What do Airbnb, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, IBM, and other iconic industry leaders have in common? A belief in human-centered design as the focal point for innovation. In "design thinking," genuine empathy for the user leads to a deep understanding of their needs and their goals, and ultimately the journey that they are on. This is what drives the development and ongoing improvement of a successful product or service. This method of innovation is not new, but recent trends to utilize this approach within large technology companies has brought it to the forefront of innovative thinking. The iPhone, for example, debuted with a highly intuitive interface at its launch in 2007, allowing it to rapidly unseat incumbents like Nokia and Blackberry, who cared only about function. The rest is history, and the iPhone is the single most successful product ever. This ethos is widely credited with Apple's success. Apple's design thinking mindset precedes the iPhone. For example, the tightly integrated iPod and iTunes offering, which focused on the user's end-to-end experience in discovering, purchasing and enjoying music, allowed Apple, a computer company, to become the world's largest seller of recorded music. Such is the power of design thinking.