59: Joe Gebbia - Design We Deserve

About this episode

Joe Gebbia (Website, X, LinkedIn, Wikipedia) is the first U.S. Chief Design Officer, leading the National Design Studio. He is also the co-founder of Airbnb and Samara. The NDS and this role were created by executive order of President Trump in August 2025. I met Joe Washington, D.C, to reflect on the past year and talk about bringing the care and ambition of great product design to the digital services that every American uses. Joe & NDS just launched America.gov, their flagship project of the last year: the central entry point for how Americans get what they need from the government. Joe believes that design is how you respect and value the people who use a product or service. At Airbnb, that meant helping strangers feel comfortable in each other’s homes. In government, it means refusing to accept a low bar for the websites and processes that Americans use to interact with the government. We begin with CritBuns, Joe’s RISD project that taught him that design is as much about storytelling as it is about product. Then, we discuss what he learned about designing for trust at Airbnb and his initial work at DOGE, streamlining and digitizing the federal retirement process. Joe walks