Robert Youmans: Google, Modern UX, and Evolving Technologies
Google is a powerhouse, and will be a leading voice in shaping the future of user experience, and web design. Robert Youmans, UX Director for Google Workspace, has played a pivotal role in bridging industry and education, fostering innovation in digital product design.
On the Sound of Inbound, where we've explored the evolution of technology, Aaron and Robert dive deep into the transformative power of curiosity and creativity in shaping the future of AI and user experience.
Check out this episode on YouTube and Spotify, and Apple Podcasts.
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Aaron: Hello everybody. We are here at The Sound of Inbound, and you don't have to Google far to learn about the next person on our podcast. We are very excited to have a very, very special guest from a company you might have heard of. Google. And you might have heard of a couple of products the guy has worked on. Oh, I don't know, just like Gmail or just - YouTube.
Mark: And like anything that Alphabet does.
Aaron: Yeah. I mean like, well, a lot that Alphabet does. That's right. So we are joined today by Robert Youmans. He is the UX, uh, lead director, I believe, of Google's Workspace, and he also happens to be the site lead of, um, the, uh, campus here in Durham, North Carolina. We are very, very fortunate to have him here on the show. Uh, and he is gonna be a lot of fun.
Mark: He's gonna be so fun. I think it's so cool that someone that like went to a rival high school of mine and went to my same alma mater is that UX lead at Google, and they, they do all this work right here in Durham.
Aaron: Shout out to NC State. Go Wolfpack.
Mark: Go Pack.
Aaron: Yep. Um, so, so we are going to, uh, have a whole bunch of conversations with, uh, Robert about his origin story and what kind of things influence his UX work that he does at Google every single day and where he thinks the world's gonna be going next.
Mark: Yeah, and it's gonna just go so fast. I'm sure it's really interesting to see how he thinks things are gonna change tomorrow, in three months from now, in a year from now.
Aaron: Yes. So please join us here on The Sound of Inbound for Robert Youmans. Uh, he's got a lot of great things to say.
Mark: He also has great hair, so not too shabby to look at too.
Aaron: Awesome.
Mark: Yeah, so stay tuned here on Sound of Inbound.
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Aaron: Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of The Sound of Inbound. Today we are joined by a very, very, very special guest. He's the UX director for Google Workspace and the campus site lead for Google's Durham, North Carolina office. He's led UX and research for products used by literally millions every single day, and I'm talking about things like YouTube and Gmail and Slides and Google Meet and many, many other tools. We also learned through our research that he's helped establish Google's first design apprenticeship in Switzerland, bridging industry and education in a way that is extremely inspiring and it perfectly reflects his career. And he brings, of course, a deep human-centered perspective on how digital products are built at scale. So I would love for all of you to please join me in giving a warm, warm welcome to our next guest. Actually, it's here, very cold North Carolina, so please make that a warm, warm welcome for our next guest here on The Sound of Inbound, Robert Youmans. Robert, thank you so much for joining us here today. We really appreciate you having you here on the show.
Robert: Thanks for, uh, that warm introduction. Yeah, it is cold here.
Aaron: So I thought we should start off with everybody getting to know you because you are in an amazing position at Google now, but you've had a very interesting, um, background, and you've bounced all over the planet. So I thought maybe you could just start off where... I think actually if I remember correctly, you started off here in North Carolina at one point when you were younger. But give us the background from where you started.
Robert: Uh, so I was born in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Um, which I did not live there very long and my, my parents did move a lot, so I bounced around. But yeah, I landed in North Carolina when I was eight and grew up in North Raleigh. Went to, uh, Millbrook High School. I attended NC State University. At the time I was studying mechanical engineering. I didn't finish that degree. I, I got three and a half years in and I panicked and I didn't wanna be a mechanical engineer anymore. There's a funny story associated with that.
Aaron: Oh, tell us. Tell us what's the funny story there.
Robert: Okay. The, the funny story is, uh, I had a friend who was one, uh, year ahead of me, also a mechanical engineer. He graduated and he got a job. Have you ever been in a gas station and seen the square crackers that come in like a, like there's like six of them and they're s- they're wrapped in cellophane?
Aaron: Of course.
Robert: Yeah.
Aaron: Yeah.
Robert: He got a job working on the drum that puts peanut butter on those crackers. We were on a, like a phone call and he was like, "Yeah, I got this job man and it's really great and I'm trying to increase the efficiency of peanut butter on these crack-" And I just thought, "Man, I can't do this. I can't, I can't work in a cracker factory."
Aaron: No.
Robert: Yeah. Um, and-
Aaron: I feel that would freak you out.
Robert: Yeah. It fre- it totally, it really fr- it was like I have a very, it's like a flashbulb memory of this. Uh, I was taking like psychology classes also at the time, uh, cognitive psychology, and so I ended up, uh, taking a bunch more of those and graduating with a psych degree and then later on when I went back to school, studied experimental psychology, um, and y- kind of with an, with an eye on how do we combine the things I liked about mechanical engineering and design with, with psychology, and that's, that's my, that's my backstory.
Aaron: When you were in school, did you know about user experience design?
Robert: Definitely not, no. Definit- when I was an undergrad I had no understanding and I had friends that were, you know, going to work in cracker factories. I also, I also had friends that were, um, in the school of design and I actually remember being very jealous of what they were working on because I was like, "Oh, it's, it's, I think that's more what I am sort of naturally drawn to is sort of like the design of things versus the mechanics of things." But I didn't, I didn't really have any classes on design in high s- you know, I just went to kind of a public high school, go Millbrook, and it, you know, they didn't have anything like that. You know, the, the term user experience was I think coined by Donald Norman. You know what? That same year Ariana Grande was born, and so, uh, UX is as old as Ariana Grande. Y- that gives you some sense of the newness of this, and I don't know, remember exactly what year that is, but, uh, I don't think it had happened yet and so, no. In undergrad, no. And then by grad school I took a couple years off, lived in Europe, wrote as a ghostwriter for the Dutch government, then went back to-
Aaron: I did not know this part. That's fantastic. You were a writer?
Robert: I was a writer, yeah. I wrote a newsletter on Dutch infrastructure. Uh, for a woman named Miriam, I think her name was Miriam Schwartz. Uh, and she was the Minister of Transportation for the Netherlands. I had never been to the Netherlands. I had never-- I didn't know much about any of this stuff, but I-
Aaron: It's actually a great country, and I've been there numerous times. We've had clients that are v- that are there, been to Amsterdam.
Robert: I have been there subsequently, but at the time I had never had the pleasure. And so, um, I, yeah. So but, uh, it... And that's a whole 'nother story, but I, I wound up writing for this woman, and, uh, I was working in London and writing, uh, as though I was this Dutch woman. So yeah. Anyway, went back to grad school. I went to w- first Wake Forest University, also in North Carolina. I can't say enough good things about Wake Forest. Incredible education, uh, incredible opportunity to go there. Worked with, I think he's now the chair of the department, Eric Stone was my advisor. Uh, he is a psychologist that studies how people make decisions, so I spent two years thinking about feedback and decision-making and, uh, you know, w- how people's decisions can be bent one way or the other depending on the information they're given. Very interesting. And then, um, from there I went to the University of Illinois, Chicago, and got a PhD studying with a guy named Stellan Olsson. This is important because Stellan Olsson was one of the first people that studied machine learning in the design of intelligent tutoring systems. So now this is the part, you know, you asked before did I know what I was doing. No. But I was k- you know, I was trying to hone in on and get closer to people that were interested in human-machine interaction. And so this is a form of human-machine interaction, this intelligent tutoring stuff. He also, he was a, is a Swedish psychologist. He had come up in Europe, and the standards and the ways in which graduate training are done in Europe are s- I mean, they're not entirely foreign to the US system, but they're a little bit different. And so he had, he had a lot of patience for me to kind of explore. In America, typically you would go work with someone, and you're, you're like an ap- you are an apprentice, basically, and you're doing exactly what they're doing, and then you get to deviate ever so slightly as you approach graduation. With Stellan, he was very tolerant of me deviating pretty widely actually. And, and, uh, and so, um, that program required you to do a breadth requirement, which I thought was a really amazing aspect of the PhD training. So they w- you know, they basically say, "Hey, you have to diverge a little bit." Uh, most people would diverge by taking, like, an exotic statistics or something like this, and, uh, I, I finally got a chance to do industrial design, which is what I had been jealous of as an undergrad. And, uh, so I took two years of, uh, industrial design training, which became immensely helpful a-after graduation.
Aaron: Mechanical engineering with psychology—industrial design, and then you're also getting a chance to explore the world a bit by not just being on the East Coast, but being in the Midwest. I think at one point you said, I think I looked at your background, you were also teaching out on the West Coast as well.
Robert: Yeah. I have, I've taught twice on the West Coast. My-- So after I got my PhD, uh, I received a faculty offer from Cal State Northridge, CSUN, which is in the valley outside of Los Angeles, and I, I, I took that and worked there for four years, and then, uh, jumped from there to George Mason University, which had a very, it had a concentration in folks that did what I do. So I worked there for basically another four years, uh, and then I was hired by Google. But whilst at Google, I taught at UC Berkeley in their, uh, School of Information, uh, for two years. I taught a d- a graduate design seminar there. So, uh, yeah. And I've taught at SCAD, uh, the Savannah College of Art and Design. I've given some guest lectures in Zurich, where I eventually wound up for the last six years until I moved here.
Aaron: So I'm gonna say personally, from Aaron's perspective, I feel like our user experience is in good hands, um, over at Google. Uh, because you ha- having those, that diversity of perspectives is extremely important to understand all those different users you have to consider every single day, and I can't imagine the kind of personas... Like, when we talk to our clients about the marketing that we do in life sciences, we're trying to narrow it down to, like, one, two, maybe three personas, and we get mad if we're, like, more than that. We're like, "Too much. We gotta really narrow it down." I can't imagine how many different kinds of situations and personas that you guys get into. I wanted to just also, uh, kinda get back to your origins for a moment and just talk about the fact that you got to be... I think we're in similar age groups, so you and I got to see technology evolve with us in a way that I'm not sure if other generations will ever get to see. It's like I was always fascinated by people b-born in, like, the, um, 1850s, 1870s, uh, and then, you know, survived and lived through the turn of the century and even watched an airplane take off. Like, it's like mi- it must have been mind-boggling to go from, you know, horse and buggy and no electricity, and then all the way to something where you have this moment where technology is now all around you and electricity is there. And, you know, just to think about what you and I have seen, it's just incredible, isn't it?
Robert: It is. I mean, in that story I told, I was on an old-fashioned copper-lined telephone talking to my friend working in a cracker factory.
Aaron: Oh, and he was like-
Robert: Yeah. And then flash forward a, a couple of years, not that many years, uh, and I'm at Wake Forest, and when I was, uh, it was I think the last year that they did this, but, uh, when I would do statistical analyses, I had to actually do the analyses on a computer, then send them to a mainframe. That makes me sound older than I am, honestly. Like, it, but, but that was how, still how they were doing it there because local machines couldn't do the statistics we were doing. And then, you know, here we are. Very interesting, still pretty recent event was when the pandemic occurred, I was in Switzerland, and, you know, I remember really thinking, "I'm not sure if Google can work completely off, out of the office." Because we had, we had a really strong office culture, and I mean, the whole office at Google is designed for that, right? It's, uh, communal spaces, micro kitchens. Like, it's great. You couldn't find probably a company that was more devoted to, like, in-person collaboration working together. So this was the opposite of that. Like, we're all gonna just start working from home with no notice, a-almost no notice, right? I mean, I was skiing with my team at an offsite, and I got a text message from security, and they're like, "We're locking the office down, and we don't know when you'll be able to come back in." And I was thinking like, "This could be weeks," you know? It was-- And then it was like two years later we're going back into the office or whatever now.
Aaron: So the thing about our generations are that I feel like we got a lot of opportunities by proxy. You know, it's like I don't think the opportunities I would be given, I don't think I would've gotten the same opportunities today that I got back then. I happened to be sitting, standing in the right place at the right time, and that was because of the human interaction and being there, uh, to get opportunities with the School of the Arts and UNC and building the first websites and, uh, just all these kinds of things that I got kinda thrown at, almost thrown the book at me, actually. Do you remember a company called Corel, Corel Web Design?
Robert: No, I do not.
Aaron: Yes, exactly. I was working for the provost and, uh, he and I went over to, um, Circuit City, also RIP. RIP Circuit City. Uh, and uh, he's like, "I, I think the school's gonna... we're gonna need a website, and nobody's willing to take that leap, and I'm gonna want you to do it." And so I'm like, "Let's do it." So he went with me to Circuit City, and we're looking through the books. There were books at Circuit City, and he hands me this book on Corel Web Design. He's like, "Read this and build UNC's school's, uh, first website." And I'm like, "Okay." So we just did it. It's like I don't know if that kind of trust is out there anymore, but that, that's the kind of stuff that when you're in the early days of, and this is hopefully what we'll get to in the second half of this podcast, is when you get in the early days of a certain kind of technology, everything is open for opportunity. Like, let's go, go for it. Jump in. And you are like an avid, avid, avid learner, and you've been part of the educational institutions for years, and I'm sure that component of like being so hungry to learn has helped so much on the opportunity front for you to just be like, "What about this? Let's be curious about that. Let's try this. Let's try that." And I think that's probably why you've been getting all these opportunities all, all along, right?
Robert: I mean, 100%. Like, it's my best quality, and we probably have this in common. But I mean, I know lots of people that are like this, that are just really curious people, you know? And it's not... I mean, I, I am definitely not the world's best designer or the world's best scientist or the world, you know, best educator, but I am curious, and it's a combination of like leaning in and being interested in how things work and luck.
Aaron: I, I know. And that's true, you know? Right. You're not gonna get lucky, you know, sitting in your room alone.
Robert: But-
Aaron: Exactly, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. So I was gonna just finish by saying, you know, there are a lot of cool things that you and I have gotten to do over the years, and I was wondering just from your standpoint, I think I could possibly give my quick story on it, but when was the first time you realized what Google was and you started using it? Because when I did it the first time, uh, Ask Jeeves was around. Anybody out there that wants to comment, uh, Ask Jeeves was around and I think a couple other ones that are probably just hysterically named. Anyway, I just remember it thinking, "What a weird name, Google." Um, and it feeling very academic in the beginning. Very like this is just really an experiment, and I... and it had that I feel lucky, um, button on it. You know, feeling lucky dude, and I, I just remember thinking about, um, Clint Eastwood first time I read it, like feeling lucky.
Robert: As though Clint Eastwood ha- was like had a gun trained on you.
Aaron: Exactly. Yeah. Exactly, exactly. That was my... But you know, at the time it's like you think about when that was first out there, there were all, all these pop culture references, and it wasn't like we had access to all the things we have to do today. So when I read it the first time, I'm like, "What a weird button," and I loved it. It was just like, "Where is that gonna take me next?" So I would just like kinda click it and see what happens, but, um, it was really kind of a, a, a very strange and, um... Considering all things, we were so focused on getting the domains at the time. Domains were just such a huge like, uh, almost like a form of currency. It's like, can you buy these domains fast enough at this one critical moment? But then Google came out, and it was like this other thing. I'm like, "Well, that's cool and refreshing," but very academic. So what was your, what was your experience with it?
Robert: My, my first that I can remember is Gmail. I'm sure that I had used the Google Search function because I was in grad school. Well, you know what? Actually, one of the first, I remember this, so I mentioned, you know, I'm at Wake Forest, I'm doing my master's thesis, and I'm still going, like walking over to the beautiful library and going into the basement, which was where psychology journals were kept, and reading articles, like looking up the article and then photocopying the article to make, you know, so that I had a copy, and then putting that into a binder and blah, blah, blah. And I remember, I left there, went to Chicago, and we were in an office, behavioral sciences building, and when I got there, they had... The, the University of Illinois had just deprecated like the physical periodicals on psychology, and psychologists in my department had said, "Well, what are you gonna do with them?" And they're like, "I guess we're gonna throw them out." And they had moved them all into my office. So I, my office was actually like a co- like combination-
Aaron: Stacks of books?
Robert: Yeah. It was just stacks of periodicals g- you know, dating back to the 1920s, um, on shelves, and we were kind of working in bet- It was like kinda like we were working in a library, except that makes it sound good, and it was not good. But... And the reason for that was because of Google Scholar, which I still use, and I don't know if you use that at all or very often, Aaron, but Google Scholar-
Aaron: I have used it. I have used it, yes.
Robert: Yeah. So that's, that's a, a version of Google Search, but only for peer-reviewed articles. And what I remember thinking was I immediately went and I started looking up, 'cause I was very familiar with a certain, you know, a certain area of psychol- psychological literature because of me just doing this master's thesis, and I, and I was still publishing the master's thesis, so I was still in the mix on that, and looking them up just to see and noticing that, okay, some of them were available, and there were like PDFs, and then others weren't. And I remember thinking, "This is gonna change science," because people are going to be, you know- Uh, too lazy to go to the library to... I- if one's available at the click of a button, and the other you have to go to a library, go to the basement, go find the thing, photo cop... Man, like, those articles are gonna be the ones that are more read. They're then gonna be the ones that are then therefore more cited. The other ones go into history. These ones become the prominent, like... And it, it, and that totally happened. Like, that, that 100% happened, and I haven't-- I can't remember the last time, even as a faculty member, I remember one time, because it was so rare, looking for a book, right? An actual physical book, but that's it. I never, ever, I don't think, went back, uh, to the library to look for peer-reviewed articles ever again, to this day.
Aaron: That, that's amazing. So one of the things that I did, and I feel like I was, like, really trying to force it manually, 'cause I wish, wish we had Google back then. When I was at the School of the Arts, and I was building that website, m- the thing that was frustrating me the most was that I could not read about the classes that I wanted to sign up for through the website. The websites at the time were very brochure web. So if you went to literally any famous university, it would just tell you, "Here we are," maybe there's a campus map if you're lucky, how to get ahold of them, how to apply. And, um, I went over to the registrar's office and I picked up the, uh, the registrar book, which is this massive book, and I just said, "How did you guys print this?" And they said, "We're, you know, we have to type it all up. It's, you know, we have to type all these documents." I'm like, "Could I have those documents?" And they're like, "Why would you want them?" I'm like, "Because I wanna put it on something called a website." They're like, "Why would you wanna do that?" And they just kept, like, challenging, challenging, challenging me. And so it took a lot of discussion to convince them to give me the, the registrar, um, content. And then I started going around to every office on campus, and I just said, "I need, I need a quick summary of what you do here at the school, and I wanna put that on something called a website." And everybody was just like, "Why would anybody wanna see this stuff?" And it was trying to flip the book on, we're not just this logo of a school. People would really wanna learn about us, and I felt like that was a very important tool, that I thought this website would be an important tool for people that would be assessing the school, or for students that just wanna know what classes they would take. To d- oh my God, it took me a year to, like, get all this stuff typed up or moved over, and interviewing all the offices. And it was, I was the boots on the ground. I was basically like the, um, the Google Maps car that drives around the entire country.
Robert: Yeah, no, that's right, yeah.
Aaron: But I had to force it. I had to force it, and it was all for the endpoint of trying to make the user experience for our website to be a real win-win for us. Like, you don't have to call us. You don't have to, like, beg to have somebody send you this 18-pound book, it felt like, um, just to know what classes you're gonna take. Um, and that for me, at the time, again, I was just at the right place at the right time, uh, and I was willing to do the work. Uh, you know, while I was going to school for music, I decided to do this on the side. Um, but that really got me hooked on the value of the internet, and when I saw what Google had done with, um, the search and of course building out all these tools, which we're gonna get to in the second half, um, I do think that was just mind-boggling for me, that there was other organizations that were thinking like I was. Uh, I just didn't, I didn't know that existed, and so that's what the internet kinda opened up for me, yeah.
Robert: I can't help but notice, uh, maybe it's the psychologist in me, but when you tell that story, y- you tell it like you had a lot of fun doing that.
Aaron: I did because I got to learn who the people were. There was a personality that didn't come through anything. Like, uh, I even went over to the police chief. Like, nobody would talk to that guy, that was the campus police chief. And the guy just sat in an office in a tiny little building, and they had a bunch of cars out front. Um, and he was so surprised I cared, and that just all of a sudden got me thinking around everybody that's here has a real role, and there's real people behind it. The technology isn't faceless. And actually today, okay, this is a good transition, uh, Google isn't faceless, and you bring a very human, uh, as I said ear-earlier, a very human-centered approach to the work that you do. And I thought maybe in the second half of our little podcast here, we could talk all about Google and AI. Would you be up for that?
Robert: I would be up for that.
Aaron: All right. Let's take a quick break, and when we come back, we're gonna talk about all things coming up next, and we're gonna hopefully predict the future of what browsers will be. So stay tuned.
Aaron: Hi, everybody. We are back here with Robert. We're gonna be here on the second half of the podcast. We're gonna be looking ahead at the future of the internet because, you know, if there's one organization out there that can seriously inspire and potentially influence where we go next, it's the Goog. Do you guys ever call yourself the Goog? I don't know. I'm gonna call you guys-
Robert: No. That's not a term-
Aaron: No, I mean-
Robert: ... that's not a term I'm walking around with every day. The Goog.
Aaron: I-
Robert: ... my mother-in-law might call me that sometimes, but-
Aaron: I think it's the, um, I think I get that from the, um, NASDAQ listing. I think it's G-O-O-
Robert: That's right.
Aaron: ... G-E.
Robert: Yeah.
Aaron: So we're going with the Goog. Uh, but I'm having a lot of fun here with Robert, and we were talking over the break about, you know, where things could go next. One of the things I did talk to him about, though, before the podcast was, uh, the term browser. I really think that we have to come up with some other terminology about how we interact with AI because in the world of browsers, you do kind of browse. You don't have to actually do much to just start looking around, clicking around, exploring, and be in that explorer mindset. Um, and nowadays, we're moving into this different world, aren't we? Uh, so what do we call it? So I don't know if you wanna start there, Robert. That's probably a big brain squeezer for both, both of us on a Friday morning.
Robert: A hard transition from reminiscing about the past to the, with the future of brow... I would... You did mention that before, so I was thinking a little bit, and, uh, probably just 'cause I was talking about Stellan Olson, my old PhD advisor, you know. It does feel as though, you know, there is a tutelage or tutor, a f- like s- I don't know, like there's something, there's a learning that seems to go on with, with generative AI, at least for parts of it, um, that, that I'm seeing a lot of, or we see a lot of in, in terms of how people are using it. So, you know- You were talking about spending time with users and you're the, the police chief and all of that, and I get to do that in my role as well, which is really cool. And it seems like when you meet people, uh, that are leaned in on AI, generative AI specifically, that they're either-- They're doing one of two things. They're either trying to eliminate something that they don't like doing, uh, it, you know, typically at, at school, um, you know, or at work or in, in, in, in adulting, you know, like taking care of the chores around the house. They're either trying to get rid of something that's very tedious or they're trying to do something, I, I, I'll use the word creative. Uh, it might not be, you know, making art, but they're, they might be making a song or making music or making a film or making a document or having to write a sales report and trying to make people pay attention to it or do a clever marketing pitch for something and they want it to stand out or... And, and you know, actually in a lot of those latter ones, the more work activities, there's actually probably a little bit of both. Like the AI might be helping you do something that's tedious whilst also helping you create. And so we see people kind of j- um, attracted to those, those two qualities. And then a third emergent quality is between the tedium and the, you know, the creativity, there's sort of a learning that's happening, and it, there's sort of a, internally in my team, we tend to call that enablement. Um, and so people are actually winding up kinda trying to do, and I think you would like this a lot, I like this a lot, they're kinda trying... Th-they're like enabled to try to do new types of jobs that maybe they couldn't before because they didn't know how to code, let's say, or they didn't know how to draw, or they didn't know how to read music or, you know, they didn't know how to play a guitar. But now they can kind of do those things with a little help from AI. And so it's this reduction of tedium, a creative partner, and an enablement of new ways of expression. Th- anyway, they also like cheat on math probably, you know.
Aaron: Well, for those that know what they're doing though, I think it's-
Robert: Yeah.
Aaron: ... it's almost like a renaissance again. Um, we can find opportunities we didn't even know we could be a part of or we can explore, uh, because it is such a great enablement tool. I, I do, I see that. So are we gonna call it an enablenter instead of a browser?
Robert: An enabler. I think that's a-
Aaron: Yeah. Or, or, um, um, what, what did you call the music this morning? You said it was a... We were talking about the theme music for the show.
Robert: Yeah.
Aaron: It's a multiplier or a, there's like a-
Robert: A force mul- Oh, it's a it's a force multiplier.
Aaron: Yeah. That's a good cue.
Robert: It's a force multiplier. Multiplier.
Aaron: Multiplier. Um, it's just like when we wanna think outside of the box. Let's play out on the-
Robert: Um, so yes, I am definitely in the, in the realm of a, a very explorer mindset, and I wanna be, uh, using tools that could be that force multiplier for sure. I'm definitely in that camp. And something else that you said in the, in the first half of the show is there's a, I think you said this, was like there's almost like this democratization or something. I think what you meant by that is like i-it's, it's a free for all, like it, it's anyone's ball game, like those types of things where like all bets are o- I, I can't think of any more ex- sayings about this, but, but like when the web started and it's like, who's gonna make websites? And you're like, "I guess I'll make one."
Aaron: Anybody.
Robert: Yeah, anybody. That's the answer. Is it literally like anyone that wants to put in some effort can probably do it. I feel like we're in a-another... I like that about technology. I find that hopeful about technology, that with e-each new type of technology, it kinda levels the playing field a little bit and it kinda lets people that want to try, uh, is actually can, you can make a, you can gain a lot of ground if you want to try to learn this right now, you know? Uh, 'cause nobody knows what the next browser is going to be exactly.
Aaron: Yeah, so I think on that topic, from your perspective, which I know has inspiration influence from your job too, but it's the, um... I think we talked about this too, uh, beforehand, so I think I prepped you for this. It's the absence of UX. It's the absence of UI. Maybe it's not the absence of UX. Maybe that's not an incorrect, it's an incorrect way to say it, but like the absence of UI. Um, I was always very fascinated about designing these experiences for these websites, and I think we're getting back into a place where maybe the people who finally do arrive at a website and they're gonna spend the time there are highly qualified leads that are very savvy, very invested in learning all about a business. So when they do come there, I feel like let's make it as human of an experience as possible and really get them engaged. We want to make it as sticky as possible. Again, sound of Inbound. Um, but when it comes to these AI tools, there's an absence of UI, um, and I'm wondering how you're managing that now.
Robert: I mean, it's very tricky, I would say, Aaron, you know? Like, a-again, all bets are kind of off it feels like, and so we're trying to go back to base principles, talk to users, look at ways people are, are using this technology, um, and then start again. I was telling my team about this the other day, but like in architecture, you know, there's this, like, what would you call it? Like a, a sign for a problem that's been solved. I think it's an exclamation point, um, that they, that they put on things. So the, so like the height of a wall in a garden should be X feet tall, and if you're writing this in architecture, you write it and then you put an exclamation point, and it kind of means like, "Don't mess with this because this is, the height of this wall, we've established this over centuries."
Aaron: Doesn't that work in code too? When you're actually putting something that's a priority of a code, it actually snaps to the top when you put an exclamation point on it? Isn't that part of coding?
Robert: Maybe that's true, and maybe that's why. Yeah.
Aaron: Okay. All right. Interesting. I don't know if that connects the dots.
Robert: And there's examples of this in UX as well. Um, the classic example is like, I think, what is it? Let's see. I was reading a book about this. The classic example I think is the shopping cart. Like, that's been solved for. People know how to do e-commerce. Don't try and reinvent the shopping cart. Just copy the way shopping carts work everywhere, and so it's just easier for everybody. With this new technology, there's like no exclamation points. Nothing's been solved, and it's just Wild West again, and it's like, do you use, you know, skeuomorphism? Do you use... Like, and it's, and oh, and it's much more about language 'cause th-they're-- we're going to a language-based interface. And so, you know, yesterday I was looking at a new feature for Docs, and we were looking at the UI, 'cause there is some UI, um, in Docs. There's, you know, a lower panel and a side panel today. That'll probably be out of date by the time people hear this, but... And we were looking at like th-uh, the memory of generative AI, if you type something in the lower box versus the side box. And these are very senior people at Google doing what's called a bug bash, where we're like, "We're gonna ship this, but, like, are we really, really, really sure it's going to work well? Let's kick the tires." And we're all, uh, you know, imagine a bunch of older folks like me kicking the tires.
Aaron: Let's try one more time. Let's just do-
Robert: Yeah, let's just do one. Are we really sure? You know. And kinda trying to break it, basically. And we noticed a couple of things, and the, the, um, some, some of the things that we noticed during the bug bash had less to do with, um, the model quality, had less to do with the UX even, or the U- the UI and, and the user experience of that UI, but it had more to do with what we were calling things. So a lot of this stuff was like, let's just format the page. And so I was like, format it like a scientific article, format it like a book report, format it like something else. And then I said, "No, I think I liked the original best. Go back to that." Original for you and me means, you know, like the first-
Aaron: Whatever you first started with, right?
Robert: Didn't work.
Aaron: It didn't work.
Robert: It, it, it didn't work. It, instead, it generated a new original. It tried again, and so it generated a fourth version that was like the original.
Aaron: I'm having exactly the same example, uh, f- last night. I'm working on a proposal, and, uh, I wanted to have it double-check. It's doing some really interesting things, though, to your credit, on the Gemini side of things. I had up... I had created a document, and I was pasting some things in from other places, and it scanned the entire document and said, "Hey, in this one section, you have an end quote. It's not suppo- that's not supposed to be there." Uh, like it's finding little tiny things that were like, "Hey, this formatting thing is a little off. You should put an extra paragraph break here." I thought that was amazing. But when I kept working on it, working on it, working on it, trying to get it refined, it started to, I think it's called hallucinate. Um, it started to remove the original reference. Like, I had worked on a section that I was happy with, but as I continued iterating on it, it removed it. And so I was like, "We're gonna go back to what... You just said it, original." I'm like, "I think I used those words. I need you to go back to the original statement I provided to you, and that needs to be back in the next statement." And then, of course, because it wants to make me happy, I'm like, "You're absolutely right." I'm like, "Where were you a second ago? I didn't need to tell you this. Like, why do I have to double-check you?" Yeah.
Robert: Some of the senior engineers were on the call, and they... Basically, we flag when, when we find things like this, and then they go and they do a deep dive and try and fix it, and y- and, and they fix it. And there were some other things as well. That, that's an example where the model was kinda falling down because it didn't understand original, or it, the nuances around original aren't quite there. Uh, but there, there was another example just where in the UI we were calling... We said-- I'm trying to remember. It's important to remember the exact turns of phrase that we were using. But essentially, it implied that if you asked it to do something in the side panel where we're interfacing with Gemini, that it would drop whatever you did into the doc. That's how we... It's like, "What do you wanna do with this doc?" maybe let's say. What's happening on the back end is it's actually looking at your prompt and trying to make a determination whether or not you're asking it just for some general information, like how do you spell cheese or something, you know? Or you want it to act on the document that you were, you know, that you're looking at. The way that we had set the prompt up, we had asked it, you know, "What do you wanna do with the doc?" But it was still giving us back things in the side panel, and we pointed out that, like, you know, again, like people probably get it, but it seems like everything that you would ask this interface should be doing something in the doc. That's how we're, that's how we're, that's what we told people it would do. So it's kind of weird that it sometimes doesn't put things into the doc, right? It's just a lot of, like, little language things like that.
Aaron: That makes huge impacts.
Robert: But then you think that, and I think you said this before, like you think about how many people this will affect and s- you know, kind of statistically how many people will get confused by that. And you can, you know, very easily inadvertently introduce a lot of friction into people's lives at work, you know? Or at home or wherever they're using-
Aaron: It, it made it orange, not blue.
Robert: Yeah, yeah. You know, it's, it's, uh, it's exciting to be able to... And, you know, I think that little anecdote shows you, like, the, the level, and that's, you know, after things have been through rounds and rounds and rounds and rounds of testing and coding, you know, and, and user research and design reviews and everything else. But you can still kind of find them and, and we really... You know, and then after things are released, we continue to get feedback. Um, you've probably taken some of our little surveys that we launch, you know, in the, in the product itself. And we're monitoring that, and there's social media monitoring to see if people are complaining on social media about things, and on and on and on. And so it never really ends. Um, you know, we continue to kind of refine and improve the, the technology.
Aaron: You're reminding me of something. When, when the Apple phone came out, they didn't have copy and paste.
Robert: Yeah, I remember that.
Aaron: And I'm like, you probably would've sold just a few more phones if you had just included one little feature. That was a big deal. I remember that too, actually. I was like, what? And I actually waited. I actually waited because I was like, come on. Like this is like simple, simple, simple things. It does require a lot of folks out there to be the ones that are gonna be leaping for us and, and being the ones to kind of think about where things can go, and I'm really appreciative that we have you working in a great place like Google, uh, to be thinking like that for all of us, because it's a really hard thing. I mean, it's like, where do we go next? And um, and I f- I love that, I love for you that you get to explore that every day. That's so much fun. I'm gonna do a quick smash or pass on something, if you know what that means. Electric cars, smash or pass?
Robert: Smash.
Aaron: Yeah, me too. Okay. All right. I was gonna just say, for all those folks out there that the, the EV industry is kinda waning again, and I'm like, what are you people thinking? Just go test drive one and tell me, even if you can't afford it, just go test drive one so you can change your opinion, um, about what these cars are all about and, um, and tell me that's not the future.
Robert: I, I'm a, I'm a big smash on that. I have an e- I, we have only electric cars now, and really like cars, and I have built a car from the ground up, a mechanical car, gas car, and it's, they're j- so you know, I have a nostalgia for cars and, um, the electric cars are awesome.
Aaron: When you said about the change aversion, it just made me think immediately, like this is the biggest thing right now that people are against, and I don't know why.
Robert: I, I've been really impressed with mine and, um, it's not that there are no drawbacks, just like there were some drawback, like they didn't have co- copy and paste, like you said, right? At first. But, um, I think those things will pretty quickly iron themselves out, and yeah, I don't see myself going back.
Aaron: No, I don't, I'm not going back. No. I mean, we're only electric as well. Our daughters do have regular gas cars, uh, that we handed down to them, but as we were moving into the next vehicle, even my wife said, she's like, "I give up. We gotta go electric." I'm like, "You gotta go electric." Just to end things up, you know, I think one more thing to just ask you because, um, you're in a great position at, at Google and you are... We didn't wanna talk about this today either, Robert, but you're in a position that maybe you didn't expect to be in. You have a lot of people you gotta call you gotta like work out. Like, "Aaron, I have to know if I have to keep the office open today because there's a little bit of ice on the road." Just ridiculous what we have to deal with every day. But if people are out there looking for a new role, um, they're looking for, they're, they're emerging into the industry, they're leaving school, and they're trying to look for that first job, what kind of things does Google look for, especially in what, in the division of Google that you work on?
Robert: Well, we've already talked a little bit about curio- like curiosity and sort of that, that, that spirit. I, I, I'd like to believe that we still, there's a component of that, uh, in our hiring. Um, I think Google is a, a good company to work for and, um, I'd like to think it's still a desirable place to work and, you know, with good benefits and all the rest. It's a good job. So I think there are sort of table stakes, like typically people have to, you know, have table stakes understanding of computer science or whatever field they're going into, or in our, in my case, you know, it might be, uh, some type of, um, you know, social science research background. But I got a lot of people on my team that don't have PhDs, um, so that's not a, that's not a hard requirement. I think typically now to kind of break into Google, you do have to have some experience, but there's lots of ways I see people getting that experience. Um, you know, they may have done internships, uh, they may have done, um, you summer jobs, uh, at places where they got experience with web or, you know, some, some type of technology. A lot of people now go to first, uh, can go to contracting. You know, there's companies that kind of contract with Google and might do research with us on certain key topics, and that can be a way to, um, kind of break into the business, if you will, um, either on the design or research side. You briefly mentioned the apprentice program in, in Zurich. I'd love to see the US invest more in apprenticeship type programming. I'd also love to see us have more electric cars, so one day.
Aaron: I think eventually the US will come back around and start making more investments.
Robert: I think so too. I think this is actually a really prime time for us to be rethinking that as we see, you know, we could have a whole 'nother hour on higher education and how it needs to be reformed a little bit, I think.
Aaron: I could really live in that space for-- I, I, I was at a conference a couple years ago, this is, uh, more than a few years ago, and it was the first time I'd really gotten a chance to get out of the office, and I take... I signed up for every class. My schedule was back to back to back to back to back. And I remember going between class two and three going out loud, "I could live here." Like, I said that out loud. Uh, and it was just because every class I was learning something so exciting and new.
Robert: Yeah.
Aaron: And I just, I had, at that moment, had forgotten how much I enjoyed learning those kind of things and living in that environment and being part of folks that just enjoy and love learning. Uh, and I love this time, uh, this time that you and I are in that where we can now use AI and also explore other kinds of methods of interacting with people where there's this new level of currency. It's like, how are we all learning together? And I just love that. I just love that for all of us.
Robert: I do too.
Aaron: Um, and I do think, I would agree. I mean, if anybody's out there looking for opportunities with an organization as, like, I don't know if there's a company in the world that's higher profile than Google. But there are, there are only so many ways to really kind of break into a market without... You gotta put a lot of effort in. Um, and having that level of curiosity and doing, being out there and just looking for those opportunities and being very opportunistic about those learning opportunities too is just a critical aspect of the job that you're in, and you need to like, look for those people that are ready to, hungry to learn, right?
Robert: Hungry to learn, yeah. One last thing that I'll say, uh, uh, on this. I was in a meeting one time talking about this subject internally, uh, at Google, and we were going around the room kind of talking about, "Well, what do you..." I mean, it was for the purposes of actually talking about what should the hiring criteria be. And I said-- We were talking about something else, and then we switched to this, and it kinda caught me off guard, you know, like smash or pass style. Like, I was like, "Oh, just..." And I just said what I was thinking, and I said, "I wish there was a way we could measure someone's sense of humor." And everybody laughed. Everybody laughed at me, and they're like, "Ah, ha, Rob, you're so funny," you know? Like, "You have great sense of humor." I was like, "No." But I was like, "No, I'm, I'm dead s-" Like, I really think having a good sense of humor is a really good indicator of intelligence, health, uh, curiosity, uh, like a, you know, a love of life. Like, all these things that I think actually really predict who's going to do well in a kinda quirky environment where things aren't, like, absolutely cookie cutter, and you're kinda making it up as you go. And I think, I, so I think it's really important actually that you have a sense of humor, and I will go so far as on this recording to say I also look for that when I, when I hire people. Do they have... It, it doesn't have to be, like, a ha-ha funny sense of humor, but there's a certain way of looking at the world of like, "Ah, th- that's kinda funny." You know?
Aaron: We want to find people that are memorable, and that's a very positive way to set, you know, uh, that memory card with folks so that you have... You're very open and humble, and I think humor does open a lot of doors for folks. And they, they kinda lose that. I think that's also the joy of life, uh, and you wanna be around people that, you know, really embrace life and really can, can take good, take all the good things in. So I'm, I'm 100% with you. I really do love humor too, and sometimes I kinda bring it up at the wrong time. So sorry for everybody that listened to this and wonders, like, "Oh my God, Aaron, why did you do?" I'm just trying to be myself, you know? That's all it is. Just trying to be myself. Um, just like, you know, the people at the Goog. Uh, but this has been great. Robert, you are such a fantastic person to get to know, and I hope everybody has enjoyed this podcast today. Uh, it got to a little more insight into how things operate at Google and more about what kind of thinking goes on there and what's driving our future, and I think you guys should be really excited that people like Robert are there at the helm, uh, to get folks at Google re- really thinking and laughing about the future, what we can do with it. So I really appreciate this time today. Thank you so much for joining us. If you guys wanna find out where Robert's hanging out at Google, you can Google him. That'll be easy. Um, but you can also find him on LinkedIn, Robert Youmans. We'll put the link here on the screen. Uh, Robert, this has been absolutely fantastic. So much fun to talk to you today.
Robert: Thanks for having me. I had a great time, uh, yeah, reminiscing and talking about the future. Both fun.
Aaron: Yes, so much fun. Okay. Everybody, we hope you will stay tuned for our next episode of Sound of Inbound on soundofinbound.com. You can also find us on Apple Podcasts and on Spotify, YouTube, LinkedIn, Instagram, and all sorts of other social channels, so please catch us there. Robert, again, thank you so much for joining us here on The Sound of Inbound.