Designers still being hired
Dylan Field said companies are telling him that design is one of the most prioritized areas for hiring, even as fears about AI job replacement grow.
Snapshot · Hard Fork
‘Hard Fork’ Live, Part 2: Dylan Field on Standing Out in the A.I. Era
Explore episode
Jun 17, 2026
Where this was said
Casey's Complaint: AI Slop Is Flooding Journalism and Design
At 18:18 · chapter starts 17:25
The conversation takes a personal turn when Casey Newton brings up something that had been bothering him all day: he read a Substack post on Techmeme and immediately recognized it as Claude-generated. For someone who has spent years trying to get his own work surfaced on tech aggregators, seeing AI output get the same placement was demoralizing. [1] — Casey Newton "Casey Newton read a Substack post on Techmeme today that was clearly generated by Claude — and it made him furious. His profession is start…" 17:25 His profession, he says, is starting to look more and more like slop. He turns the question on Field: are designers in the audience having a similar feeling? Do they look at the websites and apps being put out and just know — immediately — that a button generated it? It's a raw, honest moment in an otherwise buoyant conversation, and Field's response (pointing to imposter syndrome as a shared trait) is characteristically generous.
Casey's Complaint: AI Slop Is Flooding Journalism
Casey Newton read a Substack post on Techmeme today that was clearly generated by Claude — and it made him furious. His profession is starting to look like slop, and he wonders if designers feel the same dread when they see AI-generated work everywhere.
Substack AI slop proliferation
Casey Newton observed that a Substack post that made Techmeme was clearly Claude-generated, reflecting growing concern about AI-generated slop polluting media.
Dylan Field Is Bullish on Designer Jobs
Despite AI anxiety, Dylan Field predicts there will be significantly more people with the title 'designer' in two years than today. Engineers are discovering design on the back of vibe coding, and companies are still actively prioritizing design hires.
Similar snapshots
$13K MRR with $0 marketing spend
Bhanu grew SiteGPT to $13,000 monthly recurring revenue entirely through organic channels, spending nothing on paid marketing.
1 million website visitors total
More than 1 million people have visited SiteGPT's website since launch in March 2023, all through organic channels.
90% of Google traffic from free tools
Approximately 90% of SiteGPT's Google search traffic comes from the free tools Bhanu built, not the main product pages.
Sold first SaaS for $250,000
Bhanu sold his first SaaS product, Feather, for $250,000 so he could focus fully on the faster-growing SiteGPT.
$500K total revenue since launch
SiteGPT has generated approximately $500,000 in total revenue since its launch in March 2023.
SiteGPT LTV ~$1,700–$1,800
The average customer lifetime value for SiteGPT is approximately $1,700 to $1,800, which Bhanu considers unusually high.
50,000 monthly visitors
SiteGPT receives around 50,000 visitors per month, of which about 200 convert to leads and 60 start free trials.
SiteGPT reached $10K MRR in month 1
SiteGPT hit $10,000 MRR within its very first month of launch, driven largely by early traction in the AI chatbot space.
Stuck at $2K MRR despite downloads
Despite strong download numbers, PropGPT could not push past $1,000–$2,000 MRR due to poor product retention.
