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Vlog
S1
21 mins
Mar 14, 2026
The Design Industry is Splitting in Two
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I turned down almost $40,000 last month from an AI company that thought making fun of the jobs they were displacing was good marketing.
In this video: the real data behind what’s happening to designers in 2026, what both sides are getting wrong, what AI tools are actually costing me in real dollars and nervous system damage, and why the chaos feels personal but is actually structural.
LINKS
Take the State of Prototyping Survey: https://survey.uxtools.co
Chapters
[00:00] - I turned down $40,000
[01:15] - The design industry is splitting in two
[03:00] - "50 to 100 cognitive cycles a day"
[04:30] - Harvard says it’s called "brain fry"
[06:00] - 906 designers surveyed — what the data says
[07:15] - Block cut 40%, stock went up 20%
[08:00] - Amazon’s AI code is breaking production
[09:00] - Nobody actually knows what’s coming
[10:15] - Carlota Perez and the 140-year-old pattern
[12:10] - We swapped the motor but not the factory
[13:00] - What AI is actually saving and costing my business
[15:30] - Why I said no to Higgs Field
[17:15] - Augmented intelligence as freedom
[19:00] - The disappearing junior designer ladder
[20:30] - Take the survey, share it with one person
