Most designers dream of working for Apple or similar. They want to join a team at the top. And I get it, I do.
Maybe its the way I was raised, but I don't see the attractiveness in joining a winning team, quite the opposite.
Especially as a designer, I'd rather work somewhere or on something that hasn't figured out design yet, where you can figure out all the problems and move something, have a real impact.
I see no personal challenge (or fulfilling feeling) in joining a winning team where the bed is already made. Give me the unsexy thing nobody else wanted, give me something messy.
I hope and wish more designers will see it this way in the future too, after all isn't that why we become designers in the first place?
The obvious path for designers in the AI age is to move closer to code.
But the more valuable path may be upstream: closer to the customer, the business, and the problem.
If everyone can prompt agents to code, the scarce skill becomes knowing why, what, and how to build.
Never quit as a founder. I’m begging you.
It’s 0 for longer than you’ll ever expect. No momentum. Soul-crushing doubts. Nobody seems to care. Even when it looks like it’s working, it’s not. You keep trying new things. You don’t lose hope.
Then it snaps to 100. You finally find the one thing that resonates. You wake up with more customers than you can handle. Everything is breaking. Momentum keeps building even when you’re not pushing. Something changed.
You didn’t get lucky, you just didn’t leave.