- 5/22/2025
A conversation with Jony Ive
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00:00I'm very excited about this interview.
00:02There are few people in the valley who need, or in the technology industry more broadly,
00:08who need less of an introduction than Johnny, and it struck me as I was about to walk on
00:16here that he barely even needs a surname.
00:22Please welcome to the stage Sir Johnny Ive.
00:40All right.
00:41Well, thank you for joining us.
00:45I really would love to say that I am unspeakably grateful and honored to be here.
00:53Spending any time with Patrick is a big deal, so thank you.
00:57Well, I want to start sort of in the obvious place.
01:01I mean, I don't know if you got to kind of walk the floor and everything, but you can
01:06see sort of a little bit here, and you had the monitor backstage and so forth.
01:12What do you think of the design?
01:17It's lovely, isn't it?
01:18No, it's very...
01:19Do you know, I've not been here, I haven't been here for a long time, and I have some
01:26very strong and vivid memories of being here, but no, the design's lovely.
01:38The first event I ever came to in San Francisco was one that you designed with the auteur
01:46behind.
01:47It was the WWDC in, I have to go back and check, I think it was 05, maybe it was 06,
01:53but that was the first event I came to in San Francisco, and it was, actually, I want
01:58to say it was here in this room at Moscone, but actually John got to be in here, but I
02:04was relegated to the overflow room.
02:07Which was not my fault.
02:09All right, so, well, speaking of that, you came to Silicon Valley in 1992, is that right?
02:16That's right.
02:17Yeah.
02:18So, you're still very young, but that was, you know, a couple of years ago, a couple
02:24of decades ago.
02:26How has Silicon Valley...
02:28So, Alan Kay says that the software industry and the computing industry is a pop culture
02:35in the sense that we are ahistorical, and we don't understand the ideas and the antecedents
02:42and the things that came before us, and that's Alan Kay's view, I don't know if it's right,
02:47but I thought it was an interesting idea, and certainly it's the case that if you ask
02:50people, I don't know, to, you know, in many industries, the greats and the creators and
02:58so forth are these kind of big, hallowed names, but if you ask people, you know, who invented
03:01the internet, a lot of people in the technology industry don't have, you know, a clear sense
03:06of that history.
03:07I've always had that kind of phenomenon, interesting, but since you've now got to observe Silicon
03:12Valley for, you know, 33 years, how has it changed?
03:15Well, I think when I was at art school, so I studied design in England, I was born in
03:26London and studied up in the Northeast, and I remember discovering the Mac in my final
03:35year, sadly, I wish it had been earlier, but I came to realize something that was, I should
03:46have realized earlier, but that what I realized was that what we make stands testament to
03:54who we are, and what we make describes our values, it describes our preoccupations, it
04:02describes beautifully, succinctly, our preoccupation, and this struck me so powerfully when I saw
04:13the Mac, and I got a very specific sense.
04:20Because it was a kind of bicycle for the mind, that aspect of it, or something else?
04:23It was every part, I got a very clear sense of a group, clearly, of original thinkers
04:31with clear values, completely, I think, obsessed with people and culture.
04:41You know, you can look at something and it can tell you, I was designed to meet a price
04:48point at a certain time.
04:50So I hit the schedule, we can repent at our leisure, and it's as cheap as we hoped, or
04:57you can try and design something that genuinely attempts to move the species on, and I had
05:05a very clear sense of the latter, that this was created by this renegade group in California,
05:13and so powerful, I mean, I studied industrial design, I didn't study technology, but I was
05:20so moved by the clear values, and the resolve and the courage that I think enabled the embodiment
05:28of those values, that I wanted to meet these people, I wanted to come out.
05:34And so, after college in 89, I first came out, I had to return, this is probably way
05:41too much information.
05:44You're among a couple of friends.
05:47Exactly, this is a small, intimate fireside chat.
05:49But the interesting thing was that I had a job commitment, I was sponsored through college,
05:56and so I had to go back to work in design in London.
06:01And there was a strange liberty, I think, that afforded me.
06:05I was impossibly shy, and I think if I'd been traveling out to meet people with the goal
06:12of getting a job, I would have found that so anxious-making, I don't think I would have
06:19dared to meet people.
06:23And so, because I had no agenda, I think also, I think people were probably happier to meet
06:28me because they didn't think I wanted anything.
06:32And so, to dare to get close to answering your question, what I saw in 89, 92, when
06:42I finally moved out, Apple, I worked, I consulted for Apple for a couple of years, and then
06:49they persuaded me to move to San Francisco, well, to move to Apple here.
06:56What I saw, I think, was, or what I felt, was a sort of an innocent euphoria, I think,
07:06of like-minded people driven by values, clearly in service of humanity, gathering together
07:17in some small groups, in some huge groups.
07:21But I do believe there was a very strong sense of purpose, and that purpose was, we are here
07:29to serve the species.
07:30And was that at Apple in 92, or in the technology industry in 92, or in the Bay Area in 92?
07:39That's a great question.
07:40I think, honestly, Patrick, it was everywhere, I felt.
07:44And even though, you know, there were competitors, even though, I did feel that there was an
07:48underlying sense of our place as servants, and of principled service.
07:58And what's changed?
07:59Well, I don't think that's the case entirely.
08:03I think there are agendas that are about, well, there are corporate agendas, I think,
08:10and this will sound a little harsh, but it is, driven by money and power.
08:17And I think if, you know how you tend to get, you end up somewhere by sort of increments.
08:25I think if you were to starkly contrast today with 92, I think that would be a reasonable
08:34assessment.
08:36For anybody creating software, creating a product, creating a company, what's the center,
08:44or what's the north star that you perceive as having gotten askew today, or the thing
08:53that people should hold firm to in order to avoid some of these failure modes?
08:57Is it what you just mentioned, having a clear sense of purpose?
09:00Is it sort of having a kind of servant orientation?
09:03How would you think, what's at the heart of it?
09:10I think there need to be foundational values, and an understanding of our place in all of
09:19this, and having a clear sense of the goal, which is to enable and inspire people.
09:28I mean, you know, Patrick and I were talking just a while ago about being tool makers,
09:34and I'm very clear and very proud that that's my occupation, and that's my practice.
09:42I love trying to move things forward, which means innovating.
09:49I have a real issue with, I think people confuse innovation with being different or breaking
09:55stuff.
09:57I have no interest in breaking stuff for the sake of breaking stuff.
10:03I don't think breaking stuff and moving on quickly leaves us surrounded by carnage.
10:14I'm interested if things get broken as a consequence of actually creating something better.
10:21But I think one of the things that is, I think is part of the human condition is that
10:31we assume that progress and innovation is sort of inevitable, and you know that it's
10:36not.
10:37You know that you have to have, you know, this underlying conviction, which is fuel,
10:43and then we need an idea and a vision, and then the resolve to make that vision something
10:52that is real, that is not just for us, but that we can share broadly.
10:58You once used a phrase with me, sincerely elevate the species.
11:03Yeah, I think that, you know, I remember many times, and fortunately I'm not talking in
11:12the past tense, but I do remember particular Sunday afternoons working, actually I remember
11:21working on some absurd details in terms of packaging, and in such a, I mean this, compared
11:34to what you guys do, this will seem so trivial, but I had such a clear awareness that in design,
11:43designing a certain solution for, for example, how we managed a cable that's in a box, that
11:50designing that, I knew that millions of people would engage with this little tab, and I can
11:57either make the cable an easy thing to unwrap, sorry, that is such a trivial example, isn't
12:04it?
12:05But clearly you think that, I mean, you can describe the purpose of that in, you know,
12:11that shaves five seconds off the unwrapping of every cable and multiply it across hundreds
12:15of millions, you know, but I get the sense from you that's not why you do it, it's not
12:20this trivial utilitarian, you know, multiplication and calculation, there's something spiritual
12:26in it for you.
12:27What's the spiritual thing?
12:28I think the spiritual thing is that I believe that when somebody unwrapped that box and
12:35took out that cable and they thought somebody gave a shit about me, I think that's a spiritual
12:42thing.
12:43And I think it's a way, and I know I'm in good company here, I know that when you, you
12:53know, what used to depress me was this sense that solving a functional imperative, then
12:59we're done.
13:00But of course that's not enough.
13:04That's not the characteristic of an evolved society, of an evolved species.
13:10And so that Sunday afternoon when I really should have been out with my boys and I'm
13:16worrying about this, I did feel a connection and an excitement that somebody was going
13:25to experience something that they don't even know exists yet.
13:30And even though it was a small thing, it really did come genuinely from a place of
13:36love and of care.
13:39And Steve spoke about this, I mean, he spoke about it way more eloquently than I can.
13:45But he talked about when you make something with love and with care, even though the people
13:54that you've made it for, you don't know their story.
13:58They don't know your story.
14:01You'll never even shake their hands.
14:03But when they use the product that you've made, it's a way, and the way Steve expressed
14:09it I thought was so beautiful, he said, it's a way of expressing our gratitude to the species.
14:18I thought that was such an incredibly thoughtful and beautiful and authentic declaration.
14:27So when people talk about your design, the design that occurred in your time at Apple,
14:35they often refer to minimalism, simplicity, the clarity and function, you know, things
14:42like this.
14:43And that's all certainly true.
14:46But part of what's very striking to me is how much of it seems to have some kind of
14:55sense of humor or joy woven into it.
14:58Like there's the iMac, like the Pixar lamp.
15:03There's the lozenge iMacs in their Technicolor.
15:09There were even iPod socks.
15:14What's the role of joy in design?
15:16Well, I think if that's such a good question, because I think one of the mistakes that people
15:24make is that they think simple products, you know, simplicity is about removing clutter.
15:34And to me, that means you just would end up with an uncluttered product.
15:39But a kind of desiccated soulless product.
15:42Actually, that's a beautiful description, a desiccated soulless product.
15:47I think that's what a lot of minimalism ends up being, or modernism ends up manifesting
15:56as.
15:59My goal and our goal collectively has been to bring order to chaos, to try and, but simplicity
16:08to me is trying to succinctly express the essence of something and its purpose and its
16:18role in our life.
16:21I actually think that something that I feel conscious of is that I think generally in
16:33the Valley and generally in our industry, I think joy and humor has been missing.
16:42And that's something that sort of weighed on me a bit.
16:49And I, you know, the products that we're all developing, they're complicated, aren't they?
16:59Sometimes joy gets confused with being trivial.
17:04But I think I always go back, I don't know about you, but I always go back to being very
17:09clear that my state of mind and how I am in my practice ultimately is going to be embodied
17:17in the work.
17:19And so if I'm consumed with anxiety, that's how the work will end up.
17:26And so I think to be hopeful and optimistic and joyful in our practice and be that way
17:36in how we relate to each other and our colleagues, I actually think that's how the products will
17:43end up.
17:44There is a wonderful talk by a guy called Daniel Cook about how to build a princess
17:55saving enterprise application.
17:59But he deconstructs Super Mario, and obviously the core purpose is to save the princess,
18:07and sort of approaches it from a standard enterprise application design standpoint and
18:12puts together some examples of how one might go about it.
18:17And he impugns this approach and kind of critiques it because he says that this kind of design
18:23fails to recognize that the user is a person, the person wants to learn, the person can
18:31change, the software has an effect on the person, and you have to take that very seriously.
18:36And the words you're using, enable, inspire, love, care, gratitude, joy, to me they seem
18:42to come from a conception of the person as somebody who's living and changing, and the
18:48software in fact has an effect on them.
18:51So something Patrick and I have talked about in the past is, and this is something I'd
18:56love to try and describe, and you'll have to help me, because I think it's really important,
19:04and it's something that I realize, and it took me many years at Apple to realize this,
19:10but it's an effect that I believe occurs when you're in larger groups of people involved
19:16in the common cause of developing a product.
19:20I think one of the things that happens is generally we grow up wanting to be able to
19:26relate to people and wanting to be sociable.
19:31We find ourselves in a work environment with hopefully a diverse range of people.
19:41And one of the things that's interesting is if we're developing products together, there
19:47is this, I noticed this, and it used to infuriate me before I came to try to have a slightly
19:54more generous interpretation of why this happens, but the people generally want to talk about
20:02product attributes that you can measure easily with a number.
20:08So if you guys think about it, and you think about what would dominate the conversations
20:14that you would have, product conversations, you will end up talking about schedule, cost,
20:20speed, weight, anything where you can generally agree that six is a bigger number than two.
20:29And I understand why, but the problem is much of what, much of my contribution and the contribution
20:36of designers and other creatives, you can't measure easily with a number.
20:43It gets even more demeaning.
20:45It can be just, well, that's your opinion.
20:47Well, that's like telling your heart surgeon, well, that's your opinion, and you having
20:51a go yourself.
20:55And so what I came to realize, and I think this is, I think the more generous interpretation
21:05I had was we do that because we want to try to relate to each other.
21:09We do that because we want to be inclusive.
21:13But then this is the dangerous thing that happens, and I would encourage, I desperately
21:23hope this doesn't sound arrogant, but I would really encourage you to think about this,
21:28because I've been so struck by how important this is.
21:34The insidious lie follows, which is we spend all our time talking about attributes because
21:42we can easily measure them.
21:44Therefore, this is all that matters.
21:48And that's a lie.
21:49It's important, but it's a partial truth.
21:53And all of the stuff that I think designers and other creatives can contribute to an experience
22:04or to a product that can make it delightful to use and joyful to use as well as more productive,
22:13if it's delightful and joyful, things tend to be used more, are equally important.
22:23Everything you say sounds arrogant because when you have a beautiful British accent,
22:26then you can get away with anything.
22:30So we're speaking about the import and the impact of design, but if we shift a little
22:38bit to the practice, is there a trade-off between speed of execution and ensuing quality?
22:51Sometimes.
22:52I was hoping you'd say now.
22:58I absolutely know there are fabulous examples where I would reframe the question as it being
23:07about motivation.
23:09So I think what tends to happen is when we're put in this situation of having to choose,
23:19I would get belligerent and say, no, we don't have to choose.
23:22We can do both.
23:24It's very hard.
23:25I mean, I know you guys have heard this lots, but it's hard to do quality and speed and
23:30cost and other things.
23:33But I think there is a beauty to working efficiently, and I think we can say that's speed.
23:43I think, you know, I know we both pay a great deal of attention to the words that we use
23:52because they affect the way we think, and the words that we use to frame a problem are
23:59some of the most important.
24:01And so I would sort of frame the issue of how can we work wonderfully efficiently to
24:11create something with breathtaking quality.
24:17As organizations grow, there's another kind of tension where maybe for various people
24:24here in the audience, certainly this is something I've experienced.
24:27In the early days, the earliest days, it's just you.
24:32And then there's maybe a couple of other people.
24:34But you can kind of stay abreast of everything that's happening, and you feel like you have
24:40the opportunity, at least, to exercise your taste or judgment or opinion in whatever the
24:47issue might be.
24:49And then perhaps things continue to scale, and at some point it's far beyond the scale
24:57and scope of any single human.
25:02And then there's this discontinuity where there are things that happen that I never
25:08saw, I never had the chance and opportunity to weigh in on, I don't know how I feel about
25:15it, I wouldn't have done that thing over there.
25:18How do you, I mean, Apple was not a small company when you were there, certainly not
25:22in the later years.
25:26How do you deal with this?
25:27And I think it's both the scale and scope, but also, doesn't it feel intrinsically unreasonable
25:35to simply say that this thing here doesn't accord with my taste?
25:43I think it's very reasonable to say that.
25:48It's very, very hard, isn't it?
25:52I think what I have, I do believe that we go through chapters or seasons, and the painful
26:02part is the conclusion of one and the beginning of the next, where we have to adjust and we
26:11change our approach.
26:13I think the one thing, obviously, it will not work to assume how we started is how we're
26:18going to finish.
26:19And so I think being very clear that we are in a constant state of flux, and it's trying
26:26to figure out, I believe, what is, you know, what I'm not going to compromise.
26:33And I think that's the very clear focus on your principles and your values and your motivations.
26:42I think the alarm bells always go off for me when I think, why did I do that?
26:50Has a motivation shifted?
26:53And that's when I've really been upset with myself and disappointed with myself and reset.
27:03But I do think if our motivations and values remain the same, we will find ways to be the
27:11control freaks we were born to be.
27:15And which, of course, I mean, or we can say care as much as we, but let's be honest.
27:23For a design team that you're leading or participating in, what are the rituals?
27:34Well, one of the...
27:36I think that there's nothing more important to me than the creative team and declaring
27:52that and being clear about this is my contribution.
28:00And therefore, I need to be part of an extraordinary team.
28:05But that's just, you know, that's the price of admission, isn't it?
28:08So you can have the people, but practice, our process, our practice, the protocols are
28:15so important.
28:18Over many years, over, I mean, I've been doing this and leading small creative teams for,
28:26I mean, over 30 years.
28:29These are some of the things that I've found important.
28:32If you're dealing, as I was describing earlier, with concepts that you can't measure with
28:38numbers, if you're dealing with ideas that always, if you think about the evolution of
28:43an idea, it always starts off as a thought and then a tentative discussion.
28:58One of the things I realize is just how, you know, these ethereal thoughts, these fragile
29:04concepts are precarious.
29:10And I think a small team of people that really trust each other is, I think, is fundamentally
29:21important.
29:22Trust and love each other, who care about each other.
29:27If you care about, you know, then you might be in danger of actually listening.
29:33You know, the thing that just kills so many ideas, and I've worked in places where this
29:38happens, but people are just desperate to speak and to be heard.
29:45And there's nothing like, you know what kills most ideas, I think, people desperate to express
29:51an opinion.
29:53And it's really, let's be very clear, opinions aren't ideas.
29:58I was going to say something really rude then, but I won't.
30:04But I think...
30:07You can say it, we can cut it from the video.
30:11But the...
30:15To be quiet and to listen.
30:18One of the things that terrifies me, I know that I've missed really amazing ideas that
30:27came from a quiet place, from a quiet person.
30:33And that really scares me, because I don't know what I've missed.
30:37And so talking about the rituals, I think doing things that mean our relationship is
30:46authentic and deep.
30:49You know, one of the things that I discovered that I think's really important, you know,
30:54we tried a lot of things at Apple, and most of the things that I tried didn't work out.
31:05But a few things I was excited about and grew, I think, to be very powerful.
31:12I think one, as a practice, it's very good to make things for each other.
31:19I think for that to become part of your, you know, daily way of connecting to your team,
31:28to think about what you can make for each other, that's just really...
31:32It puts you in a lovely place.
31:34It makes you more worried about them than you.
31:37It makes you vulnerable, and it makes them grateful.
31:41And that's a lot, isn't it?
31:42I mean, those things...
31:44Just think about what I said.
31:47That starts to define quite a lovely culture.
31:51And then connected to that, something I was really struck by...
31:54But Paul Graham says, make things people want, and Johnny Ive says, make things for each
31:59other.
32:00Yes.
32:01I mean, that's what we do, isn't it?
32:04I mean, all we're doing is at a very personal level, practicing what we're doing, you know,
32:09at our professional level.
32:11All of us here, I guess, almost every single person here, we're about making something
32:17for other people.
32:19And so, perhaps, I don't know quite what...
32:21Make things people want, I feel, is sort of a business strategy, whereas it sounds like
32:24what you're saying is make things for each other is a team strategy.
32:27Well, as it was, so for example, one of the things I thought was great was that you, you
32:32know, every Friday morning, I asked that one person on the design team would make breakfast
32:39for the whole team.
32:41And we took it in turns.
32:43And we...
32:44So, make things for each other, I'm imagining, you know, prototype iPhones, but no, it can
32:47also be bacon...
32:48Oh, no.
32:49Bacon and eggs.
32:50I'm talking cornflakes and milk.
32:51I mean, we saw, I mean, dizzy heights of some of the food, and some of it was so shocking.
33:02But it all came from the same place in terms of motivation.
33:09And something that was connected that I was surprised at how powerful it was, excuse me,
33:16was we would host...
33:19We would take it in turns to have the design team come to our homes, and we would spend
33:25a day working in our home.
33:28And this is something I probably thought way too much about.
33:36But it was in a very, very powerful way of, one, doing or encouraging us in our practice
33:47to do good work, and in building the team.
33:53And I think there's an interesting, first of all, there's an interesting dynamic in
33:57terms of how we regard each other.
33:59You know, the host, and this is a bit like when we make something for one another.
34:05The host is slightly anxious and concerned about the potential judgment of their soft furnishings.
34:14And I mean, you know what it's like when you have somebody come to your house.
34:17There is a self-consciousness and, well, certainly, you know, an awkwardness, I feel, and an anxiety.
34:25And I don't think that's unhealthy, always.
34:31And then the guests who you are hosting are, you know, they're on better behavior than
34:37if they were all just trundling into a conference room.
34:41And then you've got the context.
34:43You know, if you're designing for people, normal...
34:46I mean, who here would actually want to spend time in a conference room?
34:51I can't think of a more soulless and depressing place.
34:55I mean, I always think it's funny.
35:00Think about the relationship between the chair you're sat on and how you feel.
35:06Like, none of you would sit watching the TV on these chairs.
35:12I mean, you wouldn't choose to sit on this chair unless it was to listen to John and Patrick.
35:18I'm not sure that we're the attraction in this particular event.
35:22But I think there is an important point, which is if you're designing for people and you're
35:30in someone's living room, sat on their sofa or sat on their floor, and your sketchbook
35:36is on their coffee table, of course you think differently, don't you?
35:41Of course your preoccupation, you know, where your mind wanders is so different than if
35:49you're sat in a typical, you know, corporate conference room.
36:04Is beauty subjective or objective?
36:07I figure we're now going to get to the easier questions.
36:16I think it's, I don't, I mean, I'd be interested on your take on that.
36:24I think it's a bit of both.
36:26I think, I think utility and function, if something doesn't work, it's ugly.
36:36I've always get frustrated when people try to, you know, they set up a false opposition
36:42between, you know, utility and aesthetics.
36:46And when I've designed something or been involved in the design of something that doesn't work,
36:53I don't care what it looks like, it's ugly.
36:59I think the tougher thing is when we get onto the issues of taste.
37:05And I think design has always been a difficult thing in that because it's very easy for everybody
37:13to have an opinion, everybody does, it just doesn't mean every opinion has the same weight.
37:21And I think that, I don't, I think that's a relatively robust statement in that if you've
37:26studied, if you've studied and studied and studied design, although I know people who've
37:31studied and studied design with terrible taste, so, I don't know, yeah, it's a very, it's
37:42a good question.
37:44Christopher Alexander said that between two objects or two choices or two paths, the one
37:53that feels more humane is the one that you should choose, but that this kind of sense
37:58of humanity in the object is a better guide than beauty, which perhaps pulls you into
38:03more subjective territory.
38:05Does that resonate at all or do you think that sounds crazy?
38:07No, I think that's absolutely the case.
38:09And I think that people, I think generally most companies patronize consumers.
38:19I think users are, I actually do believe, are very sophisticated.
38:28And I think there's issues of beauty, of, you know, of humanity.
38:34I also think, and this goes back to the first thing I was saying about, you know, my sense
38:39of Steve and the Apple team, you know, looking at the first Mac, that you sense care.
38:53And I've tried to talk about this before.
38:57I really do believe and I wish that I had, you know, empirical evidence.
39:03But I do believe that we have this ability to sense care in whether it's easy in a service
39:10because you confront care, because you confront the person.
39:14When it's vicarious, when it's via an object, when it's via a piece of software, it's more
39:21complex.
39:22But I think you might understand it more if I said you sense carelessness.
39:27You know carelessness.
39:30And so I think it's reasonable to believe that you also know care and you sense care.
39:35And we worked very hard and I felt passionately about finishing the inside of products.
39:44And when I mean finishing, I mean, you know, we designed everything.
39:53And we cared about everything.
39:58And, you know, I mean, I'm sure many of you have heard the bit about, you know, a great
40:04cabinet maker finishes the back of a drawer.
40:07Even though it's unlikely it will be seen.
40:10But in the same way, I think a mark of our how evolved we are as people, it's what we
40:16do when no one sees.
40:19And I think that's, it's indicative.
40:23It's a powerful marker of who we truly are.
40:29And I would be haunted by, you know, if all we did was the outside, I would have this
40:37nagging feeling in my tummy that we were just being superficial.
40:51So you mentioned modernism a little bit earlier in this discussion.
40:55And there's a puzzle that I've been trying to reconcile around modernism that maybe you
41:00can sort of help me with where so much early modernism was kind of deliberately ugly.
41:07Like you have the Duchamp fountain and you have, I mean, even Picasso's work, I mean,
41:11it's dissonant, right?
41:12It's not, it's certainly not classically beautiful.
41:16And then you sort of had this political valence to the program and, you know, Gropius said
41:21that Bauhaus was a, he said in the manifesto that it was a socialist movement.
41:27And you know, you were originally trained in Bauhaus design, right?
41:31Yes.
41:32Yeah.
41:33So is this kind of, and you know, you have Schoenberg and the atonality and you know,
41:36all this stuff, right?
41:38But then the Apple products and the products that you designed are very beautiful.
41:44And Apple is not a socialist undertaking.
41:50And so what's going on here?
41:52And so the particular thing I'm trying to figure out is, was there a strain to modernism
41:57where it was intentionally trying to be dissonant or, you know, even uglier to shock people
42:03or something, and how maybe now with some remove, you know, you're no longer at Apple,
42:08how do you view that whole thing?
42:10And what's your take on modernism?
42:12That's a great question.
42:13I, I think what tends to happen is very often at the beginning of a movement, whether it's
42:21a design or an art movement, there is that, that incredible energetic, I mean, in a way
42:31by definition, if it marks the beginning of a movement, there is energy.
42:38And I think often beauty is, it evolves, beauty takes time.
42:48And very often at the beginning of an energy, it's an explosion.
42:51And there's not time.
42:55I would dare presume that certainly if we're talking about fine art, that people would
43:02say they have no time, they don't want to be distracted by concepts of beauty.
43:09And so I think for sure, you know, if a lot of modernism was driven by, you know, the
43:15heady excitement about new materials, your obsession was the manipulation of that new
43:23material.
43:25One thing, I mean, I'm not sure how many of you guys know about Bauhaus, but this was
43:29a movement in Germany.
43:33But what you will know, you know, you'll be, and it ranged from fine art to furniture to
43:39architecture.
43:40Patrick mentioned Walter Grote-Peirce and an incredible, incredible movement.
43:50But there were, you know, what you would probably be most familiar with, would be chairs like
43:57the Breuer chair or the Vassili chair, which were, if you think of, try and think of like
44:04polished steel, chrome-plated tubes that are bent, you know, those sort of bent chairs.
44:10So what's interesting there is these guys had just figured, they were so excited because
44:17they'd figured out how to bend tubes.
44:20And so what did they do?
44:22They bent tubes.
44:24And that's why all the furniture's bent tube furniture.
44:27So I think that, I mean, that's what I would have done if I'd figured, because, you know,
44:32when you bend tubes, they tend to kink.
44:35And so they'd figured out this way of putting springs into tubes.
44:38And so, of course, you'd run away and you'd bend as many tubes as you could get your hands
44:42on.
44:44Beauty probably wasn't at the front of your mind, tubes.
44:50So when I look at your work, and we haven't yet talked about Love From, although maybe
44:55if you want to give people a sort of a short summary of how you think about that, that
44:58might be helpful.
44:59But when I look at your more recent work and some of what Love From has done, I see it
45:06as Johnny's ornament era, where Apple was so stripped down and bare and, you know, reduced
45:18to the essence.
45:20And now I see that, I mean, maybe this is a misapprehension, but now you're more curious
45:27to try other styles.
45:29Is that true?
45:31I think it's a lovely observation.
45:33I think so.
45:35It's nearly six years ago that I left Apple.
45:40And my goal was to build the most extraordinary creative team I possibly could.
45:54And we're about 50, 60 people.
45:58Many of the designers I've worked with for decades and decades, which means I worked
46:05with them at Apple.
46:10But it's a very diverse team.
46:11So it's a team of industrial designers, graphic designers, user interface designers, architects,
46:18typographers, musicians, sound designers.
46:22And I think perhaps what you're referring to is that just the usefulness or the people
46:34that we're collaborating with, that's a very diverse group now.
46:39But before we were very focused and we had a clear criteria for what we were doing.
46:47But if you're working for the king on his coronation identity, that of course would
46:58demand a very different approach than the one we would have taken if we were designing
47:04instructional products for how to use an iMac.
47:07So I think that's what you're seeing.
47:13I think it's really what the problem is that we're addressing.
47:21So you're talking a lot about the purpose of design and the effect that design has on
47:28the recipient, on the user, on the consumer, whatever the case is.
47:33There's widespread concern and speculation about the effects of smartphones slash the
47:40internet.
47:41It doesn't necessarily occur just with the smartphone.
47:44But on some of these products on attention spans and whether it has some adverse effect
47:51on kids or teens or who knows, maybe all of us, maybe the adults as well.
47:56So questions over with AI, whether it changes how education works and cheating and school,
48:05all of these technologies that we create have this potential double sidedness to them.
48:10And so I guess as somebody who clearly takes seriously and thinks seriously about the full
48:18effects, how do you think about the possible harms?
48:25Yeah, I think when, and this is, there's probably not anything that I can be more preoccupied
48:37or bothered by than what you've just described.
48:43I think when you're innovating, of course, there will be unintended consequences.
48:49You hope that the majority will be pleasant surprises, certain products that I've been
48:57very, very involved with.
48:59I think there were some unintended consequences that were far from pleasant.
49:06My issue is that even though there was no intention, I think there still needs to be
49:12responsibility.
49:15And that weighs on me, as you know, heavily.
49:20I think, what I think has been particularly difficult is traditionally when you look at
49:27innovation, I mean, there's nothing new with, I mean, if you, one thing, I mean, Patrick
49:37and I were months ago talking about some of the architecture that was associated with
49:43the Industrial Revolution in England.
49:48And there, you know, there are examples, we could talk about this.
49:54Google Victorian pumping stations.
49:57So a pumping, so you imagine this idea that sewage used to flow freely down the streets,
50:07and then suddenly, and this is for all of humanity's existence, if there were streets,
50:17and then suddenly sewage was silently and predictably and consistently kept from streets.
50:28And the machines that achieved this were housed in cathedral-like structures.
50:34I mean, it's amazing.
50:37And there is just incredible precedent for these huge, when you have a big technological
50:47change, it impacts society.
50:51And the Industrial Revolution is, my goodness, a profound, profoundly significant occurrence
51:02in the sort of middle of the 1800s, certainly in the UK.
51:12The thing that I think is so challenging is there was time for society to stop and consider
51:22what was happening.
51:25And there was time for structure, and whether that was sort of infrastructure, whether it
51:31was sort of social frameworks, to try and assimilate and deal with these shifts.
51:39And I think what's been very challenging is we are moving so fast, the discussion comes
51:48far too late.
51:50And there can't be, I mean, unless there is, I mean, the thing that I find encouraging
51:56about AI is it's very rare for there to be a discussion about AI and there not to be
52:06the appropriate concerns about safety.
52:10What I was far more worried about was for years and years and years, there will be discussions
52:16about social media, and I was extremely concerned about social media, and there was no discussion
52:23whatsoever.
52:24And it's the insidious challenge of a problem that's not even talked about, I think is always
52:32more concerning.
52:35And so, yeah, I think the rate of change is dangerous.
52:38I think even if you're innocent in your intention, I think if you're involved in something that
52:46has poor consequences, you need to own it.
52:50And that ownership, personally, has driven a lot of what I've been working on that I
52:59can't talk about at the moment, but look forward to being able to talk about at some point
53:03in the future.
53:15You mentioned, I wasn't going to bring it up, but you mentioned the Victorian pump dictation.
53:20So which place and time in history had the best design?
53:33That's such a good question.
53:37I wouldn't dare to answer, but I do think that the, I think what happened in the Industrial
53:45Revolution, I'm just absolutely obsessed with at the moment.
53:51There were, as a team at Love From, we've been doing research.
53:59I'm lucky enough to work with this amazing writer called Jemima, who I think might be
54:04here this afternoon.
54:06She's been doing a bunch of research on whether it's sort of physical objects or social consequences.
54:20And I think, because I see design as much more than objects, I think, for example, some
54:28of the, there were two companies in England that really were born out of, you know, they
54:35were Quakers.
54:36There was one called Cadbury's and the other was called, a company called Fry's.
54:42Both Birmingham, right?
54:44I think they were, I think in the Midlands.
54:48But what was so interesting was the people that ran these companies, they also designed
54:54the housing and you don't just design a place to put bedrooms, housing, which meant towns,
55:03which meant, you know, this sense of civic responsibility.
55:08And of course that was appropriate because people were moving and the Industrial Revolution
55:14was not just a mass manufacture for the first time in history, but it was this huge movement
55:21from the land to cities, which had never happened before.
55:25And so I just think that generally when we talk about these huge shifts, of course we
55:34all get nervous and worried, but there are wonderfully encouraging prototypes that we
55:40can look to.
55:42And there was, I mean, so just after Cadbury's and Fry's, they were first, there was Hershey's
55:50in Philadelphia, I think, and a very similar approach and concern.
55:57I know less about that specific example.
56:01But so I love it when the innovation is, you know, it's cultural, it's political, you know,
56:08very often it's spiritual and it's manifest in buildings.
56:17You don't, you speak in public now very rarely, and so I'm of course very grateful that you're
56:25here.
56:26We're at a programmable financial infrastructure conference.
56:36How and why should people, I mean, and of course the businesses here are from every
56:42crevice and aspect and different sector of the economy, but for people in the infrastructure
56:51domain or for businesses like Stripe, and maybe Stripe is kind of an example or can
56:56be stand in for other businesses where ostensibly perhaps one ought not care intensely about
57:04design in the way that perhaps a consumer electronics company ought to.
57:12Why should a business with the characteristics that Stripe has care so much?
57:16Well, if Stripe didn't, Stripe wouldn't be Stripe and you wouldn't be sat here.
57:22So I have every bone in my body.
57:26I truly believe that if we want to participate as members of the species, we actually don't
57:38think we have a choice.
57:40I think it's an obligation and a responsibility to care for each other, and I mean, Freud
57:46said a great thing.
57:47Freud said, you know, all there is, all there is is love and work, work and love.
57:56That's all there is, and so we spend a lot of time working, and so if we elect to spend
58:06our time working, not caring about other people, I think not only do other people
58:13suffer, I think we suffer.
58:18I think that's a corrosive existence, and so I think it's, I would see it as a, not
58:26only a responsibility, but truly a privilege if we get to practice and express our concern
58:33and our care for one another.
58:38Yeah, I don't see it as a, I don't carve my existence up in that way of thinking, here's,
58:47this is, you know, with my commercial hat on, I'm just Johnny.
58:54On that note, thank you so much for joining us.
58:57Thank you very much, I appreciate it.
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