Back to the LeaderboardThe Design Leadership Index

Tommy Geoco

Founder of Teardowns.ai & UX Tools; creator of the 'This Is Taste' series (a.k.a. Designer Tom)

SeniorLeads from the frontNew schoolAIContentProduct
He is moving the whole design community through the AI transition — teaching designers to use AI as augmentation while protecting craft and judgment, the literal people-protection axis at scale.

Signature win. Built a 70k+ designer education platform and the 'This Is Taste' series that documents how top AI-era teams (Vercel, Perplexity, Ramp) actually work, after co-founding and exiting StreamPro.io.

The case

editorial · CCBEI · with sources
Craft14-year product design veteran with strong visual-craft POV ('AI gets 80%, designer touch is the final 20%'); built and shipped real products (StreamPro, Teardowns.ai); craft is bar-holding but expressed more through critique/teaching than recent shipped enterprise work.7
CommunicationExceptional reach and clarity — 70k+ UX Tools subscribers, large YouTube following, and the 'This Is Taste' series that makes design judgment legible by profiling teams at Vercel, Perplexity, Ramp; communication is his strongest dimension.9
BusinessFounder-operator: co-founded StreamPro.io (acquired ~$1M in 2015) and built Teardowns.ai/UX Tools into a sustaining media business; proven at building his own venture P&L more than driving design-to-outcome inside large orgs.7
Education[Education recalibrated toward editorial baseline] Education is his core identity — newsletter, YouTube, Config after-parties connecting juniors to top designers, and a body of content explicitly teaching designers to reskill with AI; clearly lifts the people around him.7
InnovationTeardowns.ai and his 'This Is Taste' work push the practice forward by documenting how AI-era teams actually build; his AI stance is augmentation-not-replacement (human touch finishes the work), passing the elevate-vs-hollow test.8

Endorsed by peers

illustrative · opens with verified accounts
OverallI'd work for them47
CraftRaised my craft bar45
CommunicationMade the case for design58
BusinessMade design matter to the business45
EducationTaught me something I still use45
InnovationShowed me a new way to work51

Verified peers only — one tap with LinkedIn. Names stay private; we show role and industry. Bars are illustrative until the participation backend is live.

Stories

first-hand · reviewed before publishing
No stories yet.