Benji Taylor

Benji Taylor was born in London. As a teenager, he turned a fictional game assignment from a school graphic design class into a real iPhone game, Squares, which took about three months to build and was released for free with ads. The game asks players to rotate squares to match colors that keep appearing.⁠[1][2]

In February 2016, 16-year-old Taylor launched the design company Next Exit, offering illustration, web, branding, animation, and type design to the music industry. By then he had already worked for musicians including Ram Riddlz and A$AP Ant.⁠[2]

Next Exit’s website used a question-and-answer format that let visitors learn about the team by typing in questions, while its portfolio was available through private links. Taylor said the approach was meant to get potential clients to start a conversation and to introduce the company with an experience different from typical portfolio pages.⁠[2]

In an interview with The Hundreds at the time, he also discussed working for Kevin Abstract and redesigning the Midnight Studios website. One reason he chose to build a team, he said, was to combine members’ different skills to produce more complete projects together.⁠[3]

Los Feliz Engineering (LFE), the consumer software company Taylor founded, developed Honk. The real-time chat app launched in December 2020.⁠[1][4]

Honk let both people see each other’s text as it was typed, with no traditional send button or chat history; users kept talking by clearing their bubbles. It used avatars, sounds, animated bubbles, and haptic feedback to convey whether the other person was present, and added features such as mini games and emoji interactions.⁠[5]

LFE later stopped developing Honk and turned to Family, a self-custodial crypto wallet. In a July 2024 article, Taylor said the team had been working on Family for about two years; that development period is not the same as the wallet’s public release date.⁠[5][6]

On November 16, 2023, Taylor announced that LFE had been acquired by Avara (formerly Aave Companies), with the whole team joining. His title was senior vice president of product and design, working on the group’s product and design.⁠[7]

The announcement said Family would keep its own brand and that the wallet and ConnectKit, a wallet-connection tool for developers, would continue to be developed. The deal also brought LFE’s design and engineering team into Avara’s product organization.⁠[7]

On July 8, 2024, in Family Values, Taylor named simplicity, fluidity, and delight as design principles. Using dynamic trays and progressive disclosure as examples, he explained how to present the necessary actions at once, preserve context, and use spatially continuous transitions to reduce the disjointedness of switching screens.⁠[6]

He also argued for the selective use of delightful feedback, such as a celebration effect after completing a wallet backup to encourage secure behavior, and said that rarely used features also deserve polish. The article listed the team members who worked on the product and described the results as the outcome of ongoing collaboration.⁠[6]

On November 11, 2024, Avara announced that Family was available for free on the iOS App Store. The announcement listed Taylor as Avara’s chief product officer and the founder of Family, showing that he held that role by then.⁠[8]

The wallet offered asset and collectible management, an in-app browser, messaging, and transfers, and through the Pocket account service let users create accounts with email or phone plus passkeys. The announcement also described transaction simulation, approval management, and gas top-ups, positioning the wallet for both newcomers and users more familiar with crypto apps.⁠[8]

On April 2, 2025, the Family team announced an upgrade to its account features covering iOS and the web, with ConnectKit integration for developers. The update included creating accounts by phone or email, passkey sign-in, web-based asset management, and Sign in with Family within apps, continuing the effort to lower the barrier to using a wallet.⁠[9]

On May 23, 2025, Taylor published Honkish, looking back on Honk’s design and its failure to reach product-market fit. He argued that being real-time only, lacking group chat, and having no Android version limited its usefulness; the article also credited contributors including type designer Seb McLauchlan and sound designer Ethan Mueller.⁠[5]

In October 2025, Taylor left his role as AaveAaveAave is a decentralized, non-custodial lending protocol deployed on Ethereum and several other public blockchains, where users can deposit crypto assets into liquidity pools to earn interest or borrow on an overcollateralized basis. The protocol is governed by the Aave DAO, made up of AAVE token holders.Open the full entry’s chief product officer to become head of design at Base, part of Coinbase. His personal website also lists Base as his design leadership role before his current position.⁠[10][1]

On January 21, 2026, Taylor introduced Agentation, a tool that turns visual feedback on web pages into information AI coding agents can use. Developed from an earlier annotation prototype, it supports clicking elements and selecting text or regions, and outputs structured notes with selectors, positions, and context; in the article he thanked Dennis Jin and Alex Vanderzon for their collaboration.⁠[11]

On February 3, 2026, after Taylor had moved to Base, Avara announced a change of direction for Family: the standalone iOS app would stop accepting new users from April 1 of that year, with a transition period for existing users lasting until April 1, 2027. The announcement said Family Accounts would continue as account infrastructure for Aave products, and that the group would retire the Avara umbrella brand in favor of the Aave LabsAave LabsAave Labs is the original author and contributor to the decentralized lending protocol Aave, founded and led as CEO by Stani Kulechov. It builds products including the aave.com interface, the Aave mobile app, Aave Pro, and the institutional market Aave Horizon, but says it does not control or operate any version of the Aave Protocol.Open the full entry name.⁠[12][10]

On February 16, 2026, Taylor introduced Liveline, a React component for real-time charts. It uses Canvas to draw continuously updating data, shows new data through smooth transitions, and offers interactions such as multiple series, time windows, pausing, and loading states. He cited the experience of real-time market charts as one of its inspirations.⁠[13]

On March 25, 2026, CoinDeskCoinDeskCoinDesk is a cryptocurrency media, events, index, and data company founded in 2013 and headquartered in New York. Its businesses include the CoinDesk news website, the annual crypto industry conference Consensus, and the CoinDesk Indices index business. In November 2023, the digital asset exchange Bullish acquired CoinDesk from Digital Currency Group, and CoinDesk has since operated as an independent subsidiary of Bullish.Open the full entry reported that Taylor had been appointed head of design at X. X head of product Nikita BierNikita BierNikita Bier is an American entrepreneur and product manager known for developing tbh and Gas, anonymous compliment-polling apps for teenagers, which were acquired by Facebook, Inc. (now Meta) and Discord in 2017 and 2023, respectively. He announced on June 30, 2025, that he had become head of product at the social media platform X, stepped down in August 2026, and said in October of that year that he had officially left X.Open the full entry said he had followed Taylor’s work for years and was involved in recruiting him. The appointment followed Taylor’s time at Base.⁠[10]

On July 29, 2026, Taylor introduced Drawesome, a React drawing toolbar supporting seven drawing tools, an eraser, and SVG and PNG export. It grew out of his repeated need for drawing and annotation features across projects, uses a toolbar whose shape changes with the selected tool, and draws on interactions from existing drawing interfaces.⁠[14]

On August 5, 2026, Nikita Bier stepped down as head of product at X and named, in his post, Taylor on design, @singhai on core product engineering, and @dinkin_flickaa on mobile engineering; The Verge summarized the new leadership as design lead Benji Taylor, with iOS lead Jonah Katz and Mridul Singhai leading the product team.⁠[15][15][15][16]

Taylor posted the same day that the two had known each other for years but that this was the first time they had truly worked together, adding that he was excited to help continue Bier’s work; he then clarified that he would remain focused on leading design and would partner with @dinkin_flickaa and @singhai on product.⁠[17][17][18][19]

Taylor’s personal website, updated on August 22, 2026, shows that he lives in Los Angeles and leads design for X and SpaceXAI at SpaceX. He also continues to build and maintain open-source interface tools including cmdk, Agentation, Liveline, and Drawesome.⁠[1]

Personal website: https://benji.org/ (opens in a new window); X: Public account: https://x.com/benjitaylor (opens in a new window).⁠[1]

SpaceX: The organization where Taylor currently works, leading design for X and SpaceXAI. Official website: https://spacex.com/ (opens in a new window).⁠[1]

X: The social platform whose design Taylor leads. Official website: https://x.com/ (opens in a new window).⁠[1]

SpaceXAI: The artificial intelligence business whose design Taylor leads. Official website: https://x.ai/ (opens in a new window).⁠[1]

Base: The Coinbase business unit where Taylor previously served as head of design. Official website: https://base.org/ (opens in a new window).⁠[1]

Aave Labs: After it acquired LFE, Taylor served as chief product officer in its product organization. Official website: https://aave.com/ (opens in a new window).⁠[1][7]

Los Feliz Engineering: The consumer software company Taylor founded, which developed Honk and Family. Website: https://lfe.org/ (opens in a new window).⁠[1]

Family: The wallet product Taylor founded; its standalone iOS app is winding down, while its account infrastructure continues to be used by Aave. Website: https://family.co/ (opens in a new window).⁠[8][12]

Agentation: An interface annotation tool Taylor helped develop. Website: https://agentation.com/ (opens in a new window).⁠[11]