Writing

Tech Culture

The Future of Design: How AI is Shifting Designers from Makers to Curators

When we think about designers, two main characteristics often come to mind: craft skills and taste. Craft skills are the technical abilities that allow designers to manipulate tools—whether physical, like pen and paper in the early days, or digital design software like Photoshop and Figma today—to create their desired output. Taste, on the other hand, is the ability to perceive and refine quality in design, guiding the look and feel of an output toward something that feels refined and cohesive.

Why VCs Turn Founders Down (Note: It’s Not Always About the Idea)

Successful founders need to have a high degree of confidence in their chosen concept. As such, when founders fail to get investment, they’ll often walk away from a VC meeting thinking, “They just didn’t get my idea.” While this might be true, there are a whole host of other reasons why a VC might pass. Many first-time founders assume it's always about the idea—when often it’s much more about execution, the team, and the market. Understanding these reasons in advance can help you avoid the most common pitfalls and allow you to approach your next pitch with confidence.

Tech Culture

The Real Reason Why Executives Don’t Want you Involved

We’ve all been there. You get hired for your expertise in a specific domain, and yet for some reason the powers at be seem to ignore your input, make a bunch of random decisions you think are at best ill-informed or at worst just plain wrong, and then hand it to you for implementation. If only they’d have consulted you sooner and you might have been able to avoid this mess.

Design Leadership

Moving from “System One” to “System Two” Thinking for Product Decisions

Every day people approach company leaders with problems in need of a quick fix. “The team is going to miss its deadline if we don’t do something about it” they’ll say, or “we just had some some really bad customer feedback and we need to make good. What do you think we should do?” Leaders want to feel helpful and decisive so they’ll often think about the problem for a few seconds before coming up with a solution. “Let’s bring in some freelancers to get the project over the finish line on time” they might say or “let’s give the client a free upgrade to keep them on side”. 

Startups and Investing

Escalating Commitment to a Losing Strategy - Why Founders Refuse to Quit

As a startup founder, shutting down your business will be one of the hardest decisions you'll ever have to make. However sometimes it's also the smartest option. Especially if you're able to close things down gracefully, give folks a good severance package and potentially return some unused funds to investors; not to mention gaining back some valuable time. Unfortunately, many entrepreneurs refuse to admit defeat and keep pouring resources into a failing endeavour. The tendency for people to double down in the face of growing negative evidence is known in behavioural psychology as "escalating commitment to a losing strategy". In this short article I highlight a few of the common cognitive biases that help make this happen.

Design Practice

The Role of Design in an Increasingly Financialized Business Environment

In recent years, businesses have become increasingly decoupled from traditional outcomes like profit, and many are now seen as financial instruments whose value is primarily driven by shareholder sentiment and market perception. This shift towards financialization is evident in many industries, from tech startups to established corporations, and has significant implications for designers who work in these businesses.