Robert Brunner, Founder & Creative Director, Ammunition; Lead Designer for Beats by Dre, In (virtual) conversation with Clay Chandler, FORTUNE
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00:00Robert, thank you so much for joining us.
00:02Good evening to you there in San Francisco.
00:06It's really wonderful.
00:07We wish you could be here in person,
00:08but it's wonderful for you to join us virtually.
00:12Yeah, I would love to be there too,
00:14and I apologize for not being able to make it,
00:17but I'm glad to at least be here on screen.
00:21Let's talk a little bit about your kind of origin story,
00:24if we can, just to begin with.
00:26You are a Silicon Valley kid,
00:29raised around San Jose, right?
00:32Went to San Jose State.
00:33Tell us a little bit about
00:34how you got into industrial design.
00:40Yeah, I'm a rare child of the technology industry, actually.
00:44My father was a mechanical engineer at IBM,
00:47worked in the Santa Teresa labs,
00:49and developed much of the mechanical technology
00:52in the first fixed disk drives at IBM.
00:56Later, he left IBM with six other engineers
00:59and started a company that went into competition with IBM,
01:02so I'm also part of that DNA and that entrepreneurial culture.
01:07Yeah, how I got into design is interesting.
01:09When I finished up high school in California,
01:10you'd see the guidance counselor,
01:12and you'd say, you're good in math,
01:13you're good in science, your dad's an engineer,
01:16you're an engineer, go study engineering.
01:18So, he didn't look at how I excelled in art
01:21and woodshop and things like that.
01:24And so I did, but I wasn't satisfied.
01:27It just didn't resonate with me.
01:28My mother was a fashion model, fine artist,
01:33craftsperson, and an entrepreneur herself,
01:35so I thought, oh, I'm gonna go to the art department,
01:38and I've heard about this thing called graphic design,
01:41and I'll see what that's about.
01:44I walked into the building,
01:45and it was immediately presented with this display case
01:48of industrial design artifacts,
01:51of renderings and models and sketches,
01:54and I just sat there looking at it and said,
01:56okay, this is it, this is what I want to do.
01:58And so I went over to the admin building
02:01and changed my major immediately,
02:02which ultimately really upset my father.
02:05He thought industrial designers were not worth their weight
02:09and just made things difficult for him.
02:11So, he got over that, but that was,
02:13you know, I'm very serendipitous,
02:15but it's the way things happen.
02:16Sometimes you go through the right door
02:18and you find what you were supposed to do.
02:20But what's interesting to me about that story
02:22is your father's attitude was very,
02:28very typical for people in the Valley at that time, right?
02:32That was not a moment when people had
02:33this kind of universal understanding of design's value
02:37and potential in the way that they do now.
02:40I mean, it was a very different ethos in those days.
02:43Yeah, no, it was, and in fact,
02:45a quote from my dad at the time was,
02:47the industrial designers are the people
02:48who specify the paint and it usually peels off.
02:52Those ways.
02:54Yeah, no, and yeah, in many ways, you know,
02:56in the early days, a lot of companies saw industrial design
03:01as a sort of necessary evil or coming in late
03:04and, you know, applying what people would refer to
03:07as racing stripes, you know, and so, you know,
03:10it was challenging, but, you know,
03:11we still would find certain clients,
03:15companies that were really interested in design
03:17and understood it enough to include us
03:20in what they were doing.
03:21And really, it was very exciting
03:22because there was, you know,
03:23so many things happening in the Valley
03:26that were not happening anywhere else in the world.
03:28And it was really rich for design
03:31and it was a really tight-knit community.
03:32I mean, I worked virtually on the same street
03:35as David Kelly, founder of IDL, Bill Moggridge, ID2,
03:39who also was part of IDL, Mike Nuttall.
03:42We used to meet every week for drinks
03:44and, you know, share war stories, right?
03:48So it was very collegial, but we all knew
03:50we were doing something very special at the time.
03:52Huh, so let's fast forward a little bit
03:55to your time at Apple.
03:56How did you get there?
03:58And what was design like at Apple when you arrived?
04:05How I got there was interesting.
04:08At the time, Apple had a very tight relationship
04:11with the German Bernfrog design run by Hartmut Esslinger.
04:15And, but I was called by an engineer we knew
04:19who said, I'm working on this project.
04:21I need some design support.
04:23I want to get a different view on it.
04:24Can you do that?
04:26We said, of course.
04:27But he didn't want to call it design, right?
04:29It was, I mean, not only politically,
04:31but legally risky to say they were hiring a designer.
04:34So we were hired as engineers.
04:37In retrospect, it was a test, right,
04:39to see how we did and the kind of work that we did.
04:43And very shortly after,
04:44the relationship with Frog came to an end.
04:48And so we began doing real projects, right?
04:51And sort of got involved with some really amazing things
04:55that really did very well.
04:56And I got this call one day from a headhunter
05:00who was hired by the guy I was working with,
05:02which was weird, but he said,
05:03do you want to come down and run
05:06the industrial design department at Apple?
05:11I thought about it.
05:12The first thing I said was no.
05:15I was happy about where I was.
05:18My perception of design within Apple,
05:19which was accurate, was that it was largely,
05:22the creative work was all being outsourced.
05:24So I'm a creative professional.
05:26I didn't want to go and manage other external designers,
05:30which ultimately was the best thing that I could do
05:33because they went away for three months or whatever
05:35and kind of came back and said,
05:37okay, we want you, what do you want?
05:40I was young and foolish and didn't even think about money.
05:45I said, you know, if any company in the world
05:47could support a world-class design organization, it's Apple.
05:49So if you want to build that, I'll be into that.
05:52And they said, let's do it.
05:53And so that was how I ended up there,
05:55which, you know, and it was an amazing journey.
05:58And it was not easy to put that design operation together
06:03in the beginning, correct?
06:06No, it was not.
06:06It was, you know, again, there was a perception,
06:09a few perceptions out there that made it difficult.
06:11One was Apple was just about building beige boxes, right?
06:15Building, you know, desktop personal computers.
06:19There was this perception that it was, again,
06:21done not internally, but externally.
06:25And so I actually really had to work at recruiting
06:28and doing things to really change the idea
06:30of what was going on at Apple.
06:31And I managed to get a few really amazing designers to come,
06:34which sort of started the momentum.
06:36And then, you know, I often, you know, one of my,
06:39I often joke one of my, what my epitaph will say
06:42is the guy who hired Jonathan Ive, right?
06:47But Johnny, we actually, I met Johnny when he was a student
06:50and saw his work and thought he was incredible.
06:52And I tried to hire him a couple of times
06:54and he was, he had started Tangerine.
06:57He didn't want to do that.
06:58And so we hired Tangerine on a project,
07:00which, you know, was actually kind of a Trojan horse
07:02on my part to get him to come to California.
07:05And when he did, we convinced him to join the team,
07:09which obviously in many ways, you know,
07:12set a course of history.
07:15Right, amazing.
07:16So you moved on from Apple and what was next after Apple?
07:21I went to Pentagram, which is a very well-established
07:26large international consulting, design consultancy.
07:30You know, I was actually approached by Kit Heinrichs.
07:34I was having dinner at the Museum of Modern Art
07:36and said, hey, we're looking for an industrial designer.
07:38Do you know anybody?
07:38You know, which is one of those things
07:40that he was talking about.
07:43And, you know, Pentagram for me,
07:45Pentagram is largely, as most people know,
07:47is a graphic design-based partnership.
07:52There are a few architects and a few industrial designers,
07:54but my personal equity of Pentagram was Kenneth Grange.
07:59And Kenneth was an amazing industrial designer,
08:02really, in England that just really
08:04did some incredible work.
08:06And so that was how I perceived Pentagram.
08:08And so I joined, and it actually made sense for me
08:12because I wanted to start another office,
08:13but, you know, honestly, the idea of setting up
08:15an entire office again at that point was like,
08:17oh, do I really want to do that?
08:18And Pentagram was a model I could drop right into
08:21and build my own business and work with, you know,
08:2518 other partners who literally are some of the most talented
08:28and smart designers in the world,
08:30which was an incredible opportunity.
08:33And how did you get from Pentagram then
08:35to working with Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine?
08:39Well, you know, so there was two paths there.
08:42I actually started working with Jimmy and Dre
08:45when I was still at Ammunition.
08:46I was introduced by another person.
08:49And then about the same time, I was coming to the conclusion
08:52that Pentagram wasn't quite right for me,
08:54that I saw this thing that was going on
08:57in industrial design, especially in Silicon Valley,
09:00where it was moving from this, you know,
09:04necessary evil to a core competency, right,
09:07for successful technology companies.
09:09And I didn't think I was well-positioned
09:13or well, the right resource or the right environment
09:16in Pentagram, even though Pentagram was great.
09:19And so it was because the way Pentagram was structured,
09:22I was able to literally take my team
09:23and start Ammunition on my own.
09:26I was able to retain those clients.
09:28The thing with Back to Beats
09:30was I began working with Jimmy and Dre.
09:34And really the initial brief was,
09:36yeah, we want to make audio products.
09:38You know, let's start with a headphone.
09:39And that was about it.
09:43What was amazing and incredibly challenging
09:46at the same time was they had no idea
09:48about product development.
09:49They had no idea what it took
09:50to bring something out in the world,
09:53which in some ways was refreshing and exciting
09:56and other times was painful.
09:58But, you know, we really were able to collectively come up
10:02with this idea for a product and a brand
10:05that was, you know, really the first high-performance
10:08audio brand for a younger audience,
10:10and which didn't exist.
10:12That was Jimmy's observation.
10:13There was nothing out there for the same audience
10:15he spoke to, you know, through the music business
10:20that he was running, didn't have this brand,
10:24you know, that they could listen to it.
10:25And in the very first meeting we had, you know, with Dre,
10:29he said, made this quote,
10:30which we put on the box for a while,
10:31which was, people aren't hearing my music.
10:36And what that meant to him was, you know,
10:38I craft all this music, it goes out into the world,
10:42and people listen to it on inferior products
10:45that are not tuned for my genre of music, right?
10:48I know what it's supposed to sound like.
10:49It doesn't sound like that.
10:51And that was a lot of the impetus on development
10:54of the audio system for the headphone.
10:56And one of my jobs was also looking at the headphone.
10:59And, you know, really, headphones were
11:02one of the original pieces of wearable technology.
11:04And, you know, they were, but not designed in that way,
11:07designed very functionally from, you know,
11:10ergonomic and comfort and adjustability
11:13and durability and acoustics,
11:14and, you know, all the important stuff,
11:16but not really how it looks, right?
11:19And not how it sits on the body
11:21and not the perception that it gives off, right?
11:23And those were all, I thought were very important.
11:25If you're going to put something on your head, right?
11:28Wear it on your body.
11:29It really should be speaking a language
11:31that you identify with and feel good about.
11:35And so that was really the emphasis
11:36behind the First Beat Studio,
11:38which, you know, started off a little slowly
11:40the first quarter and then started ramping up.
11:42And then by the time Jimmy's approach to, you know,
11:47building cultural relevance for the brand
11:49and the product took hold,
11:50it just was like gasoline on a fire.
11:53It just took off.
11:54So beats are fascinating to me
11:56because they are a classic example of a product
11:58that's not just good enough, but is great.
12:02And I know this is a subject
12:04that you've been thinking a lot about lately.
12:07What makes a design great?
12:10And I wonder if you could kind of expound on that
12:13a little bit for us.
12:14We've got a couple of slides here, I think,
12:16if I can bring them up.
12:19Yeah, it's, there's this, there's a thing, right?
12:22That, you know, I've worked on hundreds of things,
12:25hundreds, and, you know, I can say,
12:28honestly, all of them are good.
12:30Came out in the sense of good.
12:32There's a smaller percentage that were great, right?
12:37That really changed something.
12:38It really moved the needle, really made something happen.
12:41So I began to wonder what, you know,
12:43look at what happened, right?
12:45So the first thing is, you know,
12:46we have this question that's up on the screen
12:48that we ask ourselves every time we start a project,
12:52which is, you know, what's worth designing
12:54in the first place?
12:57And it's actually a very powerful question
12:58because those of you that are in product development know
13:03the amount of money, time, resource, people, et cetera,
13:09that it takes to bring a product out in the world,
13:10especially a physical product, is enormous.
13:12You know, five, 10, 50, sometimes $100 million, right?
13:15And if you're gonna do that,
13:18you should really understand the answer to this question.
13:21What is worth all that, right?
13:22And it's a very complicated question,
13:24but we use it, you know, to help really set the framework
13:28for us to design with.
13:29And we have an entire strategy and UX team
13:32that spend all their time sort of trying to figure that out.
13:35And it's very powerful.
13:37But moving on to the next slide,
13:38it's sort of, you know, what's good, right?
13:41So when I look at,
13:44go ahead and forward the slide, please.
13:47When I look at the idea of good, right,
13:49which I would characterize as does the job well,
13:53you know, there are things that are usable, right?
13:55I know I can use them.
13:56They're useful.
13:57They do something I need.
13:58They're desirable.
13:59I like it.
14:00I want to have it.
14:01And, you know, they tend to be, you know,
14:02when you focus on aesthetics, they're attractive,
14:04they're functional, they do what they do,
14:06they're competitive in the market,
14:08manufacturable, attainable, right, reasonably priced.
14:11And the things that, you know, to get there is really,
14:13you know, understanding the opportunity very well,
14:16having the talent to do a good job,
14:20the appropriate tools and process to manage it,
14:22and the experience, right, to get it there.
14:24And all this, you know, no small task.
14:28And this is some appliances.
14:29We work for a company called NutriCook in NutriCook.
14:33You know, the products are good
14:35and they do the job well, right?
14:37So great, you know, great actually is an entire,
14:41thing goes to another level
14:42when you start to think about great design, right?
14:44It's inspiring.
14:46It's empowering.
14:48It's transformative, right?
14:50It changes things.
14:51It challenges norms.
14:52It's culturally relevant.
14:54You know, many times the product is a portal
14:56to something bigger, an idea or a service or a capability.
15:00They're socially positive, you know,
15:03and they create high value
15:03and not just monetary value,
15:05but just the value in the world.
15:07And the tool set to get there is entirely different.
15:09You need a worldview.
15:10You need to really look at the bigger picture.
15:13There is always, they're always purpose-driven, right?
15:17And many times the purpose has to sit above financials,
15:20right?
15:21It's really, this is something that needs to be done
15:24and the world needs to have it.
15:26A clarity on what that is, you know, or the direction of it.
15:31And there's a sort of level of commitment and tenacity
15:36that it requires, right?
15:37To really sort of push something throughout the world
15:40that hasn't been done before
15:41or done in a way that has not been done before.
15:44And the last thing I like, you know,
15:46when I look at the leaders that I work with,
15:48there's this thing is called fluid intelligence,
15:51which is this ability to sort of move through
15:54and learn and morph and identify what needs to be done,
15:58you know, as things change and go through a process.
16:00And that's always something that's relevant.
16:02So, you know, when you go to the next slide, please.
16:06You know, so when you look at it,
16:08it's really interesting in that it's almost always, right?
16:13It's a human thing.
16:14It's not tools or process or talent,
16:19or it's always about leadership, right?
16:22And it's always about the singular
16:26or small number of people
16:28that really wanna make something,
16:30literally wanna make something great.
16:31And that, in fact, is a prerequisite.
16:33So we can go to the next slide, please.
16:35There's a few things about what does that mean, right?
16:38It's, as I said, a non-negotiable purpose, right?
16:41When you work with, you know,
16:43a leader that's gonna make something great,
16:45the purpose is not something that's up for debate.
16:48We're going to do that.
16:49Like we worked with Jack Dorsey at Square.
16:51It was really, we're going to democratize
16:53credit card payments, right?
16:55That was what we're gonna do.
16:57Clear vision and direction, as I mentioned,
16:59building with focus and tenacity.
17:01And then, you know, there is a thing that,
17:05it's almost sometimes I characterize
17:07as a belief in craftsmanship, right?
17:10An attention on the experience and the details
17:13and a commitment to doing things right.
17:14You know, these are the things that you,
17:16as you develop something and move it through the system,
17:19you maintain that integrity that, you know,
17:21made the concept great in the first place, right?
17:24So these are the things that I see when I look at,
17:27as much as I want to take all the credit
17:30for something that was great,
17:31it really had a lot to do with the leadership team
17:33we were working with.
17:34And usually a singular individual that embodied
17:38these ideas and approach to developing something.
17:42Robert, this is fascinating and really a great
17:44kind of roadmap for how to think about,
17:46you know, a fundamental level of design.
17:49You said a couple of things I just want to ask you
17:50quickly about, which are really quite interesting.
17:52One of your kind of favorite comments is that
17:55many designers, instead of having this clear sense
17:59of purpose, have an inferiority complex.
18:01What do you mean by that?
18:03Well, you know, it's kind of interesting.
18:05And early in my career, I think I suffered from this,
18:08where you went to an art school, right?
18:12Most of us.
18:15And again, you many times had this subservient relationship
18:19with engineering and marketing or both.
18:22And didn't really have a business education, right?
18:26So, you know, it's just, you kind of feel like,
18:28oh, wait a minute, I'm just the creative guy, right?
18:32But I learned this lesson actually largely at Apple
18:34that, you know, I would sit in executive meetings,
18:37C-level meetings, and things would go on
18:40and I'd think, you know, that's not gonna work
18:43or that's not successful, but you know,
18:45what is it my place to say?
18:46And I always found out, realized later, I was right.
18:50And began to understand that as a creative professional
18:54and the training experience that I had,
18:57I can many times see problems much differently
19:00and much more effectively
19:02than people with different training, right?
19:04And that sort of gave me the confidence
19:07to really sort of actively engage on,
19:10look, this is what we do to make this thing,
19:12need to do to make this thing great, right?
19:14And so that's why I think it's something that happens
19:18with designers, especially during their career,
19:20which is sort of like, oh, well, I'm just a creative guy,
19:23you know, what do I know?
19:24And that's absolutely wrong.
19:26We've just got a few more seconds,
19:28but I wonder if you could also say a word
19:30about the importance for designers
19:32of being able to communicate their vision.
19:35You've suggested, for example,
19:36that one good way for designers to train
19:39would be to go practice being a stand-up comic.
19:43What's the idea there?
19:45Yeah, you know, I get that question from students.
19:48I say, yeah, go take a public speaking class,
19:49go take a comedy class, you know,
19:51learn how to stand up in front of people
19:53and communicate thoughts and ideas.
19:55Look, it's basically, you know,
19:57it is not a process of bringing something out in the world.
20:00It's not singular.
20:01It's not an individual thing.
20:03It takes an army, right?
20:05When you go from chain to chain and end of the chain,
20:08you know, there is an enormous amount of people
20:11and steps in the process
20:12that need to bring something out in the world.
20:13So that's something, a phrase I coined in my first book,
20:18which was, you know, the experience supply chain, right?
20:20That as something moves through it, you know,
20:23how do you maintain the integrity of the design idea?
20:27And so what really needs to happen along that chain,
20:29you need to really continually educate,
20:32motivate, cajole, sell, right?
20:35Keep pushing this idea and make sure it's understood.
20:38So as each organization, you know, gets their hands on it,
20:42they don't screw it up, right?
20:44So, you know, so what I found is, you know,
20:47as almost as important as your creative ability
20:50is your ability to communicate
20:52and communicate ideas in a way
20:54that are contextualized for people
20:56and they can grasp and understand and get behind.
21:00So, yeah, I've been doing public speaking for, you know,
21:0425 years.
21:05For 10 years, it terrified me, you know,
21:08but, you know, I knew I needed to be able to be comfortable,
21:11you know, in front of a group like this
21:14and being able to articulate ideas
21:15because that was actually critical to me,
21:17seeing the work that I'm doing see the light of day.
21:22Well, Robert, this has been a real masterclass in, you know,
21:26design, what kind of vision it takes,
21:29the leadership that's necessary.
21:31And I love that last point
21:32about the importance of communication.
21:34I mean, clearly you have become
21:36a masterful communicator yourself.
21:39We would welcome you back
21:40on the brainstorm design stage anytime.
21:44Your schedule permits.
21:45So thank you so much for making time for us.
21:48Next year, I will be there in person, I promise.
21:51Wonderful, we'll hold you to it.
21:52Terrific, thanks to you, Robert Bruner.