8: Steph Ango - Tools for Amplifying Our Light
Steph Ango aka Kepano (Website, X) is a designer, writer, entrepreneur,and toolmaker, best known as the CEO of Obsidian, a powerful and flexible writing and thinking tool. Steph's education is in biology and industrial design, but he is true multi-hyphenate creative, working across mediums including software, hardware, supply chain and packaging, words, wood, furniture, ink, color schemes, open-source systems, video, podcasts, and more. Above all, he makes tools—deeply opinionated ones—designed to reduce friction for himself and others in the act of creating. Steph joined Obsidian after initially contributing as a fan and enthusiast and impressing its co-founders, Shida Li and Erica Xu. Under his leadership, Obsidian has grown into one of the most beloved and powerful independent software tools in the world, with millions of users. As a daily user myself, I rely on Obsidian for my research and thinking for this podcast. Before Obsidian, Steph founded Lumi and Inkodye, the former of which was acquired by Narvar. Beyond design, Steph is one of my favorite writers. His concise, sub-500-word essays have shaped my thinking on design, software, learning, agency, constraints, and creativity. While we couldn’t cover all of his ideas in this conversation, we explored many of them in what became my longest conversation to date—one that is packed with wisdom. I believe these ideas will challenge you in unexpected ways and push you to be more creative, agentic, and optimistic. Transcript for episode 8. Timestamps:
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Speaker A: Welcome to Dialectic, episode 8 with Steph Ongo, aka Capano, as he's known on social platforms. He's a designer, writer, entrepreneur, toolmaker, and CEO of Obsidian. Obsidian is one of my favorite products I use every day. It's a robust note-taking and thinking tool that uses bidirectional linking and an extensive plugin system to become one of the most powerful and extensible tools around. Steph's background is in biology and industrial design, but he's one of the most dynamic and multifaceted creatives and designers I've ever met. He's worked across software and hardware to supply chain and packaging with a former company called Lumi.
He's an amazing writer. He's worked with wood and furniture. He innovated in printing styles with a former company called Inkodye. He's created his own custom color schemes and design systems and other forms of web and open source systems. He's made podcasts and videos. He truly is a polymath, and this is one of my favorite conversations I've had so far. More than anything, he sees himself as a toolmaker, and I think you'll see that in our conversation and the way he sees the world and designs for removing friction, making creativity more possible.
We discuss many of his ideas and talk through several of his short essays, which have really pushed my thinking. We talk specifically about design and software. Learning and agency, how to use constraints in style. Steph is truly wise. He is so energizing to spend time with, and he is prolific creatively. He's an amazing Twitter follow as well, and I would strongly suggest reading his writing after you've enjoyed the conversation. I believe this conversation pushed me and will hopefully challenge you to be more creative, agentic, and optimistic. Here's Steph, ready to rock.
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