Design by Politics is an interview with John Maeda where he discusses why many software business models are built to support fat.

I think it's because more is measurable, as a valuable outcome. Less is not measurable. What if Adobe said: New Photoshop CS3 with 80% less features?!...In Photoshop I use 10% of the features, easily, maybe less.

Maeda also brings up what he sees as an interesting paradox about creative thinking: The USA's need for creative thinking is increasing yet many of the classes that emphasize it are being eliminated from our schools.

I believe that creative thinking is rapidly disappearing, because business is so focused on measurable outcomes and the economy is known to improve if reading and mathematics are strong in society...In the US there's an emphasis on test-taking to determine the school budgets. What do the tests test? They test reading and math, so the schools are smart - if they want a good budget, they teach the right things so they remove music and art and gym. So the bigger problem is: how to we change the value of creativity? How do we get politicians to believe that greater creativity is good for the economy? Because if you look at all the literature on outsourcing, everyone says: "all the jobs are going to India, Romania, whatever, Pakistan, but don't worry, we people in the first world have this thing called creativity!", but the schools are removing creativity.

On the labels designer/artist:

It's just about being human. People always ask me "Are you a designer, are you an artist?". I'm just a person, there's no categorization necessary.