How's that working out for you? Being clever.

Hi, it’s me.  I know you’ve been really busy lately but it’s time we have “the talk”.  There has been a lot of discussion lately about the state of the economy and the struggles within the tech and design industries.  I hear things like “it’s just another bubble”, “design thinking is dead”, “[we’re] fine. Assets are fine”, etc.  Confident assurance in equal measure that this is the end of the tech and design industries, and that the tech and design industries have never been stronger.  It’s time to accept the harsh reality that tech and design as they’re regarded today aren’t differentiators anymore, and they aren’t even industries.  

Tech and design are vital disciplines for any product or service produced today.  They once were truly revolutionary, but so was electricity.  It’s time for tech and design to take their rightful place alongside other such luminous elders that have brought humanity this far; to make space for new discoveries to build on your legacy and take us even farther.  The true pioneers and phenomenal talents in these fields have been overshadowed of late by the snake oil hawkers who have poisoned the reputation of some truly enlightening capabilities.  It’s sad to see people turn their back on such valuable skill and knowledge because they’ve been sold a knock off version of reality. Accept no substitutions.

I mentioned before that tech and design aren’t even “industries”, which I think warrants some clarification.  In 1899 my favorite economist (yes, I’m that much of a nerd) Thorstein Veblen published The Theory of the Leisure Class, which was equally powerful and important as it was poorly received.  Veblen coined terms we all know such as “status symbol”, and “conspicuous consumption”.  More important to this discussion, he defined a boundary between business and industry.  I’ll paraphrase by saying that business exists for the sole purpose of generating profits for the purpose of funding the pleasure of the leisure class (see 1%ers, etc), whereas the purpose of industry is to produce goods and services for the benefit of society.  That doesn’t mean it’s not ok to make money or even get wealthy, but there’s a fine line.  And considering that 50% of the world’s wealth is owned by just EIGHTY ONE people, and just the top ten richest people in the world includes five current or former leaders of renowned tech and design firms, it’s very hard to argue that this is an industry.  It is, by Veblen’s definition, business, and that leaves the remaining 7.8+ billion humans on earth fighting over the Leisure Class’ table scraps.  There is a moral and ethical imperative to separate the business and industrial activities within tech and design, but I digress.  That’s a story for another day.

So far I’ve made some pretty bold statements, and at this point you might be wondering how the hell do I have the nerve to make such such audacious claims?  Or at least I hope you’re not just taking my word for it; my opinions are nothing if not worthy of scrutiny.  I owe you some background about myself, my career, and my experiences so far in life.

I have a B.S. in Business Economics, and I was awarded multiple honors in the course of my study.  Frankly, that shouldn’t mean anything to you.  Titles and awards don’t equal capability.  Honestly I despise both the words “business” and “economics” as they are commonly misused in society today.  I didn’t choose this course of study until I considered that economics is much more a study of systems and how their components interact with each other, money being just one of several variables that define what may or may not be possible.  And I learned that by improving my understanding of economics, I might be able to influence businesses to make decisions that have the potential to benefit humanity while also satisfying shareholders and board members.  Something like a “spoonful of sugar” if you know what I mean.

On face value, my cv looks like complete chaos and makes no sense.  If you’ll indulge my vanity for a moment, I’m more of a Richard Feynman or Snoop Dogg, than I am a Bill Gates or Tim Kobe type, when in comes to the trajectory of my work and interests.

I’m a respected Surgical Technologist with more than 24,000 hours in surgery.  I’m a musician who’s performed live with acts like the Doobie Brothers and Pam Tillis.  I’m an experienced executive leader of tech and design firms.  And I’m an economist, but I'm not like a regular economist, I'm a cool economist.  I want to share a little secret with you.  None of those things are who I am, or what I do.  Am I special?  No.  Am I insatiably curious to a fault?  Probably.  Am I a problem solver with a creative spirit, and maybe more than a little bit of a masochist? Definitely!  But I haven’t done anything that anyone else isn’t capable of doing.  It’s just that I’m most comfortable being uncomfortable, because I’m addicted to the rush of challenging myself to constantly adapt and learn new things.  I adhere to the belief that evolution favors the generalist, and I do my best to let that guide my work and personal development.

Bringing this back to the point; the tech and design industries do not exist, and they are not failing.  Their leaders are failing by resisting the privilege of being accepted as exalted icons for adding substantively to the canon of best practices for business and industry.  They’re a shining example, slowly flickering out in real-time, that things are not always what they appear to be; and I’m assuming that I’m not the only person who can relate to that.

Some of the best known and most respected brands today who defined the standards that others have tried to turn into easy to follow recipes, are the direct result of people who didn’t fit into the boxes available to them at the time.  Boxes are for things.  Things to be stored or moved when not in use.  Boxes are NOT for people or ideas. Let’s look at a couple cases where “different” and “difficult” people with conviction for their beliefs chose to embrace discomfort and the unknown, risking everything to test a belief that their crazy idea might not be so crazy after all.

Adobe is arguably one of the most influential and ubiquitous firms in tech and design today, not to mention the consumer market. Since 2023 happens to be the 30th anniversary of their founding let's start with them. Adobe has a market cap of approximately $256.6B, annual gross revenue of $17.61B, and an EBITDA of $6.72B as of 2022… if you care about those sorts of things.  The only reason that Adobe exists is because in the late 1990s two Xerox employees, John Warnock and Charles Geschke, pitched an idea for a universal form of digital document to Xerox execs and got rejected.  So they left, and founded Adobe to create the PDF.  I’ll spare you the specifics about the financial health of Xerox, you can look it up if you like, but Xerox is barely hanging on with two years of net losses and a cringeworthy net income for the three years prior.  How sublimely ironic would it be if Adobe were to acquire Xerox?

Everyone knows McDonald’s and what they sell.  With 40,275 locations worldwide as of 2022, almost literally everyone knows McDonald’s.  It may be well known to many people reading this, but it bears repeating that McDonald’s is not in the foodservice business.  That’s secondary to their primary business, which is real-estate portfolio management.  With over $30B in real-estate holdings, McDonald’s is one of the largest land owners in the world, eclipsing several firms whose core mission is real-estate portfolio management.  As of 2021, approximately 93% of all McDonald’s locations were owned and operated by franchisees who are bound to operate at McDonald’s direction and purchase all supplies from McDonald’s.  Only 7% of McDonald’s locations are owned and operated directly by the company, and the company is actively working to reduce that even further.  Why?  McDonald’s keeps approximately 82% of revenue generated by franchise locations, compared to just 16% of revenue from stores they own and operate themselves.  McDonald’s as we know it today exists only because in 1956 Harry Sonneborn approached Ray Kroc with this proposed operating model.  Kroc promptly hired Sonneborn as CFO of McDonald’s, and it turned out his crazy idea wasn’t so crazy after all.

These two examples share many similarities.  Leaders of an organization were approached with a potentially revolutionary idea that stepped outside the lines of what the company thought they did, and required a humbling leap of faith.  In one case they rejected the notion that such an unconventional concept could possibly be viable, leading to the birth of one of the most valuable and influential companies in the modern era, to the detriment of their own relevance and survival.  In the other case a company struggling to sell 15¢ hamburgers took a stab at real-estate portfolio management and invented an entirely new business sector called “fast food”, that as of 2021 represents a global market of approximately $647.7B that is poised to push $1T by 2030.

The list of failures goes on and on and on.  You could fill a museum of hubris with brands that shot themselves in the foot.  For all I know there might be one.  I think that’s the only assumption I haven’t researched in this article, and about as much blind risk as I’m willing to take.  I can think of a few exhibits that would probably be there though.  Names like Kodak, Juul, FTX, Alameda Research, MedMen, Fyre Fest, Blockbuster, Yahoo, Blackberry, MySpace, Quibi, Theranos, Juicero… and that barely scratches the surface.  I’d love to hear your favorite self destructive brand stories so please share in the comments!  Not only is it a great entertainment value to learn about firms who blew a commanding lead, as my high school music teacher put it, “you can learn just as much from a bad performance as you can a good one.”  Thanks Tom!

So.  What is a firm to do?  Well, let’s start with the talent that make these firms their money.  YOU, the talent, are the only important part of this, and your craft is vital to the world.  I’ve had the privilege of managing some extraordinary talent, and I don’t recall working with anyone who was explicitly opposed to improving the human condition.  Maybe some who were indifferent, but certainly not malicious.  Never doubt that it’s only because of you that any of this is possible, and I encourage you to know and defend your worth and ethical imperatives.

I think many of you are sufficiently dissolution by the oasis of the “carefree, chill” tech and design landscape.  For those of you who are not, or may just be entering the space, please consider this advice.  Red flags to look out for include: lavish toy filled offices, a well stocked bar, business plans that don’t account for everyone taking all the PTO they’re promised, lack of pay transparency, beware when manager use terms like “unlimited PTO”, “love”, and “family”.  Pay close attention when faced with discouragement for expressing opinions or concerns because it's not “your discipline, or job”, and among other things, the normalization of vulgar language as part of the company culture.  Don’t get me wrong, I adore a well placed F bomb, but there’s a time and a place for that, and like any vice, it’s best used in moderation, or not at all.  

Tech and design can definitely be fun and cool work environments, and very rewarding, but they are still professional environments.  As the people hard at work in them, keeping the machine running with your finite and infinitely valuable time, you deserve to be treated with dignity and respect on YOUR terms.  

Don’t mistake abusive language as someone trying to show you that they’re “cool and laid back”, I promise you the executives are balancing the the books and when their carelessness leads to cutting costs, odds are unlikely that they’ll sacrifice their income for the bad decisions they’ve made.  They’ll more likely throw you out with the trash, no matter how “cool and laid back” they seemed to be, how much they “love” you, or what an important part of the “family” they said you were.  

It’s ok, even admirable to build close relationships with colleagues, but there’s a nuanced art to defining the boundary between work and personal relationships when they start to overlap.  Generally speaking, these people, especially management are not your friends.  Even if they are, they have the unenviable task of making difficult decisions about your future.  Even the good ones who may be heartbroken to do so, will let you go if it’s what needs to be done for the business.  That’s one of the sad realities of their job; sad at least for those who understand or care about the gravity of their actions.  It can be hard, but it’s healthy to approach these relationships with caution and always make sure you look out for your own interests first as ethically as you can.  Management isn’t going to do that for you, and many of us have been trained to believe that it would be unwise to reveal how much leverage you actually have.

Ok, now back to the firms.  To the managers, the directors, the executives, the people with the fancy titles.  I’m not mocking you by the way, you’re my peers.  I'm not mad, I'm just really disappointed. How could I possibly judge you?  My license plate literally is HEFANCY; just a reminder to smile and not take myself too seriously.  I know we don’t all share that perspective, so I’m not going to sugar coat this; jokes aside, the decisions we make have enormous consequences for other people’s lives.  As one executive I know put it, insisting on conducting layoffs days before Christmas instead of waiting until after, “[you’re] grown-ups, and you can handle it.”

The party is over.  The jig is up…  Insert old-timey reference of your preference re: being exposed as a bad guy here.  It’s long past time for tech and design leaders to grow up and conduct themselves as the professionals they are purported to be.  You’ve been at the helm, steering this “industry” into disaster after disaster, for a generation.  It is time for you to conduct yourself with dignity fitting of the privilege you have been afforded to alter the course of people’s lives.  Or, it’s time for you to make room for a new generation of leaders; qualified professionals who came up watching your every move, with knowledge, training, and experience that didn't exist when your career began. 

People who demonstrate, through their actions, a functioning understanding of the economy today, and how business and industry function as a part of it need to be making the crucial decisions.  These decisions carry a solemn obligation that they are made with thorough consideration of the human implications, not just the P&L.  I don’t care who's calling the shots, but that’s about as low as the bar can be set with all the knowledge we have at our disposal.

Fancy cars, designer bags, and keeping up appearances of a house of cards is not a recipe for success.  It doesn’t serve the best interests of the business, its hard working talent, or humanity in general.  Especially if it means living well beyond your means.

Free flowing booze, extravagant parties, and the occasional “family vacation” whisking everyone to an exotic destination for a few days sounds fun, but it’s lost on me what positive behavior or values such an exercise reinforces.  In my experience, hard partying usually results in some unpleasant outcomes like regret, impaired judgement, and damaging health consequences.  Let’s not even get into the potential business liabilities.  This article is already long enough, and nothing kills a party like business ethics, risk mitigation, and fiduciary responsibility.  Or so I’m told.

At times like this I’m reminded of Chuck Palahniuk’s seminal work, Fight Club, and it’s many pragmatic quotes; presently, “You are not special. You're not a beautiful and unique snowflake. You're the same decaying organic matter as everything else. We're all part of the same compost heap. We're [the] all singing, all dancing crap of the world.’

Now that I’ve gotten all that off my chest, can we please all agree that nobody is buying the illusion that tech and design are magical elixirs of success?  Everything we do and see today is measured against products and services produced by the very few firms that have come closest to mastering these skills; and they continue to raise the bar.  

It’s been almost five years since InVision published The Design Maturity Report which as of 2019 was the “widest-reaching report on how design affects business”, and it’s overflowing with rich and principled, actionable knowledge.  One of my favorite observations being that the firms who get the greatest ROI from their design organizations tend to have the smallest “design” teams, but have learned to integrate the knowledge that design has given us about working successfully into their organizations without relying on, forgive me, “design thinking”, or “xyz design academy”, certificates that are quite frankly so bastardized that they’re the participation trophy of our professional generation.

The most stunning realization about The Design Maturity Report to me, is that of the hundreds of clients and potential clients I’ve interacted with since this has been freely available, shockingly few people in a business or leadership capacity are familiar with it, let alone studied it.  Don’t even get me started on the wealth of other literature.  

It’s all been sitting there right at your feet this whole time, the beautiful Ruby Slippers that they are.  “You've always had the power my dear, you just had to learn it for yourself.”

The era of “move fast, break things” has been over for a while now, but there are always those last few people who just don’t know when to leave a party that’s already ended.  We’re now in the era of “slow down, reflect, and carefully consider what antiquated structures must be demolished to make room for the future.”

I for one look forward to living in the future, rather than dying in the past.  And I hope to see you there!