Kostya Gorsky, Intercom: about cities and ambitions, grocery thinking, skills for designers and self-development

I talked to Kostya Gorsky, a design manager at Intercom , a former design director for Yandex, and the author of the Design and Efficiency telegram channel. This is the fifth issue in my series of interviews with the masters of their craft, where we talk about the grocery approach, entrepreneurship, psychology and behavior change.

You have just said the phrase before the interview: “if I’m still alive in a few years”. What do you mean?

Oh, it somehow jumped out in a conversation. And now something has become terrible for me. But the thing is to remember death. At all times, taught to remember that life is finite, to appreciate the moments, to rejoice in them while they are. I try not to forget about it. But probably not talking about it. You can remember, but you should not say.

There is such a philosopher Ernest Becker, he wrote the book "Denial of Death" in the early 70s. His main thesis: human civilization is a symbolic response to our mortality. If you think about it, there are many things that can happen and not happen: children, career, a comfortable old age. They have some probability, from 0 to 100%. And only at the onset of death, the probability is always 100%, but we actively remove it from consciousness.

I agree. Here there is a controversial thing for me - longevity. Laura Deming has compiled a cool collection of research on longevity . For example, a group of rats reduced their diet by 20%, and they lived longer than the control group ...

... Only from this you will not make a business. Therefore, fasting clinics in the United States closed 70 years ago.

Oh, yes. And another question arises: do we really understand why we need to live longer? Yes, of course, there is a tremendous value in human life, but if everyone lives longer, will it really make people better? One could generally say that from an environmental point of view, the most useful thing is to just kill yourself. The same activists who advocate for the environment in this way could have inflicted less harm on the planet if they had not tried to live longer. It's a fact: we produce garbage, we eat resources, and so on.

At the same time, people work on meaningless work, go home to watch TV shows, in every possible way kill time, well, they multiply and then disappear. Why do they need another 20 years of life? Most likely, I think too superficially about this, it would be interesting to talk to someone about it. The topic with longevity for me is not obvious yet. Surely the longevity will benefit the travel industry, entertainment and restaurants. But why?

Cities and Ambitions

Why? What are you doing in San Francisco?

I flew to work with the teams in the Intercom here at the Federation Council. We have all the go-to-market teams here.

How did it happen that such a serious tech company as Intercom has the main forces in Dublin? I'm talking about the development and products.

In Dublin, we seem to have 12 food teams out of 20. Another 4 in London and 4 in San Francisco. Intercom as a startup comes from Dublin, so historically it happened. But, of course, in Dublin we do not have time to hire people at the right speed. There are a lot of talented people in London and in the Federation Council, it is growing faster there.

How to choose where to live?

It would be interesting to know what others think about this. I will share my observations.

First thought: you can choose. And need to. Most people live their whole lives where they were born. Maximum, will move to the university or the nearest city with work. We in modern society can and should choose where to live, and choose from places around the globe. Everywhere there are not enough good specialists.

The second thought. It is difficult to choose. First, each city has its own vibe ...

Like Paul Graham in an essay about cities and ambitions?

Yes, he got to the point. It is important to understand that the city coincides with your values.

Secondly, the city may be, for example, large or small. For example, Dublin, I think, is a million-plus village. It is quite large - there is IKEA, the airport, Michelin restaurants, concerts are good. But at the same time it is possible to ride a bike anywhere. You can live in a house with a lawn and be in the city center.

Dublin is of course a small city. Compared with Moscow, where he was born and raised. Once I came to London from Moscow for the first time - well, yes, I think, cool, Big Ben, red buses are double decker, everything is fine. And then he moved to Dublin, accustomed to his size and sensations. And when for the first time I came from Dublin to London for work, I simply got fucked up from everything like a boy from a village who first appeared in the city: wow, I think skyscrapers, cars are expensive, people are all in a hurry somewhere.

How about San Francisco?

In the first place - a place of freedom. As Peter Thiel said, there is a tremendous value in that you know something that others do not know. And then it seems to be well understood, so everyone can express himself as eccentrically as he wants. This is great, such tolerance. It used to be a hippie city. Now - the city of nerds.

At the same time, everything flows very fast in San Francisco, many people do not get hooked, are washed away somewhere. This is a big problem between the generation of "hippies" who have inhabited this city for the last 70 years, and the botanists who are here recently.

Oh yeah. Rental prices are increasing rapidly. And this is the problem of those who rent. If you owned a house, you would only benefit from it. Hand over the room and don't work all your life ...

... in Wisconsin.

Well yes. But I understand people who do not like change. In the SF many people who love change. Every time I return from here to another person. Just wrote recently about it .

Education

What do you write and do not write in your telegram?

Here is a dilemma. On the one hand there is blogging. Blogging is kinda cool. Telegram inspired me, I managed to get started. There fertile soil - throw the grain, and it germinates itself. There was an audience here that is interesting for me to read.

When you write, you try to formulate thoughts, you understand a lot, you get feedback. Once I reread the posts a year ago and thought: what a shame, everything is so naive and poorly written. Now, I would like to believe, I am writing a little better than when I started.

On the other hand, this is what confuses ... "The knowledgeable does not speak, the speaker does not know." People who write a lot often do not understand much in the subject. I look, for example, at infobusiness - usually everything is very superficial. In general, people gush books and courses. The world is full of shit, there’s almost no depth. I'm afraid to become the same "content producer".

There are a lot of people who do amazing things and do not write anything. I for myself can not yet understand how I feel better.

Maybe inspire through posts?

Can. But a blog is a lot of energy and strength. While here I made a short pause in blogging, I am gaining strength. Forces are taken away from something: from work, personal life, sports, and so on. It is all the time and energy.

I also apparently have some image of a quiet master. He gladly teaches others, those who come with burning eyes. But do not push it.

How to be a teacher for 1-2 people?

People who really need to learn are very few.

Thought about the author's course?

On the Bang-Bang there is my micro course. Some time ago I taught at the institute. The blog just replaced it all.

I know too little to teach others. Only just started to seem to understand some things. Let people who know better learn ...

To this we can say that they, too, may think so, and this does not teach anyone

Well yes ... Teaching well at work. My designers, for example, I do a lot with them, help them grow, I see changes, I notice people who need it, who want it.

But when in the students there are random people who don't give a damn, why waste energy?

Since we started talking about this, I want to bring the topic of the crisis of higher education ... What should I do? It seems that 95% of competencies are not people in the university.

Even 99%. I used to think that universities are garbage, invented in an industrial society, where everything is done in such a way that a student needs to cram something and give it to a professor, which for some reason is an achievement. Ken Robinson talked about it very well .

After a while, I realized that there are industries in which higher education in this format still works. Doctors, for example. Academic specialties: mathematicians, physicists, and so on. Scientists, on the other hand, do about the same thing that students at an institute do - scientific work, publications. But when we talk about designers, programmers, products ... These are craft professions. A few things learned - and more. There is enough Coursera, Khan Academy.

But recently there was a fresh thought that the university is needed for the community. This is the first impetus to acquaintances, to get into companies, these are future partnerships, friendly relations. A few years to spend with cool people is priceless.

Sasha Memus spoke here recently about the most important thing he received at the Physics and Technology Institute. Well, when there is a network and community.

Yes Yes Yes. And this is not the case with online education. In general, universities are a community, an entrance ticket to an industry. Just like an MBA for business. This is primarily important partnerships, future customers, colleagues. This is most important.

Career in products

What are the experience and expertise behind Intercom products?

Different experience happens. Some products had their own startups, for example. When a person went through such a school and stuffed cones, it is very cool. Yes, someone is lucky, someone is not. But in any case, it is an experience.

And what about product designers?

Experience. Product portfolio. Sometimes it happens that people send a portfolio with landing pages. Send sites for some reason. But if there are 3-4 products, or parts of large products, then we can already talk about something.

You have made a great career in Yandex in five years: from the designer to the head of the design department. How? And what is the secret sauce?

In many ways, just lucky, I think. There was no secret sauce.

And why are you lucky?

I do not know. First, he rose to a junior executive position. There was a time when I had web designers. And then, for a very long time, our team didn’t work with Yandex Browser. Designers took turns, we tried to outsource, different studios. Nothing worked. The management of my head pressured Kostya supposedly sitting there and handling administrative garbage. My leader put pressure on me. They gave me a team of people, and focused only on the browser. It was a shame, had to abandon many projects.

Rake?

Yes, but for some reason everything turned out. There was a big launch. We were on the same stage with Arkady Volozh - this was not the case in the company's history before, so that during the presentation of the launch of a new product, a designer would appear on the scene. Although probably Tigran - the head of the product - just dragged me to the stage, thinking that maybe I would better explain what our design is like. Then I even filmed a Browser ad.

A couple of years later we went mad with the guys and made the concept of the browser of the future. This is more for strategy. This story also increased my karma.

I heard the version that you had such a cool attitude, because you are the perfect example of a DNA carrier, a Yandex culture.

Maybe so ... Well, yes, the values ​​and ideals of Yandex are close to me.

With Intercom I was also very lucky. I get satisfaction, share and broadcast the values ​​of the company. In general, something happened then. I have always stoked for Yandex, and now I am happy when something new comes out.

Heard a lot of talk about the "old" and "new" Yandex. What do you think?

In short. Adizes has a theory of the life cycles of organizations. Initially, the company is tiny, vigorous and indefinite - complete chaos and waste. Then growth. If everything is cool, then scaling. But at some point the ceiling can meet - the market ends or something else, someone ousts. And if the company cannot overcome this ceiling and gets stuck, then the administrative part and bureaucracy begins to grow. Everything switches from stormy propulsion and growth to simply preserving what is. There is a conservation.

Yandex had the risk of being at such a stage. The search was already clear as a business. With Google, there was always a tough competitive war. Google, for example, had an Android, but we don’t. For a long time, no one has come to www.yandex.ru to search. People just search right away in the browser or even on the phone’s home screen. And we could not put Yandex people on the phone. People had no choice, there was even an antitrust case.

Yandex wanted to move on. The Russian market quickly became saturated. We needed new growth points. The then CEO Sasha Shulgin singled out business units in the company that could pay for themselves, and offered them a lot of autonomy, they just stood out in separate legal entities even. Do what you want, only grow. At first it was Yandex.Taxi, Market, Avto.ru. There began driving. For Yandex, these were new hotbeds of life and growth. Business units from the rest of the company began to leave people who like this. The company has provoked the further growth of independent units. Carshing Yandex Drive, for example, such. But besides them there are still many points of life where Yandex businesses are blooming.

And then you moved - from the role of design director of all Yandex to the role of design lead in Intercom.

Yandex is a national team of the CIS. I wanted to try to play for the world team. I read the Intercom blog and thought that this is how cool people understand about products. I would like to work with them, see how it turns out, and if I can ever at that level. Curiosity won out.

Do you recommend curiosity?

Well, if people are not afraid ... Dementia and courage, as they say. Now I realized that I had risked many things. But then succumbed to the desire.

Recently, with Anya Boyarkina (Head of Product, Miro ) in an interview talking about dementia and courage. She drowns for courage and prudence.

A drop of reason is definitely needed. But I seem lucky, and I really like it. I lead a group of designers, we are engaged in various projects.

What three tips would you give to ambitious and capable designers?

1. Pump English. Number one thing. Many are cut off on this. Many people wrote to me about vacancies at Intercom, I called up a lot of people, did micro-interviews. At some point, I realized that I was losing time. If the level of knowledge of English in a person is intermediate, then go learn a language, and then return to the conversation. The designer should be comfortable explaining thoughts and ideas and understand other employees. We still need to constantly communicate with the carriers. There are a lot of people from around the world, but the products and leaders are mainly from the States, UK, Ireland, Canada, Australia. It is more difficult to communicate with them in English if you do not know it at a sufficient level.

2. Intuitive portfolio. See what a normal product portfolio designer. Someone is too detailed - he writes case studies for 80 pages for each work. Someone, on the contrary, dribble shots only shows. For a good portfolio you just need to assemble 3-4 visually good cases. Add to them a small but clear story: what they did, how they did, what the result was.

3. Be prepared. To all. To move, to exit from the comfort zone. For example, I have never moved from my hometown to Intercom. And almost all, with whom he talked in Moscow, came from somewhere. I was jealous. I thought that I was a sucker, that I did not move anywhere. I like Moscow, maybe someday I will return there. But the experience of working abroad is very important, now I understand much better how everything in the world works. I saw much more.

How is it that Intercom has such awesome food posts?

We must ask those who wrote these posts.

A few things come to mind. In the Intercom, great value is sharing knowledge. Writing to the blog is cool. For example, we have very frank speeches at conferences. We honestly tell there about nonsense, mistakes, do not embellish the results. Honesty and authenticity. Not to seem like someone, but to speak as it was. Maybe it somehow influenced.

We also have awesome guys. Type Paul Adams , SVP of Product. I always listened to him, opening his mouth. When he says something at the grocery meeting, I think how lucky I was to be in the same room with this person. He knows how to very complex things just to explain. Thinking very clearly.

Maybe this is the meaning of blogging?

May be. We actually have a lot of cool authors. Des Trainor , cofounder, several golden posts. Emmett Connolly , our design director, broadcasts very well.

Artificial Intelligence and Automation

What do you think about bots and automation? For example, when I drive in Uber, I can’t get rid of the feeling that drivers have long been like robots ...

With bots, an abnormal wave of HYIP was initially obtained. It seemed to many that bots are new, everything is new applications and a new way to interact. Now from the stage you have to almost apologize for the word "bot". A wave has passed. This is a so-so situation - when something is overheated. Haters appear, and then you have to prove that you are not a camel. I suspect something is happening with the cryptocurrency now.

Now it is clear that there are several user cases where bots work well. In general, the history of the development of technology is the history of automation. Once cars were assembled by people, and now Tesla has completely automated factories. Once there were people driving a car, and the autopilot would be driving soon. Chat bots are, in fact, one of the branches of automation.

Automate communication really?

For some situations it works, and it works best where there are a large number of similar cases. It is important to understand that no matter how smart the platform is, it needs to be able to transfer the user from the bot to a real person in time. Well, simpler things: you do not need to try to do a form for entering a bank card in the form of a conversational UI, just insert the form into the chat.

There are simple and complex situations with automation. Take the example of passport control at the airport. In 99% of cases, everything is clear and simple: it is enough to scan a passport, take a picture of a person and allow him to pass - this can be done automatically. In Europe, this is already working. A person is needed for that one percent, when some non-standard case. A person can understand the documents. For example, when a tourist, having lost his passport, enters the certificate.

With support, too, so many simple, automated questions. Better a bot that will immediately respond than a person who will answer sometime later. In addition, large call centers are expensive and time consuming. And to be honest, the staff there, too, almost like biorobots, respond by patterns ... Why is this? In this little human.

That's when the question to support is difficult - you need to go to the person. Let him not today, but tomorrow, but he will give a normal answer.

Few people are making a machine-human connection now, when a machine and a person work hand in hand. Facebook, for example, rolled out its assistant “M” - they tried to mix everything up, hide everything behind the avatar of the business. Type does not matter with whom you are talking. But it seems to me that this is fundamentally wrong - it is imperative that you always be absolutely clear whether you are talking with a robot or with a man.

Yes, there is such a phenomenon about “pretending to be a man” - the more something robotic looks like a person, the more creepy people are to interact with it. Until it becomes absolutely identical with the humanoid, and then again the rules.

This phenomenon even has a name: uncanny valley , “ominous valley”. The Boston Dynamics robots are still scary, no matter how they try to make dogs out of them. When something is a person and not a person at the same time, it is very strange, we get scared. With bots you need to form the correct expectations. They are stupid: the machine can not understand you, so do not need to form wrong expectations.

Noticed that requests to Google or Yandex write teams? People do not speak in ordinary conversations: "Stranger Things is the third season when it comes out." So with voice assistants, even the children quickly move to the command tone, order sharply and in simple words what to do.

By the way, about orders and gender prejudices. There are many studies that show that the voice assistant is much more likely in the market if he has a female voice. What business will give up 30% of revenue to compete for gender equality?

Yes, Siri also has a female voice by default. And Alex. In Google, you can choose the assistant's sex, but by default the voice is female. Only in Space Odyssey HAL 9000 spoke in a male voice.

By the way about science fiction. In the design consulting Cooper there is such a dude named Chris Nossel, he was confused by the review of all known interfaces in science fiction. There is cool to watch the connection with interfaces in real life. A lot of things were borrowed in all directions. There was, for example, the film "Journey to the Moon" at the beginning of the 20th century - and there were no interfaces at all in the spacecraft. And in the films of the 20s, there are already turnouts in computers ...

Self-development and behavior change

How to develop yourself, Kostya? What are your strategies and practices?

Two phrases: 1) choosing an ambitious direction and 2) small achievable goals.

And about the second, that is, about the goal, you need to constantly remind yourself: re-read the list. I try to reread my own once a week.

I have a text file, there are written all the main goals. Composed it so that it has several spheres. For each, he figured out what the reality would look like, in which everything was 10 out of 10. And I gave each an honest assessment of what number out of 10 I am now.

About self-development, it is important to understand that at any given time you did not just end up in one place or another. You have come a long way there, and you see from this place some peak. But for each peak will be the next. This is an endless process.

Many people evaluate their alignment in life at 7/10. The main thing is not how much you now give yourself, but what do you say about your “top ten”. The goal is not to jump from 7 to 10, the goal is to go one step higher. Just one. Simple little things, separate actions.

I re-read this file often. This is the main magic - reread it, remind yourself. People have such a feature: if you read a text 40 times, you learn it by heart. We are so arranged. After so many reads, you subconsciously memorize the text. With goal setting the same: it is important to repeat.

Do people need hygiene attention?

Here I am sausage, to be honest. On the one hand, there are social networks, notifications - this is understandable. It can be seen that the deep psychological mechanisms make us stick to it, you can quickly get hooked.

What I can not understand - this is where a healthy balance. To give up social networks completely, “to go into the cave,” in my opinion, is also not very correct. All of my two interesting works - both Yandex and Intercom - I found in social networks. For example, Kolya Yaremko (a former product manager at Yandex, one of the old-timers of the company) wrote at Friendfide about a vacancy at Post, Paul Adams fumbled on Twitter that they were looking for a design lead ...

I don’t understand how to look for the next job if I want it. I'm not ready for this yet, but still - how, if I cut out from social networks and remove all notifications? Some kind of healthy balance is needed, but which one is not clear.

In children, it is very visible. If not to control at all, then it is very difficult for a child to tear off, goes to Instagram with his head, just sits down.

Do you remember the guy named Tristan Harris? He talked a lot about attention hygiene while working at Google, and now he even created an NGO for research in this area.

Yes Yes Yes. I wrote about his first presentation - when he first made slides about ethical design. He then worked on Google and said that we seem to want to create a brighter future, but in fact just grab the attention of people. Much depends on us, grocery people. He drowned for not only talking about metrics of engagement. And this then, in 2013, was super-revolutionary. Many then started a Google debate on this.

It was at the same time an awesome example of a viral presentation that I want to share and discuss with someone. Written in simple language, everything is clearly, clearly ... Very cool! If he wrote this letter, it would be much less resonant.

In Google, he was eventually assigned a design ethicist, and he quickly merged from there. The leadership put it as an example to everyone - like a young man, here's an honorary position for you ... In fact, he was legalized, but they did nothing with his arguments.

I know you were on Burning Man. What is it for you?

This is the quintessence of free creativity. People do crazy works, art cars, and most of this is simply burned. And do not for the sake of popularity or money, but simply for the act of creativity. Looking at all this, you begin to think differently.

What three skills would you like your children to have?

1. Freedom of thinking. Freedom from stereotypes, from imposed ideas, from thoughts that someone needs something.
2. The ability to independently learn anything. If the world continues to change at the same speed, we all need to do this all the time, constantly.
3. The ability to take care of themselves and others.

Will you say something to readers in the end?

Thank you for reading!