Your career's not your life. There's a lot more to it than that.
35 years of product design wisdom from Apple, Disney, Pinterest and beyond
June 12, 2025
Featuring: Bob Baxley (Design Leader, Former Apple/Pinterest/ThoughtSpot)
8 quotes · 7 insights
Watch Full EpisodeJobs can't fulfill all needs - that's not failure
CEOs should own the product, not delegate it
Saying a company is design-led does not mean it's designer-led.
Design culture can't be grafted on later
I've never seen somebody graft design culture on after the fact. It's there at the beginning in the root DNA or doesn't exist.
The whole company is constantly asking how can the thing that I'm working on be a little bit better?
Feel it before you build it
You should wait as long as possible to draw a picture. Once you make that mark on the canvas, everything you do after that is in response to that mark.
Focus on customer value creation, not internal metrics
We have an obligation as product people to put that emotional energy back into people's lives.
Product and engineering are two sides of the same coin
I think design is most successful at impacting what ships at the end if design is considered phase zero of the engineering process, rather than a by product or a part of the product process.
Different growth stages require different strengths
Most likely the new place hires you because of the values of the organization you left, but not the behaviors.