AI Products Need Better Visual Metaphors
by Howie Liu on August 31, 2025
The AI era demands a return to founder-level product immersion, not delegation. Howie Liu believes CEOs and product leaders must become "IC CEOs" again - getting hands-on with building, coding, and experiencing products directly.
When AI emerged, Howie realized every software product needed to be "refounded" because AI isn't just a feature addition but a paradigm shift requiring novel form factors and UX patterns. To lead effectively, he had to be in the details: "There is no looking at it from 10,000 foot view and saying 'we're just gonna throw a bunch of people at this problem.'"
This philosophy led Howie to restructure Airtable into two distinct groups: a "fast thinking" team focused on shipping new AI capabilities weekly, and a "slow thinking" team handling deliberate, infrastructure-heavy bets. This Daniel Kahneman-inspired approach allows for both rapid innovation and thoughtful scaling.
For product teams, Howie advocates breaking down role silos. The most successful people in the AI era are those who can cross traditional boundaries: "As a PM you need to start looking more like a hybrid PM-prototyper who has some good design sensibilities." He encourages everyone to develop a minimum baseline in adjacent disciplines while maintaining depth in their specialty.
The practical implications are significant. Howie encourages teams to:
- Cancel meetings for days or weeks to experiment with AI tools
- Prioritize building prototypes over writing documents
- Share AI-generated work openly to normalize using these tools
- Create personal projects that force you to use AI capabilities
- Measure success by experiential value, not process adherence
This approach extends beyond product teams. In marketing, sales, and other functions, Howie sees value in collapsing traditional dependencies: "Your outcome as an AE is to convince customers of the value of your product and close deals. Can you collapse more dependencies so that if you had to, you could do it all yourself?"
His most counterintuitive lesson after thirteen years building Airtable? Don't step away from the details you love. The industrialization of company processes often pulls founders from what made their product magical in the first place. For Howie, returning to hands-on product work wasn't just strategically necessary - it reconnected him with the joy that sustains long-term commitment.