I had the pleasure of attending Figma Config this week, which felt like the Coachella of design conferences. I knew Config was going to be good, but it exceeded my expectations in so many ways. I’ll share highlights in the future but wanted to highlight an interview Dylan Field conducted with Brian Chesky, CEO of Airbnb and the only CEO with a design background in the top Fortune companies. When Field asked Chesky what he thought about designers starting companies, the former RISD alum said, "I think more designers should rise up and start companies."

That resognated so much with me as my Config submission was called the title of this post: The rise of the design founder. It’s almost as if he took my thoughts exactly (he didn’t, of course) and it’s something worth advocating towards. When compared to other design practices, such as architecture and industrial design, software design is still early. During my time working in tech, it felt rare to see early stage startups have a designer, let-alone a designer who started the company. The first designer founder I learned about is Cat Noone when she was working on Liberio. Noone has since been a founder and CEO multiple times and currently working on Stark.

Why we’re seeing more design founders

Though causation is not correlation, there are a few occurrences recently sparking more people with a design background to take on the founder mantle.

“Job stability” has changed

Starting a company often felt like a high risk decision as opposed to a stable full-time job. The decimation of full-time roles in tech in the past year or so has destroyed the perception of what stability means. Darya Sesitskaya impacted by the layoffs at Snap, and instead of taking a new full-time role, she started Shader and became a founder and CEO. With investors shifting from late stage investments to focus austerity and early stage startups, the playing field has been equalized a bit more.

Not everyone wants to be a Chief Design Officer

The career is an odyssey, yet we often continue to treat it like a linear ladder. With that logic, every individual contributor should eventually become a Chief Design Officer in order to be successful. Not everyone should be an executive or desires to be one. The ability to lead should not be constrained by some executive design leadership role, and there is no greater way to lead than starting a company.

One of the best moves in my career was to start a company. Throughout those five years of running a product studio, I learned how to run a business. Designers talk about wanting to have more influence in things. As a design founder, you get to influence everything, because you are responsible for the outcome of everything. It sprung me into leadership because I looked at the holistic company point of view, and not just design.

Attributes of a great design founder

As a design founder, you're not just designing an app, you are building a generational business and responsible for the bottom line and its survival. You are now the stakeholder you often got frustrated with because of budget and deadlines. I've seen many founders not be able to make the switch, running out of budget before launching with a vision as large as Jodorowsky's Dune. This doesn't mean you have to not care about craft and be constantly embarrassed by the first version of your product—quite the opposite. Karri Saarinen of Linear is the prime example of what a great design founder looks like—running a successful business while remaining design-led. The way Saarinen prioritizes design is personified by how he runs the company.

Design founders are building the table, not sitting at one

Design founders are blazing a new path for people. As Chesky mentioned in his interview at Config, what if designers ran the board? When you are designing, you're creating a desired outcome, and there is no place better to do that than at the creation stage of a company. We all know the pain of tech debt creating challenges for design and shipping software. Organizational debt as the same impact. Design founders have the opportunity to make foundational decisions that allow companies to thrive.

For me, I'm very happy and find purpose as an operator and investor, my plan is to support and back design founders. The rise of the design founder also needs designers to rise up and become investors too.

Hype links

• Tweet of the week

• My manager is MIA—help! - Really enjoying the Per Our Last Email podcast

• Leading through uncertainty

• The 100 Hardest Video-Game Levels of All Time