Yusuf Algan Work with me

Writing

Notes on product, design, and building things.

  1. Two illustrated territories side by side. On the left, a nine-person product team inside a small boundary. On the right, three people — product, design, engineering — inside a far larger one, with an arrow labelled AI between them. Caption: the team shrinks, the territory grows.

    · 9 min read

    The agents can work in parallel. I can't.

    The team shrinks, the territory grows. AI scales execution faster than judgment — which makes the real question not how few people can build a product, but how few can still judge it.

    Read →
  2. Two TikTok videos with near-identical view counts but wildly different engagement, 8.6% versus 0.1%

    · 2 min read

    The hard part of building an app in 2026 isn't building it

    560,000 new App Store apps in six months, and downloads grew 2%. Rawi's real numbers four months after launch, and the distribution money I wasted.

    Read →
  3. An asphalt paver laying a smooth road directly over a winding cow trail

    · 2 min read

    Most AI projects are paving the cow path

    Everyone is asking how to use AI. Almost nobody is asking whether the problem underneath is real. Automating an unquestioned process gives you the wrong thing, faster.

    Read →
  4. The words Product Designer struck through, with Product Builder below it, and the line: The handoff is over.

    · 2 min read

    I'm not a product designer anymore. I'm a product builder.

    Specialist roles are compressing and the handoff model is breaking down. Why that's not a threat to designers — and why the judgment, not the artefact, is what's becoming valuable.

    Read →

  5. · 1 min read

    At senior levels, the portfolio stops being the signal

    The more senior a designer gets, the less a case study tells you. What actually matters is whether they can operate.

    Read →

  6. · 1 min read

    Building Rawi, by intention

    Actions are by intentions. Notes on building a product in the margins of a full-time job — listening to users, iterating fast, small bets.

    Read →

  7. · 6 min read

    Why adoption, not technology, determines whether digital and AI programs succeed

    Most digital and AI programs underperform not because the tech fails, but because adoption never becomes the default way of working. Three patterns I keep seeing — and what changes when design enters early.

    Read →

  8. · 1 min read

    Would people still use it if the "AI" label disappeared?

    Any product built around a technology rather than a real problem burns out fast. Three questions to ask before you build.

    Read →

  9. · 1 min read

    Design is responsibility, not just recognition

    A designer's view — everything around us is designed, and when it's designed thoughtlessly, it rarely serves the human. A small example from Abu Dhabi's streets.

    Read →

  10. · 1 min read

    AI isn't a silver bullet — it's a tool

    The mindset shift that decides whether AI actually gets adopted, and the three roles the useful AI use cases play.

    Read →

  11. · 1 min read

    Stakeholders are users too

    Moving into consulting changed how I design — business stakeholders need the same empathy and research as end users.

    Read →