Josh Miller has always been thoughtful about the spaces we spend time in.
The browser is "really a rectangle that we spend eight hours a day in." So "why would we not want to live in a good rectangle?"
Josh & team created Arc and Dia, two browsers full of life, creativity, and care. He sat down with me to reflect on The Browser Company’s journey about a year after it was acquired by Atlassian.
We talked about everything from the original decision to "optimize for feelings" to hiring unlikely stars to where Dia and the browser stand in the AI era.
Above all else, Josh believes in people. I’ve felt that, as have so many others who’ve collaborated with him or simply been around him.
I hope you’re inspired to believe in people too, and to leave your fingerprints on the things you make.
Available on Spotify, Apple, YouTube, X, podcast platforms, and here on Substack. Transcript and links here.
Dialectic 61: Josh Miller - A Good Rectangle
Description
Josh Miller (X, LinkedIn) is co-founder and CEO of The Browser Company, makers of Dia and Arc. The Browser Company was acquired by Atlassian last year.
Before The Browser Company, Josh was an investor at Thrive Capital, Director of Product in the Obama White House’s Office of Digital Strategy, and co-founder of Branch, which was acquired by Facebook.
He studied sociology and has always been thoughtful about environments: institutions, companies, and digital and physical spaces. We talk about his effort to improve the space many of us spend our days in: the browser. We discuss the tension between Josh’s creative and commercial instincts, optimizing for feelings, and hiring unlikely stars. Josh reflects on much of the journey with Arc and Dia and why he’s still betting on the browser in the AI era, now as part of Atlassian.
I hope you are inspired to believe in people and leave your fingerprints on what you create.
Dialectic is presented by Notion. Notion is a collaborative workspace for your life’s work and a hub for all the context you and your team use to work with each other and with AI. New models are available in Notion the day they launch, and you can work with agents you build in Notion or any other agents and tools you already use. As tools change, Notion is the Switzerland in the middle that keeps your context consistent across all of them. Learn more at notion.com/dialectic.
Timestamps
(0:00) Intro: Josh Miller
(1:55) Start: Not Commercial Enough & Optimizing for Feelings
(9:14) Sociology, the Obama White House, Thrive, and the 5% Favicon
(15:38) Bowling Alone, James Turrell, and Roden Crater
(22:12) Betting on People, Leaving Thrive, and Where Computing Goes
(34:54) “Assume You Don’t Know” and What Was Sacred at The Browser Company
(41:58) Intuition, Road Trips, and Leaving Fingerprints on Things
(53:57) Building in Public, Pulling Back, and the Road to Atlassian
(1:03:23) The Internet Computer in the AI Era: Codex, Cloud Browsers, and Why Everything Is Converging
(1:13:30) How Dia Wins
(1:17:07) Agents, Muse, and the Red Giraffe
(1:22:43) Software Is Becoming Art
(1:32:13) Believing in People, Leaving Facebook for the White House, and What’s Next
(1:47:17) Closing Questions
