The last time I met with Ivy Ross was at the top-secret design lab that she built for Google, where the company has given technology a soft, living room-friendly touch with products such as the cloth-covered Nest Mini assistant and the knit-wrapped Pixel phones. But today, as the two of us connect on Zoom from our respective homes, it’s clear a lot has changed during this year of COVID-19.
Ross just hosted a small, socially distanced backyard wedding for her daughter and reports going into the lab just three to four times in the last several months when absolutely essential. “I’m staying creative from a laptop . . .we are 98% productive,” says Ross of her team. “We’re making physical stuff, which is really hard. Sometimes there’s no substitute; we have to be around a table holding something.”
Image: Ivy Ross (Photo: Google)
