The story, in six chapters
The home page is a scroll-driven 3D model of a robot with six parts, one for each chapter of Kyle’s story, in order. Left and right are the robot’s own. At the end the parts come back together, and a figure of Kyle sits in a cockpit in the chest.
First graduating 3D animation class in Louisiana
Chapter 1 of 6 · College · Before Austin · Lafayette and Baton Rouge, Louisiana · Markdown
Kyle Ledbetter was born in Lafayette, Louisiana, and grew up in Baton Rouge, where he went to LSU. He finished at UL Lafayette, in the very first graduating class of 3D animation in Louisiana.
In Kyle’s words
I’m Cajun. I was born in Lafayette, Louisiana, and grew up in Baton Rouge, where I went to LSU. Then I moved back to Lafayette and finished at UL Lafayette, in the very first graduating class of 3D animation in the state.
In Lafayette I was also a partner at superMega Media, designing and building custom Flash websites. It was early enough that, before you could sell a company a website, you had to convince it that it needed one at all.
In 2003 I moved to Austin.
Highlights
- Born in Lafayette, Louisiana
- Grew up in Baton Rouge and went to LSU
- Finished at UL Lafayette, in the very first graduating class of 3D animation in Louisiana
- Built custom Flash websites in Lafayette as a partner at superMega Media
Numbers
- 1st graduating class of 3D animation in Louisiana
“Remember, this was a time when first you had to convince a company WHY they needed a web presence at all.”
On the 3D site this chapter is the robot’s left leg. Its popover reads: “Born in Lafayette, grew up in Baton Rouge. Part of Louisiana’s first graduating class of 3D animation.” Its panel reads: “I was born in Lafayette and grew up in Baton Rouge, where I went to LSU. Then I moved back to Lafayette, finished at UL Lafayette and built custom Flash websites as a partner at superMega Media.”
The full story
Lafayette and Baton Rouge
I was born in Lafayette, Louisiana, and grew up in Baton Rouge, where I went to LSU. After LSU I moved back to Lafayette and finished at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, in the very first graduating class of 3D animation in the state.
superMega Media
In Lafayette I was also a partner at superMega Media, a small web design firm, where I worked as a web designer and developer. We designed and built custom Flash websites.
It was early enough that, before we could sell a company a website, we first had to convince it that it needed a web presence at all.
My first decade of work started at superMega Media. Those years were about building skills and learning about business, and I grew from a Flash designer into a developer and began laying the foundations for user experience and customer experience.
The move to Austin
In 2003 I moved to Austin, Texas, and started my own web design firm, Pixel Praise, where I pioneered Flash websites while Flash was the bleeding edge of the web. Pixel Praise grew into one of the premier Joomla development firms, and the Joomla work later brought me to eBay.
Early open-source champion & entrepreneur in Austin
Chapter 2 of 6 · Entrepreneur · 2003-2010 · Austin, Texas · Markdown
In 2003 Kyle Ledbetter moved to Austin, Texas, and started his own web design firm, Pixel Praise (2003-2010), pioneering Flash websites. He then led UX for Joomla, which powered about 3% of the web, millions of sites.
In Kyle’s words
In 2003 I moved to Austin and started my own web design firm, Pixel Praise. I ran it until 2010, and in those years I pioneered Flash websites, back when Flash was the bleeding edge of the web.
At Pixel Praise I wrote the business plan, ran sales and built the sites, and I introduced one- to two-week design sprints well before sprints were commonplace.
Then I went into open source. I’d been building on Mambo before it became Joomla, and Pixel Praise grew into one of the premier Joomla development firms, with products of our own: JoomlaPraise themes, TapTheme for mobile, the AdminPraise admin app and the ProjectFork project management suite.
Eventually I led UX for Joomla itself, back when “UX” was a new term to a lot of people. Joomla was the second-largest open source content management system in the world and powered about 3% of the web, millions of sites. Like a lot of enterprise software, it had been designed by engineers. I redid the whole admin UI and UX and reworked it for accessibility, responsiveness and productivity.
I talked about those years on the Tech People podcast. The Joomla work is also what brought me to eBay.
Highlights
- Moved to Austin in 2003 and started his own web design firm, Pixel Praise (2003-2010)
- Pioneered Flash websites while Flash was bleeding edge
- Ran one- to two-week design sprints before sprints were commonplace
- Led UX for Joomla when it powered about 3% of the web
- Redid Joomla’s whole admin UI and UX
Numbers
- ~3% of the web, millions of sites, ran on Joomla
“Back when ‘UX’ was a new term to many people, I led the UX innovation for Joomla, the second largest open source content management system in the world.”
Related
On the 3D site this chapter is the robot’s right leg. Its popover reads: “Started Pixel Praise in Austin. Led UX for Joomla, which powered about 3% of the web.” Its panel reads: “In 2003 I moved to Austin and started my own web design firm, Pixel Praise, which I ran until 2010. I pioneered Flash websites, then led UX for Joomla, which powered about 3% of the web.”
The full story
Pixel Praise
In 2003 I moved to Austin and started my own web design firm, Pixel Praise. I ran it until 2010, and in those years I pioneered Flash websites, back when Flash was the bleeding edge of the web.
At Pixel Praise I wrote the business plan, ran sales and built the sites. I introduced one- to two-week design sprints well before sprints were commonplace.
Open source and our own products
Then I went into open source. I’d been building sites on Mambo before it became Joomla, and Pixel Praise grew into one of the premier Joomla development firms.
We made products of our own: JoomlaPraise themes, TapTheme for mobile, the AdminPraise admin app and the ProjectFork project management suite. We ran an online template club and an open source project management software company, and we offered a web app design service to small and medium-sized businesses in Austin.
Leading UX for Joomla
Eventually I led UX for Joomla itself, back when “UX” was a new term to a lot of people. Joomla was the second-largest open source content management system in the world, after WordPress, and powered about 3% of the web, millions of sites.
Like a lot of enterprise software, Joomla had been designed by engineers. I redid the whole admin UI and UX and reworked it for accessibility, responsiveness and productivity. I talked about those years on the Tech People podcast.
From Joomla to eBay
The Joomla work is what brought me to eBay. eBay ran a large internal Joomla site for its data analytics, and in 2011 I joined as head of design for its entire internal technology division.
Head of design for eBay’s technology team
Chapter 3 of 6 · eBay · From 2011 · Austin, Texas (traveling to San Jose, California) · Markdown
In 2011 Kyle Ledbetter joined eBay as head of design for its entire internal technology division, pioneering BI and big data. He was based in Austin, traveled to San Jose, and designed DataHub, which opened up 52 petabytes of data.
In Kyle’s words
In 2011 I joined eBay as head of design for its entire internal technology division. I was based in Austin and traveled to San Jose, and we were pioneering business intelligence (BI) and big data while both were still new.
My Joomla work is what brought me to eBay, which ran a large internal Joomla site for its data analytics. There I designed the UI platform for eBay’s technology organization, plus DataHub, an analytics community and reporting hub for executives.
The brief was to design an intersection of dashboards, reports, forums, access control, blogs and news for the whole technology organization, on top of petabytes of data. DataHub plugged into Teradata, Tableau, MicroStrategy, Oracle and SQL. It opened up 52 petabytes of data, from eBay.com user behavior to online transactions, so analysts, data scientists and business users could find their own answers.
The work got press from InfoWorld, CRN and Ventana Research’s David Menninger, and it laid a foundation for features that were still in development ten years later.
After eBay I worked at Sears Holdings in 2013, on a small team tasked with saving Sears with analytics and data. In 2014, at MicroStrategy, I helped redesign the world’s most popular BI product with natural language and search as the interface.
Highlights
- Head of design for eBay’s entire internal technology division, from 2011
- Designed DataHub, an analytics community and reporting hub
- Opened up 52 petabytes of data for analysts, data scientists and business users
- Integrated Teradata, Tableau, MicroStrategy, Oracle and SQL
- Covered by InfoWorld, CRN and Ventana Research
Numbers
- 52 PB of data opened up through DataHub
Related
- Press: Big data visualization: A big deal for eBay (InfoWorld)
- Press: The Consumerization of Collaborative BI Has Arrived (David Menninger, Ventana Research)
- Press: Inside eBay’s massive data warehouse (CRN Australia)
On the 3D site this chapter is the robot’s left arm. Its popover reads: “Head of design for eBay’s entire internal technology division, when BI and big data were new.” Its panel reads: “In 2011 I joined eBay, based in Austin and traveling to San Jose, when BI and big data were new. I designed DataHub, an analytics hub that opened up 52 petabytes of data to analysts, data scientists and business users.”
The full story
Joining eBay
In 2011 I joined eBay as head of design for its entire internal technology division. I was based in Austin and traveled to San Jose, and we were pioneering business intelligence (BI) and big data while both were still new.
My Joomla work is what brought me there: eBay ran a large internal Joomla site for its data analytics. I designed the UI platform for eBay’s technology organization.
DataHub
I also designed DataHub, an analytics community and reporting hub for executives. The brief was to design an intersection of dashboards, reports, forums, access control, blogs and news for the whole technology organization, on top of petabytes of data.
DataHub plugged into Teradata, Tableau, MicroStrategy, Oracle and SQL. It opened up 52 petabytes of data, from eBay.com user behavior to online transactions, so analysts, data scientists and business users could find their own answers. It laid a foundation for features that were still in development ten years later.
DataHub got press from InfoWorld and CRN Australia, and David Menninger of Ventana Research featured it in a 2011 post on collaborative BI.
Sears Holdings and MicroStrategy
After eBay, in 2013, I joined Sears Holdings as a principal UX designer, on a small team tasked with saving Sears with analytics and data. Our job was to revamp the analytics experience of a company founded in 1893. We built an enterprise analytics social network across all the Sears Holdings companies and ran R&D on streaming ingestion and segmentation with Docker, Kafka, Cassandra and MongoDB.
In 2014 I joined MicroStrategy as a senior UX designer and helped redesign the world’s most popular BI product, with natural language and search as the interface. I introduced a voice-driven, natural language vision for analytics, with concepts that have since become standards and best practices. In 2015 I joined Teradata in San Diego.
Global Head of UX transforming Teradata’s product & design culture
Chapter 4 of 6 · Teradata · 2015-2021 · San Diego, California · Markdown
In 2015 Kyle Ledbetter joined Teradata in San Diego as a principal UX architect and rose to global head of design, revamping the entire product suite for Fortune 500 analytics. He stayed until 2021.
In Kyle’s words
I joined Teradata in San Diego in 2015 and stayed until 2021. The company had traditionally shipped hardware, with long release cycles, waterfall and thousands of engineers. By the time I left, I was its global head of design, and we’d revamped the entire product suite for Fortune 500 analytics.
I started as a principal UX architect on a small team that led the move to agile, software-only products. We created Covalent, an open source UI platform built on Angular and Material Design, used by Teradata and Fortune 500 customers. Our goal was speed to productivity, with functional UI in one sprint.
I moved up to director and then senior director of user experience. As senior director I reported to the C-suite and built a centralized global UX organization for a 10,000-person company, with research and design teams, UX labs and design studios. In 2018 we launched #OneUX to open the whole company up to UX. We also formalized our process as R.A.D.A.R., so every UX request was researched with real users, architected, usability tested and benchmarked.
For years, Teradata had built products for one persona, the DBA, and engineers took feature requests as requirements. We ran research with more than 500 customers from 150+ Fortune 1000 companies, cut 17 personas down to 6 and rebuilt them from real customers. Then we redesigned the entire Teradata Vantage product suite, from SQL editors and data catalogs to operations tools, and introduced dark mode.
In 2019 I presented the work in the UX keynote at Teradata Universe in Denver, for 2,000 customers in the room and thousands more streaming online. The most important result of those years was proving the ROI of UX: lower costs, less churn and faster time to market.
Highlights
- Global head of design, reporting to the C-suite
- Created Covalent, an open source Angular and Material Design UI platform
- Launched #OneUX in 2018 to open the whole company up to UX
- Redesigned the entire Teradata Vantage product suite
- Gave the UX keynote at Teradata Universe 2019, for 2,000 customers
Numbers
- 500+ customers in our research, from 150+ Fortune 1000 companies
- 17 to 6 personas, rebuilt from real customers
- 2,000 customers in the room for the 2019 Teradata Universe keynote
“There is never enough research! Think of personas the same way you think about agile software. Always evolve, iterate and continuously improve.”
Related
- Talk: UX keynote at Teradata Universe
- Talk: We Feel The Need, The Need For Speed
- Talk: Building Angular Material Enterprise Web Apps
- Talk: Building Enterprise Web Apps on Angular-Material
- Writing: R.A.D.A.R.: UX Design Wrapped with Architecture & Research
- Writing: A Renewed Focus on User Experience at Teradata
- Writing: Embracing the Darkness: Vantage Developer
- Writing: Announcing Covalent: An Open-Source Angular 2.0 Material UI Platform by Teradata
- Writing: 9 reasons why we’re doubling down on Material Design for our enterprise web apps
- Project: Teradata Vantage
- Project: Covalent
- Project: Teradata AppCenter
- Project: Analytics dashboards
- Project: Streaming data platform
- Practice: UX R.A.D.A.R. process
- Practice: #OneUX
- Practice: The Persona Project
- Practice: UX toolkit
On the 3D site this chapter is the robot’s right arm. Its popover reads: “Global head of design, revamping the entire product suite for Fortune 500 analytics.” Its panel reads: “From 2015 to 2021 I was at Teradata in San Diego, rising from UX architect to global head of design. We built Covalent, ran research with 500+ customers, cut 17 personas to 6 and revamped the entire product suite for Fortune 500 analytics.”
The full story
Covalent and the UI platform
I joined Teradata in San Diego in 2015 as a principal UX architect. The company had traditionally shipped hardware, with long release cycles, waterfall and thousands of engineers. I was on a small team that led the move to agile, software-only products.
We had very few frontend developers and distributed offices, so we set up a matrixed team of frontend developers and designers across the product squads. We created Covalent, an open source UI platform built on Angular and Material Design, used by Teradata and Fortune 500 customers. Our goal was speed to productivity, with functional UI in one sprint.
I also led research and design for a real-time streaming data platform and delivered Teradata’s first developer experience: REST APIs and docs alongside monitoring.
The developer platform
As director of user experience I led the API and UI platform teams. We delivered enterprise single sign-on and identity, a SQL editor where developers could test queries and write scripts in the browser, an API catalog and developer.teradata.com. The UI team we built inside engineering laid the foundation for our UX organization.
A global UX organization
As senior director of user experience and global head of design, I reported to the C-suite and built a centralized global UX organization for a 10,000-person company, with research and design teams, UX labs and design studios. We aligned UX with product management, engineering, sales, support and marketing through the voice of the customer.
In 2018 we launched #OneUX to open the whole company up to UX, starting with a UX Summit and three back-to-back design thinking workshops for UX practitioners, product managers, architects, services and support. We formalized our process as R.A.D.A.R., so every UX request was researched with real users, architected, usability tested and benchmarked.
For years Teradata had built products for one persona, the DBA, and engineers took feature requests as requirements. We ran research with more than 500 customers from 150+ Fortune 1000 companies, cut 17 personas down to 6 and rebuilt them from real customers. Then we redesigned the entire Teradata Vantage product suite, from SQL editors and data catalogs to operations tools, and introduced dark mode.
The keynote and the results
In 2019 I presented the work, including dark mode and the launch of developer.teradata.com, in the UX keynote at Teradata Universe in Denver, for 2,000 customers in the room and thousands more streaming online. That year I also co-presented at the Art of Marketing conference in San Diego with Scott Robinson, CEO of Freshform, our UX research partner.
The major success of those years was proving the ROI of UX: lower costs, less churn and faster time to market. I stayed at Teradata until 2021.
Founding hire for the world’s first AI governance platform
Chapter 5 of 6 · Credo AI · 2021-2024 · Galveston, Texas · Markdown
In 2021 Kyle Ledbetter joined Credo AI as a founding hire and head of design. Before generative AI hit, he designed the world’s first AI governance, risk and compliance platform and helped take the company from seed to Series A.
In Kyle’s words
In 2021 I joined Credo AI as a founding hire and head of design. I was living in Galveston, Texas. Generative AI hadn’t hit yet, and my job was to design the world’s first AI governance, risk and compliance platform.
I came on before the seed round. Our customers were Fortune 1000 companies with complex AI challenges, and I worked every day with their AI compliance teams and data scientists. The product had to work for data scientists, governance teams, product managers and executives.
I created the design system, the UI patterns and the original prototypes the platform was built on, and those designs were integral to raising our seed round and our Series A.
Our method was human-centered AI, which meant addressing real people’s needs and concerns at every stage of design and development. As I wrote in Designing Truly Human-Centered AI, “Humans are never an afterthought.” We asked the AI and machine learning industry for a culture change, with software and practices built to keep AI compliant and regulated.
That work helped pave the road for today’s AI safety work. In 2024 I spoke about governance and human agency at the World Design Policy Conference, in a talk called Agency Over AI Agents. I was at Credo AI until 2024, when I co-founded Dreambase.
Highlights
- Joined in 2021 as a founding hire and head of design, before the seed round
- Designed the world’s first AI governance, risk and compliance platform
- Created the design system, UI patterns and original prototypes
- Designs were integral to raising the seed round and Series A
- Built for Fortune 1000 companies with complex AI challenges
“Humans are never an afterthought.”
Related
- Talk: Agency Over AI Agents
- Writing: Generative AI for Designer-Developers: Supercharge Your Workflow with ChatGPT, Midjourney, and beyond!
- Writing: Designing Truly Human-Centered AI
- Project: Credo AI governance platform
- Practice: Human-centered AI (HCAI)
On the 3D site this chapter is the robot’s head. Its popover reads: “Founding head of design, seed to Series A. Designed the world’s first AI governance, risk and compliance platform.” Its panel reads: “In 2021, before generative AI hit, I joined Credo AI as head of design while living in Galveston. I created the design system, UI patterns and original prototypes, and helped take the company from seed to Series A.”
The full story
A founding hire
In 2021 I joined Credo AI as a founding hire and head of design, while living in Galveston, Texas. I came on before the seed round, and before generative AI hit. My job was to design the world’s first AI governance, risk and compliance platform.
Our customers were Fortune 1000 companies, some of the largest corporations in the world, with complex AI challenges. The product had to work for data scientists, governance teams, product managers and executives, and I worked every day with AI compliance teams and data scientists.
Designing the platform
I created the design system, the UI patterns and the original prototypes the platform was built on. Those designs were integral to raising our seed round and our Series A. I helped grow the team and the product, and we built the organization and its culture around trust and ethics in AI and machine learning.
Human-centered AI
Our method was human-centered AI. The first step in designing the platform was to address real people’s needs and concerns at every stage of design and development. As I wrote on the Credo AI blog, “Humans are never an afterthought.”
We asked the AI and machine learning industry for a culture change, with software and practices built to keep AI compliant and regulated, and we worked to set industry standards for responsible AI around the world. That platform helped pave the road for today’s AI safety work.
Writing and speaking
When generative AI arrived, I wrote about how designer-developers could speed up their work with ChatGPT, Midjourney and other tools. In 2024 I spoke at the World Design Policy Conference, part of World Design Capital San Diego + Tijuana, in a talk called Agency Over AI Agents. It was about keeping human agency as AI advances, with risk management beyond compliance and governance frameworks that keep people in control.
I was at Credo AI until 2024, when I co-founded Dreambase.
Co-Founder & CTO of AI-native analytics platform Dreambase
Chapter 6 of 6 · Dreambase · Since 2024 · Austin, Texas · Markdown
Kyle Ledbetter is co-founder and CTO of Dreambase (“Your data team of agents.”), an agentic analytics platform partnered with and backed by Supabase. He is based in Austin, Texas.
In Kyle’s words
In 2024 I co-founded Dreambase with Andy Keil, and I’m the CTO. Dreambase is your data team of agents, and we’re partnered with and backed by Supabase. I’m based in Austin, Texas.
Dreambase works straight from the source of truth, the database.
In nine months Andy and I built and launched three products. We compared prototypes in V0, Bolt and Lovable and tested them with real users within days, as we told the Supra Insider podcast.
Natural language interfaces for data have been part of my work for a long time. In 2014, at MicroStrategy, I worked on natural language and search as the interface for BI. In 2016 I prototyped Analytics Hub, a question-and-answer platform for enterprise analytics.
Highlights
- Co-founder and CTO of Dreambase, since 2024
- Dreambase: “Your data team of agents.”
- Partnered with and backed by Supabase
- Based in Austin, Texas
- Built and launched three products in nine months with co-founder Andy Keil
Numbers
- 3 products built and launched in nine months
Related
- Talk: How this AI-powered duo found PMF by building 3 products in 9 months
- Talk: Augmented Design at the Speed of AI
- Writing: Data Refinement is the Missing Layer for AI Agents in Software Factories
- Writing: Agents Need a Data Factory
- Writing: Agent Research is the new User Research
- Writing: Dreambase blog
- Writing: It’s ok to dream again.
- Press: Exclusive: Supabase Execs Were So Impressed With Dreambase, They Became Investors In Its $3.7M Round (Crunchbase News)
- Project: Analytics Hub
- Practice: AI-native tech stack
On the 3D site this chapter is the robot’s chest. Its popover reads: “Your data team of agents.” Its panel reads: “Andy Keil and I started Dreambase in 2024. Dreambase is your data team of agents, and we’re partnered with and backed by Supabase. In nine months we built and launched three products. I’m based in Austin, Texas.”
The full story
Co-founding Dreambase
In 2024 Andy Keil and I co-founded Dreambase (“Your data team of agents.”), and I’m the CTO. Dreambase is an agentic analytics platform, partnered with and backed by Supabase, and it works straight from the source of truth, the database. I’m based in Austin, Texas.
Three products in nine months
In nine months Andy and I built and launched three products. We went from whiteboard sessions to multimodal prompts, compared prototypes in V0, Bolt and Lovable, and tested them with real users within days. We told that story on episode 59 of the Supra Insider podcast in 2025.
That year our products for teams on Supabase included product analytics dashboards that read usage straight from the database with no third-party tools, health checks and row level security help for Supabase projects, and internal tools that use Supabase’s own sign-in.
In 2026 Crunchbase News covered our $3.7M funding round.
Data for agents
My writing in 2026 is about the data AI agents need. They need refined company data: defined KPIs, trusted metrics and reusable datasets, with the definitions and history behind them, shared by people and their agents. I’ve made the case for a data factory for agents, with the same quality loops as a software factory, refining raw data into business metrics and knowledge.
I’ve also written about running user research with a panel of AI agents, and many of the posts on the Dreambase blog are mine.
At DDX San Diego in 2024 I gave a talk called Augmented Design at the Speed of AI, on how AI is changing design right now and how top teams speed up while keeping creative control. I also joined a panel there with Sebastian Gier of DDX, Morgan Quinn of Google Gemini and Benjamin Kuhn of Mercedes-Benz.
Answers from data
Helping people get answers from data has been part of my work for a long time. At eBay, DataHub opened up 52 petabytes of data to analysts, data scientists and business users. In 2014, at MicroStrategy, I worked on natural language and search as the interface for BI. In 2016 I prototyped Analytics Hub, a question-and-answer platform for enterprise analytics that sent the questions it couldn’t answer to a community forum.