Anyone who makes decisions about how the product should be is a designer
Anyone who makes decisions about how the product should be is a designer*. Designer is a role, not a person. Almost every developer on a team makes some decisions about how the product will be, just through the act of creating the product. These decisions are design decisions, and when you make them, you are a designer. for this reason, no matter what your role on a development team, an understanding of the principles of design will make you better at what you do.
So if everyone is a designer, do we need professional designers. YES (emphatically!).
Why? Because...
To truly understand design is to understand an incredibly complex web of creativity, psychology, art, technology, and business. Everything in this web is connected to everything else. Changing one element affects all the others and the understanding of one element influences the understanding of all the others.
So can a startup live without one for a while? OFTEN.
Why? Because...
The basic principles of design are principles of human psychology that have been with us for ages and will be with us for ages to come.
link: LUXr - the lean user experience residency
