35Y in Product Design: Software Is a Medium, Not a Tool | Bob Baxley
Bob Baxley, one of Silicon Valley’s most respected design leaders. For thirty five years, Bob has shaped products used by hundreds of millions of people. At Apple, he led design for the Online Store during the company’s leap from underdog to cultural force. He helped launch the first Apple Store mobile app and worked inside a design culture where taste, iteration, and craft defined everything—not just what the product looked like, but how it was made. Before that, Bob helped build Yahoo! Answers into one of the earliest social platforms, and later guided the design team at Pinterest through rapid scale. Today, he’s the Senior Vice President of Design and Experience at ThoughtSpot, and an advisor to leaders at Google, Apple, Dropbox, Atlassian, and more.
In this conversation, Bob Baxley takes us inside the real Apple culture as he reflects on the moment the first iPhone appeared on stage—and how in under 40 minutes, Steve dismantled an entire industry and reset everyone’s expectations of what technology could feel like. Bob also connects this to the bigger story of tech. From early PCs to the internet to AI, he sees it all as one long evolution. And he offers a simple lens for today: treat AI with curiosity, the same way he felt the first time he saw a computer come alive.
References
Bob Baxley's Linkedin – / bbaxley
Bob Baxley's X - https://x.com/thisisbobbaxley
Jing Conan Wang (Host) – / jingconan
FounderCoHo – / foundercoho
Timestamps
00:00 Highlights
01:22 Introduction and Interview Focus
03:08 Apple's internal secrecy before the iPhone
05:45 The magic of the 2007 Keynote and Steve’s humor
10:33 What makes Apple, Apple
16:09 Apple’s culture and mindset
27:11 Evolution of Computing and Bob's early days
36:42 Bob's Artistic Pursuits
40:42 Bob's Career Path
45:16 Evolution of GUI/UI Design
52:39 Design Philosophy
56:01 AI VS Human interactions
1:03:08 Personal Computing and Finding Your Medium
1:07:22 How new Media/AI would affect Us
1:10:54 Impact of AI in Design
1:15:20 Bob's Advise: We are all Makers
1:16:18 Outro