Will the most successful companies in the future be technology companies or design companies?

Moore's Law no longer applies

Starting with Flextronics' acquisition of Frog Design in 2004, more and more technology companies have been scrambling to acquire creative companies over the past decade. For example, Google owns several industrial design firms, while Facebook owns software and digital design companies such as Sofa, Teehan+Lax and Hot Studio.

And this trend is about to reach a tipping point: Since 2010, 27 startups co-founded by designers have been acquired by large technology companies, and in the past year, six venture capital firms have invited designers to join their teams for the first time.

Maeda noted that this trend is only going to continue because in Silicon Valley, “Moore’s Law is no longer the key to satisfying customers.” For years, the go-to solution in the tech world has been to build faster chips. Today, design has replaced silicon as the ultimate answer. Take the new MacBook, for example: It's slower than the old MacBook and MacBook Air purely from a chip perspective, but its industrial design pushes the envelope in other ways, from the simplicity of its ports to its inherent portability.

New MacBook

Start with design, not end with design

As design becomes more profitable, the tech world is changing. In the past, technology companies viewed design as just the finishing touches of a product, like the plain beige case that covers a desktop computer. Today, companies are beginning to incorporate design into the development of every product, such as the Nest smart thermostat, from the very beginning.

The perfect fusion of technology and design long predates the rise of Silicon Valley. Consider the Thonet14 bentwood chair by Michael Thonet, also known as the Vienna Café Chair. It was created in 1859 and is so carefully designed that, when disassembled, all 36 chairs fit into a 1-meter shipping container. The Sonnet chair was thus able to be manufactured cheaply in Eastern Europe and shipped as far away as New York while maintaining a low price. Since its introduction in 1859, more than 50 million Chair No. 141 have been sold, a feat that would not have been possible if good design thinking had not been incorporated into every step of the production process.

Mike Thonet14 Bentwood Chair

To achieve design excellence, you need excellent business thinking/practices, effective investment in design, and superb engineering capabilities to achieve lasting performance. — John Maeda, design partner at KPCB Venture Capital

Apple is not the first company to let design guide the business. Top companies have always done so, but the technology industry was slow to realize it.

Technology is no longer just for geeks

Once upon a time, technology companies didn’t have to worry about design because their audiences were all geeks, just like them. Today, not only has this changed, but the ubiquity of technology has made the importance of user interface and experience design unprecedented.

Back in the 1980s and 1990s, consumers interacted with poor-quality user interfaces only a few times a day, which Maeda called “pain points.” Today, we check our phones hundreds of times a day, increasing the number of potential “ouch points” that could lead to user alienation by 10 times. “User experience is very important nowadays, since we experience it so frequently,” Maeda pointed out. "The pain points on the mobile side can expand into 'pain areas' in a matter of minutes. I don't know how many times I've had to cry out in pain."

User experience is extremely important nowadays since we experience it so frequently. The pain points on the mobile terminal may expand into a "pain surface" in a minute, and I don’t know how many times I will cry out in pain. — John Maeda

Designers are the key to a startup

Maeda believes that designers are the key to both startups and established companies. Within a startup, early employees have a profound impact on the company culture, so hiring designers from the beginning is crucial. Today, startups have undoubtedly realized this fact: the ratio of designers to engineers employed by technology startups is 1:4. According to Jackie Xu, talent acquisition partner at KPCB venture capital firm, the ratio used to be closer to 1:15 or even 1:30.

Therefore, designers can help build a business from scratch. But Maeda also sees a new trend emerging: more and more designers are taking senior management positions in technology companies, advocating a top-down design system. Take Nike as an example, their CEO is a designer.

Designer's Happiness Index

A new study from Adobe shows that creatives are happier at work. After surveying 1,000 respondents, Adobe found that American designers, illustrators and photographers are more than half satisfied with their work.

As can be seen from the above pictures, 93% of designers feel a sense of accomplishment in their work, 84% feel the value of their creative passion, and 88% believe that their future in the design and creative industry is bright. So optimistic!