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Lenny's Podcast / episode intelligence

35 years of product design wisdom from Apple, Disney, Pinterest, and beyond | Bob Baxley

12 Jun 2025 30 published claims 2 attributable people
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Speakers in the public record

Bob BaxleyLenny Rachitsky

Claim mix

belief 15evaluation 8recommendation 3prediction 1commitment 1uncertainty 1preference 1

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The useful parts, with receipts.

30 published records

01 / recommendation

Recommends The Elements of Typographic Style. Recommends Zen and the Motorcycle Maintenance. Recommends Time in the Art of Living.

“So the three books I'm going to recommend, the first one's a beautiful poetic book about typography called The Elements of Typographic Style by Robert Bringhurst. Robert was the poet laureate of Canada. And the first 80 pages will change how you think about typography. It will open you up to the wonderful world of typography that we all live in. You'll think differently about every sign you look at, about every movie credit you see, and it will give you an insight into the designer mindset. When you understand typography, I think you understand where designers come from and the best designers I know are just total type nerds. So highly recommend Elements of Typographic Style. Second book, Zen and the Motorcycle Maintenance. Many people may know ultimately a philosophy book, but it's about the concept of quality, which I think is a very important topic. So it talks about quality and the importance of how things integrate into cohesive whole, which I believe is the main challenge facing most software teams. They create something that's highly fragmented instead of a single hole. So, Zen in the Motorcycle Maintenance. And then the last one is a book called Time in the Art of Living by Robert Gruden. It's just a very interesting collection of impressionistic views of time and how time passes and what time means. So that's very different from the others and it's not something probably gets recommended on your show too often, but I think it'll help people in their lives in a powerful way.”
Speaker
Bob Baxley
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

04 / belief

The more context you can give it, the more specificity you can give it, the more this is what I'm about and what we're trying to get to, the more the designer's going to be able to figure out which swim lane they're supposed to be in to produce something. So I think if you're going into it feeling like the design process is going to take a lot of time, it's because you haven't been clear in your creative brief, so to speak, which often means you're not really clear in your own head.

“The more context you can give it, the more specificity you can give it, the more this is what I'm about and what we're trying to get to, the more the designer's going to be able to figure out which swim lane they're supposed to be in to produce something. So I think if you're going into it feeling like the design process is going to take a lot of time, it's because you haven't been clear in your creative brief, so to speak, which often means you're not really clear in your own head.”
Speaker
Bob Baxley
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

05 / evaluation

An important element of what you're describing here, which I think maybe people miss, is that you're talking about just any software, not your own product, in order to start building your sense of taste and gut feeling for what- Building your sense of taste and gut feeling for what works and doesn't work.

“An important element of what you're describing here, which I think maybe people miss, is that you're talking about just any software, not your own product, in order to start building your sense of taste and gut feeling for what- Building your sense of taste and gut feeling for what works and doesn't work.”
Speaker
Lenny Rachitsky
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

07 / belief

I think we're living in a time where people don't do so many usability studies, so a lot of folks get pretty far into their careers without ever having watched mere mortals actually use software.

“I think we're living in a time where people don't do so many usability studies, so a lot of folks get pretty far into their careers without ever having watched mere mortals actually use software.”
Speaker
Bob Baxley
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

08 / belief

I think what you're describing, which I completely agree with is new stuff for sure you want to keep the team small and tight, but as things grow and scale, what's your take on just, okay, actually it's okay to have a lot of people on this.

“I think what you're describing, which I completely agree with is new stuff for sure you want to keep the team small and tight, but as things grow and scale, what's your take on just, okay, actually it's okay to have a lot of people on this.”
Speaker
Lenny Rachitsky
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

09 / belief

I think people need to understand that they're advocating for ideas and not for themselves. And when I talk to a lot of designers that may be true for PMS, I hear a lot of people say that they're reluctant to post on social media or on LinkedIn or something because like, "Well, I don't want to be self-promoting.

“I think people need to understand that they're advocating for ideas and not for themselves. And when I talk to a lot of designers that may be true for PMS, I hear a lot of people say that they're reluctant to post on social media or on LinkedIn or something because like, "Well, I don't want to be self-promoting.”
Speaker
Bob Baxley
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

10 / belief

There's a few more questions I would ask, but I want to come back to something that I asked earlier, that I think is on the minds of a lot of say founders and product managers listening to this.

“There's a few more questions I would ask, but I want to come back to something that I asked earlier, that I think is on the minds of a lot of say founders and product managers listening to this.”
Speaker
Lenny Rachitsky
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

12 / prediction

I look at my counterparts in product and I assume that they're much better connected to the customer, that they understand much better the business realities, and I expect them to drive the roadmap.

“I look at my counterparts in product and I assume that they're much better connected to the customer, that they understand much better the business realities, and I expect them to drive the roadmap.”
Speaker
Bob Baxley
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

13 / commitment

All this AI stuff is profoundly amazing and I will encourage people, one of the most amazing things for me about this moment in AI is that this, the kind of AI we're experiencing has been theorized for well over 50 years.

“All this AI stuff is profoundly amazing and I will encourage people, one of the most amazing things for me about this moment in AI is that this, the kind of AI we're experiencing has been theorized for well over 50 years.”
Speaker
Bob Baxley
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

15 / belief

What I've seen happen over and over in my experience, a ThoughtSpot, Pinterest, other places when you're working directly with product, it's easy to leave engineering out of the loop and product and design can go cook up stuff that doesn't quite make sense technically or is really hard to implement or is just a bridge too far.

“What I've seen happen over and over in my experience, a ThoughtSpot, Pinterest, other places when you're working directly with product, it's easy to leave engineering out of the loop and product and design can go cook up stuff that doesn't quite make sense technically or is really hard to implement or is just a bridge too far.”
Speaker
Bob Baxley
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

18 / belief

I think Slack, honestly, both Slack and Pinterest I think are examples of products that became companies, but neither one of those places really knew what to do next, because they didn't have a bigger vision of the change they were trying to see in the world.

“I think Slack, honestly, both Slack and Pinterest I think are examples of products that became companies, but neither one of those places really knew what to do next, because they didn't have a bigger vision of the change they were trying to see in the world.”
Speaker
Bob Baxley
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

20 / belief

I was going to ask how you use this insight, that software is kind of the most powerful medium media more than even than TV and movies, and you shared it, which I think is really important.

“I was going to ask how you use this insight, that software is kind of the most powerful medium media more than even than TV and movies, and you shared it, which I think is really important.”
Speaker
Lenny Rachitsky
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

21 / evaluation

Clearly you're doing A okay and having a place that doesn't work out, doesn't destroy your career, which I think a lot of people feel like if they're not doing well in their current job, it's over.

“Clearly you're doing A okay and having a place that doesn't work out, doesn't destroy your career, which I think a lot of people feel like if they're not doing well in their current job, it's over.”
Speaker
Lenny Rachitsky
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

23 / preference

So I should clarify, I am a fan of astronomy and space, but I'm a particular fan of the Apollo program because I view the Apollo program and the moon landings as the greatest peacetime accomplishment of mankind ever.

“So I should clarify, I am a fan of astronomy and space, but I'm a particular fan of the Apollo program because I view the Apollo program and the moon landings as the greatest peacetime accomplishment of mankind ever.”
Speaker
Bob Baxley
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

24 / recommendation

The thing that I will say, to keep in mind for PMs, there's always a tendency on PMs to want to draw something and then try to give a sketch to a designer.

“The thing that I will say, to keep in mind for PMs, there's always a tendency on PMs to want to draw something and then try to give a sketch to a designer.”
Speaker
Bob Baxley
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

25 / evaluation

I think across a lot of places in the NBA, there's a single player that can go down that makes a difference in the organization's success and that just seems dangerous and not a team.

“I think across a lot of places in the NBA, there's a single player that can go down that makes a difference in the organization's success and that just seems dangerous and not a team.”
Speaker
Bob Baxley
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

26 / evaluation

You just keep doubling down on that thing. And what's happened is you've taken the possibilities from this big broad thing down to this tiny little thing from an AI system that's trained on existing solutions and existing ideas and is maybe not even thinking about it the right way, because all you've really given it is your first-order of thinking.

“You just keep doubling down on that thing. And what's happened is you've taken the possibilities from this big broad thing down to this tiny little thing from an AI system that's trained on existing solutions and existing ideas and is maybe not even thinking about it the right way, because all you've really given it is your first-order of thinking.”
Speaker
Bob Baxley
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

28 / evaluation

If I moved to, I don't know, Burma or China or something, it would be wildly more challenging because the base view of the world, the base understanding of the world's just different and it'd be much harder for me to adapt to that.

“If I moved to, I don't know, Burma or China or something, it would be wildly more challenging because the base view of the world, the base understanding of the world's just different and it'd be much harder for me to adapt to that.”
Speaker
Bob Baxley
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

29 / recommendation

I needed to try to set the culture and set certain design tenets that everyone could internalize and follow and hopefully then make the right decisions in that groove, if you will. And so we had three, I think you can't have more than three or four because you need everybody to memorize them.

“I needed to try to set the culture and set certain design tenets that everyone could internalize and follow and hopefully then make the right decisions in that groove, if you will. And so we had three, I think you can't have more than three or four because you need everybody to memorize them.”
Speaker
Bob Baxley
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

30 / evaluation

If you lose sight of that I think just, I don't know, you get sloppy and disrespectful is the wrong word, but I think you just lose sight of how much impact you're having on other people.

“If you lose sight of that I think just, I don't know, you get sloppy and disrespectful is the wrong word, but I think you just lose sight of how much impact you're having on other people.”
Speaker
Bob Baxley
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast
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