[MUSIC PLAYING] JOHN MAEDA: Hello, everybody. Wow, this is a nice stage. OK, well, I am delighted to be here. I have a clock. We're going to get the see Hannah a Beachler after me, so that's going to be super awesome. I am the warm-up act. I'm John Maeda. Good to see all of you. This is something I made three years ago. Does anyone know this TV show? No, we don't know this TV show. Well, I spoke at the 50th anniversary of "Star Trek", and it was a true honor. But I really didn't think about "Star Trek" lot until that moment. And I made this image and I showed it. And people were asking me why am I Scotty? And I was like, well, Scotty is an engineer, and I wanted to be an engineer. And I was asked, well, why not Sulu, because he's Asian? And I said, I don't want to be Sulu. I want to be Scotty. I want to be an engineer. But it was in that moment I realized the reason why I didn't want to be Sulu is because I thought he was weird, in the sense that I thought it was strange how Sulu didn't speak with some kind of thick Asian accent on TV. And I thought that's weird. Something is wrong with him. And it always stuck with me, why did I think it was wrong that he sounded like a Californian? I never thought of it until that moment. And that's the general topic of this presentation. Now, if you have a question and you got introvert, just text me your question-- 253-217-4017-- and we'll be able to interact. Because the problem with this kind of conversation thing is it isn't a conversation. It's like a one-way thing. So go ahead and text me a question at 253-217-4017. And I'm watching the clock. OK, here we go. The Design in Tech Reports-- there's four of them now and they're long, so you can read them in the micro-type, et cetera. The big conclusion after four years of work has been to ask questions about how can design in tech be more inclusive. If we can figure this out, we can unlock incredible possibility and profitability. The problem with the word design, however, is that it means too many things. So the report defines design as three kinds of design. There's classical design, like your glasses. There's design thinking-- this idea of using Post-it notes to create structure of ideas. And there's computational design-- the kind of design that is powered by Moore's law. It's a different kind of design. It uses a material that didn't exist 100 years ago. What's a computational designer? I've defined this as roughly four type of things you have to have as a computational designer. You don't have to know how to program, but you have to be technically literate. You also have to think critically about technology. For you, technology is a responsibility. So you wonder how things are being used. You also use all kinds of design. You aren't stuck in just computational design. And lastly, you're very curious about new things, because designers loved to learn new people, new customs, new anything because it's how they learn. So designers aren't inherently diversity positive. It's a very important point. Now, if you think about the value of design, it's been demonstrated by all the M&A activity-- the Mergers and Acquisition activity-- of agencies. So I reported on this report, over 20 agencies were acquired by consulting companies, because consulting companies are finding value in design for their clients, which is a big deal. It never happened before. Now, the problem, however, is that classical designers tend to dis design thinking. You know what I'm talking about? Like oh, design thinkers, they have the Post-it notes and the Sharpie markers with the white board. You know, classical designers don't think of them as real designers. But I always tell classical designers, well, they make more money than you do. So important to note, design thinking is not a bad thing. It's a different kind of design. Also, I found that, being in the Silicon Valley for a while, we tend to forget there's the rest of the world. So I'm a big fan of China and all of the design work being done there-- design of cars, design of experiences, especially mobile, and, more recently, using AI to design banners, designs. They're just so further ahead that many people seem to have the impression in the United States. And that's kind of an embarrassing problem. Also, the other problem I've seen in tech is that it indexes to younger people, which is a great opportunity. But there's also an incredible opportunity in the older generation because, I don't know if you all know this, but you all will get older. Yeah, it's not a problem. It's a real thing. And as you get older, things change. The first thing that changes is your eyesight. So for all designers who love 6.5 point, you better give it up. Looks awesome, especially in light, but you won't be able to see it once you hit 40-something. And at Automattic we call this the bolder generation. Get it? Boulder? We liked that. Good news is that design is being used sooner in the process. It used to be in tech that you'd make the technology, and oh, my gosh, it finally works. And you'd spray design on called make it pretty. That was great 10 years ago, but because the competition is so fierce now, you have to bake design into the product. And you can see globally-- we did a survey of 2,000 people-- the trend is design is being used earlier in the process, which is a big deal. Now, when we talk about computational design, however, it's important to note that computational design uses the computer. And if you were-- who was there in the '80s? '80s, '80s, come on. '80s people, right? People didn't like people who used the computer for design, right? You were made fun of like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. You were a bad designer because you were using the computer. There was a time. But the computer kept on getting more interesting. It came out of prints. It became interactive. Who remembers Macromedia Director? Macro mind. Come on. Yes, yes. This stuff has been happening for a long time-- interaction design. More recently have these tools gotten more interesting, specifically by integrating things like machine intelligence. We can all feel it coming and that's kind of exciting, but also scary at the same time. Let's see here. OK, so when we think about machine intelligence, my favorite demo-- and this is all sourcing real data off the internet-- this is Siri saying something in iOS 9. SIRI: 1 liter is 33.81 fluid ounces. JOHN MAEDA: This is iOS 10. SIRI: 1 liter is 33.81 fluid ounces. JOHN MAEDA: This is iOS 11. SIRI: 1 liter is 33.81 fluid ounces. JOHN MAEDA: Got really good fast, didn't it? That's what's happened. These quantum leaps are occurring. Linearity is being thrown out, and that's really important. And so when people ask in design, should I learn all these things? If you don't learn them, you'll be left behind. And so it's so key to stay at the forefront. Now, I also had this question-- when do you expect AI to replace most visual designers? And it's interesting because the average says at least five years till visual designers get replaced-- not everyone, of course, but some design jobs. I think it's going to be much sooner, quite frankly, because all the information from companies like Google, and companies in China as well, are that a lot of rote things can be done by machine intelligence. Here's some of my favorites. I love that you can remove the watermark. I wonder why you'd want to do that. You can perfect contrast. This is MIT work. Making a dark image an awesome image. It can also take two photos and make a new photo out of them too. This is work from Nvidia. You can also generate infinite variations of ideas, just with pattern libraries in machine intelligence. You can also-- as you all know in this audience, at least-- you can change people's faces. And you can fix drawings. What's important to note, though, is that we see these warnings. Consider the photos, that's how you tell if it's fake. But it's so hard to tell if things are a fake these days. And soon it's going to get harder and harder. So we are human beings we like to mess with the machine. So this is one of my favorite things. If you click on this button, this will like randomly hit things, so your browser gets confused. So we humans love to confuse machine intelligence. You know, put a pixel there. I don't know what it is anymore, says machine intelligence. So we'll keep looking for this to try to stop the inevitable, which is that computers are learning so quickly. And when they learn so quickly, they learn bad things. I'm not sure if you remember it, but in July 2015, the Wall Street Journal reported how images mistakenly tagged black people as gorillas was happening in 2015. The algorithm was fixed. Why did it exist? Because the database had more light faces than darker faces, so the database was dumb. And so these data dumbness is occurring all over the place as machine intelligence ingests more data which contains incredible biases that we have, unfortunately, let sit out there for too long. So how do we change that? I think we change that by rethinking a few things. And that is where does technology evolve the quickest? And in the report, we pointed out that there's two regions. Do you see the red regions-- the hot regions? That's where all this stuff is happening-- this region of the country-- New York. But if you flip the map, this is a map of inequality-- income inequality. If you flip it, you see the exact opposite. That where tech is not impacting is where poverty is growing the quickest, because the skills gap is so large. This audience here is probably in the 0.01% of the most advanced people in the world. That said, the entire world is behind in computation, understanding the impact of Moore's law. And this is a very subtle intellectual privilege problem today. So when we look at what technology has done, it's been able to be extremely smart at optimizing our experience, and therefore making nothing we understand real or not real. And that we all know it's happening, and it's amazing, but it's also quite disturbing. My mother-- by the way-- her favorite newspaper is the "National Enquirer," so I'm always checking out the headlines. I just picked this up. Look out, Google. They know too. So is the digital divide related somehow to poverty and inequality? I think it's hard to say they're related or it's causal or correlated, but there's something connected that we cannot miss. And that is that if you don't have access to computation, you are excluded. And if you don't understand what it can do, you're excluded. And so technology keeps shooting off without them, us. So what's a solution? I'm passionate about remote work. I'm at a company that is all remote, Automattic. Who remotes-- who works remotely? That's quite a few. So remote work is neat because it takes you out of these bubbles of tech. I guess I'm hopeful that's at Automattic we're trying figure out a world where WordPress is good design for all. How do we do that? We have to use the fact that we can go anywhere because we're remote. So for instance, let's see-- someone, I was visiting Appalachia. And in Appalachia I heard the story about how it was a coal miner who's teaching code to ex-coal miners. And he said, you know, you people are from the three-dimensional world. You're 3D. You live in cities with skyscrapers. And if you're from a smaller city, you're in a town, you live in 2D. In 2D, you have no skyscrapers, just streets. And he said, here in Appalachia, we live in 1D. There's one street, and we all live off of it. That's when I realized the neat thing about remote work is you're zero-dimensional. And by being zero-dimensional, you can travel anywhere. And so we're trying to use this advantage to go into all kinds of places, anywhere in the world, and to connect with people. And I can tell you that this experience of being remote is a very powerful way to reduce exclusion, because you can be including by just going anywhere you think is necessary. Now, this is my favorite quote by the lawyer Verna Myers. "Diversity is being invited to the party. Inclusion is being asked to dance." Say this over to yourself. It's such a powerful idea, because if you don't have both, nothing occurs. And so when you ask how to be more inclusive, it's quite easy. Just ask where do you spend your time? Who do you hang out with? Look at the people in the room around you? Are they diverse in some way? If they're not, you're going to have to do something terrible to yourself. You're going to have to make yourself uncomfortable. And it's exciting to be uncomfortable. Oh, my gosh, you say the dumbest things. And you stumble, and you become stupid, and you become smarter and a better person through it, I believe. So all of you who are not found yourself in this way, enjoy it. It's so exciting. I'm a big entertainment fan, and I've been tracking all the movies that have put diversity inclusion at the center of them. And they're doing very well financially. Movies like "Wonder Woman," directed by Patty Jenkins, "Star Wars" had a much more diverse cast, "The Foreigner" by Jackie Chan. Who's seen "The Foreigner," where the terrorists aren't dark-skinned people? That was brand new. And "The Big Sick," of course. And these are doing really well financially. This is teaching machine intelligence and the business world that this is a pattern to take note of. I like Kumail Nanjiani's quote, "there's so many movies from different points of view that are making a ton of money. Don't do it because it's better for society and representation, even though it is. Do it because you'll get rich. You'll get that promotion, right?" This thinking seems crass, yet it sits at the center of how change will start to occur. And I believe that as we see more of these kinds of things, wonderful things will happen. I want to close on my mother went to see "Black Panther." This was her review. It went kind of viral. "Hi, John. Just came back from seeing 'Black Panther.' It was very good." And we actually went to see "Avengers" last, me and mom. I was in Seattle. And my mom is like 83 years old. She's like a little woman with her cane. We're walking out of "Avengers" and I said, mom, how was it? "Oh, it wasn't as good as 'Black Panther.'" So anyways, thank you. And we'll have Hannah next, so please stay seated. [APPLAUSE] HANNAH BEACHLER: This is nuts. Look at all the faces. JOHN MAEDA: Wow, I'm so happy. I get to interview Hannah Beachler. Yes. HANNAH BEACHLER: Yeah, right. Hey, y'all. Good to be here. And this thing is a little weird, so you might see me kind of being a little weird. JOHN MAEDA: So how's it been walking around this area? HANNAH BEACHLER: I'm sorry? JOHN MAEDA: How's it been walking around, wandering, looking around? HANNAH BEACHLER: Cool. We went and hung out at the auditorium, and walked around some of the tents, and ate, and sat on the grass, and it was fabulous. JOHN MAEDA: Anything catch your attention? HANNAH BEACHLER: I mean, I was just looking at everything. The area is beautiful, and I think everything has been great. I've been talking to some great people, and it's been awesome. JOHN MAEDA: So my mother loved "Black Panther." I'm sure you weren't surprised, though. HANNAH BEACHLER: What, I'm sorry? JOHN MAEDA: I'm sure you weren't surprised. HANNAH BEACHLER: That your mother loved it? Not really. You know honestly, that was part of what we tried to do, was make it so everybody could love it. It wasn't really geared towards one specific anything. It was more about creating a feeling and a moment. And you know what I mean? I am pretty into my emotions. I would call myself an emotionalist, if you will. And that's really what drives me, is creating things from a place that people can relate to, and then that expands. JOHN MAEDA: Had you heard of "Black Panther" when you got the job? HANNAH BEACHLER: Yes, I did. I had heard of the character and the comics, and I kind of knew it because I knew Marvel. I've certainly asked my son right away when I knew I was going to interview for the job, that oh, tell me all about the MCU and all of that. And he was like, here's a Marvel dictionary. And I sort of started from there. So I knew of him, but over that 14 months, I really got to know him. JOHN MAEDA: So a superhero. HANNAH BEACHLER: Superhero. JOHN MAEDA: Was your reaction positive? Yay, superhero! Or superhero? HANNAH BEACHLER: My reaction to it being a superhero? JOHN MAEDA: Yes. HANNAH BEACHLER: I mean, I was really super excited because it was challenging. I've done so many things that are so different from each other that anything that is going to challenge me, I instantly want in on. And working with Ryan Coogler, the amazing director, again, for the third time was without question I was going to be involved with that. So I never thought I would ever do something like a superhero movie. That's not where I saw my career going. That's not what I thought I wanted to do. But then that's life. It's not really what you think in the beginning. But as I started to get into it, I was like, you know, why not? I didn't think I would do a boxing movie. I didn't think I would work with Beyoncé. I didn't think I would work on a little $1 million movie that would win an Oscar. So I don't generally go into anything thinking anything other than how do I make this work? How do I make this the best it can be? And for each film, it's something different. So for "Panther" there was a reason behind it for Ryan and I, and same with all the other projects. JOHN MAEDA: So you had to look 1,000 years in the future, and you didn't come to Silicon Valley to look at that future. HANNAH BEACHLER: No. JOHN MAEDA: Talk about that. HANNAH BEACHLER: Well, first I had to look 1,000 years in the past. That was a big part of Wakanda was the honoring of the culture, and the tradition, and the diaspora-- the African diaspora-- that really is what Wakanda is representational of. So I had to look backwards because I think the past is a very important bridge to what the future is. And that needs inclusion in design in this world of what I was doing for "Black Panther." Looking into the future, I didn't know-- and you know what? Honestly, I didn't know that Silicon Valley could have helped me for my needs. I didn't think that I was going to find in there. And honestly, I didn't really know much about it. I live in New Orleans. It's a very small town. I don't live in Los Angeles. I don't live in New York. I live in a place where the population is like 250,000 to 300,000 people. I didn't know much about Silicon Valley. I kind knew what I saw on TV-- sounds familiar. But I didn't really know how that could help me create this technology which you would think was kind of crazy. Because what I knew I needed to do was evolve something that Silicon Valley, to me, I felt had no interest in, which is this culture. So there was-- you know what I mean? I felt like I kind of had to give an autonomy to this story and a narrative that, at times, is restricted, just in general, by society-- like the ability to tell-- a community's ability to tell their own story, how they want it told, and based on what they want it based on. So that was sort of me being the person who made sure that the representation of the culture that we were digging into, and creating a fictional one on top of it, stayed to what I needed it to be. And I didn't know that Silicon Valley could help me. Now, I did reach out to a lot of experts about all kinds of stuff-- geology, geography, archeology. We talked to experts in architecture who were doing future cities, people who were sort of architectural archaeologists that could talk to us about some of the architecture of Pre-colonial Sub-Saharan Africa. And then of course, going to South Africa, traveling all over South Africa for three weeks, and sort of understanding that. Because at the heart of "Black Panther" was the question of what is it to be African? And so that's sort of why I felt like I didn't want to go or need to go to Silicon Valley. I don't know-- that is what it was like. And I mean, that's honest. That's the honest truth. And because I was so busy, I was like I'm just going to have to do this. I'm just going to have to figure this one out. And I didn't really know 1,000 years into the future. Here's the thing-- it's hard enough to go any amount into the future and understand what you'd think might happen or how people would respond. So I found myself getting to this place where I started thinking about technology in the future, how Wakanda would use technology. Technically, "Black Panther" is placed in 2018. It's not sci-fi. It felt sci-fi because Wakanda-- you know what I mean? We have to remember, it's not science fiction. It's supposed to live in this universe, which is 2018. So I had to make sure it felt grounded enough that people weren't like, it's space. But it also had to be advanced enough where people thought, maybe this is something that's going to come around in 50 years, 60 years, or something. It's not impossible. And then you had to add sort of with the vibranium, the fantasy of it all. So you know, and I'm rambling, so I don't even know if I answered the question. But that's sort of-- I might have lost myself. JOHN MAEDA: Actually, when you were describing that, I remember walking my mom out of the theater, because she can't walk very well because she has diabetes and her feet are really-- it makes it hard. So she's walking really slowly and talking really slowly. And I remember when we'd just left the theater, she said, you know, "Black Panther" was so beautiful. All the scenery, everything was so beautiful. And it's the thing that stuck with her-- how beautiful the movie is. And it's optimistic. And so where did that come from, and how were you able to translate that? HANNAH BEACHLER: I mean, I like to do things that are beautiful. And I think that's another part of "Black Panther," is changing this idea of narrative, of how we see things. It was a challenge to me of how I saw Africa, what I thought about Africa. Just because I'm black, doesn't mean I'm an expert on African culture, right? So I really had to dig in and challenge myself about like, OK, well, what do I think? What are my biases? What was I raised with? From my American experience, this is a land that's 1,000 miles away. And as far as I know, my ancestry begins and ends at slavery. And then the culture that came afterwards was this bastardized idea-- or we were told it was a bastardized culture. We're not African, we're not American, so it became this bastardized culture in a sense. And you go through all of these different points in time throughout American history. So I needed to rediscover what that was thousands of miles away from where I live, and how I'm connected to that. Because, oftentimes, you feel like the hyphenate between the African and American. You're really not either one. So it was what is it to be African, because this is a movie-- Wakanda is African. It's not African-American. And one of the little things that Ryan was so brilliant at doing in the film with Killmonger's character-- who's the villain, if you haven't seen it. Has everybody seen "Black Panther?" Is that a thing? [APPLAUSE] Awesome. So Killmonger-- played by the fabulous Michael B Jordan-- if you notice something about him, it's his names. And part of the reason behind him having so many names is because our American ancestry is that we have been given so many names. We were Negroes. We were black folk. We were colored. We were Afro-American. We were African-American. And that's sort of how this has gone over time. So what Ryan did was he gave Michael Jordan the N'Jadaka name. But they also called him Erik. They also called him Killmonger. They also called him Erik Stevens. So he's that representation of African-American never having a true identity, from different places and different people call him different things. And that's the tie back. And those are the types of things that we were trying to do. That is a piece of representation, in a sense. And we'll get to representation because I think that's mostly what we want to be talking about is how that is so important in "Black Panther"-- technologically, scientifically, through your STEM, and then also socially, and economically. And so there are so many little things that we did in there. I mean, it goes so deep into how we brought in the representation. And that was one of them. And it was in such a small story way that you don't even really realize that's what's happening. Because Shuri calls him Erik Stevens. T'Challa calls him N'Jadaka. His father calls him-- Ross calls him Killmonger. His father calls him Erik. So it's everybody-- he doesn't have an identity. And he's going to Wakanda to try to figure that out. And that's sort of the representation of where we are as sort of the "lost tribe" as we called it. JOHN MAEDA: I'm such a Ryan Coogler fan. So I can see that detail. I didn't see it until you described it. HANNAH BEACHLER: The small detail. JOHN MAEDA: When we were talking last week about representation-- HANNAH BEACHLER: Yes? JOHN MAEDA: --you mentioned the production designer, Wynn Thomas. And I looked up Wynn Thomas. I hadn't heard of his name before. And he has credits for "Hidden Figures," "A Beautiful Mind," "Analyze This," all of Spike Lee's movies. So you mentioned seeing him on television or something? HANNAH BEACHLER: I saw he was nominated for an Academy Award for "Mars Attack," the Tim Burton film. And I happened to be watching the Academy Awards that year, and I was like, oh, who's this black man doing this thing that I want to do? And that was really the first time that I really saw that. I was like, oh, my goodness. What is this? Because I had always been a big fan of Bernardo Bertolucci-- who is an Italian director back in the '50s, '60s, '70s, and '80s-- and his designer, Ferdinando Scarfiotti, was someone who was really a big influence to me, was this Italian man way back when. But my design aesthetic is highly influenced by his. But seeing him never made me feel like, eh, I can do that, because he's this Italian guy. Of course he can. He's an Italian guy. Like I'm this farm girl from Ohio who literally runs around with bare feet and riding my horse to the store to get Jolly Ranchers when I was like six. How do I get to that? How do I get to-- there was no path for me there. So I kind of started thinking like what are some of the other things that I could do where there might be a path that's still creative? And that's how I had to think, knowing that that wasn't something that was for me. But then when I saw Wynn, which was much later in my life, that's when I realized like, you know what? I can actually go for this. I mean, that didn't actually mean that I could go for it, but seeing it certainly made me feel that way. And I took that chance. And that gave me an opportunity to get into this industry and really go far. I mean, as I got into it, I realized like, oh, this is really hard. I'm the only one. And I am the only one. And that's a really strange thing to think that you are the only black female who does this, who does what I do and at this level. You know, there's one other one-- Toni Barton. And she's an art director working on television for Marvel. And I kind of saw her on Twitter, and I was like, uh, I want to be-- let's be friends. And she's like, I don't even know you. And I'm like stalking her on Twitter, like, I want to be girlfriends. And she's like, OK. Maybe don't-- maybe call my agent. But we finally kind of-- like I broke her down. And she finally decided to be my friend. And we're kind of besties. Don't quote me. And don't go up to her and be like, Hannah said you were besties, because she'll be like, I don't know who she is. But that's-- you want to find likeness. You want to find relatability. And when you look at communities-- I think one of the other things too is when you look at communities who are associated with not having a lot of tech, and not having access to a lot of tech, and you start relating your economic status to your racial profile, that all of a sudden-- especially in poverty-- the black community becomes associated with this idea of not being tech savvy or wanting tech or having that type of thing within their community. And it's basically all based on accessibility. It's not there because how many-- representation is not just in front of whatever it is or throwing the pretty on it that seems to be representing a group or a culture, but actually having the voices creating it. Is it-- you look at it like, was it important for me to be the production designer on something like "Black Panther?" Or the "Infinity War's" designer, Charles Woods, would he be able to have then done that? And so I do believe that the representation behind the camera-- I'll say, because that's what I do-- I mean, behind the desk? I don't-- do you guys stand? I don't know. JOHN MAEDA: Walk. HANNAH BEACHLER: You know what I'm saying? Or however it goes, is as important as creating an app or creating something-- is specifically having the voices there that then has the experience in those communities. Because you really don't know what you don't know, and that's what I learned by going to Africa. Like I don't know what I don't know, but I knew that I was going to look at it with beauty. I knew I was going to look at it with the lens of absolute modernism, and beauty, and capability-- all the things that I wanted to put into "Panther." I wasn't looking for the commercial with the poverty-stricken children. I wasn't looking for the things that we're told the continent is. I was looking for the joy, and the pride, and the dignity of the people that lived there. And that's the choice we make for wherever we are. Because I met people who lived in the rural parts of Africa just as much as people who lived in the modern cities, like Johannesburg, and we were in Durban, we were in Cape Town. So it's-- you can see someone dressed in their traditional Zulu or traditional Xhosa in the city, just as much as you might see that in the rural areas. So I decided not only to find myself and realize that I think I've been African this entire time, but that I was determined to find all the beautiful things that I was told weren't there. Because that then really came back to who I am as a person. It really related back to who I am and how I felt about myself, and the confidence that I had. So it all kind of-- like, our fictional world building bleeds back into our realities. JOHN MAEDA: Could you just-- we have two minutes left. Could you share a non-fiction story you shared with me that moved me very much, which was about the director Ryan Coogler, who I'm a huge fan of. And I've always wanted to-- in Silicon Valley, we talk about leadership-- CEO, or the product manager is the CEO of the product, and these CEOish things. I think of Ryan Coogler as one of the great CEOs of our time in creatives. You shared a story about him. Could you talk about that? HANNAH BEACHLER: When I was talking to myself? JOHN MAEDA: Yes. HANNAH BEACHLER: So you obviously know I'm kind of weird. So I'm going to tell this story. Don't hold it against me. But so we're working on "Creed," and we're tech scouting, which is coming and going to look at all these locations, and you can spend all day. And we had stopped at this coffee shop. And I got my coffee. And everybody was getting their coffee. But I was kind of working out a problem. And when I'm trying to work out a problem or solve a problem, I talk out loud to myself, because that's the best way to do it for me, apparently. And my friends and stuff will like poke fun at me like, oh, you're crazy. You're talking to yourself. And so sometimes I do it and I don't even know I'm doing it. So Ryan comes walking over to me, and he was like, are you talking to yourself? And I was like a little like, uh. You know what I mean? I know you and love you, but yeah. And the first thing he said-- he looked at me and he said, that's the sign of a really healthy mind and a really intelligent person. And he kind of turned around and walked away. And I was kind of like ready to get the hit of like, oh, you're crazy-- kind of funny joke, joke, but a little bit like of a slight. And that's not at all where his mind came from. It looked for the immediate positive thing about the thing that I was doing, that sometimes people think is weird or could make you feel a certain way about yourself that eventually starts beating you down and making-- defining who you are because you're hearing negative things about it. That is who Ryan is. He's the person that will constantly lift people up, will constantly-- and he is not perfect, I promise. There's days when I'm like, please make a decision. You have like two hours. And he does all the things that directors do that can completely bother you, or things that are like amazing. But he's the type of person-- like we would be on set for Warrior Falls, which was the big waterfall where they had the big fight. And he gathered us all around in a big circle. Some people were in the water. And he really told us why that scene was important. This is before we even started shooting. He really started to say why that scene was important to him, and really talked about having all the fictional tribes of Wakanda in one place and represented by all the references that we used of the tribes-- the different tribes in Sub-Saharan Africa. And how that was a big part of him, really feeling complete. And you're holding hands and he's telling us all of this, and we're standing in this circle, and you just feel like you can take on the entire world at that point. So that's who he is as a director and my friend. And he is a really important voice because his perspective on anything and everything is the most unique perspective you will-- I promise you-- ever hear from anybody. If you ever get a chance to talk to him, talk to him because he will turn a situation and make you see it from a side you were never maybe even meant to see it from. And all of a sudden, your world opens up. And so I can always-- and he would be standing here going like, oh, please stop. But he is really that great. JOHN MAEDA: Wow, thanks for sharing that story. What a leader and what a designer. Thank you, everyone. Thank you. [MUSIC PLAYING]