Jake Rudin is a co-founder of the design career consulting company Out of Architecture, a career consulting firm helping architects exploring the value of their skills both in and out of the architectural profession. He also works as a member of the Adidas Advanced Creation Technologies team - fabricating, designing, digitizing, model making, and exploring all aspects of footwear.
I invited Jake to have a conversation so he can share his insights on challenges facing practicing and non-practicing architects alike and what once can do about it.
About the podcast: Single Serves is a podcast where we interview experts on single issues of interest to architects and designers. The thought-provoking ideas shared here are intended to inspire our listeners to become well-rounded entrepreneurs who are the leaders of their field.
Credits: ©2022 Produced by Révélateur Studio & edited by Chris Rodd
Transcript below edited for clarity and brevity:
Arnaud Marthouret (rvltr):
Jake Rudin is a co-founder of the design career consulting company out of architecture, a career consulting firm helping architects exploring the value of their skills both in and out of the architectural profession. He also works as a member of the Adidas Advanced Creation Technologies team, fabricating, designing, digitizing, model making, and exploring all aspects of footwear. I invited Jake to have a conversation so he can share his insights on challenges facing, practicing and non-practicing architects alike and what one can do about it. So Jake, it's a real pleasure to have you join me today for this conversation that is near and dear to my heart.
Jake Rudin:
Arnaud, thank you so much for inviting me. I've been really looking forward to this discussion, and I think as you mentioned, my interests are all over the place and even might've had you a little tongue-tied in reading my bio, so I apologize for that. But I think what's really fun about the profession that we work in is that it has so many varied aspects and tentacles that reach into all of these elements of design and so on. So hopefully we'll touch on many of these facets over the conversation, but I'm really excited to be here.
Arnaud Marthouret (rvltr):
So am I. So let's start with a really hard question. Can you tell us who you are and what you do in your own words, in three sentences or less?
Jake Rudin:
Yes. I am Jake Rudin. That is the first sentence. The second sentence is that I am a professional problem solver and someone who is interested in simply learning constantly. I'll qualify that later, but that'll be sentence two. And for sentence three, I think I work both at the intersection of technology and design through my work at Adidas where I use digital tools and technologies to design footwear and to support in manufacturing; I also run a consulting firm. I called out of architecture with my co-founder, Aaron Pellegrino, and that recently has become much more than a side project as it has taken on a life of its own. So that'll be my three sentences.
Arnaud Marthouret (rvltr):
That's perfect. You're such a good rule follower. Good on you. So you left architecture, can you tell us why?
Jake Rudin:
I have elaborated on that in many, many other podcasts, and so for people who are really interested in that deep story, it exists elsewhere. But I will say that here I left architecture because I found it to be a lot less creative than I really desired. I came out of school, I found that there was a huge disconnect between the kinds of varied problems and challenges that I was solving in the studio setting and the work that I was being not only asked to do, but almost forced to do in the profession. And I certainly found that there were many different ways that those challenges arose. And really at the end of the day, I knew that there was a place for me to practice architecture as I saw it, architecture as I knew it should be, which is just this amazingly fun and wild confluence of the making of things and the experiences that they produce, not to stand up in wave so that the light will come back on in the space, but hopefully that tells you a little bit.
There are some really strong anecdotes. I was told after interviewing for a digital innovation role in an architecture firm, that position that I was looking for didn't exist in the profession, which was I had interest in VR and game design and CNC milling and additive manufacturing. So that was a bit frustrating. I also had some pretty standard experiences, really long, really outrageous hours that I was very comfortable putting in, but wasn't receiving the kind of value back from either my workplace or my peers or my bosses that I felt I should be getting both monetarily and also just in terms of appreciation for the love and the work that I was putting in. So those were some of the reasons I left.
Arnaud Marthouret (rvltr):
So what would be some of the things you've learned since you've left and pivoted to other jobs?
Jake Rudin:
Well, my very first role out of architecture was working as a director of business development for a small tech startup. And that title, director of business development, was extremely foreign to me. I learned nothing in school about pipelines or CRM, which is customer resource management, or all of these tools of sales and marketing and advertising. But I found them very intuitive as someone who was interested in always learning what is it that my clients need, what is it that they're really after getting to the root of their problem and then trying to design a solution around it. So I actually found selling to be really easy and was pretty immediately disabused to this idea that architects can only do architecture. That was a huge learning from the pivot. But the second was that as I started to get more and more questions from other individuals about how I had made the switch, I found that it is actually something that can be taught.
But really even less than that, it is just something that we all have the inherent ability to do. We just don't have the exposure to the variety of roles that exist kind of adjacent to architecture out there in the world. Partly because in our architecture education, we are taught that there is a kind of singular goal, which is to become a principal or a firm owner or an starchitect or a star designer. And so I was always sort of blinded by that singular goal of going to work for whatever firm it might be, Herzog & de Meuron or OMA or Bjarke Ingels, or even some of the more niche firms out here on the East Coast or the bigger, more commercial firms. And I say East coast, but I'm in fact on the West coast. I do think it was an amazing learning for me in the pivot that there were probably 150 other titles that I was qualified to have, and that was a big component of making the switch.
Arnaud Marthouret (rvltr):
And what you just said triggers a couple comments in my mind. One is that architecture school perpetuates that great lie that you can aspire to be a starchitect and be one of the chosen few in the world that really dominates the press and the conversation. But the truth is that most people will never be that either because they don't have what it takes or they even just not the motivation to put in the work that you need to put to get to that level. That's the thing you've never learned in school.
Jake Rudin:
I'd love to add to that actually, and just say that one of the things that we don't learn that is part of that pathway is marketing yourself and selling yourself and being self-aggrandizing in the way that Bjarke Ingels has done to make himself the most strongly marketed architect in the world. It's not by happenstance that he has entire departments of people dedicated to business development and marketing and social and all of these things. It's not just for the love of his work.
Arnaud Marthouret (rvltr):
And the other lie, oh, there's a few more to talk about, but the other big one is that those things happen in a vacuum and it's a single genius accomplishing all of that. Bjarke Ingels, I kind of knew intuitively, but when I went to his website for the first time a number of years ago and looked at the staff and how many partners there were and how big the firm was, I realized he's just a figurehead. It's not to say it does nothing. I'm sure it does a lot and steers the ship in the right direction, but there's an army of partners to draftsmen who do all the work and make it happen. And it's not just, none of that would exist without that collaborative effort, and that's the other lie that's kind of perpetuated. And speaking of sales, that's perfect segue to my other comment as you said, you know, start as a business development manager or whatever the exact title was.
Good salesmanship is the same as being a good designer. You have to go in and find out what your clients are up against and provide the solution, except that in one, you're actually designing the solution, in the other, you're just selling a product or a service that fits what that client is looking for. And so a good salesmanship is not about pushing a product or service onto just about anyone, it's finding the right type of clients that are a good fit for what you're offering, whatever that may be.
And that's often misunderstood about sales. And I think it's also another issue in the industry, and I've been talking about this for years, but it bears repeating and I will repeat it until all architecture firms finally understand that, yeah, it's that selling yourself is not a dirty job. It can be a very fulfilling thing if you do it right. If you learn how to market yourself the right way and convey the right message and find the right clients can actually be very fulfilling. So all of that is very interesting. But next question I have for you is why do you think architects are seemingly so well suited to tackle all kinds of careers?
Jake Rudin:
When we start our education, we start by unlearning everything that we know about design. So when you go into architecture school, they teach you that a line is when you're sketching, not some back and forth jittery sort of approximation of a mark between two points. It's two ends and a beautiful sinewy, delicate, slightly trembling maybe segment in between the two. And you start to break down everything that you know into those elements. And you learn that a box is both a solid and a void. You don't even get to buildings until much farther down the line. We can do-
Arnaud Marthouret (rvltr):
Yeah, you learn to draw buildings before you design anything.
Jake Rudin:
Of course, of course. And you learn to see the world as these sorts of elements that can be manipulated and played with and turned over and made into experiences. But we sort of learned these scale, this design elements that can be applied to not only a whole range of products, but also a whole range of processes. One of the things that I do on a daily basis here at my work in Adidas is I am constantly on the receiving end of ideas of innovation that have yet to find a sort of mechanism for being realized. And what I mean by that is I get a lot of really wonderful, thoughtful, creative moments, and part of my job is to learn what the intention is behind it and to then find a way of resolving it, whether it's through a piece of machinery or technology or 3D modeling or visualization, whatever that is.
And all of that can be done regardless of whether it's a building or not. And I learned all of these things in relationship to the built environment. But every architect wants to design a chair. Every interior designer goes through and designs a nook or a space or a bench or something related to the human body. And that's a different scale than a building as a whole. And then we've all explored this idea of master planning and you start to branch out into these other sectors.
It might seem obvious as adjacencies, but when people come to me and they ask about transitioning into tech, their greatest fear is just, I don't have the language to speak. I don't really understand what it means to work in the tech industry. And once you make that translation of terminology, it actually opens up that, oh my goodness, there are so many parallels between designing your layout for your crit, designing this sort of wire frame and doing that for a website which you might have done for your portfolio or doing this for an application or an experience which you might have done if you were ever designing a museum or curating art or any of these things.
There are so many unspoken adjacent pathways, but the core skill is that architects can learn faster than anyone else that I know. And you go to school to learn not to really become a professional, which is why we still have to get licensed afterwards, which is why you still have another 3000, 5,000 hours or in the UK you've got part one, two and three. And it's maddening for most people, but I would do the degree again anytime. If I had to go back and go in reverse and start all over, I would get my architecture degree again.
Arnaud Marthouret (rvltr):
Oh, you would? That's interesting. Because I wouldn't. No.
Jake Rudin:
Why not?
Arnaud Marthouret (rvltr):
I think I would go in the trades. I would find a trade that speaks to me and just learn to work with my hands. And so either fix or make stuff which is related to design in some sense because you're problem solving, but I have this unrealized dream of becoming a motorcycle mechanic.
Jake Rudin:
How very zen of you.
Arnaud Marthouret (rvltr):
Yeah, well said. Even beyond that, that's the first step. Beyond that, I think the ultimate goal would be like to learn how to design motorized objects, like custom make my own motorcycles. That would be really cool.
Jake Rudin:
I would say that your degree would facilitate that better than just going to a school for trade. Because when you have this broad understanding of the world and you can look at the relationship between not just the motorcycle and the human, but the motorcycle and the road and the context of other vehicles and the climate and all of these things, you have a more holistic view on the problem. It took you longer to get there, for sure.
Arnaud Marthouret (rvltr):
Yeah.
Jake Rudin:
And if you do end up going down that route, I will be first in line for a custom bike. But I would say that it's very, very unlikely that you could leave architecture school without some of those skills of making. And I feel that every day. I'm always in the wood shop or tinkering with something or assembling something. And I really would attribute all of that to my studies.
Arnaud Marthouret (rvltr):
Yeah, that's a very good point. I didn't expect you to be so wise.
Jake Rudin:
I look old for a reason. I have a lot of wisdom, but I don't know, it's taken years off my life to get there.
Arnaud Marthouret (rvltr):
You can't have everything, but I think it's a good thing to have. So let's talk about Adidas a little bit and how did you end up there?
Jake Rudin:
Well, as I mentioned, I went through the series of interviews where I just realized that architecture was just not going to be for me. And part of it was that I left the two best universities in the United States with very expensive degrees and was getting offers for employment at less than a 10th the cost of my education. So that was really jarring. And with a lot of student debt in tow, I really felt like this is just not going to be a sustainable way for me to build my life. And also not really the kind of work that I was discovering and I was interested in doing. So when I moved out here, I applied to everything. I applied to game design companies, and here being Portland, Oregon, I applied to Nike, which is headquartered here and interviewed with them. And I applied to Adidas.
And the difference and the winning factor for Adidas was that they loved all of the skills that I brought. They weren't just interested in my data visualization or coding, which Nike was. They weren't just interested in my ability to create plans and sections and so on, which architecture firms were, they were curious about my mold making and casting and 3D modeling and rendering and my interest in new materials and my interest in exploring tree houses and climbing and sport and all of these things. And when someone holds out open arms and says, "We want all of you", that's the place where you should go. And I consistently tell that to clients about of architecture is that it is a two-way selection process. And when you are honest about what you bring to the table and someone appreciates it in that way, it's a very magical, very rare thing.
Arnaud Marthouret (rvltr):
Yeah, it is because both on the employer side and on the employee side, because I see it every day, people just, I wouldn't say they hire people or take jobs out of fear, but it's more like, okay, I got to pay the bills and there's a lot of very pedestrian practical considerations that I'm not dismissing, they're there for everyone, but in an ideal world, more people would do what you did, which is go balls out on what you believe in and hope that you get the job you want or you make your own job. Sometimes that's how it works. So was there a special specific title that you were hired, like a job description you were hired for?
Jake Rudin:
Yeah. Much to, what I'm sure my will be my HRs dismay, I will say that the job descriptions here are horrendous and very, very lacking in the truth of the work. So I always encourage people to reach out and make contact, network with the company, try and get in touch with the hiring team and have a conversation. Because very often the bureaucracy behind creating a job description and creating a headcount and a new role in a company really hurts the understanding on the applicant side. So the job description that I applied for was senior manager of the maker lab. And this was something I thought, "Okay, well I've done a lot of fabrication, I worked a lot of tools, I have a great model making experience. This sounds like a good fit." I didn't actually get an interview for that role. What I did get an interview for was a position called Technical Manager of Footwear Technologies or something like that, Product Creation Technologies.
And I went to that call with the recruiter and about 15 minutes in I said, "Look, I'm sorry, but I don't really know what the job is. I'm very flattered to be interviewing, but I don't think I even applied to this job." And the recruiter's name was Brian, a fantastic friend of mine since then over the last six years. And he said, "No, no, don't worry about it." He said, "I think you're a good fit for this role." I said, "Great. Tell me a little bit more about it." And it turns out that the role was basically a blend of what we call horizontal positions.
And so in the company there are verticals, running, basketball, soccer, all of these different things, but then there are horizontals and basically floating resources that can be utilized by any given team for a specific project. And this position was one of those horizontal roles under a technologies team that had both this fabrication side, the maker lab and the sample studio now, and the digital technology side, which I was hired to be on, which really focused on my Rhino 3D modeling skills, my use of Grasshopper and my interest in things like Unity for VR and my creative suite skills.
So all of my Adobe work finally paid off. And so it was an excellent role and I'm still on that team, have since been promoted to lead a team of about six or seven. And I've got computational designers, I have pattern makers, which is the sort of 2D cad of footwear in many ways. And it's just an absolute pleasure and I love what I do.
Arnaud Marthouret (rvltr):
And so if LinkedIn is correct, your title is Senior Manager of Digital Technologies.
Jake Rudin:
Yes. And LinkedIn is correct.
Arnaud Marthouret (rvltr):
So what does that mean?
Jake Rudin:
So what that means is that as a senior manager, I'm responsible for other members of the deem other experts who are far better at these technical skills than I am. So I have Grasshopper experts and experts in Rhino and plenty of other different kinds of technologies including into Intomoda and Swatch and lots of various things. But my responsibility is to make sure that all of the barriers are removed from the work that they're doing, that all the expectations are set, and also that when necessary we can sit down and I have enough understanding from my technical background to propose elegant solutions to very complex problems. And that's my favorite thing to do is to sit down and say, "If we use this tool or abuse it in this way, and we sort of disregard the traditional notion of how we might use a computerized stitching machine, for example, we could actually trick it into doing this very cool thing for us. Now go figure that out."
And so there's a lot of back and forth, a lot of work with our innovation team. So I spend a lot of time being the bad guy in meetings and saying, "That doesn't really make logical sense." And they say, "No, no, it's going to be really cool, don't worry about it." And of course then I'm the one who's worrying about it and it ends up being a really good fun opportunity. And I think of myself very much like the civil engineer to the architect very often saying, "Hmm, I'm not sure that that's going to stand up." And they're going, "No, no, no, it's definitely going to stand up."
Arnaud Marthouret (rvltr):
The voice of reason, right?
Jake Rudin:
Yes.
Arnaud Marthouret (rvltr):
And then you're left to trying to figure out how to make it all work.
Jake Rudin:
Yes.
Arnaud Marthouret (rvltr):
So do you approach teams with ideas and solutions or they approach you with problems and then you're left to solve them?
Jake Rudin:
Oh, a little bit of both. What an amazing question though. I love that question. So we work a lot like a small business. We have about 25 people in total in our advanced creation team. A big part of what we do is creating solutions and shopping them around the business for things that we identify as needs. And that I think is what keeps our team growing because the team has gone from about 12 to 15 when I started to 27 or 30. And that has been a big part of my trajectory is, hey, this looks like an issue, why don't we jump in?
But I will say that what keeps the lights on really is the ongoing list of problems, or I guess really just a lack of cohesive understanding of tools like 3D in the rest of the business. So we get to be those specialists that people rely on. And the reason why we're a horizontal team is because very often we can build a system for 80% of the work, but then there's 20% that we are just breaking all the rules, trying out new materials, trying to get something up on the website or in an advertisement or make a shoe that has an exploding axon as part of its delivery. And we're a big part of making those things possible.
Arnaud Marthouret (rvltr):
When you say shop those ideas around, that's internally or you also work in external businesses?
Jake Rudin:
Yeah, predominantly internally.
Arnaud Marthouret (rvltr):
Okay, I thought so, but I wanted to clarify. So let's go back to the idea of architects and their careers and maybe focus a little more on out of architecture. What are the biggest challenges facing the architects practicing and non-practicing that you engage with?
Jake Rudin:
Honestly, that is an incredibly complex question. I think you've outlined a few, and we recently published a book that has a lot of these issues, very eloquently outlined in it. And to name a few, I would say there is an issue with the architecture being, or sorry, I'm going to reframe that as there is an issue that architecture was built by the gentry and the privileged class and people who could afford to really take the time to think eloquently through these problems of design, beauty and aesthetic and functional solution. And we have not designed a business around compensating for that. So it still requires sacrifice. And we tell people that they have to pay their dues. Clients come to us both inside and outside of architecture, having paid plenty of dues and not gotten really much in return. So we've formulated a business that says, look, if you want to be a successful starchitect, you need to have some wealthy friends who can buy a building from you who you can go and design your grandmother's vacation home and all of these things. That that'll get you some projects.
If you want to do it the hard way and you want to go work for a firm, we're going to pay you a lot less because you're still learning. We as very frequently we'll hear people say that they don't feel useful leaving school and going into an architecture firm. And I would simply say that maybe you are not useful to that firm, but that does not mean that you are not useful or valuable. So that's a big, big issue. We also have plenty of issues surrounding equal treatment, equal pay, the way that we distribute work incredibly unevenly between genders and across different races. And our architecture has a huge amount of problems. They're also shared by many other professions. So I won't say that it's the only place those exist, but these are reasons why people come to us. And I think the latter part of it is just creative fulfillment.
I would say that at least half, if not more of the, at this point, something like 800 plus clients or out of architecture and the thousands of conversations that we've had have circled around this idea that we were sold something in school that we're not getting when we go into the working world. And by way of example, my incredible, I'll call her my mentor, but she's also my wife has told me many times that in conversations with her leadership, they've said, "Look, you're a great designer, but you're not going to get to design for another 20 years. And that was before she left to go start a vineyard.
And I think that was a great decision because she gets to make all the creative decisions and drink wine at work, but it's an incredible thing to hear that someone went to school to be a phenomenal designer and then they go into a position in a design profession where they're now learning to be very technical. It's not a bad thing, but it's also not transparent and it's not honest when we tell students that this is what you need to know to be successful.
Arnaud Marthouret (rvltr):
Is it a challenge for firms to recognize where someone's talent lies?
Jake Rudin:
It is a challenge in that most firms, and I really appreciate you asking this question, most firms do not specialize their architects. They have architects or they have interior designers, but you do not have very specific roles for those people. Now, that's not to say that someone isn't sort of touted as the best visualizer and they might get all the visualization or rendering work or someone is a better BIM modeler or BIM manager and someone is a little bit better at doing the plans and all of these things. But we expect you to do everything, to be able to do everything.
And by not specializing people, you also go into a firm and you are beholden to do the work that they have set aside for you already, which is horrendous. You should be able to go in and say, "This is what I love doing. I love model making, or I love building with my hands, or I love this part of architecture." And yet we require architects to see through the entire building process, which can take five years. That's a long time, especially for a young person. You're asking them to come out of school, spend another five years on a single project before they really know how they feel about any given part of the process. That's a tough ask.
Arnaud Marthouret (rvltr):
It's a tough ask, but it's such a complex profession that I'm having a hard time imagining it wouldn't be almost necessary to do, maybe not for five years, but two or three years when you get out of school to understand how, similar to you being, well somewhat versed in all the things your team is specialized in, but without knowing all the details so you can be conversant enough to have intelligent conversations with the experts.
Jake Rudin:
But I will tell you that that role that I have is not every role in the company. I have a role that is paired with another 10 experts who are very specific in the function that they serve and very good at their work. And in our sample studio we have people who do even narrower bands of work who are really good at adhesing and gluing things together or who are really good at stitching. And we don't expect those people to be able to do or understand all those tasks and they don't all want to either.
Arnaud Marthouret (rvltr):
Yeah. So I think the issue of specialization is it relates to specialization at the firm level as well. Because most architecture firms are completely averse to specializing, I would even say terrified of it, because they think that they can be all things to all people. And have realized through the mentorship of some really smart people over the last few years that the more you're specialized, the more you narrow down your potential pool of clients, but also you're going to be sought out way more for your expertise. So it's fine balancing. You can't go overnight, okay, I'm going to be the expert at X. You have to build towards that. And it also, what people often take it to mean is that you don't take on any other kind of work if it comes to you. That's absolutely not true. You should, and if you want take all the work that comes to you, it just means that you're not looking for it and you're trying to specialize.
So I always said, imagine you're, you want to be the best coffee shop designer in the world. If you set out to do that, people would literally fly you all over the world to design their flagship cafes in Buenos Aires, in Mexico City, in Shanghai, wherever, Mumbai, because they recognize the value and they might have seen your first project and then that's where you have to be a little bit of a Bjarke Ingels and you have to learn how to promote yourself as well.
Jake Rudin:
Sure. Or you look around and you find a place that does that work. And I guarantee you, I know people who have worked for the Starbucks retail design team and they have senior directors and VPs who are responsible for exactly what you're talking about. And they get paid incredibly well and they're very highly sought after for the work that they do.
Arnaud Marthouret (rvltr):
Yeah, exactly. Or conversely, you can broaden your expertise, but then you narrow down your market. So you say, I'm going to be an industrial architect, I'm going to do all the industrial building in my own area, like my metropolitan area. And then you try, you don't have to be the best in the world, you just have to be the best in that area. And it's wide enough that there's enough different businesses that need industrial buildings. So it's a little less specialized, but it's specialized in terms of market. And so when you said firms are not specializing their staff, it brings me back to that issue. It's like somehow specialization is seen as an unconscionable risk or a dangerous territory to get in when if you do it the smart way, it might be a bit of a challenge at first, you have to build that image and recognition, but once you do, the work is just going to come your way.
It's like if you're being one of the local motorcycle mechanics, if you're the one that's honest, does the work on time and doesn't overcharge and still does a great job and maybe occasionally throw something in for your clients, people are going to come back to you because we all know how mechanics are. And that's a rare way to be for mechanics. It's not necessarily always that hard to be one of the best. You don't have to be the best. You have to be good enough that people recognize that and come to you. So it's not really a question, it's a bit of a comment, but I think it's important to talk about because that fear of specialization and I think is paralyzing way too many firms and way too many people when it could be a boon to either a firm, for a firm to grow, or for someone to build a great career.
Jake Rudin:
Absolutely.
Arnaud Marthouret (rvltr):
Kind of like you did.
Jake Rudin:
Thank you. I take that as a huge compliment.
Arnaud Marthouret (rvltr):
So you mentioned you have this consultancy called Out of Architecture. What are you looking to accomplish with it?
Jake Rudin:
That's an interesting question. We're about five years into the project that is Out of Architecture, and it did start from pretty much the questions that you're asking, which is many people reached out and said, "Hey, why? Why Adidas? Why would they accept you? What could possibly be the match here?" And after having those conversations, the tone shifted a little bit more to why you and more, how can I do this? And what I began to realize was, to our conversation of specializing, there was a very small niche of people that really needed help. And those people were architects who are looking to leave architecture. Now, I will caveat this by saying many people think that our goal is to get architects out of architecture. And I will say that that is not the stated goal of Out of Architecture. What it is to help people define what they want to get out of architecture.
Maybe that is leaving architecture, but it's also taking something with you no matter what that looks like. Because you are taking skills, you are taking experiences away from the profession, and sometimes you are turning around and supporting the profession from another lens. So we mentioned retail design, which is a different way of practicing architecture, just not at a traditional firm. But then there are all manner of other roles, and we've talked about a few already, but the goal of Out of Architecture is first and foremost to help individuals who are feeling lost in their careers find roles that are both challenging as well as, and yes, the spotlight is very dramatic on me, that are challenging, creatively fulfilling, and that pay well and pay a respectful living wage. And those are really core tenants to Out of Architecture. Whether or not those jobs exist at a firm is completely up to the architecture profession itself.
And we have placed people and helped them find jobs inside of architecture firms, but more often than not, people have been there, done that for anywhere from a couple of months to five years to 15 years to, I kid you not, 50 years is our longest practicing client and they just say, "Look, I'm done. I've gotten everything that I can out of the profession, or it's taken everything from me and I'm ready to change."
But I think you asked what the goal is, what are we looking to accomplish? And it's really just about helping individuals. It is a business, but it is not a money making business. I will say that we do charge for our time, we value the time and the work that we do, and we reinvest it into things like the launch of our podcast recently called Tangents, which talks about stories of people who have left architecture. That is something that we invest in to help and get out to clients. The book that I mentioned is also another project, which is certainly not a moneymaking endeavor for anyone who has published a book with a traditional publisher, you will know that it is a net not positive, let's say. And these are just ways of communicating with a broader and broader community that has really expanded over the years.
Arnaud Marthouret (rvltr):
Books are expensive, but it's also a great marketing tool.
Jake Rudin:
We're trying to use it as a great marketing tool.
Arnaud Marthouret (rvltr):
It's because they're in people's mind and I don't think that will ever change. Books are token of authority if you've written a book, you've literally written a book on.
Jake Rudin:
Sure. And it's not leadership in a way that I think is important to us because we want the messaging for this transition of the architectural profession to be architects are amazing, they're valuable, they're incredible, they're talented, and they can do whatever it is that makes them happy. Even if that thing is not traditional architecture.
Arnaud Marthouret (rvltr):
And smart architects will spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on a beautiful monograph, not because it makes money, but because it gives them a position of authority when they're trying to market themselves.
Jake Rudin:
Sure. That's absolutely true.
Arnaud Marthouret (rvltr):
So when someone hires you, what do they get?
Jake Rudin:
Good question. Well, that can be from a few different lenses. The primary is if you are someone who's looking to make a change in their career and you come to us, we mostly provide one-on-one coaching and consulting for your next step. Sometimes that is as simple as I'm going to leave my job, I'm looking for a new role. I want to move into a position in product design or a position in retail design or a position working in space architecture or on yacht design. These are all real examples of people that we've supported. And those are really interesting because a lot of that is people coming to us for our insight, for some discussion about what those roles might look like, for access to our network, which has become very vast and open to the idea that we have a lot of really strong, really amazing candidates who we're looking to help find jobs for.
So you're coming to us for all of those things. But we also now have seen recently this flip side, which is we are not a recruiting or headhunting company, but we do have companies that are coming to us asking for us to share and post roles for them, asking for us to help find individuals who are stately looking to leave one thing and go into something else that might be considered at least more interesting for them.
And so we have companies that are looking for very unique candidates, whether it's somebody with architectural experience, but who wants to practice in a different setting or companies that are just seeing the messaging that we're putting out about how amazing architecture skills are. And rather than having to hire a graphic designer, a 3D modeler, someone who can do their web design, someone who can do their social media, they come to us for one person who fits that bill and that person is the superstar of their company. So we're starting to get clients from that other side who are asking us for support in recruiting and interesting positions and roles to fill. So that's been an exciting two-way street, so to speak.
Arnaud Marthouret (rvltr):
Yeah, it's interesting. So you briefly mentioned the book and what it is, but what is the key lesson you'd want someone to take away from reading the book called Out of Architecture, correct?
Jake Rudin:
Yeah. The full title is Out of Architecture: The Value of Architects Beyond Traditional Practice. And that is the message is that there is value to your degree and your skills beyond traditional practice. That's the core message and I really genuinely believe that so many people are afraid of that, afraid of making that transition or afraid that they're not good enough compared to people who have gone and studied something like industrial design I hear all the time, or, oh, someone who's really studied human computer interaction. And I don't want to devalue those degrees and say that they're not as good as an architecture degree, but they're also not the only way of looking at those problems. And I hope that someone would pick up the book and if nothing else, after the first few chapters feel validated in their experiences and feel excited about design again. I think it's very fair to say that everybody goes through that phase in architecture of what am I doing here? Why am I doing this?
And I think that some people come out the other side just saying, "Well, this is it. This is all I know how to do." But I would hope that even if you're an architect listening to this and you pick up the book, the first few chapters are this narrative of falling in love with architecture and it should reinvigorate you and re-excite you and make you feel like, wow, this was actually a great decision. Maybe I'm not in the perfect job for me right now, but that at some point I can and have the ability to take this elsewhere.
Arnaud Marthouret (rvltr):
Do you think the, I wouldn't say lack of trust, I don't think that's the issue, but the design being seen by most people who aren't designers as this frivolous thing that can be easily dispensed with the reason why so many people don't find quite the fulfillment they're looking for in their design careers is there so much of an assault on the value of design constantly, whether it's conscious or unconscious, that people just get despaired and say, throw their hands up in the air and say, "I don't want to deal with this shit anymore."
Jake Rudin:
I saw an article posted on the UK Sunday Times website this week, I believe it was Damn The Architect's, the Rich Man's Folly, something to that effect. And the context of the op-ed piece or whatever, I won't call it an article, was all architects are bastards who overcharge and steal your money. Now that's not a great way, not a good look for the profession, let's say. And I do think that opinion is out there, but I genuinely do not think that that is the main sentiment. I think we as an architecture profession, and I'll include myself in that, point to those articles and say, "Look, this is why we're underpaid." I think that is a load of horse shit and a big excuse for firms to say, "Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, you're right. That is why we're underpaying you." Because as soon as you step out and you look around at all the work that other people are doing, let's take a production agency for advertising and film and all of these things, creative agency studio like process long hours, a lot of smack talking, building things that don't work the first time around.
Creative tool set, some technology, some motion graphic design, all of these things, they make out like bandits because they charge for solutions that other people can't come up with. So when you have a company like Coke or Pepsi or Walmart or whatever it is, and they come to you and ask for a creative solution, you get to charge them whatever it is that you want. And the problem is, for architects that number's super low. Oh sure, sure, sure. Because we think that someone else is going to do it for less, and that's right. That's absolutely right.
Arnaud Marthouret (rvltr):
And I'm-
Jake Rudin:
Architects undercut each other all the time.
Arnaud Marthouret (rvltr):
I'm with you on that one. I think you're right on the money, but it's a bit of a chicken and egg question in the sense that yes, architects are absolutely a hundred percent responsible for how much they get paid because they get to decide how much they charge. And if they decided to charge what their true worth was, they would just go seek the clients that are willing to pay for that.
Jake Rudin:
Absolutely.
Arnaud Marthouret (rvltr):
They wouldn't fuck with the small potatoes that nickel and dime them at every turn. So that is very true. But I do think that there's, I'm going to use a very broad analogy and I might piss some people off doing so, but the managers MBA types, I think there's a general sentiment, I could be wrong, and if you can prove me wrong, I'm happy to admit that.
Jake Rudin:
Well, I have an MBA, so I'll be curious to hear how you finish this sentence.
Arnaud Marthouret (rvltr):
I think there's a general sentiment that design is nice to have, but it's not necessary. It's a bit of a frivolous expense. And not all MBAs are that way, and there's a lot of MBAs that have design degrees, so they probably understand design better than anyone else and its value, but in a more, I don't know, again, I could be wrong, so if you can prove me wrong, I'm happy to hear your argument, but I think there's a bit of a sentiment that design, less and less so, but still to this day, it's a nice to have that can be dispensed with.
Jake Rudin:
Yeah, Arnaud, I think you're right if it was 15 or 20 years ago, but I think that sentiment has shifted dramatically in other professions, especially in the professions that pull in big chunks of money per person. There's a low labor count for something like a tech company, and they are valuing the experience, the design of their tools and interfaces really dramatically. Those have huge potential. And there's lots of architects that have gone to work for these big tech companies doing design that doesn't take any more or less time or really any more or less skill to put together a really good user interface. It's just a matter of, well, what are we providing to the client with this? And I think that's a big question for architects is how do you explain to the client the value? Because at the end of the day, people are willing to pay for something that's going to bring them value.
If you could spend $500 and for that $500, you get $800 of gold, you're going to do it because you're getting more than you're putting in. But when you design a building and you say this building is going to provide you happiness or a sense of calm", that is a lot harder of a sell than saying the design and the layout of this building is going to increase the flow of business into your practice. And because you've spent this money on good architecture and good design, everyone's going to walk in that front door and you're going to make 60% more money. If you can say that and you can underline that 60% and say, look, this is millions of dollars a year and over five years, you're going to quadruple the money you're spending on this building, someone's going to lay down a handful of cash and tell you that they would love to have you design their building. So framing is a huge part of why architecture does or doesn't sell, I think.
Arnaud Marthouret (rvltr):
Yeah. And so we go back to the idea of business development and sales. If you learn how to do it well, because I tell clients all the time, I'm not going to name names, but there's a client that I used to work with who charged, and it was a few years ago, so it might be different now, but at the time she would charge, I think, let's say 350 bucks for the initial client consultation where she would ask about their projects and get to know them and maybe sketch a couple ideas on paper and look at what's possible to do given the zoning of the area and whatever, do simple stuff. And I kept telling her for years, you need to charge four times as much. You need to charge $1,500 and tell your clients, if you hire me, I will take that off of the fee.
But then at that point you send a signal of, okay, my time is valuable. I'm happy to meet with you for a couple of hours, but you got to pay up. And then if you decide to hire me, then it's going to be worth your while because we already have done a bunch of work and it establishes the architect as the expert who's valuing their own time, and it also commits the client to something instead of saying, oh, I'll do it for cheap or even free and then people don't feel committed to it because they have no skin in the game. And the difference between 350 and 1500 bucks can be quite significant psychologically speaking. It's still not a lot amount, a big amount of money, but in people's minds like, oh, 1500 bucks, it's like half our mortgage or something. So it's not insignificant anymore.
Jake Rudin:
Absolutely not.
Arnaud Marthouret (rvltr):
And so I think that that shift, that mental shift needs to happen in more firms and people need to realize that yes, they will lose some work if they ask for what they really want to get paid, but they will also eventually find clients that truly value what they're offering. And I have this thing with my own work where I always try to find ways to at least tie part of my compensation with results. So if I can get the clients for some kind of result that we agree upon together before the work starts, then I get paid more. And if not, I still get paid for my time and thinking, but if I get them the result they need and it helps them make more money or close more work or whatever, then it's only fair that I get paid more because my work's more valuable.
And I think architects need to start thinking that way more on a regular basis because that's how they're going to transition from the scarcity mindset to the abundance mindset where they can go to a client and just slap their hand on the table and say, this is what we charge, take it or leave it and demonstrate their value at the same time. Obviously you can't just do that and walk away, but the learning to demonstrate your value starts where with the fees and how much you want to charge and then you can justify that by saying, well, we're going to put our money where our mouth is and get you the results you're looking for and then some.
Jake Rudin:
Absolutely. My dad says it's the jobs that you take that'll kill you, not the ones you don't. And so I always keep that in mind when we're meeting with clients and I tell them, yeah, it's going to be $750, the base fee for an initial consult. And they go, "Oh man, well what are you going to give me for that?" And I say, "Well, this conversation that we've been having for the last 30 minutes is pretty representative of the work that we do. If you found value in it and you'd like to continue", and you always know when people go, "Absolutely, yes, I completely want to work with you." You know they're going to be great clients. And when they start down the pathway of, "Well, okay, what's your success rate? How quickly will I be able to do this and this?" And the more that you see someone hesitating, I think it's a good indicator that maybe that's not a good fit. Maybe they're really... Yeah, go ahead.
Arnaud Marthouret (rvltr):
No, I was being interrupted, but keep going. Sorry. No worries.
Jake Rudin:
That's okay, Arnaud. We're coming to the end and actually I have to excuse myself very briefly here.
Arnaud Marthouret (rvltr):
Yes.
Jake Rudin:
So we can come to the last part.
Arnaud Marthouret (rvltr):
So do you have to go now or you want to wrap up now?
Jake Rudin:
We can do your last couple questions and I'll take the time to show the book for sure.
Arnaud Marthouret (rvltr):
That's pretty much all the questions I had, but as we were talking, something came to me. Do you think an architecture degree is the MBA of the future?
Jake Rudin:
That's a very interesting question. I think the architecture degree is a better general education than any liberal arts degree. I would recommend it highly for someone who doesn't necessarily know the pathway that they want to go but is interested in learning a bunch of different things because it has a huge number of valuable skills. But it's not an MBA having gotten an MBA I will tell you that it is maybe more valuable to me and the kinds of work that I want to do than the MBA, but an understanding of the core fundamentals of business is so lacking in architecture that there is no way that an architecture degree as it stands currently could replace an MBA.
Arnaud Marthouret (rvltr):
That's a good answer. So how can people connect with you, engage you, or buy your book?
Jake Rudin:
Well, if you want to connect with me, I am obsessed with LinkedIn and I am super happy to connect and meet people and chat. So you're welcome to find me there. For Out of Architecture, we have both the presence on LinkedIn as well as Instagram at Out of Architecture. If you want to come to us for pretty much anything that we do through that, whether it's to engage with our new podcast called Tangents, you can find that out of architecture website. You can also purchase the book or the audiobook for those of you who like listening to longer format audio, we have that available on Audible. You can purchase it through our website or through Amazon directly in print or on Kindle. And I think if you want to engage with us, just please come by, say hello. We are always open to having conversations like this. And Arnaud, it has been a pleasure to sit here and have this one with you.
Arnaud Marthouret (rvltr):
Pleasure is all mine. Can they reach out to you, get free sneakers?
Jake Rudin:
No, you can get free sneakers, but I would love to have you support Adidas and we always have really cool new products coming out. So for that, the website, and you'll want to write this down, is adidas.com, believe it or not.
Arnaud Marthouret (rvltr):
Really hard to remember.
Jake Rudin:
Yeah.
Arnaud Marthouret (rvltr):
Well, I want to thank you very much for your time. It was a really interesting conversation. Hopefully the first of many.
Jake Rudin:
Thank you, Arnaud. I'd love to have a round two and I hope you have a great rest of the day.
Arnaud Marthouret (rvltr):
Thanks, you too.