Jony Ive, Apple’s iconic former design chief, sat down for a rare interview at Stripe Sessions 2025. The hour-long conversation with Stripe co-founder Patrick Collison covers everything from his first impressions of Silicon Valley to the design rituals that shaped his decades at Apple and what’s driving his work today.
Ive reflects on discovering the original Macintosh as a student in England, calling it a “bicycle for the mind” that revealed the humanity and values of its creators. “What we make stands testament to who we are,” he said, describing how the Mac inspired his move to California in the early 1990s.
Inside Apple, Ive revealed that design was as much about culture as it was about craft. He recalled weekly rituals like team breakfasts, where designers took turns cooking for each other, and workdays spent in each other’s homes.
These practices were not just about camaraderie, but foundational to creating products with empathy and depth. “Make things for each other,” he said, describing how personal care within a team often translated into care for the user.
Throughout the conversation, Ive emphasized his belief that design should be rooted in care, clarity, and service, not disruption for its own sake. He recounted spending hours obsessing over seemingly trivial product details, like how a charging cable is unwrapped, to convey love and attention to users. “You can express gratitude to the species through what you make,” he said, quoting Steve Jobs.
At LoveFrom, the design collective he co-founded after leaving Apple nearly six years ago, Ive said the mission has broadened while the values have remained the same.
The studio’s work spans software, hardware, architecture, and branding, including the coronation identity for King Charles. With a multidisciplinary team of designers, musicians, and typographers, Ive sees each project as an opportunity to “sincerely elevate the species,” a phrase he uses to describe the deeper spiritual responsibility of thoughtful design.
The conversation also touched on the unintended consequences of technology, including concerns about social media and the pace of innovation in AI. Ive said it is not enough to have good intentions—designers and technologists must take responsibility when products have harmful outcomes. “Even if you’re innocent in your intention, if you’re involved in something that has poor consequences, you need to own it,” he said.
No word on what Ive was filming in San Francisco last month, and the OpenAI hardware project remains a point of intrigue.
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