I just returned from Dave McClure’s excellent Warm Gun Conference, and I haven’t been this excited to be a designer in a while. The entire event was about design, metrics, and products, and even more importantly the people at the conference were many of the who’s who in Bay Area design. From what I saw and experienced there I daresay there are signs we’re entering a golden age of Design. The evidence: 1. The startups being invested in are designer-led. Take the new Designer Fund that funds startups with designer-founders and helps mentor them. Consider the companies...

Mark Lucovsky, famous for building Windows NT and watching Steve Ballmer throw a chair.Mark Lucovsky was the other man in the room when Steve Ballmer threw his chair and called Eric Schmidt a “fucking pussy.”Yes, the story is true. At least according to Lucovsky. Microsoft calls it a “gross exaggeration,” but Lucovsky says that when he walked into Ballmer’s office and told the Microsoft CEO he was leaving the company for Google, Ballmer picked up his chair and chucked it across the room. “Why does that surprise anyone?” Lucovsky tells Wired....