Justin Grant

@sachinrekhi A benefit is to free up more of experts’ time to do work that actually needs experts. I worked at companies where nothing customers see could be created by someone w/o “Designer” in a job title. Result:: design team spent lotsa time fixing typos/CSS but little hard design work.

I also struggle with The Great Merge™️ vision. I do think role blending is here to stay and a good thing as it reduces the coordination burden that used to bottleneck velocity. Now instead: - Designers can check-in UI polish w/o waiting on an engineer - PMs can vibe code prototypes w/o waiting on design and engineering - Engineers can leverage design systems to build a simple UI w/o waiting on design But beautiful design still requires a skilled designer. Differentiated strategy still requires a fantastic PM. And building at the edge of what's just now possible from an engineering perspective requires an exceptional engineer. Average work across the three disciplines can easily be done by a single builder. But I struggle to believe exceptional work across all three disciplines coming from a single builder is likely.

Spelling Bee in @NYTGames had a chance to do something very funny yesterday, but sadly did not rise to the occasion.

It's possible that some of the solutions to the problems above already exist in the app, if so let me know! But overall the app is increasingly focused on being Twitter, not to make it easy to read & listen to great long-form content that authors write... and that I pay for! 😡

5. The app will inexplicably auto-play podcast episodes again that I already listened to. If I already consumed 90% of an article/episode, then I please hide it from the app except History! There should also be a "mark played" button so I don't have to swipe to the end. (cont'd)

@Substack's iOS app is so bad! All I want: 1. One tap to add article/episode to a listen queue 2. If partway through reading an article, open it again when I reopen app OR auto-add the rest to queue. 3. Auto-play next in queue 4. Don't reset 2x speed to 1x 5. Don't replay! 🧵

@bandiaditya @noondesign Get Noon

I’m thrilled to announce we’ve raised $44M to build a new home for product design. Meet @noondesign. No workflow is more broken and fragmented in 2026 than the product designers’. The very same people who care most about building software don’t have software purpose built for them. @kushagrasinha7 and I have lived this problem first hand as designers ourselves. That’s why we built Noon. The first product design tool that works entirely on your product code, so you can design not only how a product looks, but also how it works. With AI at its core that works in seconds, not minutes. For the first time, you can create, iterate, build, test and ship. All in one canvas. No translations or roundtrips to the codebase and back. Comment “Get Noon” and we’ll get you on the list for early access.

@questionableway Truth. Go Bears!

there is a credible argument to be made that one of the most important causes of american economic and cultural dominance over the 20th century was the ability of just about anyone to get an elite education for little money at their state’s flagship land-grant university

norman borlaug had a phd in genetics who spent nearly his entire life as an agricultural researcher in government-funded labs throughout the world. at no point was he a farmer, though he was born on one

In 2020 I joined a bunch of awesome nerds to figure out a better date, time, and timezone API for JavaScript. 6 years later, it's now officially part of the language!

@natism x.com/justindross/st…

what’s the best tweet of all time?

AirBnB hosts probably don't realize that non-blackout curtains like the ones below are an immediate 👎 from many potential renters. AirBnBs often really skimp on sheets and pillows too, but hard to tell that from a photo. Too bad!

@zaid Sorry I haven’t used Windows for 15-ish years so I’m not the best authority on the latest versions.

@zaid IIRC, flat was embraced as part of enthusiasm for the Zune-inspired UI that Windows latched onto to differentiate from Mac. Dunno about underlines. They used to show up when you press Alt. Did that change? Also dunno about Alt+Tab, is there a setting to get old behavior back?

the one thing microsoft got right in late 90s was making windows core file browsing experience same as browsing the web — the browser (internet explorer) just happened to suck and we threw the baby out w the bathwater 😭

@zaid Windows also lost its way in 2000s but the cause (I worked there) was not copying Apple but the reverse: trying too hard to be unlike Mac: live tiles, large skinny fonts, square corners. All walked back, rightfully. Lesson: lead via usability, not graphic design!

@zaid Yeah. It makes me sad that the only significant change I noticed in the last MacOS was superficial graphic design. I literally can’t remember any new useful feature in the latest MacOS, other than finally porting the Messages=>fill in 2FA codes feature from iOS.