For CEOs, the design question is no longer “who makes the screens?” It’s “who protects the product?”
This time, people are saying it about designers.
They’re half right.
The part of the job that was mostly pushing pixels around in Figma is dying. But the designer who survives that shift is more valuable than ever.
Not less.
Here’s the shift I’m watching happen on my own team.
An engineer can now open an AI tool, describe a screen, and get working code in minutes.
The bottleneck used to be production.
Someone had to draw the thing.
That bottleneck is gone.
So the scarce thing is no longer “more screens.”
The scarce thing is judgment.
Is this screen any good?
Does it match the other two hundred screens we already shipped?
Does it make sense for the customer?
Does it help the business?
That is the new design job.
And founders should pay attention.
Because this is not just a design-team issue.