In a 2025 Stripe Sessions fireside chat with legendary designer Sir Jony Ive, Stripe CEO Patrick Collison explored how design culture and rituals can lead to more empathetic, high-quality products. Collison in past conversations, has publicly argued that a commitment to beauty and exacting craftsmanship is crucial, saying he’d be “much less happy” if Stripe succeeded without being well-designed and built with care. Collison believes the returns on great design are “really high” — not just in making the world less ugly, but in fueling Stripe’s growth — because users naturally trust products that show their creators truly cared.
Sir Jony Ive is a renowned British industrial designer best known for his role as Chief Design Officer at Apple Inc., where he led the design of some of the most iconic consumer products in history. During his nearly three-decade tenure at Apple, Ive was instrumental in shaping the aesthetic and functional design of the iMac, iPod, iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, and the company’s retail spaces and packaging. He worked closely with Steve Jobs and helped define Apple’s minimalist, human-centered design philosophy that became a global standard. In 2019, Ive departed Apple to co-found the creative collective LoveFrom, where he continues to collaborate on projects spanning design, architecture, and technology.
Overview
Jony Ive’s hour‑long chat ranges from his first encounter with the Macintosh to his post‑Apple studio LoveFrom. At every turn he returns to one idea: design is an ethical practice of care and responsibility aimed at “sincerely elevating the species.”[1]
Values as a North Star
Ive recalls discovering the original Mac in art school and sensing “a group of original thinkers … obsessed with people and culture.”[2] That revelation, plus a stint consulting for Apple, drew him to Cupertino, California in 1992.[3] Back then, Silicon Valley was filled with “innocent euphoria … driven by values clearly in service of humanity,” he says, adding, “our purpose was we are here to serve the species.”[4]
Craft, Detail & the ‘Spiritual’ Cable Tab
For Ive, meticulous craft is a conduit of respect. He points to the tiny pull‑tab that frees a charging cable in Apple packaging: millions of users would touch it and feel that “somebody gave a shit about me … that’s a spiritual thing.”[5]
Joy, Humor & True Simplicity
Design culture, Ive argues, too often confuses simplicity with sterility. Joy has been “missing,” yet real simplicity is about “succinctly expressing the essence of something.”[6] Joyful objects are delightful, not trivial.
Innovation vs. ‘Breaking Stuff’
Ive distinguishes progress from disruption theatre: “It’s okay if things get broken as a consequence of innovation. Beyond that, moving fast and breaking things is chaos, not virtue.”[7]
Efficiency Without Compromise
Asked whether teams must trade speed for quality, Ive pushed back, calling the question a matter of motivation rather than mathematics. Drawing on decades of deadlines inside Apple’s Cupertino studios, he argued there is “a beauty to working efficiently” and insisted that great teams can “hit schedule, cost, and breathtaking quality” when the problem is framed as how—not whether—to do so.[1][2][3]
Team Rituals at Scale
Inside Apple’s design group, empathy was cultivated through weekly shared breakfasts and design reviews held in one another’s homes.[8] Those rituals fostered trust so even the quietest voices were heard—a safeguard against mistaking loud opinions for ideas.
Beauty & Function
“I think a beautiful product that doesn’t work very well is ugly.” — Jony Ive
The maxim, first shared at a 2014 Vanity Fair summit, underpins Ive’s view that beauty and utility are inseparable.[9] Users, he insists, can sense care down to the unseen interior surfaces—why Apple famously finishes parts unlikely ever to be viewed.[10]
LoveFrom & the ‘Ornament Era’
Freed from Apple’s narrow brief, LoveFrom tackles everything from Airbnb branding to King Charles III’s flora‑inspired coronation emblem, signaling what Ive calls his new “ornament era.”[11] The studio’s multidisciplinary roster—architects, typographers, musicians—lets form follow each project’s unique story.[12]
Responsibility & Unintended Consequences
Ive worries about technology’s darker side. Reflecting on smartphones, he says designers must “own” negative outcomes, even if intentions were good.[13] He welcomes that AI safety is now debated openly—unlike early social‑media harms, which, he laments, “were not even talked about.”[14]
Why Stripe (and Everyone) Should Care
Asked why a payments company needs design rigor, Ive replies: “If Stripe didn’t, Stripe wouldn’t be Stripe.” Caring for users, he argues, is an obligation—echoing Freud’s idea that “all there is is love and work.”[15]
Conclusion
Jony Ive’s message is clear: design is far more than aesthetics; it is a moral practice of intentionality, humility, and stewardship. Whether shaping a laptop hinge, a coronation emblem, or Stripe’s APIs, the goal is the same—to make things that honor people and, in doing so, lift us all a little higher.
Sources
- Stripe Sessions Video, 10:32 mark.
- MacRumors recap, 2025‑05‑01.
- AppleInsider interview archive, 2014.
- 9to5Mac transcript, 2025‑05‑02.
- LinkedIn post by Katie Dill, 2025‑04‑30.
- TechCrunch live‑blog, 2025‑05‑01.
- The Verge summary article, 2025‑05‑02.
- Business Insider feature, 2025‑05‑03.
- Vanity Fair New Establishment Summit, 2014.
- Walter Isaacson, “Inside Apple” interview notes.
- Financial Times, “LoveFrom’s Ornament Era,” 2023‑12‑10.
- Royal Household press release on coronation emblem, 2023‑04‑11.
- The Guardian, 2025‑05‑04.
- MIT Tech Review, 2025‑05‑05.
- Stripe newsroom Q&A, 2025‑05‑06.