Masters of Technology Happy Hour
Conversations with masters of technology, those who produce it or those who use it.
Masters of Technology Happy Hour
S1 Ep 12: Jon Hirschtick, from Blackjack to Cloud-Native CAD
Jon Hirschtick, founder of SolidWorks and co-founder of Onshape, shares his journey from developing groundbreaking CAD software to his current role as Executive Vice President and Chief Evangelist at PTC. His 44-year perspective on the CAD industry reveals how most design tools in use today predate both AI and the internet in their architecture, creating limitations as companies try to incorporate cutting-edge technologies.
• Cloud-native architecture uniquely positions Onshape for AI integration with massive compute capabilities, 50 million CAD data items, and three-week release cycles
• Most CAD tools still used today have major elements written before the internet existed, limiting their ability to fully leverage modern technologies
• Onshape was built as a collaborative PDM system with CAD built on top, addressing fundamental workflow challenges
• Regular release cycles (every three weeks) are essential for successfully integrating AI capabilities, which will require numerous iterations
• PTC is implementing AI features across all product lines including Onshape, ServiceMax, Creo, Windchill, and Codebeamer
• John's engineering journey began with electronics and computer programming before discovering product design in college
• The drive for continuous improvement remains central to Onshape's philosophy: "We don't measure ourselves merely by how much better we are than old systems."
Hello everyone and welcome to the Masters of Technology Happy Hour, where once a week, I have a drink with someone I meet in the course of business, but someone I'd like to get to know better as a Jon Hirschtick is an influential American entrepreneur and engineer, best known for founding SolidWorks, a groundbreaking 3D CAD software company acquired by Dassault Systèmes in 1997. He was also a member of the famed Blackjack team. Kristic led SolidWorks from inception to industry dominance professional-grade making 3D design accessible to Windows PCs. In 2012, he co-founded Onshape, the first full cloud CAD platform, redefining collaboration and modern workflows for product development.
Jon:That's pretty good. I might only add two things. I always like starting with someone currently does. Start with Jon Hirschtick, as you can say, chief evangelist or executive vice president at PTC period. I would also say I founded SolidWorks and Onshape, not say I founded SolidWorks, talk about SolidWorks and then at the end then you can say when you talk about SOLIDWORKS, it's interesting to note that was 32 years ago.
Jon:A lot of people don't realize that the tools are older than many of the users. I think that to understand my journey, I have to understand that I have a 44-year perspective on this industry that shapes how I think. I t's not an industry where SOLIDWORKS came out five years ago and Onshape came out one year ago. Our industry doesn't work that way. When you think about the tools, most of the CAD tools people use not only predate AI, they predate the Internet in their architecture. Only one that doesn't, that has any meaningful volume and professional CAD is Onshape period. All the other ones have major elements of it. I don't mean internal kernel modules, chunks of user interactive software that was written before the internet even existed.
Jon:Current title Chief Evangelist. Technically I'm Executive Vice President and Chief Evangelist. I usually just say Chief Evangelist and you can ask me about what I do as Chief Evangelist. I know I'm Executive Vice President and Chief Evangelist. I usually just say Chief Evangelist. You can ask me about what I do as Chief Evangelist?
Roopinder:I know you go out to their customers. I know you still deal with the media and also, how much face time do you get with the executives? How do you like the new executive Go ahead?
Jon:I like being at PTC. That's why I'm still here. It's been five and a half years since we and I think when we acquired the people at PTC were like we wonder if you're going to stay and we wonder if you still care. Now I think they're wondering am I going to stay forever and do I care too much? I like it. Now, is PTC perfect? No, I wouldn't say any organization's perfect, but I'm here because I like it. I do what I love to do, which is build these tools and work with the customers who use them. I would be somewhere else, but PTC is best for me and I like it. I like it a lot. People are good. The environment's great. If you've been to our new building, the tech still fascinates me.
Roopinder:What happened LiveWorx, PTC's big annual event?
Jon:We've gone to a different kind of event strategy that focuses on a higher number of smaller events and that's been working pretty well. That's been great for our users. A lot of them are willing to come to a tech happy hour in Denver or London or Austin, texas, where they're not necessarily going to get on a plane and spend three days or a week going to. So we get a lot of customer feedback. Our overall event attendance in face time is up, but we don't have the big mega event every year or two. And, by the way, let me extend invitation to you, Roopinder. I will give you a personal tour of the Seaport headquarters, including where we greet customers, and it's an amazing facility. So I still like doing this.
Roopinder:My guess would be, given your record in history, that there's going to be a third program that you will launch and it's going to be based on AI. How far off am I?
Jon:I've already started three companies. If you mention SolidWorks and Onshape, I also found another company before SolidWorks that you don't know about. It made a CAD-related tool. I don't know what the future holds, but I'm not bent on building another system or startup. I focus my world around our users and customers and the tech that comes along to serve them. So we built SolidWorks because to realize the value of Windows computing in CAD. We built Onshape to realize a new generation of value in CAD and PDM. And remember Onshape at core, a collaborative PDM system with the CAD built on top. You have to bring PDM into the room to understand the why. Honestly, there's enough value just in the CAD side alone, but when you combine it with PDM, more of the world is figuring out. It's not even close.
Jon:My goal wasn't to start another company. My goal was to serve the customers. The question I think you're asking is do I today see a need to build a new system team or some other team or in a startup? I don't know those answers. I can only tell you about what I know and what I see.
Jon:And with AI right now, cloud-native is perfect for AI. We didn't build cloud-native because we knew AI was coming. But let's face it if you're trying to deploy AI at massive scale and get the latest in AI, deploy AI at massive scale and get the latest in AI cloud-native and Onshape is still the only cloud-native CAD and PDM system in our industry. They don't have a cloud-native system. They don't have bad systems. They have good systems SolidWorks, good system but what they've done with it is not make it cloud-native, it's partial, enhanced, adding it on, and that means you get, at best, partial benefit. In some cases, you make this experience worse. In some cases you make it better, but partially better. Onshape full cloud native, full cloud benefit.
Jon:When it comes to AI, we really have three things that make Onshape the only system of its kind. One is massive compute at scale. Everyone's already using it that way. Two, is massive data at scale. We have in our public data sets alone about 50 million CAD data items in Creative Commons license and Onshape's public library. No one else has that. I asked a competitor. Oh, we got 30,000. We have 50 million. Go, think about that and the compute services to do at scale. Now we don't allow a user to process 50 million data items with our standard license, but you can contact us and we have customers coming to us and saying wait a minute, you mean we can do things at massive scale?
Jon:We are going to get a chance to talk about this, I'm sure your team is positioning you as a spokesman for PTC, and I say cloud native is the gift that keeps on giving. And then the third reason is our fast release cycles, with major releases every three weeks. AI is changing. We don't know what AI will be, but with Onshape we can respond and we've already shipped it. I believe we're the first to ship a real AI advisor to all users, available now.
Roopinder:I'm reminded of a quote by Jensen Huang, who said this about because he's supposed to be everybody's favorite person about AI. He said you don't need to be under the tree to catch the apple.
Jon:He, like us, built a technology that we didn't realize. And then the other thing you need to make a friendly amendment to Jensen. You have to have the agility to get there. I've done a whole keynote on AI and product design. That is online on YouTube. If you search for the Design Conference in Croatia. It's called Design Conference Croatia.
Jon:I gave a talk and one of the things I talked about is it's going to take more than 10 releases of software in the next decade to get AI right. They release once a year or whatever. It's going to be very hard to get to the AI future that way, because you have to be agile, you have to iterate. So with us we release every three weeks, just did our 200th Onshape release. We see a huge future for AI across all our products. We have a strong AI group. We're doing all kinds of R&D work and we've shipped a whole bunch of AI features across our product line, ranging from Onshape to ServiceMax, creo. We got some exciting stuff coming in Windchill, codebeamer, everything in PTC. We're moving with AI, we're moving fast and we see an exciting future for what AI can do for all of our product lines.
Roopinder:I was reading this Cadence magazine. I had written a comparison for SolidWorks, mechanical Desktop and AutoCAD. We were strictly an AutoCAD publication and I was taking the position that it might be better for AutoCAD users to go to Mechanical Desktop. But you took exception to that. I remember the first time we met was actually after you read that article.
Jon:Oh wow, You're talking 30 years ago and SolidWorks was written 32 years ago. A lot of listeners weren't born when these events were happening. So many chapters in the CAD story and so many systems that's going in the way back machine. I like to think that whatever issue I took with you was from the standpoint of what is the best thing for you to focus on for the benefit of your readers, your users, my customers. That's what I always think our North Star should be.
Roopinder:That was a time where SolidWorks was just coming in, and it was. I think by that time, a year later, you'd already attained a fair number of followers. You certainly did, because a lot of them objected to my review as well, but that's okay. It's not the first time. I told this to McEleney. He was on the show last week and I said it's not the first time I bet on the wrong horse, John.
Jon:I don't think it's your job to bet on horses. Your job is to provide information and helps your readers do what they do better. That's what you were doing 30 years ago. That's what you're doing now. You're trying to provide information, insight. I look at you as someone who's always trying to do that. If you're always trying to do that, you and I can have spirited debate. Johnny Mack and I call him Johnny Mack Johnny and I have worked together for over 30 years building these systems. We don't agree on everything. Spirited debate is fine.
Roopinder:We stayed friends, we kept seeing each other. I think we saw each other at every conference since then. Yeah, SolidWorks World, or whether it was. NDES, A utofact, right? W e ran together. We ran.
Jon:You probably ran backwards to match my speed. I remember you were telling me how far you ran on my.
Roopinder:I can't run that far I feel bad to this day about that. I think I was in marathon training and you were at the day after we ran together. I think you hurt yourself. You actually hurt your leg. This is in Orlando, it's Orlando. We're running around the lake in the back of that Swan Hotel. We were not running especially fast, but something triggered your hamstring or something. Tight calves.
Jon:Yeah, probably tight calves. Monday morning I ran 2.6 miles. That's what I do now.
Roopinder:Is that your sport now? Are you not doing?
Jon:No, it's just one thing I do. I do hiking. I'd say jogging. Honestly, my time is very slow, but I get out there and do it and try. I think it's good for me. But thank you, and you, how about you? Are you still doing the marathon?
Roopinder:No, I did 10. My, where the bomb blew up, that was bad and kinds of terrible things happened and funny thing. But right after that race where, after the bomb, literally the bomb blew up, I left and went to see Johnny Mac and he was so surprised I made it through that they had set up a police cordon around the area. I had to fight my way out of traffic that day in Boston to wind my way across the river and I ended up in that same afternoon at Cambridge headquarters at Alewife, and John was like I didn't know if I'd hear from you again. I hadn't made a point to see Onshape while I was there in Boston. That was my last marathon.
Roopinder:So, Jon, you were very impressive. Every time I met you I took away something. And on that trip in Orlando, where unfortunately you did turn up lame, I remember I was also on a treadmill. You said so what's your best marathon time? And I told you what it was and you came back with Repender, that's 720-something per mile. You did that in your head. I thought, oh my God, how could he have done that? And I realized, okay, this goes back to your card counting days. Somehow this guy's got a math mind or a memory mind. I'll never forget it. Can you do math like that in your head?
Jon:I'd say I'm better than some people at it and not as good as others. I do a fair amount of math in my head but, I'm not a savant who does these incredible things. Can
Roopinder:You count the matchsticks that fell on the floor?
Jon:No.
Jon:You don't need much memory to play professional blackjack. You need about as much memory as it would take to type without looking at the keys. So if you can type without looking at the keyboard, then congratulations, you have enough memory. And if you can do math, 14 divided by three and a half minus one times 200, it's always numbers like eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, up to 20, always divided by two, two and a half, three, three and a half, four, four and a half, five times 100, 200, 300. You get very good at. It's like making change in the store. Congratulations you. Enough memory and math to be a pro.
Roopinder:You're very humble. I'm still impressed. I didn't fact check you on that number. It was pretty close and I also, as part of my research, I looked up other interviews.
Roopinder:But what led you into engineering?
Jon:I started out with an interest in electronics as a kid. I had a friend who got me interested. I subscribed to Popular Electronics Magazine when the original Altair personal computer came out. That was a landmark moment. I remember buying Interface Age Magazine and Bill Gates writing letters to the editor.
Jon:I went from electronics to computer programming in high school. I learned to do both computer programming and paper drafting in high school, both of those skills pretty formative. I learned both those skills in the high school where they filmed the movie the Breakfast Club. So my high school was used for a lot of the settings in the movie. I learned computer programming and then I was all set to be a computer science major. My uncle, who was an engineer of note on his own, showed me the course catalog and he said look, these are the courses you'll take in electrical engineering. And then he said you should check this out mechanical engineering classes in product design. I was so struck by that introduction, like you could really design real things and I'm like, yeah, that's what I want. So I took product design and then I ended up designing products that other people use to design products.
Roopinder:Did you switch your major?
Jon:I really hadn't even started college yet by the time I arrived. Between applying to college and starting, I changed my heading from computer science to mechanical engineering.
Roopinder:So it just popped into my mind your son is following in your footsteps. Your son is actually helping an AI CAD.
Jon:My son is working at Leo AI and he loves it. He's in sales there. He's talking to customers whether on the phone, by email.
Roopinder:He tried to sell me but I told him...
Jon:Three things in AI. One, do our own AI in our products. Two, make sure we're partnering with people like Leo AI, SimScale, the physics AI companies so many AI companies out there we want to partner with, so making sure we're a good partner. And then three, working with our customers in their AI efforts.
Roopinder:Jon, you said every time I'm in Chicago, you grew up in Illinois. I think, right, you owe me Chicago beef.
Jon:Chicago Italian beef and the three kinds of Chicago pizza. Most people only think of one. Right, there's actually three, and they're all worth trying because they're all distinct. Chicago's a great food town generally as well, but those are the distinctive Chicago foods.
Roopinder:I think it must have been an NDES or something. Yeah, Chicago, and I think that's where we said I'm going to take you out for a traditional Chicago.
Jon:But we didn't do it right, we didn't do it. We've known each other 30 years and there's still things we have to do.
Roopinder:I think we've even broken bread at several places. I remember a lot of great meals In particular.
Jon:There's still things we have to do. An important theme for our industry is for me I'm proud of what we've built with Onshape, SolidWorks and what we're doing at PTC. But to my users out there I say we're not doing good enough. I know there's more we need to build. We can always make a better product for them. It's what keeps the business interesting. I think our products are a long way from done. What keeps the business interesting. I think our products are a long way from done. That's why we release every three weeks. If we thought we were done, we'd say we don't need more releases, but we release every three weeks. If you look at Onshape and you say I wish this part worked better, I wish you had these additional features, we feel the same way and we're working hard to make it better. We don't measure ourselves merely by how much better we are in the old systems. We measure ourselves by what you, our users, need us to do. We know we can do better and it's what we're committed to doing.
Roopinder:Looks like you're still going strong, very committed. I still think there's a job to do. It's not over yet. I expect a lot of good things from you. Jon, I want to thank you for all your time. We've already stayed past your allotted time. I really appreciate all the time you did spend with us and going through all we went through to actually make this happen, so that's great. I'm going to end it now officially, but I just want to thank you for being on the show.
Jon:Oh, you're welcome. It's an honor to be asked and I think, as always, you're trying to do good things for the community and happy to be a part of it.