While the author suggests some points about creating value that at face are silly to disagree with, I would warn away readers and suggest that as a whole, this

While the author suggests some points about creating value that at face are silly to disagree with, I would warn away readers and suggest that as a whole, this post contains some very bad advice. It's a "the enemy of your enemy is not necessarily your friend" scenario; he's not wrong, but he's also totally full of shit. Look at a site like Vimeo and tell me that beauty and passion aren't critical aspects of this design. Then head on over to AirBnB or Kickstarter or Etsy and tell me that they didn't put a huge amount of design thinking into making a clean, modern site that makes the visitor feel like they are making a difference by participating in a consumer revolution. Good design extends far beyond logos and colour swatches. To have good design means that you've thought through every interaction path so that you can manipulate how your visitor feels when they use your site or product. You need to connect with their limbic brains first, and only then are you in the best position to really understand how to maximize their ROI. TL:DR; this is bad advice. Don't hire a designer that only cares about “business objectives”, “return on investment (ROI)”, “your revenue goals”, “lead generation”, “increase sales" because chances are they are also busy with real estate and network marketing. The author knows who not to hire, not who to hire.