Podcast appearances and mentions of irene au

I am an operating partner at Khosla Ventures, working with portfolio companies to make their design and UX great. I build high performing teams, establish design practices, mentor and grow the next generation of great designers, and design interfaces and experiences.

Irene Au shares some of the learnings from her stellar career, the early life experiences that have helped her to succeed, and the importance of sweating the right stuff. Highlights include: What role does the C-Suite play in a company's ability to realise good design? How did you navigate the strong points of view of founder executives? What did you see in the designers you've hired that wasn't in those you didn't? Why do design leaders need to carefully choose their stakeholders? Why do you wish the job title UX Designer would disappear? ====== Who is Irene Au? Irene is a Design Partner at Khosla Ventures where she works with early-, mid- and late-stage startup CEOs to help them realise the value of design through better methods, practices, processes, leadership and talent. Irene has been one of Silicon Valley's most successful design executives and has played an important role in shaping and elevating design within several influential technology companies. She was the VP of Design at Udacity, where she helped the leadership team to find product-market fit and to define the company's strategy, vision, mission, and values. Irene also led the design and research efforts for the company's first product offering. Irene was also the Director of User Experience (Global Head) at Google for nearly 6 years. During her time there, Irene scaled and led the design team to over 350 people and transformed the way the famously engineering-driven company valued and operationalised design. Her success at Google was in part enabled by her prior experience as VP of User Experience at Yahoo!, where for four years she was the design leader responsible for the company's user experience across all of its products and design infrastructure efforts. ====== Find Irene here: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ireneau/ Medium: https://medium.com/@ireneau Twitter: https://twitter.com/ireneau Website: https://ireneau.com/ ====== Liked what you heard and want to hear more? Subscribe and support the show by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts (or wherever you listen). Follow us on our other social channels for more great Brave UX content! YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/TheSpaceInBetween/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-space-in-between/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thespaceinbetw__n/ ====== Hosted by Brendan Jarvis: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendanjarvis/ Website: https://thespaceinbetween.co.nz/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/brendanjarvis/

TODAY'S GUEST   Irene Au is Design Partner at Khosla Ventures, where she works with early-, mid-, and late-stage startup CEOs. She is dedicated to raising the strategic value of design and user research within software companies through better methods, practices, processes, leadership, talent, and quality. Irene has unprecedented experience elevating the strategic importance of design within technology companies, having built and led the entire User Experience and Design teams at Google, Yahoo!, and Udacity. She began her career as an interaction designer at Netscape Communications, where she worked on the design of the internet's first commercial web browser.   Irene also teaches yoga at Avalon Yoga Center in Palo Alto where she is among the teacher training program faculty and is a frequent author and speaker on mindfulness practices, design, and creativity. An adjunct lecturer at Stanford University, she teaches product design in the mechanical engineering department. Irene also serves as a trustee for the Smithsonian Cooper Hewitt Museum of Design.   Irene authored the definitive O'Reilly book, Design in Venture Capital, and her popular essays can be found on Medium. She has been featured in WIRED magazine, Fast Company magazine, CommArts magazine, and on the cover of Mindful magazine.   EPISODE SUMMARY   In this conversation we talk about: Developing listening skills as an introspective child, and how feeling like an outsider helped her develop those skills. Her electrical engineering studies, and her transition into looking at how technology influences society and people and how we live.  Her time at Netscape, and tying together the products for a consistent look and feel across a suite of products that came out at the time called Netscape Communicator.  Her move from Netscape to Yahoo!, and what went wrong for Yahoo! as a company trying to find its way. Her time at Google as we look at it from all angles. What was the state of design at Google before she joined and what were the changes she tried to implement as she brought human-centered design and practices to Google? Hiring strategies, staff training, and how design workshops ultimately became the Design Sprint at Google. What is design and what is a designer? And the role of the designer in venture capital.   I think my greatest takeaway from this interview is this sense of hope that someone like Irene is able to walk into these very "techy" cultures and produce real change. And all it takes is really showing the value of the work and being willing to engage and promote better practices. I think Irene will be an inspiration to many non-engineers who find themselves in heavy engineering cultures and want to make a contribution.    This conversation with Irene is one of many weekly conversations we already have lined up for you with thinkers, best-selling authors, designers, makers, scientists, impact entrepreneurs, and others who are working to change our world for the better. So please follow this podcast on your favorite podcast app, or head over to remakepod.org to subscribe.   And now, let's jump right in with Irene Au.   TIMESTAMP CHAPTERS   [5:54] Life in the Present [7:08] Early Childhood Driving Forces [9:40] A Journey to Design [13:20] Entering Netscape [16:00] The Challenges of the Early Internet [19:23] A Transition From Netscape to Yahoo! [22:58] The Infrastructure of Yahoo! [30:14] Good Design Versus Bad Design [34:04] The Winners and the Failures [39:48] Infusing Design With Google [45:55] Design Thinking Workshops [52:13] A Sideways Career Move [58:35] What is Design Today? [1:05:26] The Human Meaning of Design [1:08:58] A Short Sermon   EPISODE LINKS Irene's Links

Irene Au is Design Partner at Khosla Ventures, working with early, mid, and late-stage startup CEOs. She is dedicated to raising the value of design and user research within software companies through better methods, practices, processes, leadership, and talent. Through her mentorship of the next generation of designers, she helps companies build an empathetic understanding of user needs, inspiring and informing product design and experiences. Irene has unprecedented experience elevating the strategic importance of innovation within technology companies, having built and led the entire User Experience and Design teams at Google, Yahoo!, and Udacity. She began her career as an interaction designer at Netscape Communications, where she worked on the design of the internet's first commercial web browser.   For ten years, Irene taught yoga at Avalon Yoga Center in Palo Alto, where she also is among the teacher training program faculty. She is a frequent author and speaker on mindfulness practices, design, and creativity. She is an adjunct lecturer at Stanford University and teaches Product Design in the mechanical engineering department. Irene is also a trustee for the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Museum of Design. Irene authored the definitive O'Reilly book, Design in Venture Capital, and her popular essays can be found on Medium. In addition, she has been featured in Wired magazine, Fast Company magazine, CommArts magazine, and on the cover of Mindful magazine.Irene graduated magna cum laude from the Honors College at the University of South Carolina in Electrical and Computer Engineering. She received her Master's Degree from the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, focusing on Human-Computer Interaction at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. In this episode, Irene Au shared great insights on The Psychology of Design: How Human Behaviour and emotion influence Design Decisions. We started the episode by defining the intersection of psychology and design and what fundamental principles designers should consider when adding human behaviour and emotion to their work. Then Irene shared a few product examples where psychology played a crucial role in shaping the final product. We then discussed how designers could use colour, typography, and other visual elements to evoke specific emotional responses in users and the best practices for doing so effectively. In the end, Irene spoke on how cultural and societal factors influence design decisions and what strategies designers can use to create designs that resonate with diverse audiences. Irene Au Websitehttps://medium.com/design-your-life Book Recommendation by Irene Au The Design of Everyday Things - Don Norman The Creative Act: A Way of Being - Rick Rubin Geometry of Design - Kimberly Elam Thank you for listening to this episode of Nodes of Design. We hope you enjoy the Nodes of Design Podcast on your favourite podcast platforms- Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, and many more. If this episode helped you understand and learn something new, please share and join the knowledge-sharing community #Spreadknowledge. This podcast aims to make design education accessible to all. Nodes of Design is a non-profit and self-sponsored initiative by Tejj.

Music is a form of art. When different kinds of sounds are put together or mixed together to form a new sound that is pleasing to human beings, it is called music. Music is derived from the Greek word Mousike, which means the art of muses. Muses included the goddess of music, poetry, art, and dance in Ancient Greece. Irene Au, Founder, and CEO, of Kalos, A tech-driven platform revolutionizing music education talks about the importance of music. About Irene Au Irene is the Founder and CEO of Kalos, A tech-driven platform revolutionizing music education and career development. She is the founder of I Creation, and she's the founding director of Vienna Boys Choir Music Academy and Foundation. Experienced Founder with a demonstrated history of working in performing arts and education sectors. Skilled in International Project Management, Event Planning, Live Events, and Experienced Speaker. Strong links to Vienna the Capital of Music. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/tbcy/support

TODAY'S GUEST   Irene Au is Design Partner at Khosla Ventures, where she works with early-, mid-, and late-stage startup CEOs. She is dedicated to raising the strategic value of design and user research within software companies through better methods, practices, processes, leadership, talent, and quality. Irene has unprecedented experience elevating the strategic importance of design within technology companies, having built and led the entire User Experience and Design teams at Google, Yahoo!, and Udacity. She began her career as an interaction designer at Netscape Communications, where she worked on the design of the internet's first commercial web browser.   Irene also teaches yoga at Avalon Yoga Center in Palo Alto where she is among the teacher training program faculty and is a frequent author and speaker on mindfulness practices, design, and creativity. An adjunct lecturer at Stanford University, she teaches product design in the mechanical engineering department. Irene also serves as a trustee for the Smithsonian Cooper Hewitt Museum of Design.   Irene authored the definitive O'Reilly book, Design in Venture Capital, and her popular essays can be found on Medium. She has been featured in WIRED magazine, Fast Company magazine, CommArts magazine, and on the cover of Mindful magazine.   EPISODE SUMMARY   In this conversation we talk about: Developing listening skills as an introspective child, and how feeling like an outsider helped her develop those skills. Her electrical engineering studies, and her transition into looking at how technology influences society and people and how we live.  Her time at Netscape, and tying together the products for a consistent look and feel across a suite of products that came out at the time called Netscape Communicator.  Her move from Netscape to Yahoo!, and what went wrong for Yahoo! as a company trying to find its way. Her time at Google as we look at it from all angles. What was the state of design at Google before she joined and what were the changes she tried to implement as she brought human-centered design and practices to Google? Hiring strategies, staff training, and how design workshops ultimately became the Design Sprint at Google. What is design and what is a designer? And the role of the designer in venture capital.   I think my greatest takeaway from this interview is this sense of hope that someone like Irene is able to walk into these very "techy" cultures and produce real change. And all it takes is really showing the value of the work and being willing to engage and promote better practices. I think Irene will be an inspiration to many non-engineers who find themselves in heavy engineering cultures and want to make a contribution.    This conversation with Irene is one of many weekly conversations we already have lined up for you with thinkers, best-selling authors, designers, makers, scientists, impact entrepreneurs, and others who are working to change our world for the better. So please follow this podcast on your favorite podcast app, or head over to remakepod.org to subscribe.   And now, let's jump right in with Irene Au.   TIMESTAMP CHAPTERS   [5:54] Life in the Present [7:08] Early Childhood Driving Forces [9:40] A Journey to Design [13:20] Entering Netscape [16:00] The Challenges of the Early Internet [19:23] A Transition From Netscape to Yahoo! [22:58] The Infrastructure of Yahoo! [30:14] Good Design Versus Bad Design [34:04] The Winners and the Failures [39:48] Infusing Design With Google [45:55] Design Thinking Workshops [52:13] A Sideways Career Move [58:35] What is Design Today? [1:05:26] The Human Meaning of Design [1:08:58] A Short Sermon   EPISODE LINKS Irene's Links

How do venture capital firms inspire design with a point of view? In this week's episode, we learn about the intersection of venture capital and design. Sam is joined by Irene Au, Design Partner at Khosla Ventures. Irene breaks down how venture capital firms work and design that is critical for success. Later on in the show, they are joined by James Buckhouse, Design Partner at Sequoia Capital. Together they chat about the importance of story, their advice for founders, and design that envisions a new type of world.  For links to resources we discuss on this episode, visit our show page:  The Strategic Importance of Design in Venture Capital

In today’s episode, I speak with Irene Au. Irene is the Design Partner at Khosla Ventures where she works with startup CEOs. She is dedicated to raising the strategic value of design and user research within software companies, having built and led the entire User Experience and Design teams at Google, Yahoo! and Udacity. Irene teaches yoga at Avalon Yoga Center in Palo Alto. She has authored the definitive O’Reilly book, Design in Venture Capital, and popular essays found on Medium. Irene has been featured on several publications like Wired Magazine, Fast Company, Communication Arts, and on the cover of Mindful Magazine.We dive into different elements of EQ as it relates to you becoming a more effective designer, how EQ plays a large part in growing your design career, navigating design process challenges, and how practicing mindfulness will make you a better designer. 

Listen now | Irene Au shares advice from her Silicon Valley experiences. Irene has been one of the most successful Design Leaders that I’ve known. She uses that wisdom at Khosla Ventures now.  This is a public episode. Get access to private episodes at newsletter.invinciblecareer.com/subscribe

User experience design is a term that’s often thrown around by brands when they launch new products. But what exactly is it? Irene Au, former director of UX at Google, explains.

About Irene Irene is a designer and veteran design leader, leading design and user experience at Google, Yahoo, Netscape, and Udacity. She was once even the most prolific hirer of UX talent in silicon valley. She now works as an operational partner at Khosla Ventures, working with fast growing portfolio companies on design and strategic problems at the highest level, as well as teaching yoga. Our conversation covered scaling design across some of the most well known and iconic companies in the world as well as extrinsic vs intrinsic motivation, using envy to identify what you enjoy and finding the thing that gives you joy. I loved this conversation – Irene absolutely (but politely) schooled me on some of my assumptions about the evolution of design and I learned a ton. I hope you do too! Irene's website: ireneau.com Irene on Twitter: twitter.com/ireneau Design your Life – Irene's medium blog: https://medium.com/design-your-life Who else should we be speaking to? Be on the pod! Tell us about someone great! Just email podcast@progressionapp.com and tell us more. Our lovely sponsor: Deliveroo Our wonderful sponsor Deliveroo is looking for loads of designers, researchers, writers as well as leaders and managers. Go check them out at https://deliveroo.design We're looking for new sponsors! hit us up: podcast@progressionapp.com Join the waitlist We’re aiming to launch soon, but if you want to jump the gun or just be in the loop, get involved in our waitlist. progressionapp.com Rate us! It really helps if you rate us on iTunes. You can do that right here. https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/progression-podcast/id1435509539

How can startups employ good design practices from the beginning? Lou talks with Irene Au, Design Partner at Khosla Ventures, about her work with setting up companies with robust design practices, and why user research is an investment every company should make. Irene’s Reading Recommendation: https://www.subtraction.com/2018/04/02/in-defense-of-design-thinking-which-is-terrible/ Follow Irene Au on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ireneau Join us at our second DesignOps Summit this November: https://rosenfeldmedia.com/designopssummit2018/

For many years, Google’s engineering-led culture cherished efficiency over user experience. Irene Au arrived at a pivotal moment in the company’s history and helped shape the way Google’s products clearly value design today.   In this Rewind episode of the DesignBetter.Co podcast, Khosla Venture’s Irene Au talks about how she helped scale design at Google, shaped the design philosophy that carries into today, and now, as design partner at Khosla Ventures, helps startups build their own teams and processes to create the best design experiences.   If you like the episode, I hope you’ll post a review on iTunes, Google Play, or your favorite podcast source. It helps other discover the podcast.

Design has the power to shape how we think and feel. It’s also the tangible manifestation of intention. Conversely, how we create and what we design are the culmination of who we are as individuals coming together to make something for others. In this talk, Irene Au, Design Partner at Khosla Ventures, explores how our inner state manifests in design, and why the best thing we can do to become better designers may be to work on ourselves.

Google could now be considered a product driven company, but it wasn’t always that way. For many years Google’s engineering-led culture cherished efficiency over user experience. Irene Au arrived at a pivotal moment in the company’s history, and helped shape the way that Google’s product’s clearly value design today. Now in her role as a design partner at Khosla Ventures, she helps startups “build high performing teams, establish design practices, mentor and grow the next generation of great designers, and design interfaces and experiences.” Here is her story.   Irene Au's Bio Irene is design partner at Khosla Ventures, where she works with CEOs, executives, and designers to make products and services people can't live without. Irene has extensive experience elevating design at the highest levels of the organization by starting first with an empathetic understanding of human needs, and building high performing teams who create products people can’t live without.   Irene has unprecedented experience elevating the strategic importance of design within internet companies, having built and led the entire User Experience and Design teams at Google (2006-2012), Yahoo! (1998-2006), and Udacity (2012-2014).  She began her career as an interaction designer at Netscape Communications, where she worked on the design of the internet’s first commercial web browser. Irene is also a yoga teacher at internationally-recognized Avalon Yoga in Palo Alto, where she offers an accessible and challenging yoga practice for all.​

In this episode, I interview Irene Au - Operating Partner at Khosla Ventures about her unique perspective on design, and how blending it with mindfulness creates better digital experiences

Irene Au is a design leader and UX expert with deep experience in team-building. She’s currently an operating partner at Khosla Ventures, where she works with startup CEOs to make their designs great. Irene started her career at Netscape - then moved on to lead design efforts at Yahoo, Google and Udacity. This progression gives her a unique perspective on growing UX teams - and smart strategies for enhancing design in different situations. Irene brings a deeply humanistic approach to everything she does, and integrates her passion for Yoga and mindfulness into everything she does. Listen in and discover how a silicon valley legend gets startup CEOs to embrace iterative, user-centered design practices.

It's been an incredible week at Blue Spirit Meditation Center in Costa Rica and learned so much. Of course, I'll be sharing everything I learned with you in the next coming weeks.   One thing I will share with you now, however, is the value of unplugging.    You see, this week I unplugged for the first time in a long time. I haven't checked social media, email, and other than writing up a storm and sharing this daily podcast with you, I've been relatively unplugged.    I've learned I need to continue to do this at least once a year if not every quarter.    Unplugging helps remind me of the things that matter most in life: love, relationships, and appreciating this beautiful world.   But I'm no luddite. I love technology for its extraordinary ability to connect people and it allows me to connect with you.   And for that reason alone, I love this new age of enlightenment that we're living in. It's truly a beautiful time to experience the gift of the life.   I threw a lot of information your way, so I'd like to slow it down and break apart a few of topics mentioned this week.   Here's what happened this week on Your Life on Purpose:   Real Lasting Change   To make real and lasting change sometimes it takes concentrating on the present instead of keeping your eye on the finish line. So, often we finish one thing and then move right on next. So, do these three things:   1. take time to assess your wins, and reflect on growing more efficient and stronger. This helps you grow to mastery level and be like a ninja.   2. Keep a weekly (if not more often) relationship with your accountability system.   3. Teach what you are learning to someone, whether through a podcast, a Youtube video, or just teaching the kids at the playground. Okay, don't really do that last one because that could really creep out some kids. But you know what I mean.   The Art of Staying Still   When we live knowing that our future is uncertain, it allows us to focus on the present and be here now. Under times of immense panic, sometimes it's best to stay still. Instead of freaking out, recognize that the body rising to the occasion. So, take action, but do so in a calm and collected manner. As former Google executive Irene Au once told me, “The thinking mind is not the creative mind.”    Accountability   Setting up your own accountability system is so crucial to achieving your definition of greatness. We need multiple levels of motivation to help get us to do extraordinary things because the human body naturally wants to rest, eat fatty foods, and sleep a lot. Our mind and our soul have a different plan for our lives, however, so we need to set up accountability systems to make this happen.    Living your life on purpose is your duty. Your duty to yourself, your duty to your accountability partners, and your duty to the world.    You 2.0    Understand that you can be anything you want to be. We're living in a new age of enlightenment. It's a new renaissance where since you can learn anything you can be anything. The cliche that “knowledge is power” is truer than ever before.   Like Tai Lopz often talks about, follow the 33% rule and surround yourself with those you can mentor, those you are on the same level with, and those you wish to emulate.      —      All right, well that does it for the weekly wrap up. I know it's a lot, so feel free to reach out on email or Twitter to say hello and ask any questions you have.

Irene Au is Head of User Experience (UX) at Google, a yoga teacher, mother of two, and inspired by the question of how to use technology to make people’s lives better. Seeing as how successful Google is, I thought, “hmmm, the small biz owner could definitely benefit from getting a behind the scenes look at […]

Irene Au (Google’s Head of UX) shares some juicy insights on the design process and decision making behind Google’s products.

Irene Au discusses her previous experience at fast moving companies Netscape and Yahoo!, and how that experience will influence her latest challenge. As the new Director of User Experience at Google, she will be confronted with an organization that is clearly defined by its engineering culture. A shift in priority empahsized hiring for the UI role in 2006. But this does not automatically mean a shift away from Google’s strict engineering orthodoxy. Getting the strategic decision makers in a non-design drive culture to consider user experience and UI design as part of their process will not be an easy task.