When AI makes building cheap, taste decides what is worth building
Instagram chief Adam Mosseri is betting on designers because judgment is harder to automate than production.
Lenny's Podcast: Product | Growth | Career · The rise of taste, human authenticity and judgment in an AI world | Adam Mosseri (Head of IG)Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, was discussing hiring when the interviewer brought up a rule from Fiona Fong, head of engineering for Claude Code and Cowork. She hires builders with great taste who can take an idea from start to finish, alongside people with deep skill in one narrow area.
Mosseri agreed, and put it bluntly. "In a world where it's easier to build things, it's more important to make sure that your time is spent figuring out what you should be building in the first place."
He meant that speed is no longer the advantage. When software can draft designs, write code, and pull data in seconds, a team can ship almost anything, and so the risk is shipping the wrong thing very fast. The people who will get the most from the tools, Mosseri argued, "are the ones who are cleareyed about what AI is good at and what it's not good at and also have an instinct or a nose for what it will be good at and not good at."
That is why he said he is "long on designers," meaning he is betting on them even as designers worry about their jobs. Right now, he said, generalists are doing design work, and engineers and product staff are doing it too, and many designers are anxious about their roles. But designers tend to have taste, the judgment about which idea is worth pursuing and what good looks like, and he thinks that judgment is much harder to automate away than the work of making something.
He acknowledged there are other challenges in design, but Mosseri said he is "actually pretty long on design or designers because they tend to have taste."
Questions people ask
What does taste actually mean in product work?
Taste means judgment about what to make and what good looks like, which audience to serve, which details matter, and what to leave out. It shows up in choices about features, feel, and timing, not just visual style.
Why would designers have an advantage over engineers or product managers?
Mosseri argues that designers practice those choices every day, critiquing work and studying what resonates. That training gives them an edge in deciding what is worth building when building itself gets cheap.
Does that mean designers do not need to learn AI tools?
No. He says designers face real pressures as generalists and engineers take on more design work. His point is that their core strength, taste, will become more valuable, not that their jobs are safe without change.