Canva’s CEO on what happens when AI does the design

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[gentle music] Why do, uh, all my clients wanna kill you?

[laughs]

What do they have against you? What did you, what did you do to all of them?

I mean, I can't comment on those other companies, but I guess when you do something that's going pretty well, you have about a quarter billion people using Canva, I think maybe they, they want a piece of that.

Is Canva tech's most underrated company? Nine years of profitability, hundreds of millions of normie users outside tech that are so hard to get, and now a big pivot from design platform to AI platform. Today on Access, we have co-founder and CEO Melanie Perkins to discuss everything they just announced today at their big event here in LA. But first, Alex and I discuss our waning interest in OpenClaw, my new addiction to the AI-assisted Poke, which was made by last week's guest, and the big reputational crisis facing the AI industry. Welcome to Access. [gentle music] My name is Ellis Hamburger, and I'm here with my lovely co-host Alex Heath. We've got Melanie from Canva on the pod today with some actual news, which isn't always the story of our show. We're trying to get the real talk and the real takes, not just the embargoes, but we have a bit of both today. But first, Alex, will you be attending ClawCon in Los Angeles tonight?

[laughs]

We need to make LA tech happen.

Hell no. [laughs] I was going to. Uh, I think it's gonna be a madhouse. I'm too old for this shit, man.

Really? A madhouse?

Part of me really wants to go, especially when it was first announced. So these ClawCon pop-ups have been happening all over the world really for the last couple of months, and-

I thought you lived for the claw. Ain't no laws when we're using claws.

[laughs] We've talked a lot about the Claw Father, Peter Steinberger, and OpenClaw. I have been very interested in it, but my view of it has actually changed in the last, I would say, couple of weeks. And I would say our episode with the CEO of Poke, Marvin, last week actually played a role in me souring on going to this event as well. I just feel like-

Wow

... Claw is a thing that we're gonna look back on and go, "Wow, wasn't that a really cool nerdy time, like when people used to jailbreak their iPhones?" But then-

Nerdy two weeks?

Yeah, and then Apple-

[laughs]

... you know, started adding stuff, uh, to the OS and opening up over time. And I think the analogy here is services like Poke, uh, which again we ha- we featured on the show last week, basically simplifying what OpenClaw is for people like me who don't have time to chain together a bunch of stuff with a Mac Mini, you know?

Okay. So maybe we can cut in all the times you've talked about OpenClaw and me being unimpressed for this exact reason from previous-

[laughs]

... episodes of