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In a recent podcast interview with the founders of Glasp, I was asked about the exact steps to go from idea to viable product. After my answer, the next question was, “What about founders who take the visionary route?”
With no pause, I answered, “The visionary founder approach is not something you can plan. You cannot follow a process. There’s no way to re-engineer how this person did the thing they did. They are not the norm.”
While I often bemoan Tech CEO Hero Worship culture in the tech and innovation industry, my Make Sense guest, Dan Perkel, Partner at IDEO, reminded me that it’s human nature to have people to aspire to. With that lesson in mind, here are the new rules for being the Tech CEO Hero we need to design the human experience into the future.
Start Here: Unlearn the ‘Tech CEO Hero’ Myth
This is where we start. Innovators like Steve Jobs and Henry Ford are often portrayed as solo visionaries but these stories are simply legends. They overlook the input and collaboration that shaped their success. Henry Ford went through multiple rounds of failure in his pursuit of the Model T and struggled to raise follow-up funding rounds to finish his work. Jobs was exposed to personal computers at Xerox PARC and relied on years of private and public research to lead Apple to the iPod and iPhone.
By unlearning this myth, you now understand that your success relies on other people, processes, and circumstances outside of yourself.
Seek Out Collaborators
Innovation benefits from collaboration. In the episode, Perkel shared that collaboration is built into IDEO’s values, and employees are incentivized to collaborate because outcomes are always significantly better. His advice is to surround yourself with people unlike you. Find people, whether they are teammates, advisors, and/or potential customers, who have different expertise, skills, and frames of reference.
Understand the Balance Between Divergent and Convergent Thinking
To be an innovator and entrepreneur, you need passion and the confidence to get off the sidelines. That initial passion may be attached to your vision for the product and the confidence that got you off the sidelines may keep you from divergent thinking in the creative process if that confidence transforms into pompousness.
Divergent thinking amongst your diverse teammates allows you to brainstorm and generate more potential solutions, leading to something better than your initial vision could ever be. Eventually, you and your team will converge on something shared.
Understand that there are intentional moments of creativity and intentional moments of focusing.
Embrace Constructive Collaboration
When you are in a time of divergent thinking and brainstorming, you must create a space where each idea is a starting point for something better. Resist the urge to shoot any idea down, rather answer the question “How can I make this idea better?” Perkel and I talk about the “Yes, and” improvisation mindset: Accept what your team member offers and then expand on their line of thinking. This is how you embrace constructive collaboration.
Bring Others into Your Way of Thinking
When it’s time to converge and develop a shared product vision, everyone on the team needs to be confident enough in their specialties and humble enough to respect other team member’s expertise. Rather than see others’ questions as a personal challenge (hello, ego!) see it as your job to bring everybody along on your journey by explaining your thinking process.
In the episode, I brought up a scene from Silicon Valley HBO where a founder pitches their startup. In response to every question, the founder replies with “Trust me.” That type of attitude will not make you particularly successful as an innovator.
Treat Your Customers with the Utmost Respect
Innovators and founders often go months without involving customers in the creative process, but Perkel explains that you should treat your customers/users with respect, perhaps more than any other stakeholder. When it comes to your product having an impact, users have to use it, and they won’t do that just because it’s their job or because they believe you to be a visionary. As I mentioned above, your collaborators can be teammates, advisors, or customers. Involve them early and often in the creative process.
Separate Ego from Product Success
To continue the example from the tv show, “Trust me” should evolve into “Test this.” When it’s time for convergent and focused thinking, open yourself up to teammates and customers to give feedback. Challenge your subject matter expertise, and remember that negative feedback is about the product and not yourself. Fear of criticism can lead founders to shield their products from outside input. However, openness to feedback reduces the risk of product failure.
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In this week’s episode of Make Sense, Dan and I also:
- Play the first round of “Never Have I Ever”, a new segment where we laugh about past internet habits
- Discuss internet piracy and whether copyright cases can slow down the progress of AI
- Invite more people to join the conversation on how design and business can contribute to a human-first future.
Reference the full show notes below.
Choice Quote
“Part of the work we do at IDEO is really, really collaborative. The whole idea of collaboration is built into our value. Part of that is because usually the outcomes of the design work are significantly better. We have another value…which is ‘make others successful.’ How am I going to make sure you succeed?”
– Dan Perkel, Partner & Sr. Executive Director at IDEO

Buck the media hype cycle. Calm the fear-mongering. Laugh at the inanity of Tech CEO “hero culture.” Be the smartest person in your peer’s LinkedIn feed:
Show Notes
00:00 Introduction
2:32 Segment 1: Never Have I Ever
3:06 “….gotten in trouble for downloading music from Napster”
4:11 “…played Chat Roulette unironically
5:26 “…woken up thinking in 140 characters because I was using Twitter too much
6:48 “…had an unhealthy relationship with digital badges and check-ins.”
13:25 Segment 2: Deep Dive – Copyright, AI, and Cultural Implications
15:47 New York Time’s suing Microsoft and OpenAI
19:05 “Right and Wrong” vs. Copyright Violations
23:05 Changes to AI Tools in Response to Copyright
28:00 Moral vs Policy Layers
30:43 Segment 3: No Scrubs, Just Solutions
33:19 Creating Heroes Out of Business Leaders
40:44 “Yes, and” in Brainstorming Meetings
46:28 Artist vs Innovator
50:48 Divergent and Convergent Thinking
Where to find Dan Perkel
Dan Perkel is a Partner and Senior Executive Director leading IDEO’s Media, Entertainment, and Technology practice in North America. In his role, Perkel collaborates with some of the world’s top companies to envision innovative digital platforms and experiences, develop creative capabilities, and shape strategies for sustainable growth.
As both a designer and ethnographer, Perkel draws insights from people’s everyday lives to guide the responsible design of new products, services, and strategies across a wide range of industries, including interactive entertainment, gaming, the creator economy, streaming TV, advertising, financial services, retail, and the vital infrastructure connecting these consumer experiences.
With a career at the intersection of culture, society, and technology, Perkel holds a Ph.D. from UC Berkeley’s School of Information, where his research explored creative communities’ use of social media and young people’s digital engagement. He also has a Master’s degree in Information Management and Systems from UC Berkeley and a Bachelor’s in Science, Technology, and Society from Stanford University.
Perkel is the co-author of “Hanging Out, Messing Around, and Geeking Out: Kids Living and Learning with New Media “and a passionate fan of pop culture, including sports, comics, games, TV, and music.
Dan Perkel on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dperkel/
…on Twitter: https://x.com/dperkel
IDEO on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ideo/
Work by IDEO: https://www.ideo.com/work
Where to find Lindsay Tabas
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lindsaytabas
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@LindsayTLadyEngineer
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lindsaytladyengineer
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