Chris Abad

Design & Product Leader · AI-native builder · Founder & angel investor · ex-Google, Dropbox, Square

San Francisco Bay Area

About

I'm a product and design leader who builds. Over 20+ years, I've led high-performing UX and product teams across startups and enterprises — from founding venture-backed companies to directing user experience at Google — and I've stayed hands-on the whole way: prototyping, running experiments, and shipping alongside my teams. I was among the first at Google to ship large language models (LLMs) in customer-facing products, on a support platform serving billions of people monthly. Today I lead AI-native product and design end to end, turning emerging models into experiences people genuinely love — most recently a portfolio of AI-driven, voice-first game shows including Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy. My approach pairs user-centered design and product strategy with a bias for evidence — customer insight and data behind every decision. And I care as much about how teams work as what they ship: building inclusive cultures that protect well-being so people do the best work of their careers, and mentoring the next generation of product and design leaders. I'm energized by hard, ambiguous problems at the intersection of design, product, and AI.

Experience

  • Founder at Kaleidoscope
    Apr 2020 - Present · 6 yrs 3 mos

  • Head of Design at Weekend
    Feb 2025 - Jun 2026 · 1 yr 5 mos

    As Head of Design, I led design and creative for a portfolio of AI-driven, voice-first game shows on connected TV and smart-speaker platforms — including Wheel of Fortune, Jeopardy, and Cocomelon. My team and I defined and shipped AI-native experiences — AI hosts, dynamic dialogue, personalized content, and narrative mechanics — turning fast-moving models into features players genuinely engage with. I championed AI tooling across the studio and built a practical training program that meaningfully compressed our 3D and content production timelines. I stayed hands-on throughout: contributing design and UX front-end work, and partnering on growth experiments and data-backed decisions across checkout, onboarding, and rollout. I also drove phased launches and platform-specific delivery across Fire TV, Roku, LG, Samsung, and Amazon — coordinating creative, engineering, and growth on tight, cross-functional timelines.

  • Director of User Experience, Support Platform at Google
    Dec 2021 - Jul 2024 · 2 yrs 8 mos

    I lead a global UX team responsible for Google's support platform. These systems power the customer support experience for customers and support agents across Google's 200+ products. The support platform is among Google's most heavily trafficked properties, next to search and YouTube. We support billions of customers every month. We are the first team at Google to leverage advanced LLM models in customer-facing products.

  • Advisor at Momentum
    Jan 2024 - Mar 2024 · 3 mos

  • Mentor at First Round Fast Track
    Feb 2022 - May 2022 · 4 mos