The Alchemy of Design: Ge Wang’s Harmonious World
“Are we living in interesting times — or perhaps, too interesting?”
Ge Wang reminded us of the old Confucian curse:
May you live in interesting times. May you come to the attention of those in authority. May the gods give you everything you ask for.
In an age where political polarization, artificial intelligence, and hyper-concentrated wealth dominate the global discourse, one cannot help but wonder: Have we received exactly what we deserve?
In a world increasingly obsessed with utility, few dare to reframe the utilitarian “how” into the poetic “why”. Ge Wang is one of those rare few. A computer scientist by training, a teacher by calling, and a musician in his soul, Ge’s life is a confluence of disciplines. His book Artful Design: Technology in Search of the Sublime is not a technical manual but a manifesto. A meditation. An invitation to build not only what works, but also what sings. It asks us to step back from the dizzying momentum of modern technology and rediscover the joy of thoughtful, intentional creation.
I first met Ge Wang at the 2019 A Company of Authors event hosted by the Stanford Humanities Center. At the time, I was deep in the process of building the SAP Academy for Engineering. Ge’s work and philosophy resonated with a question I had been asking myself: What does the engineer of the future look like?
Ge offers a beautiful answer — one grounded in multidimensionality. He champions what he calls the “Pi-shaped” person — The Humanist Engineer: someone who is able to integrate deep engineering knowledge with a broader Humanistic context (aesthetic, moral-ethical, philosophical). More thana a specialist, this is someone who is capable of shaping the world from not only practical needs, but also from underlying values. Ge is the embodiment of this ideal: equally at home in a programming lab or on a stage, code flowing from his fingers with the same grace as music from his instruments. And above all, deeply rooted in moral values and the rare ability to design the world from the lens of beauty.
When I saw him perform music by blowing into his iPhone, I was both inspired and awestruck. The app was Ocarina, developed by Smule, the company he co-founded. On the surface, it’s a simple digital flute. But the experience of using it — breath, touch and sound converging into a moment of pure connection — transcended mere functionality.
This, to me, is the essence of Ge’s philosophy: Technology must be human.
Artful Design, part graphic novel, part design treatise, is a masterclass in empathy and aesthetics. In its comic-style dialogues — between engineer and philosopher, teacher and student, logic and emotion — Ge dismantles the false binaries that limit our imagination. He reminds us that computation and contemplation must coexist.
Playfulness permeates everything Ge does — from the expressive programming language ChucK to the laptop orchestras at Princeton and Stanford, to the social music platforms built at Smule. Behind every experiment lies a profound question: Can we build tools that make people feel more alive?
But perhaps the most radical idea in Artful Design is this: Efficiency is not the goal. Delight is. Not every product must scale. Not every app must dominate. Some things exist simply to be loved. And that, he argues, is enough.
When I asked Ge if he was an optimist or a pessimist about AI, he paused before responding: “AI is not the problem. The problem is the people who are designing these powerful systems, and the disproportionate power they now hold over the rest of us.” It echoed an old truth: It’s not history that repeats itself, but human behavior.
Every conversation I had with Ge, I couldn’t help but draw parallels with my own work around inclusion and neurodiversity. Just as I’ve long believed that organizations must stop viewing people as problems to be solved and instead as potential to be nurtured, Ge implores designers to treat users not as endpoints, but as collaborators.
When he visited the SAP Academy for Engineering, he ended his talk with a deeply personal reflection:
“In these days of profound uncertainty about the future, I look at my daughter who just turned one, and every fiber of my being tells me this: as she grows, I want her to value — and even embrace — the difficulty, the confusion, the frustration that come with learning, and that reside inherently in the craft of expressing oneself, whatever form that may take… and for her to know the sublime joy hidden in that process… with or without AI.”
After his talk, Ge turned to me and said, with a twinkle in his eye, “This place is unnecessarily beautiful. What you are doing here — it’s an act of rebellion.”
Listening to Ge Wang is like discovering a new genre of music — initially unfamiliar, but ultimately transformative. He reminds us that design is not just about solving problems, but about revealing truth. In an era where technology often feels cold, Ge re-humanizes it — one note, one smile, one line of joyful code at a time.
