I’ve only been involved in Morrama from an advisory capacity since 2017 but, as part of the books intro, Jo (my co-founder) invited me to share the story of why I left the company in her very capable hands. This excerpt is below, but get a copy of the book as there some amazing knowledge and insight in it!

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Robert Bye on why he left Morrama

It was about a year into starting Morrama that I started to notice something shifting in me. While I still loved designing, I was becoming more and more drawn to the idea of building. I was from scratch on my own - the strategy, the problem-solving, the uncertainty of trying to make something new exist in the world.

The trips we’d taken to the U.S. had exposed me to the fast-moving world of software. Many of the products we were working on at the time had a digital component, and I found myself more interested in that side of things than the hardware. It was fascinating by how quickly software could be built, tested, and iterated one - how an idea could go from concept to something tangible in weeks rather than months or years.

Earlier that year, I had begun experimenting with software and designing mobile apps in my spare time. It started as just a bit of fun, but one idea had attracted some interest from investors. I should have been really excited about it; but instead, it just made things even harder.

I was torn. I was starting to realise that my strengths and interests were pulling me in a different direction, but I also didn’t want to walk away from what Jo and I had built together. Morrama wasn’t just a company - it was something we had created side by side, from nothing. And Jo wasn’t just a co-founder - she was my best friend, someone I respected and admired. The thought of leaving felt like I was letting both her and the company down.

But something happened that made me convinced that she could manage without me. We had just taken on our most challenging project, and Jo was leading on things that would normally have been my responsibility - managing the client, taking risks, driving our ambition - and she was excelling. She had always been a stronger designer than me, but watching her, I could see she was becoming a leader. Someone who wasn’t just shaping the company itself.

That was the moment it became clear to me. I realised not just for Jo, too. Staying would have meant holding onto something that I needed to leave, but that it was the right thing for Morrama and deep down, I knew wasn’t right for me to have a grip on anymore. Jo didn’t know it at that time, but for me to stretch beyond the roles we had built together, and to grow, I into the kind of leader I knew she could become.

Starting Morrama with Jo is something I will always be proud of. We were young, full of energy and completely in it together, figuring things out as we went, making mistakes and learning fast. every project, winning clients through sheer enthusiasm into methodology where we were way over our heads, and somehow pulling it off. I also loved designing, solving problems, and seeing our work turn your is a strange thing, coming to the conclusion that the best thing into real products. It’s a strange thing, coming to the conclusion that the best thing you can do for something and someone you care about is to step away. But I knew this was one of those moments - the kind where the courage to do it is forever back down from those. encouragement to do it is forever back down from those.

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Autonomy and Direction

Great teams need ownership. They want to feel proud of what they’ve created and know they’re responsible for its success. But ownership alone isn’t enough. Teams also need direction.

The best approach balances these two needs, giving teams enough autonomy to feel empowered, while also providing enough clarity and guidance so they're not lost. Teams should either shape their own direction and get leadership buy-in, or be guided by clear, top-down objectives while retaining significant freedom to explore.

The Figma Slides and FigJam team, in particular, really nailed this balance. Mihika, their PM, had an incredible knack for shaping and refining a vision, securing support from leadership, absorbing and selectively acting on feedback. And critically knowing when to ignore it! This team felt like a genuine internal startup: driven, ambitious, and deeply invested in their success. The craft and quality of their product spoke volumes about the autonomy and direction they carved out for themselves. And the launch (shown below) went down so, so well because of this!

If you’re a PM, creating this kind of environment should be an extremely high priority. Fight for your team, champion their ideas, and rally both your colleagues and leadership around shared goals. I've done this with varying degrees of success, and when it clicks, it's truly incredible.

Maker Mindset

Almost every team at Figma embodied the maker mindset, but some took it to an entirely different level. Early FigJam is a standout example. The team wasn’t just skilled; they genuinely loved their work. They cared deeply about every detail, constantly pushed creative boundaries, and infused their product with joy, fun, and hidden gems.

Unfortunately, many tech teams in the industry are discouraged from truly exploring their creativity due to rigid OKR style priorities or leadership constraints. But when teams carve out their own creative spaces, hire passionate individuals (rather than those simply chasing paycheques and vesting periods), and leadership actively supports playfulness (one of Figma’s core values) the results are extraordinary.

For me, the maker mindset is a powerful combination of craft, curiosity, and genuine passion. The best product teams don’t just have this mindset—they overflow with it. It isn’t something you can simply switch on, but by hiring thoughtfully, encouraging curiosity, and intentionally creating space for experimentation, you foster the conditions for incredible creativity.

A great example of this is how during an offsite we would often do things like painting together — and just check out the how wildly impressive the work from the Mobile Engineers, Designers, and PMs!

Ego-Free Collaboration

Before joining Figma, I experienced far too many teams riddled with people playing politics, jockeying for credit, and optimising for performance reviews. Thankfully, that culture was refreshingly rare at Figma.

Instead, most folks genuinely enjoyed collaborating, celebrated each other's wins, and championed each other’s successes. Whether it was PMs ensuring designers presented their own work to leadership or team leads publicly praising IC engineers for fixing gnarly bugs, ego-free collaboration was consistently modelled.

The notifications team, where I spent some time, embodied this beautifully. Much of our work flew under the radar, so we made it a priority to publicly celebrate wins, pushing credit towards the designers and engineers responsible. Building a culture where everyone genuinely wants their colleagues to succeed more than themselves always leads to greater overall success. And we definitely saw this!

Flowing Communication

Effective communication is the backbone of any successful team, and as companies grow, keeping it clear and inclusive becomes harder. On the Collaboration team, my last team at Figma, we tackled many different surfaces and features simultaneously (comments, notifications, file browser, and more). Chaos was inevitable, but clear, flowing communication kept us effective.

Prioritising public channels over direct messages, relying heavily on async updates, and involving all stakeholders—engineers in design crits, designers in early brainstorming sessions, and keeping managers in the loop—transformed chaos into productive, collaborative energy. It might have looked like a messy scratch kitchen from the outside, but internally, everyone knew exactly what was happening and it flowed.

My key advice: involve more people earlier. Engineers should be ideating alongside designers, marketing helping write PRDs, and leadership getting receive frequent tl;dr style updates, not just polished decks months into a project. This approach is transformative, and I can’t recommend it enough.

Playful Camaraderie

Finally, the cornerstone of high-performing teams at Figma was playful camaraderie. Unity underpins every other success factor. Without genuine friendship, ego-free collaboration, clear communication, and creative exploration all suffer.

Some of the best teams at Figma all shared a profound sense of unity. They laughed together, supported each other, and genuinely enjoyed their daily interactions. Stress and urgency has its place for quick wins, but joy and camaraderie drive repeated innovative thinking and polished outcomes.

Creating playful camaraderie doesn’t happen by accident. It’s intentional. You need to hire people who are genuinely good, who care about their work and each other, and who find joy in being together. Teams focused solely on OKRs or performance reviews might achieve short-term success, but lasting, extraordinary results stem from genuine relationships and playful interactions.

Hands down the team that showed this the most were the Native teams at Figma. I’ve never been a part of such a united team, that went through so many challenges, but always had each others backs!

If you haven’t experienced a team like this yet, I sincerely hope you will. It’s genuinely special. You can help actively foster this where you are by prioritising relationships, injecting lightness and fun, celebrating shared wins, and just jamming on stuff together. Success will inevitably follow.

At Figma, seeing these principles in action was incredibly inspiring. I learnt so much whilst there, but reflecting on it now makes me realise how much more I could have learnt as well. When these elements align, the results speak for themselves, and I’m excited to continue investing in these areas in future teams!

Most had come from companies where craft was a priority; places like Dropbox, Spotify, and Apple. Teams that, at least at one point, valued taste, detail, and delight. That mindset was already baked in. And when that’s the baseline, it lifts everyone. Even folks who came from less craft-focused environments levelled up quickly. Standards were high, but in a way that felt energising rather than overwhelming.

This quickly became the norm for me, but since leaving Figma it’s made me reflect on how amazing that time was. How did we foster the dynamic where craft isn’t just encouraged, but expected? And what can I do to build that kind of culture on in teams I join in the future?

Here are a few patterns I noticed at Figma that I believe made all the difference

Low ego, high care

The best people I worked with truly cared about quality, but didn’t get defensive when given feedback. There was a shared understanding that no one was defined by their work. So critique was welcomed and asked for, not avoided. You could share something rough and trust the team to help shape it into something better. That openness wasn’t just allowed, it was expected.

You could say things like “I don’t love this” or “something feels off here” and people would lean in. They’d ask questions, offer thoughts, and help riff on new ideas. That kind of honesty only works when there’s trust, psychological safety, and a shared commitment to the work over individual opinions.

Collaboration from day one

Design, product, and engineering were involved together from the very start. No sharp handoffs. No rigid roles. Just constant collaboration.

Everyone pitched in. Everyone gave feedback. Everyone shared ownership of the outcome.

The strongest solutions usually came from teams who were building on each other’s thinking, not from one person going off on their own, working in silo, in a private Figma file in their drafts, then sharing it with folk ‘when it is ready’. (I’ll share more about how amazing collaboration was at Figma in a few weeks).

Drawing inspiration from everywhere

We were always sharing things we loved. Screenshots, animations, and slick UI details we saw on Twitter, Instagram, and elsewhere. If something caught our eye, we’d drop it in Slack, explain what made it great, and chat about how we could bring similar energy into our own work.

It created a culture of shared taste. A steady rhythm of inspiration. And a reminder that the little things, the details, the delight, really do matter.

Feedback baked into the process

Critique wasn’t an afterthought. It was baked into how we worked, at every stage.

Product crits happened early. We’d bring half-formed ideas, rough problem statements, or early mocks and get input from cross-functional PMs. It wasn’t about getting a green light, just making the work better, and levelling up each others thinking.

Design crits happened repeatedly. Sometimes they were with your pillar or team when deeper context was needed, sometimes they were broader with the full team. Importantly, it wasn’t just designers giving feedback. PMs and engineers were in the room too, helping everyone improve, build shared context, and give feedback on potential blind spots.

Engineering crits happened early in every project. This gave space for engineers crit designs early, call out tricky edge cases, and give feedback on the finer details. It also helped designers and PMs develop a deeper understanding of how things would come to life, and listen to ideas from eng on how to make things feel even better.

These rhythms made feedback feel normal and low-stakes. By the time something launched, it had already been shaped by dozens of conversations, multiple teams, and by a lot of different roles.

Reviews as workshops, not approvals

The best exec reviews weren’t one way presentations looking for a green light. They were working sessions. You’d show up with a new feature, a strategy, or an idea you wanted to get feedback on. Not a final design spec you just wanted to ship.

That created a totally different energy. Leaders felt like collaborators. You could bring your best thinking, even if it wasn’t fully dialled in. And landing a meeting was rarely make or break for a project.

Launches could wait

We often delayed launches—not because we were behind, but because we weren’t quite proud of it yet.

It was normal to push a date back if it meant improving something. We’d take an extra week to tighten up an interaction, rethink copy, or sharpen UI details. Not because any one thing would make or break it, but because the combined effect of those details mattered.

If you want to see this mindset in action, watch the UI3 talk from Config. It’s a great example of craft at every level.

Details mattered to everyone

The attention to detail didn’t just come from designers. Engineers would obsess over interactions and riff with designers throughout the whole process. PMs would push for better copy. The whole team cared. That’s when things really shine, when everyone sweats the details together.

And while most people won’t notice each individual thing, they feel it. The product just feels better, even if they can’t explain why.

Listening to users, continuously

We were constantly listening to users; on Twitter, in support tickets, in community forums. Not just to fix bugs, but to pay attention to what frustrated people, what they loved, and what they expected from the product.

It helped us build empathy, spot patterns early, and avoid repeating the same mistakes. We didn’t just fix things, we learned from them.

What it all adds up to

Over time, this kind of environment built three things:

1. Low ego and high trust

People cared deeply about quality but welcomed input. There was a shared belief that feedback made the work better. And that created psychological safety to take risks and grow.

2. Seamless, ongoing collaboration

Cross-functional work happened naturally. People were in each other’s files, riffing on ideas, sharing thoughts early, and constantly learning from one another.

3. Process designed for quality

Regular feedback. Room to slow down when needed. And a culture where people invested in the details wasn’t just encouraged. It was expected.

What we can do to bring this to our teams

Open up design crits

Bring PMs and engineers into your design reviews. Let them see how designers think. Help them develop their own taste and appreciation for the craft, and encourage them to contribute their own critiques!

Hire for humility and collaboration

Look for people who love feedback. People who want to riff together. Then make it normal to work in each other’s files, riffing on things together, and share thinking early and often.

Don’t ship if it’s not ready

If something doesn’t feel good enough, push the timeline. Show your team and your leadership why spending a bit more time will lead to a better product and more impact.

Prioritising craft isn’t just about taste. It’s about creating the space, rituals, and expectations that let great work happen again and again. It takes intention, but when you get it right, the results are worth it.

It felt like being dropped into an environment where everything just operated at a higher resolution. Over time, I started to see things differently – not because anyone was teaching me directly, but because I was constantly witnessing how they worked. How they asked questions, how they spent their time, how they thought about even the smallest detail. You riff on ideas together, you show your work, they give you feedback, and slowly I started to absorb it all. You level up just by being in the room – and even more so by asking questions and staying inquisitive.

The design team was still small then, too. PMs were encouraged to sit in on design crits. Not just to stay informed, but to actively participate. And that was huge for me. Hearing how people reacted to designs, what they noticed, what they praised, what they pushed back on – it taught me to see not just what looked good, but what felt right, and why that was. Over time, I developed a much sharper sense of what made something not just good, but great.

This was especially true in those early years, when the company was still under 500 people. We had visibility into almost everything that was happening. You were constantly exposed to high-quality work, across the board, on all types of project. The bar was so high, and it made you want to raise your own.

I’ve come to believe that product sense isn’t really something you can learn in the traditional sense. You can’t just read a book or take a course and expect to be good at it. It’s something you develop over time – by being curious, by trying things out, and most importantly, by surrounding yourself with people who have great taste who are willing to constructively critique each other’s work.

It’s also something you hone by paying attention to how people talk about other products. Either ones you use at work, or new ones that folk are starting to use. What do they admire? What do they find frustrating? I spent (and still spend) a lot of time playing around with new tools, trying to understand why something works or doesn’t, and why it feels that way. It’s a mix of instinct and analysis – and the more you do it, the sharper your instincts get.

Reading data + Listening to users + Taste + Intuition + Craft = Product Sense

The first two, data and users, are skills you can learn and actively improve. There are frameworks, playbooks, all of that. But the other three; taste, intuition, and craft, those are different. You can’t shortcut your way to them. You can develop them, yes, but it takes time. And it takes the right environment.

In a lot of ways, product sense is an art form. It’s messy, it’s subjective, it’s hard to quantify. But spend enough time nurturing it, treat it like a muscle, and it will grow. Maybe it’s 10,000 hours. Maybe it’s more. But the more you’re around people who push your thinking, who elevate your standards, who make you see things differently – the faster it develops.

Iron sharpens iron. So if you want to hone your product sense, start by making sure you’re around people who inspire you. People who raise your bar. People who help you not just build, but build well. As Dylan our CEO says, who you surround yourself with really does matter.

Spotify is modern day radio. It's fine. But it makes music just blur into the background. It makes you a consumer, not a listener. And after nearly 10 years of using the product, I realised I stopped truly enjoying music the way I used to.

The mix of AI and human-curated playlists is often spot on—my Daylist, for example, is near perfect. It nails the vibe, the time of day, and the general mood I'm in without me having to think. But it’s also soulless. It makes me a passive consumer of music. It just plays in the background, filling the silence, but like I said, I’m not listening—I’m just consuming.

I used to love music. I mean really love it. Ripping CDs, torrenting, spending hours making playlists, carefully deciding what to load onto my iPod. Actively searching for new artists on Hypemachine or music blogs, feeling the excitement of discovery, listening to albums all the way through, and just nerding out on the whole process. Music was something I was involved in. Now it’s just... there.

Spotify is lightyears better than traditional radio. But it still shares that same essence: it’s curated for me, not by me. It tells me what I should listen to; it doesn't encourage engagement and exploration. It’s just good noise. Spotify stops you listening to music. It makes you a consumer of it. Even the idea of listening to a full album, in order, feels so awkward and unnatural in the product. Everything about the UI is geared towards one click to play, and pushing you to listen to what Spotify wants you to listen to.

And the audio quality of Spotify is awful. Like radio, Spotify’s compressed streams are audibly poor. Yes, they announced Spotify HiFi four years ago, but they never delivered. And I can't imagine this coming to life.

So if Spotify is radio, what is Apple Music? IMO it's more like a local record store. And I absolutely love that.

Switching to Apple Music took a bit of adjustment. The playlists aren’t as good—definitely not at Spotify’s level—and the app asks more of you. You have to add albums manually, go looking for things, give it signals, help it learn what you like. You have to be involved with the process.

But once it clicks, it’s incredible.

It’s like going to a record store with a nerdy but brilliant shop owner. You browse a bit, chat about what you like, and over time they start pulling records from behind the counter that you’d never think to try but instantly love. Not playlists. Albums. Whole records. And that’s exactly what I’ve come to love.

Apple Music has made me fall back in love with discovering artists, diving into their discography, and listening—properly listening—to albums from track one all the way through. Artists make albums to take you on this journey, and I get to go on it. Spotify just picks the Instagram moments of the hike. Apple Music gives you the whole experience. And I love it. So, so much!

Apple Music does have playlists, and they’re fine. Nowhere near as polished as Spotify’s, but they serve a different purpose for me now. I mostly pick what I want to listen to, and playlists are there when I just need background music. And honestly, I’ve been really enjoying the "Create Station from Song" feature—it’s such a good way to explore related music once you find a track that really hits.

Plus, lossless audio is incredible. And Dolby Atmos? If you have a surround sound system, please try listening to Apple Music on it at least once. It is such an immersive and enjoyable experience, and TBH it even sounds great on AirPods!

OK, this newsletter is meant to be about Product and Design. So let’s dive into the UX, because there’s a stark difference. And Spotify has truly become the Facebook of audio players.

It's become bloated over the years. Slow, cluttered, and trying to be too many things—music, podcasts, audiobooks—it’s all just noise. And it’s harder than ever to actually find music, especially from artists you like.

I’ve lost count of how many new albums I’ve missed from artists I follow because Spotify buries them under podcast promos or other distractions.

Just compare the landing screens. Spotify’s is clearly optimised for retention and listening time—pushing the most clickable options at you. Apple Music, on the other hand, feels like it was designed by people who love music. It’s clean, it surfaces albums and playlists, it highlights new releases in a simple, tasteful way.

That said, Apple Music has its flaws. Playlist management is a big one. I miss having folders for playlists like I did on Spotify. Apple Music can get unruly fast without it.

Also, the Now Playing screens on Apple Music are just so, so nice. Some albums have amazing animations, others just let the album art shine. It's just clean AF.

The animations and flow through the products just feel so different as well. Spotify is slow, janky, and it feels more like a React Native app than a true native one. Whereas the animations and interactions in Apple Music feel crispy, snappy, and delightful. You can really see the craft of the eng team come through here.

Now, the desktop apps. Spotify has built an absolute monstrosity here. They've built something that feels more like Facebook than a music app. Endless panels, weird promos, visual noise, and a complete lack of attentiveness to information density. It's wild the product has got to where it is now, especially considering where it came from. Using the product sucks. It's slow, frustrating, and just so laborious to get to what you want.

Compared to the above, Apple Music is a breath of fresh air. The typography is borderline perfect, the information density near impeccable, and the landing experience is outstanding. It puts you where you want, helps you to find what you're looking for, and puts music (albums especially!) front and centre.

Plus, I love how they disperse playlists and albums together, encouraging ways to discover and enjoy music. They categorise things in logical themes, allowing you to find music no matter your mood. And the tab dedicated to New Music is so, so great as well. You'll truly discover albums, artists, playlists, and even interviews that you'll genuinely enjoy.

The one area they really need to improve is playlist management. I have no idea why they don't have containers/folders yet. But once they do, the app will feel near perfect.

Overall, the biggest difference is what you want music to be to you. If you just want to have music in the background, played through cheap headphones or speakers, Spotify is probably still for you. But if you want to love music—if you enjoy discovering artists, albums, and songs, manually adding them to your library and then delighting when the app suggests new things for you—and you truly want to listen and enjoy music, in high quality, with a beautiful UI. Apple Music is for you.

Go to the digital record store of Apple Music and enjoy the experience. Trust me. It's way, way better than the crackly background radio that Spotify has sadly become.