgvm71
Joined November 2016
If you’ve talked to me at all in the last year, you’ll know that designing a socially intelligent AI has become an obsession that tugs at the juicy intersections of philosophy, psychology, sociology, identity, love, loneliness, and what it means to be human. We’ve been building.
We’ve been working on something new. From a single Dot to a living network. Dots — the first Social Intelligence
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extremely amused that “venture capital” in Chinese is 风险投资, which literally translates to “dangerous investing”.
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Introducing Mercury OS: A speculative vision of the operating system, driven by humane design principles.
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Last Friday was my last day on the Apple Design Team. I've spent the past few years working with some of the most brilliant people in the world on the wildest projects in AI. I've met many heroes and made even more lifelong friends. It's felt like home.
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in honor of orange cron’s sunset, here’s a behind the scenes look at the 3 variants of the Cron mark I drew for legibility at different scales
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Really excited to introduce Dot to the world. And this is just the beginning. .
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update: . we’re funded and hiring. come build a new computer with us.
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2.5 years on the Apple design team did not prepare me for the App Store review process 💀.
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o1 was made possible by lots of immigrants on o1 and I think that's beautiful.
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Introducing Hijack Your Feed—an extension that replaces ads on your Twitter feed with tasks from your todo list ⚡
Reclaim your attention. Hijack your feed.
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“Because it’s cool” is an underrated way to make decisions.
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here's a recent prototype exploring how we might reimagine "addictive" design paradigms to be empowering. What if we applied the "Stories" metaphor to help us skim through our inbox with reduced activation energy?
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ive seen the brightest minds of my generation ruminate and overthink themselves into resentment and ruin.
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Some news. I am leaving my current role to go all in on bringing Mercury to life in 2020. Drop me a line if you’re interested in going on this journey with me—as a collaborator, investor, evangelist etc. I’m all in.
Introducing Mercury OS: A speculative vision of the operating system, driven by humane design principles.
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speaking of which if you’re a designer/engineer/technodexterous creative interested in building fluid interfaces like this you should … reach out.
Prototyping @jasonyuandesign's with SwiftUI is the most fun I've had with interfaces for a long time. I will legit buy an iPad just for this.
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my hot take is that people who don’t make things should not be in the business of telling other people what to make.
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some kinetic type and motion design I did for @FKAtwigs and @theweeknd. Tears in the Club dropping this Thursday!
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What if you could save everything on your desktop… with a screenshot? Introducing Freezeframe—refrigerate your workspace ❄️.
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beyond thrilled to share what my teammates and I have been up to. the prologue to a new kind of computer.
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here’s a glimpse into just how much dot has changed me and the course of my life in just one year.
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met a senior designer at figma config who, in response to me questioning why design is so inaccessible, white, and exclusive, told me that it sounded like my problem for being “negative” and that he was a more “forgiving” person. I barely managed to escape before breaking down.
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incredibly excited to share some of the magic we’ve been making very soon….
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moonshots are inspiring. we need more dreamers… dreamers who have the courage to Try.
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easy to forget that Apple had to start with iPod (and many iterations of it) to eventually get to iPhone. instead of trying to stuff everything into V1 in a really Mid way … simplify, reduce, do less but better.
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Some personal news: I’m happier than I’ve ever been, and am working with the greatest team in the world on something new that I believe will truly be a force for good in the world. I’ve never felt this focused, before…ever. & I promise you it will be worth the wait.
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3.5 years later, still the most important email I’ve ever gotten
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fun outtake: when i was designing the brand identity for Cron, I pushed hard for this. extremely phallic looking wordmark.
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congratulations to the incredible apple design team for this monumental achievement ❤️.
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surprise! very excited to be joining my cofounder @sjwhitmore onstage at this year’s @figma config…
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honestly the biggest “life hack” is just… consistent kindness.
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I spent 3 months redesigning my favorite app in the entire world and I'm excited to share it! @AppleMusic.
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I really want to be able to detach Siri interface snippets and Stick them onto my home screen as widgets (as an intermediary state between ephemeral Siri responses and long term File storage). Here's a quick prototype I threw together to *feel out* the interaction…
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some early sketches of what eventually ended up as dot 1.0 from may 2023
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tbh your company is ngmi if you need to outsource the creative direction and tastemaking 🤷🏻♂️.
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the single most important email I've ever received in my career. this is why I keep going
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5. Was told by senior designer acquaintance that I charged too much because I was junior and that only seniors like him should use my pricing. when I had already working with said rate successfully. Know your worth; never let anyone tear it down to protect their own egos.
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why are self-proclaimed 'tools for thought' so goddamn serious. play is the best tool for thought.
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So what’s next? Well…. I'm excited to announce that I'll be teaming up with @sjwhitmore to build something new. I can’t give too much away yet, but I will say this: It is powered by AI. It is the future. And it feels magical.
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have you ever been so close to achieving your dream only to realize that . you don't want it . you can't want it. anymore. .
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dot roasted me a little too hard so i was like fck it lets ship
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😈 yalll are not prepared.
Today @jasonyuandesign was like "I'm gonna show you a quick 5sec demo" and I saw it and I don't think I'll ever look at software the same again.
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sketch is the superior application for designing native iOS things.
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hiring a principal software designer to join our team at.@newcomputer. if you're excited by what we're doing we'd love to hear from you.
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I literally do not understand why people feel the need to segregate language driven interfaces and object/tactile interfaces??? . ,,,. Stay tuned….
What an interesting moment. We're staring at two distinctly different visions of the future. They may co-exist, but they are radically different takes on what's modern, what's current, and where things are headed. One vision gets the UI out of the way. The other vision is UI
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the overthink overdesign overengineer tear hair out only to return to simplest, most elegant solution pipeline.
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I have to ask… how much travel or restaurant booking are people really doing on a regular basis to justify everyone (and their moms) treating these as heroic use cases for AI?.
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another banger from mr.alonso et al.
Excited to share the new Camera Control on iPhone 16. Swipe on it to quickly adjust your camera settings like zoom, and press it to capture
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months ago, I sent a care package consisting of masks, hand sanitizers etc to my family in China. they just sent back what’s left of it because now the tables have turned 😭😂😭
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I wonder how much money companies lose on incorrectly designed Instagram ads
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Problem w most online coding courses is that they only teach you the *how,* leaving me unable to replicate things because I need to understand the WHY. Is coding really just. do things because this is the way it’s done????.
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weird flex but. I love what I do and I'm very grateful to work with the people I get to work with.
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low eq is exponentially more dangerous than low iq I fear.
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been trying to design an elegant “memory”interface for the past ~12 months… past directions all seemed to promote a desire for manual editing/deletion, which feels wrong…. in comes @spiralstairs with a BANGER idea during design crit and now I think we’ve finally solved it 🥹.
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Profound wisdom from my mentor at Apple:. "You are gold. Gold is heavy, and not everyone can handle it. But that doesn't change the fact that you are gold.".
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My software design philosophy is rooted in stage design and the theatre: Simplify a complex world into simple metaphors (rooted in and real world physics), under unforgiving physical constraints, for three sets of users simultaneously: the actors, the crew, and the audience.
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2. Senior designer told me to stop worrying about “systematic stuff” and to leave that to the “45 year old creative directors.” Fuck that. Everyone who participates in a virtual world someone creates—whether that world is an OS or social network—should be empowered to question it.
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bearish on vibe coded consumer grade "app stores" . and on all pieces of software/UI becoming "hyper personal" or "generated." people don't know what they want or really need, nor do they know how to clearly articulate it. seeing others through our unique pov and creating.
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hey folks, I'm currently in the market for work as an interaction // product designer. pls send leads my way! here's my portfolio for more info.
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Excited and beyond honored to share this Lovesick Girls visualizer I made for Blackpink.
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😈.
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Since I published MercuryOS 4 years ago, the world has changed. And so have I. We are in the midst of a foundational shift. While some of the speculative ideas in my past works are finally within reach, I now believe that computers will feel more like relationships than tools.
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3. During an interview, founder of cult favorite productivity tool asked me if I could empathize with the boston marathon b*mber, and h*tler. before revealing that half of his team consisted of trump supporters.
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one of the most important lessons I’ve learned in my career is that insecure people will try to project their insecurities onto you, to make you smaller. ignore and keep trusting yourself.
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client: make a settings screen. me, with adhd: ok but why settings SCREEN and also why does this feature need settings can we redesign the platform to be more fluid in general why is this an app what do you mean this was a simple request I—.
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at the end of the day, even with all labor automated away… we still all share the fundamental need of being seen, heard, understood, accepted… and loved for exactly who we are.
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Super early demo of Mercury from December, featuring the ~same~ inbox flow (lmao). Featuring early ideas on centralized conversational interface, same actions applying to different modules of content etc. So much has stayed the same, and so much has changed!
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hey if you happen to be at Apple Park next week can you please check on my bestie and make sure he’s still quacking tysm
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hey all! im autistic, depressed, and am currently battling alcoholism. the world is overwhelming; so much pain and noise everywhere--feeling powerless to stop any of it. climate change singularity rapidly approaching. white male hustle culture of the bay eating at me etc.
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“Whether or not you're the best person in the world at what you do, you're probably not going to alter Google's trajectory. But if you really want to benchmark yourself and see how much of a contribution and impact you can make--which is a really compelling prospect for a lot of.
Q: How do you convince people to join your startup when most startups fail?. The founders of Pinterest and Stripe shared their answers to this question in the clip below. I really liked Stripe CEO Patrick Collison's point that joining a startup is one of the best ways for people
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one of my core philosophies is that creating a great consumer product uses the same brain cells as writing a great pop song — both spread through undeniably killer hooks.
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it’s not enough to stockpile creative and smart people in a room or a team and expect cool, cohesive things to emerge. You need a tastemaker, a vision setter.
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for those of you waiting for a spiritual successor to mercury os. this is it. Thank you for your patience. Let’s build the future.
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not interested in “wasn’t the past great. Wish we could go back”. passionate about “ok, this is where we are at. Here’s the potential of where we can go from here. Let’s fucking go”.
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hmu if you want to build and design the best, most fluid AI native computer interface ever.
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best decision making advice I've ever received, courtesy of @marcreisen . always try to make sure you're running towards something (courage), instead of away from something (fear).
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the most important lesson I’ve heard as I’ve gotten older is that success is not a zero sum game.
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one of my most interesting projects last year was designing the branding system for @Cron. The word mark was inspired by the Bauhaus movement and also doubles as a pattern that shows up in very unexpected ways in the app. Excited to see it out in the wild!.
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would be cool for computers to *subtlety* orchestrate our environments to help influence us toward our goals. for example if my robot knows I’m trying to make a tough decision, the next time I’m on YouTube it might recommend me a scene from Naruto in which the protagonist is.
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working on + dreaming about future computers with tuhin was the highlight of my time in the design studio. so incredibly rare to meet someone so brilliant, kind, collaborative… and consistently well dressed. excited to see what he does next!.
Small life update!. Friday the 17th was my last day at Apple. 🌈🍎. The Design Studio is truly a magical place unlike anywhere else. It was a once in a lifetime opportunity and a lifelong dream of mine to experience it and I will cherish it forever.
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