There's a version of the AI conversation that is almost entirely noise ... and then there's the one Rhiannon Lee has been having quietly inside her own business for nearly four years.

The founder of Oleander & Finch Interiors arrived in this episode carrying a story she rarely shares publicly. Her father, reflecting on her career, observed something she hadn't quite named herself: that the way she designs spaces ... the care, the safety, the sense of permanence she builds into every project ... might have everything to do with a childhood spent moving between schools and communities, never quite landing somewhere that felt like home. It's the kind of origin story that reframes everything. Design, in Rhiannon's hands, was never just about aesthetics. It was always about belonging.

That same instinct for protection threads through her approach to AI. While the design world has been busy chasing render generators and SketchUp shortcuts, Rhiannon has been making the opposite argument: ke...