Full Tutorial: Design to Code in 45 Min with Cursor's Head of Design | Ryo Lu
Description
As the head of design at Cursor, Ryo is at the cutting edge of designers who ship code instead of mocks. He showed me how he built a retro OS with AI and did a live demo of adding a new feature using Cursor’s new agent mode. We also covered how to avoid AI design slop and how the Cursor team reached $29B valuation without full-time PMs.
Ryo and I talked about:
(00:00 ) Why designers should go directly to code
(02:06 ) Building a retro calculator app in one shot with plan mode
(08:04 ) How Ryo manages multiple AI agents at once in Cursor
(15:18 ) How Cursor builds without PMs and who does the PM work instead
(16:43 ) How to avoid creating purple AI design slop (it’s not prompting)
(20:01 ) Inside RyOS: A beautiful retro operating system built with AI
(30:22 ) How to turn vague ideas into detailed specs with Cursor
(37:47 ) The fastest way for PMs and designers to learn Cursor
Thanks to our sponsors:
Reforge: AI prototyping tool for product builders - https://reforge.com/peter
Linear: The best platform for AI agents - https://linear.app/partners/behind-the-craft
Get the takeaways: https://creatoreconomy.so/p/design-to-code-with-cursor-head-of-design-ryo-luWhere to find Rio:
X: https://x.com/ryolu_
Website: https://ryo.lu/
📌 Subscribe to this channel – more interviews coming soon!




