“The design job of the future will be ‘founder.”

YC’s call for more designers to be founders signals a clear shift in mindset. As AI makes product development faster and easier — design and taste become the differentiators.  

Design excellence has powered unicorns like Airbnb, Pinterest, Stripe, and Notion. The Sam Altman—Jony Ive partnership on “io” hints at what’s coming: the next generation of products will be design-led (and designer-led).

Are design founders on your radar yet? We’ve done the homework for you.

Explore 80+ promising design founders with backgrounds in UX, web, visual, and game design. Get their coordinates — ready to plug into your sourcing flow.