For over twenty years I've been drawn to the same space, creating connections where new technology meets human action.
That thread runs through my career. Founding designer at Getaround when GPS car-unlocking didn't exist. First designer at Dfinity building for decentralized compute. At Airkit when we prototyped one of the first ChatGPT-powered app builders in a 48-hour hackathon. I've led design teams of 20+, launched products across AI, Web3, fintech, and transportation, and lately I've been building my own tools, pushing my world into code.
When I'm not at a screen, I'm often underwater scuba diving, on a mountain snowboarding, or bringing people together through events, DJing, and cooking.
BitGo is an enterprise level digital asset platform — built for banks, not consumers. When I joined, the goal was to launch into retail by opening trading, staking, and custody to individuals while maintaining the enterprise platform.
I led the retail onboarding experience, a new enterprise admin console, design system overhaul, and kicked off the brand refresh. Within three months, 50% of retail users upgraded to paid accounts, CS tickets dropped 95%, and NPS went up 20%. It opened a new revenue segment and was a key project in paving the path to BitGo's IPO.
Airkit was a low-code platform for building customer service apps such as forms, chatbots, workflows. In early 2023, a frontend engineer and I used a 48-hour hackathon to see what we could do with the ChatGPT API.
We built a prompt-to-app workflow. Apps that had taken weeks now took about 30 seconds to get 90% done. The demo pivoted the company to AI-first. Four months later, Airkit was acquired by Salesforce as Agentforce.
Beyond the AI work, I overhauled Airkit's design system for both the platform and whitelabel partners, built a data state management system for QA testing, and updated the visual studio tool palettes — while managing and scaling the product and marketing design teams.
Windranger was a Web3 product lab building tools and sub-DAOs within the BitDAO ecosystem. As the first employee, I built the design discipline from scratch, hired 11 designers across product and marketing, and managed resources across 8 products and 13 brands.
Dfinity is building the Internet Computer, a decentralized computing and hosting blockchain. As the first designer, I established the design practice, built the team, and helped launch the platform. Most of the work was developer facing, such as a blockchain based IDE called Motoko Playground, designed for engineers navigating infrastructure that had never existed before. The Internet Computer platform now serves over 3 million users and 4500+ developers.
Sixup was a pre-series A fintech startup giving academically strong, low-income students access to loans automated by machine learning. As Head of Product & Design, I streamlined the application process, reduced requirements by 85%, and cut loan decision time from 72 hours to under 24.
Originate is a product and design consultancy. I led a team of 20+ designers across finance, real estate, education, and e-commerce, reworked the pitch and workshop process for a 40% gain in pitch success rate, and restructured the team to cut project turnaround time by 20%. Clients included BlackRock, Deutsche Bank, goop, and SweetGreens — and we pitched a tourism focused chatbot for Qatar's hosting of the 2022 World Cup.
Expa is an innovation lab and VC firm where I advised portfolio companies on design, product strategy, and creative leadership.
I designed the app that won TechCrunch Disrupt 2011 while Getaround was a client of my agency, then joined the company full-time as founding designer. Over seven years I built the product and creative teams as the platform grew to 1.6 million users across ten markets. My most significant work was moving from request-based to instant car rental, before Uber or Airbnb had instant booking, which pivoted the entire business model and was featured in Apple and Samsung keynotes.
nü was a design agency I founded in San Francisco. I built a small team of full-time designers and contractors, focused on helping early-stage startups build their first apps and brands.
Clients included Chomp (acquired by Apple), Cabulous (now Flywheel), ArtistWorks, Burning Man, PBR, It's It, and Getaround.
In 2008 Friendster contracted me to lead the visual redesign of the social media platform to focus on Asian markets. Leading a team of designers, our designs went live and Friendster sold less than a year later to MOL Global, a South East Asia payment platform.
My initial in-house startup experience was at 3Jam in 2008, building the world's first reply-all SMS messaging platform for web, desktop, and mobile.
Derek Marcial
Product | ex-Airbnb
Manager at Getaround
As a triple threat, Alex brings a blend of strong product understanding, great design sensibility and leadership, as well as technical proficiency not typically associated with someone with a design background.
Ryan Moeck
Senior Director of Product Design, Salesforce
Direct report at Airkit
Alex is one of the best managers I've ever worked with. He cares deeply about the products he designs and combines that with a management style that is trusting and never micromanaging. He sees projects as a whole, rather than disparate parts.
Diego Prats
Engineer, AI & Verifiable Computing
Manager at Dfinity
Among the 50–90 designers I have worked with, he is in the top 1%. His most surprising skill is his organizational and project management skillset.
David Revilla
Product Designer, BitGo
Direct report at BitGo
He not only laid a strong foundation for the team but also reignited the creative spark that every design team needs to succeed — creating an environment where we could explore ideas in complex and ambiguous situations.
"One of the things we hit upon was the quality of a host. That is, the role of the architect, or the designer, is that of a very good, thoughtful host, all of whose energy goes into trying to anticipate the needs of his guests—those who enter the building and use the objects in it. We decided that this was an essential ingredient in the design of a building or a useful object."
– Charles Eames
In design and in life, I like to think of myself as a good host. This takes empathy and curation for your guests or users. It's about showing care and even love through your actions and decisions. To me that means creating experiences that are usable and useful while conveying a sense of belonging.
"Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works."
– Steve Jobs
Design is often treated as polish or an afterthought. But design, at its core, is about helping make decisions (like the scientific method) through exploration, iteration, and validation—shaping how things function, feel, and fit into people's lives. When used to its full potential, design can be a powerful tool to make strategic decisions with impacts across product, brand, and business outcomes. Design is the product.
"Design is the silent ambassador of your brand."
– Paul Rand
Every design decision tells a story about the company, the product, and the people behind it. As designers, our job is to shape experiences that do more than function well. They should express the brand's values, voice, and point of view. In products centered on trust and security, that becomes even more important, because design is often the first signal of credibility.
"Measure twice, cut once."
– Wood worker's proverb
As a hobbyist woodworker, I've learned that a little planning up front saves a lot of pain later. The same is true in product design and AI workflows. When teams rush into building without a plan, they usually pay for it in rework. I believe in testing early, dogfooding often, and using user signals to validate ideas before going too far in one direction.
View my process and solutions across product, brand, design systems, and operations.
View my resume or download as PDF.
Designed in opens in new windowFigma and built with opens in new windowCursor & opens in new windowFigma Make in beautiful Oakland, CA