Great products don’t have to explain themselves

My first-ever interaction with our CEO, Luis, was at our annual company party in 2023. It was the week before I started my job. And it was exactly how you’d imagine a Luis introduction going. He greeted me with,

Nice to meet you. I don’t want to see any more wireframes coming from your team.

We all laughed. And there’s truth in every joke. We’re a “show, don’t tell” culture. I’m proud of the strides our team has made in showing up with high-quality prototypes. We’re panning around Figmas less, and we’re jumping quickly from docs to what learners would actually see. Our shift to more prototypes have made decision-making easier and the work significantly better.

The biggest work streams and company-alterning conversations I’ve seen in my career rarely started with a doc or a deck. They’ve started with a proof of concept. From Math, Music, Adventures, Video Call, 3D, Energy, and more, the big swings at Duolingo got off the ground because we all got to play with something versus debate the idea of something.

This approach is now a part of our new Duolingo Handbook! Shout out to the Duos in Design (among many others) that captured this part of our culture in the handbook: Mary, Jack, Megan, Rachel, Langston, Dana, Joe, Kerry, so many others.