Liz Gerber

Welcome or welcome back to the technical difficulties podcast where we celebrate the careers of amazing female designers and technologists. We are so excited to welcome Kris Woyzbun. Kris is a visionary at the crossroads of tech, design and entrepreneurship. I first met Kris when she was a student in one of the first courses we were teaching at the Stanford Design School. Her creativity, intelligence and grit were clear from the start.

Since then, she's led UX teams at Google and IDEO. She's founded companies, Tableau, and her current startup, Gumption, an AI pilot, co-pilot for home design and renovation. Kris's work is all about making design more human and more accessible. With roots in engineering and a deep passion for user-centered creativity, she's built award-winning brands from the ground up. Let's dive into her journey through innovation, impact, and bold design thinking.

We can't wait to hear from you, Kris. Thank you for joining us today.

Kris Woyzbun

It's so great to be here, deeply honored, and any chance to chat with you, is a great, great way to spend my day.

Liz Gerber

Oh, speaking of days, warm up question. What's your favorite way to start your morning?

Kris Woyzbun

Well I had two young children and I would say my favorite way to start my morning is I walk over and press a button on this fabulous espresso maker that we acquired called the Terra Cafe. I'm going to plug it. It is amazing and beautiful and yeah, and coffee really is like family and coffee are kind of at the same level sometimes. So I start with coffee. I'm not one of those women that wake up at five and go for a 10 mile run. No, no way. Sleep matters. Coffee.

Liz Gerber

No, no, coffee, yeah. And what role do the kids play? Do they want to press the button? Do they sit with you as you're drinking coffee? Do they bounce on you and the coffee spills over? Like, what's the family role?

Kris Woyzbun

They are getting dressed in other rooms. And my son is sometimes just reading quietly in the living room. I have a bookworm for an eight-year-old, so I feel very lucky. And my daughter's figuring out what dress to put on, so she's four. So sparkles and tutus really matter.

Liz Gerber

They really do. They're underrated. And I think we should reinvest. Thank you for that. Next question, warm up, is what's your favorite creativity tool? Interpret as you like.

Kris Woyzbun

Oh man, I mean the age old tool that I keep going back to is, I mean, it's the Post-It. I feel like it's been ingrained in me since the beginning. Or just a simple Sharpie and pad of paper. I'm constantly sketching and drawing and frame working. But currently it's any of the AI, chatGBT or Claude. They are my kind of, I co-create with them and it has been a true, like, I don't know, true, for lack of a better word, blessing, I would say at this, at this stage in my, in my company. I am absolutely loving AI right now.

Liz Gerber

Yeah, tell me, specifically, we'll get into your company in a bit, but specifically as a creativity tool, why is it such a blessing? What role does it serve for you?

Kris Woyzbun

Often, like right now I am, I mean, there's only two of us in our startup and we're bootstrapping, and we're building everything ourselves. So I am the CTO at the moment and I do it-

Liz Gerber

Which stands for?

Kris Woyzbun

Chief technology officer. So I am, I am building everything and it is super empowering to know that I can go to, an AI assistant, to, kind of get sort of feedback on what do you think I should do here? Here's my strategy and what I want to build. And with my years of experience thinking ahead of scaling or bringing in data or what have you or version control, it helps me. It guides me to sort of think out loud. And amongst a million other things, that is something that today has been especially important.

Liz Gerber

Yeah, the startup phase. Do you think if you were working in a bigger company and had more colleagues, it would play such an important role?

Kris Woyzbun

I don't, I don't actually know. mean, I, I certainly wouldn't be CTO at, in a sweet role at Google.

Liz Gerber

Sure.

Kris Woyzbun

But, you know, I, I definitely see it playing a role in other ways, like copywriting and coming up with quick prototypes. mean, we can now as designers, we can now actually make our ideas come to life very quickly and that was something that was blocking us before and now we have free reign to kind of do anything we want.

Liz Gerber

Yeah.

Yeah, somebody said to me the other day, know, designers can now code and coders can now design. And the kind of the distinction between them is blurring.

Kris Woyzbun

Yeah, yeah, I totally agree with that. I think designing, having AI design for you is maybe a different conversation because I still believe people are creative, AI isn't creative yet.

Liz Gerber

Okay. Yeah. Okay. So maybe it depends on what part of design. Like you said, the building part.

Kris Woyzbun

Yep. Yes.

Liz Gerber

Yeah. It's been a fascinating conversation. Where is creativity in the design process? But you're right. That's another podcast. This one is about how you got started in technology and design. So that's the next question I'm going to ask you, which is exactly that. How did you get started? Did you have an, I'm a designer moment or I should be in tech? I know your background is in bioengineering robotics, if I'm correct.

Kris Woyzbun

Yes.

Liz Gerber

And you did design museum exhibits, you've worked in publishing and fashion. So tell me about the thread that connects those all and.

Kris Woyzbun

I feel like I'm from, if you look at where I am in my career and what I'm building, it all makes sense. But certainly at the beginning, did not know what would come of it 20 years, 30 years later. But my dad is, my dad's amazing. He is an engineer and was in Stanford's first computer science master's program or PhD program back in the 60s. Yeah. And when I go to the computer history museum, I kind of laugh because, you know, all those big servers and the, you know, slot slots for cards, you know, when a whole machine was like 25 kilobytes. He, you know, he's always encouraged me to really take advantage of my passion for making things and solving problems and, and, you know, going for a career that, you know, brought all those things together. And so early on engineering seems kind of like an obvious thing for me. I loved arts. I loved, math. I was, I wasn't like, I was sort of an E student, but I wasn't, you know, like getting a hundred percent in a, in all my tests, but I was, you know, I liked it. I was also a student athlete. So I ran, I've been running track and field since I was probably 10 or 11 competitively and really wanted to combine my love of making things and my love of, of sport. So when I went to undergrad, the goal of the bio med, it was supposed to be biomedical engineering and robotics was I really wanted to pursue a career in biomedical, kind of soft goods or prosthetics or something in the world that would help athletes.

Liz Gerber

Mm-hmm

Kris Woyzbun

But it was a, it was a three in the morning in my third year of undergrad, I was up late on, I don't even think it was Google yet. Like it was some search engine. And I was kind of frustrated with my like excitement for design, but I didn't know what design was yet. And everyone in my class loved, wanted to work at GM or Ford doing engineering around cars-

Liz Gerber

Yeah.

Kris Woyzbun

Or a lot of oil and gas. I did not want that career just an appeal to me. And up late at 3 a.m. I discovered the Stanford Product Design Masters program.

Liz Gerber

Is that right? Okay.

Kris Woyzbun

And, and it really kind of, I had this Eureka moment where I got excited that I can bring together my creative self along with my engineering self and pursue this world of product design, which I seriously didn't know existed until that very moment. so I quit the track team-

Liz Gerber

Whoa.

Kris Woyzbun

And I told my coach, because I was, I mean, I was very, very tired. I was waking up at five, then doing my classes, then doing my labs and still going to practice after. it was just a lot. And I told him point blank, I'm quitting because I want to get into Stanford.

Liz Gerber

No way. Wait, really?

Kris Woyzbun

And he thought I was nuts, he thought I was nuts. Yeah. He thought I was nuts. And I probably was because here, like I'm this, you know, this woman in Canada who, I'm going to a university in Halifax, Nova Scotia, which was wonderful. But who am I to think I could ever do that? But I was set on it. So I took two years after undergrad. I know I needed to have good grades. And I worked at the Ontario Science Centre, which currently is closed. But anyone who's ever been there, it sort of has this exploratorium feel to it. They were both created in 1969.

Liz Gerber

A San Francisco, a San Francisco establishment.

Kris Woyzbun

Yeah. And I, so I use that as a way to kind of build my portfolio of, of, you know, user centered design and exhibit design and, and, and that got me into Stanford. So I did it, you know, I got in and, and that, that's sort of what got me into the world of, of product design from a pretty, pretty early age, I would say.

Liz Gerber

So what happened to prosthetics and working with and for athletes? And then that goes to a broader question, which is you've worked in a lot of different industries and now you're working in home improvement and you've worked in fashion and you've worked in print. So I'd love you to share a bit about how you think about the areas and the domains in which you apply your design skills.

Kris Woyzbun

Yeah, I've always been a designer and entrepreneur that creates products for consumer. I feel very strongly that if you're building solutions that help people live a better life, more delightful life, then as a designer, feel like that's why I'm there. Like, my time at IDEO really kind of, opened my eyes to the fact that user centered design design is this like powerful tool to create movements, products, services, you name it to help everyday people. And I feel like that is kind of connected, it's sort of a connected thread from the very, you know, my very first job at Clif Bar.

Liz Gerber

Yes!

Kris Woyzbun

Working with Neil Grimmer who's ex-IDO on-

Liz Gerber

Right, and went on to many food, a food entrepreneur, many different things. Yeah, that was, he's a fascinating person to watch in terms of how he brought design to an area that to my mind hadn't really been introduced-

Kris Woyzbun

Yes. Yeah.

Liz Gerber

Food. Like, yeah, human-centered design to food. It was a wonderful path.

Kris Woyzbun

I just, you know, I loved that experience. And then obviously IDO for almost a decade where I worked with, you know, food and beverage and sports and government, education, life insurance. Like I worked with all of these cool companies. But there's a point where you want to do...

your own thing, like, you know, the feeling of the entrepreneur, if you wake up every day and you have this itch, this feeling that there's this thing you want to bring to life because it has to exist, then you should act on that impulse. Even though at the time I left my role at IDO with almost no savings. And then I was pregnant with my son. And, and we went for it. We were building Tableau, which was a white label software for magazine publishers. And so we worked with Dwell Magazine and Vogue. And, the idea there was kind of like Pinterest for magazines. And, and then, went on to work at Essence, which is the world's foremost luxury fashion marketplace. And I was really privileged to, to lead, product design and experience design for the whole company, which at the time was 15 years old. And, really got the itch to then take what I learned, within a marketplace within fashion, but I was really itching to go back to Palo Alto and be kind of in that Silicon Valley worlds. And I got this chance to work at Google and this fabulous team that was really creating the long and broad thinking for all of consumer around really Gen Z, like what do we do for search assistance and all the other consumer products for the Gen Z-er. I really felt like a kind of a wallflower, to be honest, going into a company that's at the time 130,000 people, you start to figure out things work differently at that level, at that scale. And so you learn a whole bunch of skills that really were sitting in there in the background, but I had to break them out of myself.

And, and then now I, you know, I feel like I, you know, after Google, I, you know, it was back to kind of the same thing as Tableau where I'm building a startup with my husband and he, and I, through the pandemic, we're talking on nights and weekends about what are the 90 % of people that don't work with architects and interior designers? What are they doing to reimagine their home? So, it's been the most incredible journey. And I can tell you more about it in a second, but from the beginning till now, mean, I'm still user centered design, still building technology, software. And there's a whole lot of design as part of the ethos of our company and our brand. So it's great. It's fun. I'm living my best life, Liz.

Liz Gerber

That's awesome. Okay, so so many questions that come off of that. One is like, what's it like to start a company with your husband or significant other? Another question is, what does it mean to be human centered and create a human centered company in a world that's increasingly being driven by AI? You're designing an AI platform, but with a human centered perspective. So can you share a little bit about how you're thinking about that journey and then tack on maybe a line of what's it like to raise children and start a company-

Kris Woyzbun

With your husband.

Liz Gerber

With the same individual.

Kris Woyzbun

Oh my God. Well, I will first say that I'll start the second question and then we'll get to the personal stuff. I've always believed that AI isn't creative, people are. And what we're building with Gumption is it's really a home design companion where we want to empower everyday people to reimagine their home like an expert. so AI, AR, they're really there in service of empowering you to do that. And so they allow us to democratize that process. But similar to Notion and Canva, we have a whole collection of template designs that are by actual interior designers and architects. So our marketplace brings the coolest designers from around the world to imagine any space for you when you're doing a project and our tools allow you to connect designs and products that work for your actual space. And so we help you go from what do I do to inspiration to shopping and actually implementing your projects.

Liz Gerber

I it. I love it. I remember, I still distinctly remember when the paint company first allowed you to take a photo of your room and put a paint color on the wall.

Kris Woyzbun

Yep.

Liz Gerber

It was mind blowing. It was so empowering to me.

Kris Woyzbun

Yep. I know.

Liz Gerber

I was like, my gosh, I'm saving so much time and labor imagining this. And so I imagine what you're doing is taking this to a whole nother level. But that was very human centered, right? It's really hard to go into a paint store and look at a tiny chip and then imagine it in your space.

Kris Woyzbun

Well, and when you, you know, and the kind of the power of using any process that's trying to get at the, the thinking behind what someone needs or wants at any point in this process is absolutely important because I will always believe that your business can only thrive if you're solving a real human, a human need or desire. And the minute you stop doing that, then like the business won't, it won't matter anymore. And we truly believe that every prototype, every value proposition thing, every conversation we've had with someone is like really kind of crafted something that feels extraordinarily meaningful. And we feel pride in something that we know will reach millions of people around the world. And I will talk about, do you me to talk about the husband?

Liz Gerber

I do, well, I just, yeah, I wanna know. People might wanna know. Is it the best thing, the worst thing, or what can you say publicly? What would you like to say publicly?

Kris Woyzbun

Uh, I, well, I've been, uh, Darren and I met at volleyball camp in 1998. So we've been together, um, as a couple, as lovey's, 28 years, this September and, um, um, and married 10. So, uh, you know, a long time and it's like, you know, when someone does long distance at college, either it works or it doesn't. And we are of the camp where it just, we did long distance that work.

And we are, well, I have an identical twin sister and a very close family. He is my best friend in the whole world. And, you know, when you find someone that you can't not talk to about every single idea, and I feel lucky that I'm with someone who can, who has completely different skill set. But it complements me. Like, everything we're building, it's like it's a yin and a yang, and I, I just, feel like I won the lottery in a co-founder and a husband. And so I, you know, any of those entrepreneurs, the founders who go out to say fundraise and you're talking to VCs and the minute they hear that you're founding a company with a, with a partner or a family member, a lot of the time they don't like that. And in fact, they won't invest for that reason. They may not tell you that, there's this perception that that is a road to catastrophe. When I actually find that when you're building, when we're building things together, we can get to the point. We're not hurting feelings. We know each other's emotions so well that, we're just like getting, we're just getting shit done, man. And it, and it feels, it, feels, it feels, it feels really good. The only thing I would say for anyone who is, I mean, this goes for any, any founder of any type of company is how to turn off. That is the hardest part.

Liz Gerber

Hmm. Interesting. Perhaps related to this, your so your life sounds pretty perfect, Kris, maybe with the exception of turning off his heart. So I'm wondering, can I invite you to share a career defining moment? Maybe it was a failure or a learning moment where you realize this is not I thought I was going in this right, this direction, the right direction, and it wasn't quite right.

Kris Woyzbun

Yeah. mean, I take, I am always kind of the, of the belief that you, if someone reaches out, take the call. If there's an opportunity, you know, have a conversation, have the interview and you never know. And, you know, David Kelly of co-founder of IDO, he says, founder of the d.school is go where the people are. And I remember specifically in grad school, you know, the career conversation with all of us came out and I asked him like, of these like things, what would you do? And he's like, just go where the people are. And so for me, go where the people are. And so there have been a lot of roles that I've held that I look back. like, you know, I wasn't so great at those things because my heart was actually somewhere completely different. And, when I joined Google, I joined in, in an operations role and I wanted to see what it felt like, like from, you know, building my own companies and consulting at IDO, I always felt that, I've, I'm an exceptional operator, like, not only what to build, but how to build it and who to bring on and structuring all that.

Liz Gerber

I love that you own that. I love that you own that. You own that. You are, you're an exceptional operator. You own it.

Kris Woyzbun

I am. The reason I did it was to take to practice a different part of my skill set to try something different and to learn. And I love learning. And so being a founder again, I get to exercise all of those things at once, which it feels really good.

Liz Gerber

Can you help me understand something you said earlier about the advice to go where the people are and also following your heart? So one sounds kind of outward oriented and the other one sounds inward. So help me understand how you think about those two working together.

Kris Woyzbun

Yeah, go where the people are. Sometimes it's a feeling of... So I believe that in life, when you are saying college, know, people have those conversations about what does the next five to 10 years look like for you. And a lot of undergrads I sit with will say, well, you know, I want to do my MBA and then start a company and work at duh-duh-duh and they've laid out this whole path for themselves that feels like holding 15 teacups in two hands. Where like if one drops, it doesn't go the way you planned. So I really believe in adventure after another. And so the next adventure you do, anyone does in their career, think about, you know, what are you gonna learn? Where are gonna push yourself? And are the people that you're surrounded by going to allow you to fail and are they gonna allow you to be a better version of yourself? And it won't be perfect. People are gonna have crap jobs and they're gonna learn what, but the point is learning what that next adventure is and the people they surround themselves with. And it's not everyone, but if you get a really good feeling from a team, and the job may not be completely what you want. Actually, maybe being surrounded by that team is a lot more important because they're going to allow you to try new things and truly shine.

Liz Gerber

Hmm. So maybe it might be a qualification of not go where the people are, but go where the good people for you are.

Kris Woyzbun

Yeah, yes.

Liz Gerber

Is that what I'm hearing you say? Okay.

Kris Woyzbun

Yeah, well, and I've, I've been in interviews where, like, red flags are just like, they're just going off like crazy. And you think that, okay, maybe they, maybe this was just like the feeling of the day.

Liz Gerber

Yeah, yep, yeah, right.

Kris Woyzbun

And, but then you take that job and you go and you're like, no, those like red flags actually got worse.

Liz Gerber

Go, yeah, right, right. That was at the beginning.

Kris Woyzbun

And so, yeah, so don't ignore those red flags.

Liz Gerber

Yeah. Somebody just complained about having their first interview be done by an AI bot. Not a human being. So imagine this is this I'm real just to be clear, Kris, this is real. But what, and I was thinking about that like, wow, to me that would be a red flag. And this person said they hung up halfway through. just were like, this is, I cannot work for a company where they will not put a human being in front of me for the interview after they had passed a couple of the initial screeners and etcetera. I thought that was interesting. How do you think you deal with an AI interviewer? If I told you I was actually an AI bot, how do think you'd feel right now?

Kris Woyzbun

Terrible. Terrible. I would fail that interview. But I also, I was terrible at standardized tests.

Liz Gerber

Yes, I was too.

Kris Woyzbun

And like the classic one is for the DMV, if a school bus is stopped in front of you, when do you start driving? When the, the stop sign goes up, when the kids have crossed the road or when it just starts driving or something. And I was thinking, while you go in the, when the kids have gone, like, that's what I would think, but that's the wrong answer. It's the stop sign goes up because you're trusting the driver, but then you start anyway, I could not, I could not do well with an AI interviewer.

Liz Gerber

So, Kris, I knew we have a lot in common, but I failed my driver's test the first time because-

Kris Woyzbun

Me too! Twice!

Liz Gerber

Yes, because I would, maybe this is actually a signal of success. I was waiting for a biker to pass and I was docked for waiting for the biker to pass. I think we're human centered designers. I think we're waiting for the people to do what they needed to do versus follow the rules of the road that wouldn't necessarily make sense. And to be clear, no one was behind me. I was not slowing anyone down. So there were no other accidents happening.

Kris Woyzbun

Well, I think analyzing, not being over analytical, but analyzing situations from different vantage points and also trying to think about what everyone else is thinking in that situation is kind of classic us. It's what makes us so drawn to this field, but also makes us terrible standardized testers.

Liz Gerber

Well said. Okay, so two last questions. One is you are a learner, you've already confessed. And so the question I have for you is what is something you still want to learn or do?

Kris Woyzbun

Oh man. This, this year has been, and you you said, you mentioned like my life sounds perfect. Well, um, there have been many pits of despair moments where, um, things are things break, literally break. Like we had a bug yesterday and I thought I broke, um, our, you know, the server side engineering and it ended up being fine, but I built, you know, I, I built a part of our platform that's connected to hardcore servers. And I did that all by myself. So I pride myself in, and being, being open to learning and knowing that nothing is impossible. If you, you give yourself, if you give yourself the, kind of the room to take things step by step and you could kind of achieve anything. I am still learning how to prioritize myself over my work and my children. I saw this meme on Instagram a couple of weeks ago and it was like, stop buying your children clothing and go and buy yourself a bra. And I laugh so hard because it's so like, Liz, when's the last time you bought a bra for yourself?

Liz Gerber

That is so, that is, yes, I relate to this comment.

Kris Woyzbun

And I laughed so hard, but I was like, oh my God. Like, you know those stories you walk by where there's bras and there's a woman there that'll like size you? Like I've never been in a place like that.

Liz Gerber

Totally... Yeah, no, because it's... Yeah.

Kris Woyzbun

So it's, so my, one.

Liz Gerber

Sorry, I'm still laughing because it's so relatable. Yes.

Kris Woyzbun

It's so true and my, you know, how many times I like being up here in, you know, right now I'm in cottage country in Canada where my parents live and my children are lucky to go to these, you know, true outdoors camps during the day, day camps. And my husband and I work from, you know, from the kitchen table at my parents' house and in the evenings we get to go swimming and running. And so it is, up here we find the balance, but it's for four weeks a year. And the rest of the year, it's a bunch of compromises and I don't know why we always come last, but I recognize that there's a problem. I'm trying every day to put myself first sometimes, but that's something that I'm still learning.

Liz Gerber

Thank you for sharing that. I really relate and I wish you well on that journey.

Kris Woyzbun

Thanks. Thanks.

Liz Gerber

The final question is about unexpected advice you have for somebody entering the field of design or tech or entrepreneurship. You choose.

Kris Woyzbun

Oh man, unexpected advice. This is a, this is one of those pieces of advice that I, someone gave me when I was in grad school and, and I, I, I don't even know who told me, but I want to thank that person that I don't remember. But I remember it, you know, you know, we were lucky to, to be at one of the coolest universities on the planet. And, we had access to these luminaries and academics and tech and design. And so every chance I took to just do office hours or get a coffee, like I wanted to learn and meet people. and I think in, you know, some people say, what are you reading? Or what are you listening to? And I can name all those things. But for me, it's like, who are you talking to? And, you know, everyone is a person just because they're famous or they've been published or, um, you know, maybe there are certain people that are hard to get to, but, um, you never know until you try. And so when you're starting your career, like design is always changing and, uh, you know, don't pigeonhole yourself to say, I am this and design, um, cause that that'll change, but who are you talking to that? That's what I would ask. And, I've, mean, I have been able to access so many amazing people by like, writing an email address that I think is their email address or writing on LinkedIn. And not everyone writes you back, but you know, and it's just meeting, meeting interesting people to see what they've done. and it has served me so well in my career so far.

Liz Gerber

Well, Kris, thank you so much. That's precisely what you did for me. I reached out to you and you said yes. So thank you.

Kris Woyzbun

Absolutely. You're welcome.

Liz Gerber

Thank you. Thank you so much for sharing your time and your stories with us, Kris. And thank you to our listeners for listening to the Technical Difficulties Podcast produced by the Center for Human-Computer Interaction and Design and the McCormick School of Engineering at Northwestern University. That was Kris Woyzbun, and you can find out more about her in the show notes. You can learn more about the show by going to Technical Difficulties Podcast. Drop us a note at technicaldifficultiesteam at gmail.com or leave us a review on your favorite podcast.