Money works differently in communities traditionally excluded from formal banking, which makes designing products that really serve their needs a very different kind of challenge. People who live in the last mile often prefer cash because it’s physical. They can see it, touch it, and access it at any time.

While digital money offers many benefits, such as securely sending money over long distances and accessing new forms of credit, many don’t trust it because the places where they can access digital currency have often been too far away.

In 2017, over 500 million adults lived more than three miles from a financial access point in eight emerging markets studied by the Gates Foundation. This may not sound like much of a barrier, but for those living in the last mile, it means having to close their shops, lose a day of earnings, arrange family care, and pay for travel, which can be time-consuming and difficult, especially during rainy seasons. For low-income people, the inaccessibility of financial services has been a deal-breaker for adopting digital money. On the flip side, banks, telecoms, and other companies struggled to reach these customers because their products were not inclusively designed for them, and their distribution models failed to scale in rural areas.

Amid these myriad challenges, IDEO and the Gates Foundation saw an opportunity to introduce innovative ways to provide access to digital financial services even in the most remote areas of the world. And to make bold new bets: Could we design new digital experiences centered around the financial needs of people in the last mile? What would happen if we mobilized hundreds of actors to develop new ways to address financial access at the last mile? What if we took the most exciting financial innovations that worked in East Africa and piloted them in South Asia—and vice versa?

Working with more than 70 partners, including local startups, corporations, including Google, Unilever, Telenor, Standard Chartered, and BNI, as well as IDEO.org’s Women & Money program, LMM adopted a collaborative, ecosystem approach to drive and scale new digital financial products and systems.

A few of the life-changing innovations launched by LMM and its partners include:

• Finja’s intuitive small-business app that helps micro-merchants in Pakistan access flexible, interest-avoiding Islamic credit  to order products from fast-moving consumer goods companies like Unilever. Finja now serves 45,000 merchants and reaches 10.2 million customers.
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• Accessing government benefits can be a challenge, especially when it’s through a mobile phone, so IDEO helped Indian startup Haqdarshak develop a robust digital experience for its 52,000 community agents to facilitate access for low-income people. The agent network—70 percent of whom are women—now serves more than 7.6 million families and has unlocked $2.2 billion in social benefits for those who need it most.
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• Making micro-credit nearly instantaneous was a solution that startup Kuunda offered to financial agents in Tanzania. IDEO helped adapt the product to deliver working capital for merchants in Pakistan. Today, Kuunda continues to grow across markets in Africa, totaling 6.1 million active users and distributing $1.1 billion in loans globally.   

While the LMM program officially concluded in 2024, lessons, tools, and case studies from the program are accessible on IDEO’s Financial Futures website. Those looking to catalyze equity and inclusion in digital financial services for the last mile can consult LMM’s Financial Confidence Playbook, the open-source Digital Confidence Toolkit (created in collaboration with Google), or the Gender Evaluation Framework, among other helpful resources.

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Over 1.3 billion people worldwide in poor and rural areas are excluded from formal financial services, including savings accounts, credit lines, and insurance, making it harder for them to move out of poverty.

34M

underserved users reached by 100+ new financial products, pilots, and prototypes

70+ LMM partners

including Google, Unilever, Grab, Standard Chartered, Cargill, Airtel, Celo Foundation, and BNI

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Multinational CPGs excel at creating popular, mass-market products for large countries. When they enter smaller countries like Peru, they often parachute their brands onto store shelves and skip consumer product testing altogether, largely relying on brand recognition to drive sales. This oversight presented Alicorp and IDEO with an opportunity: flip the script and invite young Peruvian women to work together with them to create a new hair care brand from scratch. Over the course of a four-year transformational journey, IDEO worked closely with Alicorp, adopting a “learn by doing” approach to foster a culture of innovation, launch a new brand, and drive growth for the company through consumer-centric design.

The collaboration began with an inspirational trip 10,000 miles away to Seoul, South Korea, the epicenter of global beauty trends. To expand their thinking, the Alicorp/IDEO team received K-Pop glow-ups and explored other cutting-edge beauty experiences. They were inspired by the Korean market’s unwavering focus on meeting the particular hair care and skin needs of Korean women.

Back in Peru, the team conducted multiple rounds of in-depth interviews with young women, teenagers, beauty influencers, and experts across the country. They learned about their beauty goals, personal care routines, and “mixto” hair texture. They heard about women’s struggles with regional weather—the Andean region’s extreme dryness versus Lima’s humidity and the city’s hard water. The research revealed that Peruvian women wanted natural products that worked hard, wouldn’t harm their hair, and celebrated what made them unique. They wanted a brand that spoke to them honestly and authentically. That represented and empowered them. That didn’t overpromise, underdeliver, or hold up European and American beauty ideals that didn't resonate with Latin American women like the multinationals did.

Armed with these insights, the Alicorp/IDEO team developed tangible brand prototypes for women to respond to during successive rounds of user research, including in a beauty pop-up store in Lima. The team shared various bottle types, ingredient mixtures, and brand positioning options. Should the new brand’s personality be an outspoken feminist or a gal pal? Au naturel or sophisticated? The iterative feedback cycles informed everything from brand strategy and ingredient recommendations to product line-up, brand and product naming, launch strategy, and digital activations.

The final design, Amarás (“you will love”), is a personal care line that centers the needs and aspirations of Peruvian women. Hitting shelves in 2022, its shampoos and conditioners feature local, bio-diverse ingredients, including mangoes, macadamia nuts, and goldenberries, that help address the specific hair texture needs of women in LATAM and the climate realities of the Andean region. The brand’s launch campaign included TV and print ads featuring Peruvian models from every region as well as commissioned murals celebrating local beauty by artists across Peru. Most notably, the unapologetically authentic Peruvian hair care brand became a TikTok sensation, garnering over seven million organic views and more than 300 viral videos from enthusiastic new fans.

Three months after its launch, Amarás seized a 7.5 percent share of the personal care aisle—a remarkable goal it had set for year three.Since then, Alicorp has continued to expand its creative capabilities, designing personal care products tailored to the cultural and beauty needs of Latin American consumers.

Alicorp launched numerous successful brand extensions across its food and home care categories, but was unable to crack the $340M USD hair care product market in its home country of Peru.

7.5%

Amarás’ share of the Peruvian hair care market 3 months after launch—a goal Alicorp had set for year 3

7M+ organic views and 300+ organic fan videos

created on TikTok during Amarás’  launch campaign

Thirty years ago, China-based Jack Technology started as a home sewing machine manufacturer. A decade ago, the innovative global leader began investing in robotics and exploring AI, a decision that positioned it well to address today’s urgent need for smarter manufacturing solutions.

Believing that a new, strategically positioned sub-brand could draw in larger, more premium global manufacturing customers, Jack Technology and IDEO set out to understand their needs. IDEO began by visiting more than a dozen garment factories across China, Vietnam, and Bangladesh, conducting in-depth interviews with factory managers, industrial engineers, pattern-making leaders, and frontline workers. It soon became clear: the apparel manufacturing industry is at a critical juncture. The way apparel manufacturers navigate the promises of intelligent technology—while addressing deep-rooted structural issues like labor shortages and working conditions—will shape the industry's development for years to come.

For premium clothing brands, garment factory compliance and worker well-being are priorities when selecting production partners, so many owners proudly showcased their improvement efforts. They discussed investing in quieter machines and air conditioning, enhancing lighting, adding greenery, and implementing no-overtime policies. Amid rows of identical sewing stations, the IDEO team noticed small human gestures, such as a small vase of flowers. As one operator said, “I just want to uplift myself during work.”

The research helped IDEO identify a core opportunity for differentiation. Create human-centered products and services that further enhance working conditions in large apparel factories, strengthen their ability to attract and retain talent, and drive the industry toward a more sustainable future. Through multiple rounds of co-creation with the Jack Technology team and key apparel-sector stakeholders, a clear brand direction for Aitu began to take shape: “Smart Machines, Uplifting People.”

Guided by this human-centered ethos, IDEO helped build a comprehensive brand system for Aitu. The idea of “uplifting people” and showcasing garment workers’ professionalism and skill is expressed throughout all brand communications, the industrial design of its smart sewing machines, and the interaction and industrial design of a humanoid sewing robot.

In the eyes of factory workers, this is the new work experience Aitu brings to life. Compared with traditional bulky industrial machinery, the clean lines and soft edges of Aitu’s new AI-powered sewing machines feel more like the professional office tools found in bright, organized workplaces. Concave surfaces and soft materials diffuse glare from overhead lighting, reducing eye strain, while clear interaction logic and icon-based visuals accommodate operators with varying levels of skill and education. AI technology, seamlessly embedded in the machine’s core functions, automatically adjusts parameters for different fabrics and tasks, allowing operators to achieve high-precision results with less effort. A soft halo-like light glows whenever the AI-assisted function is active, fostering users’ trust in both the technology and the AI-powered sewing machine as a whole. When hundreds or thousands of Aitu machines are arranged together in a factory, the overall effect is a modern, professional, and high-end work environment.

Working closely with Aitu’s robotics team, IDEO’s final design challenge was to bring a human-machine collaboration to life through a full-scale AI robot, AI10. The robot has an elegant, biomimetic silhouette. Its fabric-like outer finish features design elements commonly found in garment making, such as cutting and stitching lines, giving the robot the approachable look and the feel of a skilled tailor companion who can assist with simple, repetitive tasks. When AI10 is in operation, a circular light ring gently pulses at the sides of the robot’s ears as well as on the paired sewing machine’s display screen, clearly signaling the robot’s activity to its human co-workers.

In September 2025, Jack Technology debuted its new Aitu brand, along with its first AI sewing machine and a humanoid robot prototype, at a launch event at Shanghai Tower and at the China International Sewing Machine & Accessories Show. IFA Berlin, Europe’s largest trade show for consumer electronics, honored Aitu with a Gold Award for AI Product Innovation for seamlessly integrating AI technology and industrial design. Jack Technology’s humanoid robot is expected to go into full-scale production in 2026.

Before AI, the apparel manufacturing industry had experienced little fundamental change since the invention of the lockstitch sewing machine nearly two centuries ago.

2025 Gold Award for AI Product Innovation

from IFA, the world’s largest home and consumer tech event

Alicorp has direct operations in Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, and Chile, manages export operations in more than 30 countries, and oversees over 150 brands. While its AlaCena sauces are ubiquitous in South America, the brand’s North American market primarily consisted of purchases made via Amazon by Peruvians living abroad. To help the CPG giant expand meaningfully and sustainably onto US grocery shelves—and achieve its ambitious $50 million retail sales goal in five years—Alicorp and IDEO collaborated on multiple projects over a two-year period. The partnership began in early 2020 with consumer research and product strategy, ultimately leading to the development of initial product branding, positioning for launch, and an in-market pilot in late 2021.

‍‍Through a combination of large-scale digital surveys and in-depth, in-person and remote research interviews, IDEO discovered that AlaCena’s Tari and Uchucuta’s hot sauce recipes resonated the most with US consumers. Made from native Aji Amarillo and Rocoto chili peppers ground using a traditional Andean “batán” technique, consumers appreciated their complex flavors and enjoyed how they enhanced, not overpowered, everyday foods like burgers and fries. The sauces’ authentic Peruvian culinary roots were also a key differentiator. In addition to consumers, IDEO consulted with industry experts—including executives from large-scale grocery chains and chief merchants of leading big-box stores—to explore retail and marketing trends and identify potential innovation partners for Alicorp in the US.

Based on the research, IDEO recommended a few changes to ensure a successful launch: Lead with the Tari brand, which was the most memorable and easiest to pronounce, and position it as an “everything sauce.” Change the packaging from a large plastic pouch to a smaller squeeze bottle to better align with consumers’ expectations and stand out on the inside of refrigerator doors. Adjust the product formulation to appeal to mainstream consumers looking for cleaner labels. And visually celebrate Tari’s Peruvian roots through bright colors, traditional textiles, and a llama, an animal closely associated with the Andes Mountains. In addition to these recommendations, IDEO provided a comprehensive go-to-market retail strategy that included potential US regions for launch, retail brokers, distributors, manufacturers, and R&D and pilot retail lab partners, as well as job descriptions for a new North American-based sales team.

While Alicorp worked on reformulation and packaging strategies, IDEO refined Tari’s initial branding strategy. Steeped in Peruvian aesthetics, the brand’s new look and feel featured a vibrant color palette, geometric patterns, and—of course—a friendly llama icon, which could also be found on all in-store point-of-sale items IDEO designed for Tari's pilot launch in late 2021.

The successful 12-week in-market pilot in Tom Thumb grocery stores gave Alicorp the confidence to have its in-house design team make the brand even bolder and more eye catching, and to launch two flavors, Amarillo Pepper and Rocoto Pepper, on Amazon and in over 50 retail stores in late 2024.

Since then, the popular sauces consistently rank among the top 50 percent of the fastest-selling products on US shelves, with 80 percent of sales revenue representing new business. In 2025, Tari expanded its offerings with three additional flavors: Zesty Verde, Tropical Kick, and Smoky Heat. Today, Tari is in transit to 3,000 major grocery stores, including Wegmans, Meijer, Central Market, and The Fresh Market, as well as available for purchase on Amazon.

Alicorp had a vision to expand its beloved and delicious hot sauces to the US market, but needed help fine-tuning the brand and product for an American audience.

3,000

major US grocers, including Wegmans and Meijer, have signed on to sell Tari hot sauces

80%

of Tari’s sales revenue represents new business, a significant expansion of the overall category

Ranked in the top 50%

of the fastest-selling products on US grocery shelves

Then, about a year ago, I heard of Wim Hof. Hof holds world records for running barefoot marathons above the Arctic circle, for swimming under solid ice, and for climbing Mt Kilimanjaro in shorts. My small question became an obsession.

At IDEO, we look to extreme users to inspire the things we design, and Wim Hof seemed like the ultimate extreme user. I joined one of his workshops in the Pyrenees, Spain, and met folks from all over the world, who had come to find answers for their mental health, physical health, or athletic performance.

Hof is the cold fairy. He gives you permission to go into the cold, to enjoy it, to seek it. Cold has been his teacher, and breath-work his toolkit. He is happy to share his methods, and create the conditions for others to push their boundaries. Under his guidance, I took a 10 minute ice bath and did not shiver, during or after. I saw many new friends make breakthroughs that week. The cold was teaching us that we were in control and the decider of our own experiences: we could overcome pure pain.

Stanford Neuroscience Professor Andrew Huberman was invited by Hof to join our workshop, and we spoke about how to apply his Method, and about bringing Hof to California.

I began teaching my distillation of the Wim Hof Method to fellow IDEOers in Palo Alto, and to my surprise, over a third of our studio expressed interest in a mini-course. We got ready. We talked about how we stay warm—from shivering, to insulation, to mitochondrial chemical energy. We breathed, and observed the adrenaline-high cortisol-low effects of deep breath cycles with retentions.

Then Wim Hof and Prof. Huberman joined us in person for an afternoon of ice baths and to present their talk, “The Mind Made Visible”. This led to a great discussion on the inner workings of the Hof Method, and about the science behind his approach. Scientists are intrigued by this case of the “extreme user” who can teach his methods to other people and show results immediately—in contrast with a pranayama guru who requires 20 years of study. A groundbreaking study has shown that participants trained in the Method can control their autonomic nervous systems and suppress immune response to an endotoxin injection (the introduction of bacteria, which can trigger many adverse physiological reactions in humans).

The Method involves several minutes of deep inhalation-driven breathing, followed by holding the breath on a full exhalation for as long as is comfortable. Beginners can hold their breath for a remarkable 1- 2 minutes. After extended practice people can reach 4+ minutes. During this process, the blood pH becomes alkaline and prevents you from passing out, while also serving to restore balance in the endocrine and immune systems. At around the 90 second mark, an adrenaline release is triggered. Unlike when adrenaline is pumped out if your life is in peril, low cortisol levels ensure that you remain calm, focused, and able to direct the superhuman power boost.

The cold and breath work go hand-in-hand—the breathing fortifies you for the cold, and the release of cold-shock proteins from sustained ice-water immersion amplifies the effects of the breathing. The practice, Hof says, resets insomnia/jet lag, reduces chronic pain, heads off depression, improves memory, and increases longevity. (Note: the breathing Method should be performed in advance of, not during, cold water immersion).

For me, the Method has been most helpful while mountaineering. By controlling my body's reactions to cold and over-indexing on oxygen, I stay comfortable in extreme conditions and acclimatize more effectively. After meeting Hof, I'm no longer asking, why are we afraid of the cold? But instead, how might we harness the cold to unlock our own potential?

In the New Hampshire winter of 2005, I gave up use of all jackets, sweaters, and warm layers for the season. Crossing between high school campus buildings in a t-shirt during snow and freezing rain, I received appalled looks from my peers and teachers, but felt invigorated and unconstrained. I began asking, why are we afraid of the cold? I later reverted to social norms, and by college, I was a lover of warmth. But the question stayed with me.

I don't snap pics of my lunch @plantbowls to brag about what I’ve made or ordered. I do it to take stock of what I’m about to eat, to appreciate it, and to build community around it—something I’m in the habit of doing as a coordinator for IDEO U.

Four years ago, I shifted to a plant-based diet. Going vegan turned out to be an easy move with the help of Instagram. Because I made it a habit to capture food in the best light, it started to look gorgeous. Focusing on plants might seem bland, or limited, but documenting them made me realize the glory of spices, vegetables, fruits, beans—the sheer variety of it all! I began to revere colorful jewels of fruit, to inhale the aroma of a tahini sauce before I dug in. I really noticed what was on my plate. I would take an extra beat to slice an avocado onto a bowl of veggies or drizzle nut butter on top of steaming oatmeal, both to make them look more appealing and add to their deliciousness.

Not long after I started foodstagramming, I read an article that explained why. It turns out that by taking pictures and waiting a little longer before we pick up our forks, we delay gratification, which makes the food seem more delectable. By holding off on eating for a beat or two, I was actually making it taste better.

And when I posted these dishes on Instagram later, I got to experience them again while trying to think up a clever caption or hashtag. Initially, it was just about sharing a beautiful image. But seeing others be surprised by the diversity of plant-based foods, and having them ask about recipes meant a lot to me. Maybe they'd get inspired to shift to a healthier diet, too.

We eat at least three times a day. Why not bring more joy to a basic necessity? It feels good, it smells good, it looks good… and it gets a lot of likes.

Here are some accounts I follow to get inspired:

1. instagram.com/healthiecook
2. instagram.com/panaceas_pantry
3. instagram.com/feastingonfruit
4. instagram.com/nathaliesader
5. instagram.com/thefeedfeed.vegan

And here’s mine: instagram.com/plantbowls

It's easy to roll your eyes at the guy at the table next to you lurking over his food, phone in hand. I once considered foodstagramming to be a cliché, and certainly think spending much of our time with our faces planted in our phones is not a great evolutionary turn. Then I started my own foodstagram.

After Effects is one of my favorite prototyping tools. I use it to animate web and mobile interactions, or to demonstrate physical interactions by augmenting UI and sound over video footage.

AE is super powerful, but has a deep and twisty interface with lots of corners to navigate. The timeline is one of its most daunting aspects. Things can escalate quickly, and before you know it, your project is a labyrinth of layers, expressions, effects, and comps. Here are a few tips to help you find your way.

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Sometimes you need to cut to the chase. A deadline is looming and there's no time to luxuriate in lessons from your go-to experts. You need bite-sized tutorials to beef up your skills, one morsel at a time. If you're looking for help with After Effects, today's your lucky day.

When we were invited to create a booth for the American Academy of Pediatrics conference, we had two weeks and limited resources. We sat down, sketched out a floor plan, and had lively discussions about how to bring families’ everyday struggles with healthy food to life.

It’s our nature to be makers, so we jumped into the prototyping shop with scrap wood, some cardboard, hot glue, and some farmer’s market produce. As we would soon learn, this was not the typical way one builds a booth for a conference like this.

But the important thing wasn’t the level of production, it was the message: healthcare has a huge opportunity to lead the conversation about food and health in a way that is compelling and accessible for everyone. What if doctors could prescribe food as part of a therapeutic care plan and make it possible for families to access food that will keep their loved ones well? What if we reimagined nutrition education with hands-on learning that emphasizes the joy of food rather than the restrictive messaging often associated with food and health? How could we transform healthcare and communities by promoting food as medicine?

Together with our collaborators—led by Supervisor Wilma Chan and her “ALL IN” Alameda County initiative to end poverty and UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland along with Alameda County Public Health Department, Alameda County Community Food Bank and Dig Deep Farms—we synthesized input from doctors, nutritionists, policy makers, hospital administrators, and public health workers to create a vision of how people might use a Food Pharmacy. Through illustrations and personal stories we brought our collective vision to life, gave it a name, and designed recipes and cooking tools for our booth.

Our handmade booth with its bright colors and fresh produce stood out in the towering sea of sleek glowing structures. The focal point was a cornucopia of fresh fruits and vegetables, like kale, eggplant, imperfect apples, pumpkins, bananas, and hefty carrots still a bit dirty from the farm, all spilling out in an exuberant mess. It didn’t matter that we hacked together IKEA furniture and used leftover wood for the booth frame. It was rough. It was real. It matched our message that health care needs to meet people where they are. And because of this, it was a hit.

Some of the most pressing human-centered innovations—especially as they relate to health and food—can be prototyped in a much more humble way. Sometimes all it takes is an enthusiastic and collaborative team, a couple of glue guns, a pile of vegetables, and some imagination.

If you’re interested in joining the conversation, get in touch with us at vbarad@ideo.com.

Imagine walking into a pharmacy that looks more like a farmer's market, the open shelves stocked with vegetables, roots, and herbs. And instead of a dull waiting room there are interactive cooking classes and food sampling stations. Imagine a future in which food is seen as medicine.

I help organizations cut through complexity by shaping how they show up, through brand strategy, identity, and storytelling.

Working at the intersection of brand and business, I bring an editorial eye and a bias toward making—turning ideas into tangible experiences that people can understand, trust, and believe in.

My work spans government, healthcare, financial services, media, and consumer goods, from launching Gen Z-focused ventures to building innovation labs and reimagining legacy brands. I relish moments of ambiguity and enjoy translating across teams, perspectives, and priorities to move ideas forward.

I started my career in editorial and digital design, shaping cross-platform experiences and identity systems in publishing and agency environments. That foundation still shapes how I work today: I’m detail-oriented, collaborative, and overreliant on the Oxford comma. I hold a BFA in Visual Communication from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

For 25 years, I've asked the same question: Who does this design exclude—and what are we going to do about it?

My work spans human-centered strategy, inclusive design, and qualitative research, with clients ranging from Microsoft, Google, and Verizon to the National Science Foundation, and San Francisco Unified School District.

Before IDEO, I taught elementary school in East Palo Alto and spent a decade doing design work with social service organizations—where I learned firsthand what it costs people when systems are built without them in mind.

I am currently writing User Error, a nonfiction book about digital access and the design decisions behind it. I live in Oakland, California.

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My expertise spans brand, communication, and product design across tech, education, the arts, and social impact.

I believe great work demands both high-level vision and obsessive attention to detail, and only happens through collaboration.

I bring an inclusive, hands-on approach and a deep understanding of business, which enables me to consistently deliver excellence while always asking why.

Before joining IDEO, I worked at the brand firms Pentagram and VSA Partners. I began my career as a designer, leading teams at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the Milwaukee Art Museum. I hold an MFA in graphic design from Maryland Institute College of Art and a BFA in communication design from the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design, and have taught at some of the best design schools in the US.

I am responsible for IDEO’s long-term success in China and working with clients to use design as a tool to enable growth. Specifically, I have helped Chinese companies design holistic brand solutions through the development of their products, communication, services, and innovation teams, and I have helped multinationals expand their presence and influence in China.

I advise global leaders on developing China-led innovation and capabilities.

In over 15 years in IDEO Shanghai, I have worked on projects that use design to elevate the quality of the experience of healthcare products and services, streamline processes that increase productivity, create spaces and programs that promote and enable inclusive communities, and build next generation mobility solutions that are planet-positive.

Before joining IDEO, I worked at Philips Electronics and the Electrolux Group in Italy, the Netherlands, and Singapore on a number of breakthrough commercial products. I am a member of the Young President Organization in Shanghai.

Most AI products today are built for work—a space with clear problems and established systems. One founder noticed a gap: personal life is messier, harder to systematize, and mostly left behind by the AI boom. So she built Cue, a personal AI that lives inside iMessage and group chats, to go where the other tools haven't.

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In this episode, Becca Carroll, IDEO's Chief Strategy Officer, talks with Sida Li, co-founder and CEO of Shared Context Lab, about staying anchored to a human need while the technology around her keeps changing shape, why she treats her business model with the same rigor she'd bring to a product, and what it feels like to build a company at this particular, disorienting moment in AI.

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The conversation also gets into how Sida makes design decisions: the language Cue uses to describe itself, the tradeoffs behind building inside iMessage instead of a new app, and a real story about a business idea that didn’t pan out.

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This is the second in a two-part series profiling founders from IDEO's Startups-in-Residence program. The first conversation is with Johannes Seemann, founder of Sooner, on designing GenAI for the emotional side of money.

Most personal financial tools are built to run the numbers and optimize towards a budget. While that works for some, most people experience money as a lived relationship that does not neatly fit into a spreadsheet. Johannes Seemann and Becca Carroll discuss why money is emotional before it is mathematical, and what a human-centered approach to building a generative AI financial product looks like in practice.

Mina Seetharaman talks with Scott Shigeoka, author of Seek and Head of Curiosity Cultivation at the Eames Institute, about what distinguishes genuinely curious leadership from performative curiosity, how power dynamics shape curiosity, and why practicing curiosity can restore energy rather than drain it.

Mina Seetharaman talks with David Epstein, author of Inside the Box and Range, about why total freedom often produces average work, how leaders can design useful limits on purpose, and what organizations such as General Magic and Pixar reveal about the relationship between boundaries and creativity.