Onur Cobanli explains:
Good design is safe from the perspective of being a solid investment; when you design anything there comes a point where you arrive at a some design that is good enough, that works; at that point you are safe; but you have an option to take risk; the risk is spending your time for developing that safe design further with an hope to arriving at a better design, there is a cost of investment, a lot of time and a lot of resources, and it is not always certain you will have something good; you may make many iterations and arrive something better but also pay a big cost; there is a risk involved in developing great design; making good design is the safe bet, but making great design is not always the safe bet, and that’s why in most cases many companies do not have great designs; they hire people and pay for their time, they are unable to pay for the risks most of the time, there are ways to reduce this risk but we are discussing why great design is riskier than good design, from an investment perspective; in general great designs are created by sole individuals because they are able to risk it all; companies cannot risk it all as easy as people going all in because they can; and this risk aversion keeps most companies at good design and keeps such companies away from great design.