The entire tech world started to shift towards minimalism, and this very essential design aesthetic inspired by this mantra, form follows function. I'm proposing a new formula that evolved from form follows function to form and function follow meaning.
From the TED Audio Collective, this is Design Matters with Debbie Millman.
On Design Matters, Debbie talks with some of the most creative people in the world about what they do, how they got to be who they are, and what they're thinking about and working on.
On this episode, a conversation with Mauro Porcini about technology and design, and about what a designer really does. If the technical skill is what defines you as a designer, maybe you're not a designer.
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Mauro Porcini has built a career at the intersection of business, design, and humanity. Born in northern Italy, suspended between cultures and identities, he began his career with a restless curiosity that has carried him from Philips to 3M, then to PepsiCo, where he became the company's first ever chief design officer and helped embed design into the DNA of a global enterprise. In doing so, Mauro was recognized as one of Fortune magazine's 40 under 40, a Fast Company master of design, and one of the 50 most influential designers in America. Today, he is president and chief design officer at Samsung, the first role of its kind at that scale, where he is advancing a bold manifesto he has titled The Human Side of Technology. At a time when technology sits at the center of financial instability, digital toxicity, and existential anxiety, Mauro is asking profound questions about what technology can do, and he is providing some provocative and rather optimistic answers that we're all going to talk about today. Mauro Porcini, welcome back to Design Matters.
Thank you for having me, Debbie.
Mauro, let's talk a little bit about your origin story for those that might not have listened to our previous interviews. You grew up in a small town outside of Milan in Italy with two passions: the world of literature and philosophy, which was influenced by your mother, and the world of art, architecture, and drawing, which was influenced by your father. But you also described yourself as growing up in the middle, not fully northern, not fully southern, and suspended between identities. Did that early experience of cultural tension shape the way you design for global audiences today?
I think it's a big, big part of who I am and therefore what I do. You call it tension because usually that's the definition when there are two opposites and you are there stuck in the middle, but paradoxically, I always found my comfort zone in the middle of those two opposites. And again, back then it was me growing up in the north from a family from the south. Then it became me, designer, in the world of business, at the point that sometimes the business leaders look at me, you know, obviously as a designer, the creative, the alien that is landing on the planet of business. And then other times I have the designers looking at me as a businessperson, and this person that understands creativity, is close to the world of creativity. Obviously, he is the designer himself, but is more belonging to the business world. And at the end of the day, I end up not belonging to one world or the other. Or I'm Italian, you can hear from my very heavy Italian accent, but I've been living 15 years in the United States. I was an alien in the United States, even though over the years I became also a citizen and New York today is still home. And I became an alien in my own country. And now I live in Seoul in Korea. Imagine, I'm even more of an alien there. But at the end, I feel a citizen of the world. I belong in any kind of situation. In those gray areas is where I define my identity. And so, you know, it's a very human need, the one of belonging. I mean, Maslow in his pyramid defined that need, the sense of belonging, you know, many years ago. I found my belonging in those gray areas, in those areas where you can define your label, define your identity, and define in a very original and authentic way who you are, who you want to be, and what kind of contribution you can give to the world.
You've said that now, decades into your career, you try to preserve the mindset of an apprentice. Did you approach your roles running design at 3M and at Pepsi that way?
Well, I always came into these companies with a lot of respect for the companies. They were big companies, extremely successful. I didn't come in with the arrogance of thinking, well, I'm a designer. I know what you need to do because we designers know better how to design products and you're not getting it either because you're a tech-driven company or because you are a marketing-driven and brand-driven company. No, I always started from a position of profound respect for what they were able to achieve. I knew very well what I was bringing to the table. Obviously, the more years, the more experience, the more confidence I had in what I knew. But I always knew that I had so much to learn, so much to learn for a variety of different reasons. In the first experiences, it was obvious. I mean, when I started to work at 3M, I was very young. I was 27. I had so much to learn. I never worked in a corporation of that size, you know, in a stable way. You know, in Philips I was less than a year at the beginning of my career. There was all the world of technology to discover. In PepsiCo, the same. I'm an industrial designer. I never worked in the world of food and beverage, and I had to learn that industry. I had to learn the product category. I had to learn so much from the marketing community, from the brand community. And now at Samsung, I'm mixing and blending the two dimensions, but there is so much to learn about the Korean culture, about a different way of doing innovation, of working. But beyond all of this, on top of what you can learn practically in your profession, there is the awareness that as human beings, we'll never end learning. I mean, there is so much. The more you learn, the more you realize that you know nothing. Socrates, thousands of years ago, was telling us already. The reality is that the more humble you are, the more you know that there is so much out there to learn as an apprentice once again. And the more you blend that anyway with a profound confidence about what you already know, but also with an ability and a readiness to steer direction, to change direction. And again, confidence gives you that kind of ability. The more I think you can flex to the different situations, the more you can keep growing and not become sterile. So many people at a certain point with fame, success, or certain achievements, they stop learning because they think, 'Well, I made it. Now I know.' And that's the beginning of the end.
Yes. What are you still learning and from whom?
What I'm learning right now, there is a lot I'm learning, but one of the things I'm learning the most is about myself. You know, I told you that I love the comfort zone of the gray areas, but after 13 years in New York City, 15 in the United States, with such a stable position like the one I had at PepsiCo, you know, with the success I had in the company, the credibility I had in the company, it was difficult to keep discovering yourself, to keep finding new aspects of yourself. Going to Korea, getting completely out of my comfort zone, bringing my family with me, my young kids, my wife, my three dogs, and the sense of responsibility that comes with bringing all these people out of their comfort zone to a completely different kind of culture and way of thinking, working, behaving, connecting, is not easy. It's not easy. And so, right now, when I face day after day different behaviors, different ways of approaching design, innovation, business, or of living, sometimes it's easy because it's inspiring and it's exactly, you know, what I wanted to do and it's really exciting. Other times, instead, it's complicated because it's so different from what I'm used to. And in those moments that are complicated, you need to find strength in yourself, stability in yourself. You need to find your resilience. And what I know right now, in my 50s, is that that's growing. You know, that discomfort is growing. And this is beautiful because even in the most difficult moment, I'm like, 'Yes, I, you know, I'm discovering new things about myself and I'm learning how to react to things that are, you know, don't make me comfortable, but it's exactly what I was looking for.' And it's fantastic.
At PepsiCo, you were embedding design into food, beverage, brand, and experience. Did you ever consider not taking the call from Samsung because of how much you had already established for yourself, for your career, your reputation, certainly the level of design excellence that you'd been recognized for? Did you ever worry that you might be leaving all of that behind for something that was completely uncertain?
Look, fear of the unknown and the risk connected to that is human. It's a problem because fear is a mechanism of self-defense, right? That nature or God gave us. So, of course, I thought, 'Is it the right choice?' And again, because I have young kids, when I was in the middle of that decision, my second kid was born. And literally, I was having conversations with Samsung while my son was coming to life. And so, of course, there is this sense of responsibility that is very, very strong. In the meantime, though, I am somebody that needs to keep innovating and inventing things and growing. So, I knew that it wouldn't be easy to give up this opportunity. So, that was one reason. I was not looking for a new job. I could have stayed at PepsiCo 20 more years and I would have generated new challenges for myself. Think about the challenges of that industry in sustainability, health and wellness, or even just pushing design as a driver of business growth and brand relevance in that industry, in that company. So, I would have found my challenges to stay motivated. But again, a completely different kind of culture in a different country, in a different company, different industry, for sure, was really motivating. But there is also another reason. My passion as a child, what was my passion in university, was consumer electronics. I did my thesis in consumer electronics in 1999 on wearable technologies. So, on clothing that is smart, with flexible screens and pins that look and see and hear what you see and what you hear and can record all this information in a virtual memory that back then we were not calling the cloud, but it was what today is the cloud. And so on and so forth, a variety of different products and objects that you wear enabled by technology. Back then, it was a dream. It was just, you know, a vision of the future. And I started to work in Philips on that vision of the future. And then, life brought me to completely different directions. And what is 26 years later, I find myself in a company, in a moment in time, that gives me the possibility to translate those dreams into reality. But there is a big difference between the kid that graduated from school with that thesis on wearable technologies and what I am today, and it's these two decades of experience. On one side, in the world of 3M and then with my own agency, is experience in technology, really understanding how to leverage technology to create meaningful solutions for people. Then, the other part of my journey is experience in branding and experience and really understanding how to create something meaningful for people through those levers. And so, right now, I'm connecting back the two dimensions to really take the intuitions that I had many, many years ago and bring them to life, but with an awareness, with an experience, with a knowledge of how to do it that is much broader.
It's so interesting. I first met you when you worked at 3M, and I remember when you got the big design job at Pepsi, the design community was wondering, 'Well, can he take his knowledge and expertise in a discipline that was very much about household goods at that time? You know, you did that gorgeous tape dispenser.' And bring that alive to fast-moving consumer goods. And now you're moving from fast-moving consumer goods to shaping technology used by billions.
Can I, can I, you know, I'm sure you're about to ask me a question, but there is something. People tend to look at just the few years of experience you have and the company you've been working for before the next experience, right? So, it's so paradoxical and sometimes it's funny how many people right now are like, 'Oh, but he's coming from PepsiCo, consumer goods.' They don't know you're like, 'I know you.' And like, come on. I mean, if you look at my 26 years of work, literally, 13 are in consumer goods, brand and experience, and 13 are in tech. And tech is where everything started. It was my passion, it's my knowledge. And even in the 13 in consumer goods, tech was always a reference. Every new technological product, new gadget, I would buy it right away, you know, to try, because it is exciting to me. And yes, so but again, exactly what happened 13 years ago in PepsiCo, many people now are like, 'Well, but he's coming from branding, consumer goods.' Well, actually no. Now I have the two experiences, so.
What changes when the object of design becomes as much about infrastructure? When your work lives in people's homes and pockets and on their bodies. How do you, is there a different way in which you approach that type of design as opposed to fast-moving consumer goods? Or do the tenets really remain very similar?
I think there are a lot of similarities. What you need to do is to deeply understand the people you serve. And in consumer goods, there is a tendency that is probably driven by a culture of marketing, of looking at people as consumers and focusing so much on the moment of purchase, what Procter & Gamble used to call the first moment of truth.
Truth. It's so quaint now, right?
But you know, that moment is what often defines CPG, you know, that industry. Because there is so much focus on what happened in Walmart, in Target, in the store. As an industrial designer, I've been trained to think about the user, you know, how people use those products. And so, when I joined the world of CPG, when I entered the world of CPG, my mission was to remind everybody that we shouldn't look at people as consumers and think just about that first moment of truth, but focus on that second moment.
Every other moment after that. Yeah, once it's in your house, what do you do then?
So, for me, that was true in consumer goods and therefore is still even more relevant in a world where once you buy the product, you bring it home and you live with the product sometimes a few years, sometimes decades. If you think of a refrigerator as an example, or an oven, or even TVs, you know, they have a long lifetime. But again, deeply understanding people, their needs, their wants, and creating real, authentic solutions, something that they really need, both functionally and emotionally, that's really what is important to do. And that's really the key formula to create relevant businesses, meaningful brands, and sustainable growth for those companies.
You have moved from the United States now to live and work in Korea, a very different cultural context from Italy, from New York, Minnesota. How has relocating shifted your perspective on leadership and hierarchy and creativity? You really are, as far as I know, the only president of design that I've ever heard of. It's a real new ceiling breaker for our discipline. How has your perspective changed?
Well, I had to challenge many assumptions about how to be a leader.
Really? You won't tell me how?
My first challenge in my journey was the one of an Italian moving to America and trying to understand how to be a leader in America. And it took many years to figure out exactly how to protect my roots, my way of thinking and behaving, all the way to my body language and my passion. So, how to protect them first and then later on leverage them without alienating the people I was interacting with at a very different kind of culture. And after a while, I found a balance. I found the ability to speak the language of business of America, of the United States, the ability to navigate the complexity of these corporations, the culture of these corporations, but being always myself, being always this Italian with this thick accent and this weird way of dressing and this passion and the ability to talk about love in a boardroom and connect love to productivity, to efficiency as an example. Now in Korea, the body language is completely different. The Korean language, obviously, is very different than the English one. You know, here I was the one not speaking the English language and somehow trying to connect. Now I'm there and the language that is spoken in the company is Korean. And of course, with me, we interact in English, they interact in English, but it's not anymore the language of the company. There is a sense of hierarchy and roles and responsibilities that is very different than the American one and European one. And so, I'm trying to understand. I'm still in a phase of understanding how to be myself, how to be authentic, how to work in a super collaborative way, blending the defined roles, responsibilities, but also respecting what works in that kind of culture. And try to understand how to inspire people without alienating them, how to find the right balance between change and respect for the incredible culture and business success that the company has. And so, it's not easy. The company is really trying very hard to help me as well. And this is beautiful.
Well, they understand that, you know, to become more and more global, you need to embrace more and more diversity. You know, I am the first president, non-Korean, in the history of the company, not just in design, in the history of the company. And so, for them, it's something important that transcends the discipline of design, the function of design in the organization. They are betting on diversity. They are betting in bringing in people that think different. And they really want me to be successful in mixing my original point of view that is different from the one of the company historically, just because of the nature of the culture of the organization, with the one of the company. So, we need, you know, myself, with their help, we need to find the right balance between the two dimensions. And this is when, you know, you become more and more global. When you are able to blend different kind of points of view, diverse points of view, into one original point of view. And this is, I think, what they're looking for in me, not just the design component, but the cultural component as well.
Is there anything you've had to unlearn?
What do you mean with unlearning?
Well, you've had to learn about new ways of thinking and doing things. Have you had to stop doing certain things that you relied on in order to get a point across or to persuade people?
Well, there is for sure one thing. I'm very passionate. This passion sometimes makes people eventually even uncomfortable. I had to turn it down already. You know, maybe it's hard to imagine because I'm still very passionate. But I had to turn it down when I moved from Italy to the US. Because at a certain point, I realized that people may think that was almost aggressive, you know. Instead, it's just our way of talking. It's the passion that comes out of everything we do. In Korea, I need to turn it down even more because the body language is really, really different. And so, I need to understand how to still leverage the passion because I think it's been key in my journey. And I think it's going to be important also in Korea, in Asia in general. But I need to really make sure that it's tuned in the right way not to intimidate people around me because one of the key things in innovation is dialogue, is exchange. And when you are too passionate and when you are also confident, so this confidence together with passion, people may not feel comfortable in exchanging ideas, in building a dialogue. And so again, every culture reacts differently. And you know, I'm Italian, think about the Latin American culture, it's very similar to mine. The American is different, the Asian is different. In Asia, different, you know, countries have different cultures. And so, I, you know, I'm learning how to be so passionate without losing my passion and communicating in a way that is tuned in the appropriate way, in the right way to be impactful in a positive way versus being alienating, it's for sure something I'm trying to learn.
Shortly after arriving at Samsung, you penned something rather provocative titled The Human Side of Technology, a manifesto for a new era of innovation. You describe technology as both admired and feared. Why do you think technology anxiety feels so acute right now?
Because in the age of AI and more and more in the age of robotics, because the robots are about to come, people are concerned that this kind of technology may start eroding human qualities. There are some people that arrive all the way to the fear of technology, the annihilation of human speech. You know, we arrive to that kind of extreme. But in the middle, there is also very practical fear of losing my job. Or if you have kids, not knowing what is going to be the future for these kids in this world of technology. And so, these are real fears. And that's why I think that the role of any company working in technology, as well as any government and policy makers, is the one of making sure that technology is developed at the service of humanity, that it is tamed to really create value for people, for humans. And we're not going after technology just because we can, but we should do it because we care. We don't go after technology because it's a driver of profit and power and wealth, but because it's a driver of progress for society. And so, I think especially the design community, you know, I'm a designer and what we learn at school is to serve people. We don't learn at school to grow a business or invent a new technology. We learn how to create something, a solution. Could be a product, a brand, a service that solves a human need and fulfills a human dream. And so, as a design community, I think we have an opportunity and a responsibility right now to elevate ourselves, become the voice of humanity in these companies of any kind. And for companies like mine, like the one I work for, for Samsung, you know, to play a role to lead with humanity, to put people at the center of everything, to make sure that once again, technology is there serving the people, humans. And this is very, very important both for society, but I think right now is very important also to create at the end also business value for these companies.
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You and I are almost, we're in the same generation. We're almost the same age. I'm a bit older, but I know that we both were very much a part of the move toward technology and design in the '80s and '90s. And back then, designers were aghast at the role that technology might have in design before we even knew what the full role was going to be. And there were immediate calls for the boycotting of technology and the continued use of wax machines and X-ACTO blades and Rubylith and so on and so forth. I was trained on a drafting table, so I witnessed that firsthand. What we didn't anticipate back then, when the beloved designers of our time at that time were all lamenting the potential loss of jobs, the potential loss of our careers, was in fact how technology was going to actually create hundreds of thousands of jobs for designers and move design from really a fringe discipline into the center of creativity. We're hearing a lot of the same fears again. Maybe this time they'll be more prevalent, maybe they won't. I'm wondering what your thoughts are on the repetitive nature of these fears that always seem to come to the forefront at the beginning of a new era of technology.
Well, look, we live in a sort of paradox as humans. On one side, nature changes, evolves, it's the law of the world, you know, it's been there forever. It's the history of humanity and actually even before humanity. On the other side, though, we have this instinct to protect the status quo because it's linked to our instinct to be safe. So, every time there is change, change is inevitable, but we resist change as human beings because again it's a form of self-defense. It's a paradox because the best self-defense is actually to change and evolve and adapt. So, we live in this paradox. So, these fears that humans, designers, had for technology are perfectly human once again. They are part of our nature. We need to learn, I think, as innovators to embrace change, to embrace changes in technology, in the world around us, and see them as incredible opportunities. And this is really, really important if we want to innovate in the best possible way.
