10. Joshua Philippe – Fold: Foundational design thinking, cross-functional leadership, and bitcoin company evolution

About this episode

Joshua Philippe shares his journey from aspiring oil painter to leading design at major Bitcoin companies, discussing design thinking and cross-functional leadership.

In this episode of the Studio Twentyone Show, Sahil walks through the hills of San Francisco with Joshua Philippe, Head of Design at Fold. Joshua shares his remarkable journey from aspiring oil painter to leading design at major Bitcoin companies like BitMEX, Strike, and now Fold. They discuss his unconventional path through poverty, agency life, the wild days at BitMEX, and how he's orchestrating complete rebuilds of both Strike and Fold's brands and products. 🔍 What you'll learn in this episode: Joshua's journey from art school dropout to head of design at major Bitcoin companies How financial crisis and government seizure led him to Bitcoin sovereignty The wild stories from BitMEX's money-printing heyday in Hong Kong Building design systems and leading rebrands at Strike and Fold The art of "orchestrating" cross-functional teams as a design leader Why networking with VCs and business people beats networking with designers How to rebuild entire products and brands from the ground up The importance of taste development and exposure to great work 🔗 Subscribe for more content on Bitcoin and product design from the Studio Twentyone Show ! Connect with Joshua: Twitter…

People in this episode

Host: Sahil Chaturvedi

Guest: Joshua Philippe

Topics covered

• design thinking
• Bitcoin companies
• cross-functional leadership
• branding
• career journey
• networking

Keywords

• Bitcoin
• design
• leadership
• branding
• career
• networking
• product design

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Fold, BitMEX, Strike

Places: San Francisco, Hong Kong

More episodes of Studio Twentyone: A Bitcoin Design Show

• 09. Skyler: Foundational brands for bitcoin startups, research > intuition, and more · June 19, 2025 · 46 min
• 08. Courtny Cotten: Leading design teams through the AI revolution · May 24, 2025 · 39 min
• 07. John Magill from Zaprite: Building a design-first bitcoin startup · April 18, 2025 · 55 min
• 06. Stephen DeLorme from Voltage: Designing for lightning and open source bitcoin · March 28, 2025 · 52 min
• 05. Mia White: Designing bitcoin products as a freelancer · February 26, 2025 · 46 min
• 04. Lee Gordon from Fold: Research-driven design in Bitcoin products · January 21, 2025 · 54 min