Andy Budd

@andybudd.bsky.social

2471 Followers 241 Following

Design Founder, speaker, start-up advisor & coach. Seedcamp Venture Partner. Formerly Clearleft, LDConf & UXLondon. Ex shark-wrangler. Pilot. He/Him — https://stacklist.app/andybudd

I think this is the right worry, but maybe the wrong diagnosis. The issue isn’t delegating thinking — we’ve always done that with tools. The issue is delegating judgement. The people who’ll thrive with AI won’t be the ones who ask it to think for them, but the ones with enough taste, context and critical distance to know when it’s wrong.

So I’d now describe your taste as something like:

Andy likes mellow, groove-led music that sits between downtempo electronica, modern jazz, Afrobeat, psych-funk, soul-jazz and global guitar music. He seems drawn to warm textures, live rhythm sections, hypnotic basslines, analogue production, spacious arrangements, and music that feels stylish without becoming slick.

It also makes sense why you’d have Tokyo interests around jazz kissa, vinyl culture and listening bars. Your taste feels very “carefully lit room, good sound system, obscure record sleeve, excellent drink” rather than festival banger or algorithmic pop.

Australia is generally an extremely compliant nation. I am deeply alienated by it. Hardly anyone smokes here. They’ve basically banned vapes outside of a pharmacy setting and although you still see people vaping, you see it far less than at home. The rules around alcohol purchase and consumption are tighter than in the UK. This is a society which follows rules. People say the same of Britain, but there is a greater degree of savagery and chaos in the British personality, as you will see on any weekend evening in our towns and cities.

I went to a free gig in a park in Adelaide. No-one was visibly drunk, literally no-one smoked or vaped, there was plenty of personal space and at the end we all left in an orderly manner. In the UK, no-one would have gotten out of that place alive. I felt terribly alone. I longed for women wearing short skirts in winter vomiting on street corners, mad drunks screaming at passers-by, someone eating a kebab next to a dead body, the great Hogarthian beauty of my country.

Thanks for the book!
Hi Andy—just wanted to say thanks for The Growth Equation. I just got it on Kindle, and it hit me at exactly the right time. I’m excited to put your advice into practice at my startup. Appreciate you sharing such clear, actionable thinking!

Seal on a chez longes

Zeldman dressed as super man.