Most of us know Anker as the little black brick that saved our phones when the battery dipped into the red. What’s less known is how Steven Yang built the company. He started as a Google software engineer, left a stable life, and moved into hardware without any real experience. That leap, and the mistakes along the way, tell us a lot about what it takes to keep going.

1. Curiosity is stronger than fear

Steven admitted that if he had known how hard it would be to move from software to hardware, he might not have done it. But he didn’t overthink it. He saw that early smartphones had weak batteries, looked at the clunky packs people were carrying, and thought, “I can do this better.” Sometimes progress is just that simple: ignoring the warning signs and trusting your curiosity.

2. Build in steps, not cliffs

Anker didn’t try to be Samsung overnight. They went from replacement batteries to portable chargers, then to cables, headphones, and finally smart home devices. Steven called it “climbing stairs, not cliffs.” That lesson applies anywhere: if you can break a massive risk into smaller, connected moves, you have a better chance of surviving.

3. Failures are tuition

The company’s first big stumble came with their 3D printer. Engineers decided to use a dual USB-C cable to connect the moving print head. It worked fine at first. Then months later, customers found the connection failed during long prints. Anker had to recall units. For Steven, the pain wasn’t just technical—it was knowing that loyal customers were frustrated. The fix wasn’t to hide the mistake, but to absorb it like tuition, improve testing, and write down new rules so the same mistake wouldn’t happen again.

4. Keep the customer at the center

When a product breaks, the instinct is often to defend yourself. Steven said the instinct at Anker is different: first, take care of the customer. Then fix the process so it doesn’t repeat. That order matters. It’s what keeps people trusting you, even when you slip.

5. Think long term, but keep tinkering

Steven talked about edge AI—models that live on devices in the home, not in the cloud. His vision is layered: massive models in the cloud, medium models in the home, tiny models in wearables. They’ll all talk to each other. It sounds futuristic, but he insists it’s just a few years away. What stood out wasn’t the prediction, but that he’s still tinkering like an engineer, still trying to solve problems from the ground up.

6. Build platforms, not empires

When I asked if he would have been happier staying at Google, he said no. What drives him now isn’t just making products, but creating a platform where other makers can build too. That’s the deeper lesson: success isn’t about being the smartest person in the room. It’s about giving people the tools and space to create something better than you could on your own.

Steven Yang left a secure job, stumbled through hardware, recalled products, and still came out with one of the most trusted consumer brands of the past decade. His story isn’t about charging bricks. It’s about curiosity, humility, and the discipline to learn from mistakes without letting them stop you.

I sat down with Lisa Gralnek, Managing Director for the U.S. and Global Head of Sustainability and Impact at iF Design. She also hosts Future of XYZ podcast. We talked about awards, values, and the hard work of keeping design honest.

Here is what matters.

iF Design is not a new project. It started in 1953. It is a nonprofit in Germany. The award is large, global, and serious. Entries come from scores of countries each year. Jurors come from real jobs, heads of UX, design chiefs, leaders who ship. The process runs in two stages, an online cut, then an in-person review in Germany. Every entrant gets a score map, even those who do not advance. Idea, form, function, differentiation, and sustainability. That last one is now a fifth of the grade. This is rare. It makes the feedback useful, not fluff.

Why enter at all? Because clear, external critique is hard to get. Because you learn where you stand in your field. Because a public win travels, and a public loss still teaches. Most award mills take the fee and send a badge. This one sends a readout you can act on.

iF is pushing into the U.S. now. Lisa was hired to build that bridge. The brand is known in Europe and Asia. Here, less so. Growth has been slow and careful. Small budgets. More community than ads. More teaching than hype. They launched the iF Design Academy to share what the field has learned, and to help designers learn what schools often skip. Personal leadership. real future literacy around sustainability and new tech. most of all, business fluency.

That last point hit home. Designers have too often ceded the boardroom by speaking only in color and taste. If you want a seat, learn gross margin, capex, payback, risk. Learn to defend a choice with numbers. Learn to change a choice when the numbers say you should. Beauty without a model does not survive a budget review. Beauty with a model can.

Values are the spine of the institution. Lisa was blunt. iF holds to impact and excellence. It funds student and social prizes. It set up rules to keep quality high when volume rose. It added an early round to filter weak entries. It made sustainability part of the score. This is how you stay on course in a long life. You write the rules down. Then you keep them when it costs.

We talked about AI. I asked the old question, what happens when a prompt can spit out a chair in a famous style in minutes. Lisa did not hand wave. The path is clear. Use AI where it is a tool, drafts, planning, research. Keep the human where it counts, framing, taste, judgment. Keep your scope tight. Be open about how you used the tool. Add safeguards. Do not let your work flatten into sameness. AI can speed the task. It cannot carry the meaning.

Brand work came up as well. How do you grow something that feels faint in a loud market. You tell the truth about what you do. You back winners with real exposure. You bring jurors and teachers into the tent. You keep showing up. It takes time. That is fine. Things that last usually do.

If you are a founder or a head of design, here is my ask. Enter where the feedback will help you ship better, not where a sticker will pad a deck. Write your team’s values in plain English. Share a code of conduct with clients. Teach your designers the language of money and risk. Teach your leaders the language of people and care. Use AI with a plan, and say what that plan is. Build a product that can face a jury and a P&L, and still feel human.

One more note. The iF site holds a record of winners back to the mid-fifties. Spend an hour with it. You will see a clear line from then to now. Form, function, care. Dieter Rams stood on their stage and reminded a full hall that designers have a duty to make the world better. That is not a slogan. It is a job description.