What do you learn after spending 15 years at Apple and demoing your work directly to Steve Jobs? Ken Kocienda, Co-founder of Infactory AI and author of Creative Selection, joins us to share the answer. As a former Principal Engineer at Apple who helped create the iPhone keyboard and autocorrect, Ken discusses his incredible journey from a history major to a key figure in building technology used by billions. He explains his core philosophy of bridging the gap between the liberal arts and technology to create meaningful products, and why he believes AI is the next frontier for this mission. (BTW – we sat down with his co-founder Brooke, so if you like this episode be sure to check that one out!)
The conversation dives into his disciplined, spec-driven approach to coding with AI and the power of "extractive AI" to unlock hidden value in data. Ken reveals the crucial lesson he learned from Steve Jobs—that "everything is provisional"—and how his "evolutionary design" process is perfectly suited for today's AI challenges. This episode is a deep dive into the timeless principles of design and a powerful argument for why the best technology is so intuitive, it makes technical literacy irrelevant.
Check out:
- Register now: AI productivity guide for engineering leaders
Follow the hosts:
Follow today's guest(s):
- Learn more about Infactory AI: infactory.ai
- Connect with Ken on LinkedIn
- Ken's Book: Creative Selection: Inside Apple's Design Process During the Golden Age of Steve Jobs
Referenced in today's show:
OFFERS
- Start Free Trial: Get started with LinearB's AI productivity platform for free.
- Book a Demo: Learn how you can ship faster, improve DevEx, and lead with confidence in the AI era.
LEARN ABOUT LINEARB
- AI Code Reviews: Automate reviews to catch bugs, security risks, and performance issues before they hit production.
- AI & Productivity Insights: Go beyond DORA with AI-powered recommendations and dashboards to measure and improve performance.
- AI-Powered Workflow Automations: Use AI-generated PR descriptions, smart routing, and other automations to reduce developer toil.
- MCP Server: Interact with your engineering data using natural language to build custom reports and get answers on the fly.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark
My Favorite Murder is a true crime comedy podcast hosted by Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark. Each week, Karen and Georgia share compelling true crimes and hometown stories from friends and listeners. Since MFM launched in January of 2016, Karen and Georgia have shared their lifelong interest in true crime and have covered stories of infamous serial killers like the Night Stalker, mysterious cold cases, captivating cults, incredible survivor stories and important events from history like the Tulsa race massacre of 1921. My Favorite Murder is part of the Exactly Right podcast network that provides a platform for bold, creative voices to bring to life provocative, entertaining and relatable stories for audiences everywhere. The Exactly Right roster of podcasts covers a variety of topics including historic true crime, comedic interviews and news, science, pop culture and more. Podcasts on the network include Buried Bones with Kate Winkler Dawson and Paul Holes, That's Messed Up: An SVU Podcast, This Podcast Will Kill You, Bananas and more.