Design is Horseshit
This stuff was bizarre to me:<p>> Design enhances value, it does not create it. Stop creating shitty startups that <i>look</i> amazing.<p>> It is to a massive degree much, much easier to spend a week pushing <i>pixels</i> to create something <i>beautiful</i><p>> If there’s one thing you can rely on everyone having an opinion on, it’s how something should <i>look</i>.<p>(my emphasis)<p>The author's conniption would appear to be around graphic design. Graphic design is a subset of design, and covers nothing close to the full scope of what goes into the design of a new product. Design is about <i>how things work</i> and, often, what feelings they evoke in the process. How they look can be a part of that, but it needn't always be.<p>For example: how delightful is it to work with a great API? Something straightforward, well-documented, but nonetheless powerful? It's such a joy. But it requires effort: planning, understanding, experimentation, adjustment, refining, etc. In a word, design.<p>As a test, consider the following:<p>Is it first engine <i>design</i> or is it engine making? Airframe <i>design</i> or airframe building? Circuit <i>design</i> or circuit assembly? You can't <i>make</i> the engine until someone <i>designs</i> it first. How it looks doesn't much matter – how it works is non-negotiably essential.<p>Something that <i>works well</i> is said to be well-designed. Something that merely <i>looks</i> nice can be pretty – and terribly designed.<p>So a startup can't have something be both shitty and well-designed at the same time.<p>The notion that design is a differentiating characteristic for startups comes from the fact that many incumbent products <i>simply do not work well</i>. By designing a product that addresses a given workflow faster, with greater convenience, with greater fun, you're making something that works better.<p>We're past the point where you can build technology that fits requirements and stop there. Everyone else has done that already. Now success comes in making things that are satisfying, not obnoxious, that are easily learned, that make users excited to show their friends.<p>tl;dr: Someone doesn't grasp the difference between design and making nice graphics, throws a tantrum of a non-sequitur.