Designing The Nex Playground: How One Of TIME's Most Influential Companies Thinks

Good design makes parenting easier. Bad design makes it harder. 

In this episode I talk to Jorge Fino, VP of Design at Nex — one of TIME's 100 most influential companies of 2026 and the company behind the Playground, an active play system. It's clear to me how much Jorge thinks about the role of technology in family life. We got into the design decisions behind the Playground and I came away thinking more deeply about the topic. 

In this conversation, we cover:

• What an "active play system" actually is — and why it's a deliberate departure from traditional gaming consoles
• The autonomy insight: why Jorge thinks kids melt down over tablets but not TVs, and what it tells us
• "Sedentary time management" — the parenting struggle that's been around since the radio, and why infinite scroll made it so much harder
• Why Jorge doesn't see screens as the source of the problem — and a 17th-century artist analogy that reframes things
• How to coordinate with other parents when social pressure makes it hard to hold the line on phones and social media
• The difference between a consumption device and a creation device — and why it matters more than screen time minutes

00:00 Introduction to Jorge Fino and the Nex Playground

01:00 From Basketball Training App to Active Play System — How Playground Was Born

03:00 Modeling an Active Lifestyle for Your Kids

04:00 Gamifying Physical Movement and Building Healthy Habits

05:00 Why Group Play Works — The Psychology of "I Could Do That"

07:00 Designing for the Heart of the Home, Not Just the Bedroom

09:00 Pretend Play and Natural Intuition as the Foundation for Gameplay

10:00 Why Playground Is the Fastest Setup Jorge's Ever Seen Ship

11:00 Experimenting With Motion — What Works, What Doesn't, and the Sweat Scale

13:00 Using Your Body as the Controller — and What That Unlocks Creatively

16:00 Building a Games Team From Scratch Without a Games Background

17:00 Sedentary Time Management: The Parenting Struggle That Started With the Radio

21:00 Intentional Design Choices That Help

22:00 Privacy in the Living Room — Why Trust Was the First Design Principle

24:00 Sustaining Trust With Families Over Time

25:00 Playing With Grandparents Across the Globe — The Multiplayer Feature On The Way

27:00 Bigger Screens vs. Smaller Screens — What Actually Works for Families

28:00 Jorge's Autonomy Insight: Why Taking the Tablet Away Is Harder Than Turning Off the TV

31:00 Moving Past "Devices Are Bad" Toward More Intentional Thinking

32:00 The 17th Century Artist Analogy — Reframing the Screen Time Conversation

36:00 Jorge's Philosophy at Home: Technology as a Tool, Not a Villain

37:00 The Signed Contract He Made His Own Kids Sign

38:00 No Social Media, Screen Time Controls, and Why He's Holding That Line

39:00 Social Pressure From Other Parents — and How Real It Gets

40:00 Coordinating With Other Parents: The Jonathan Haidt Approach

41:00 What Jorge's Kids Have Actually Created With Technology

43:00 Wrapping Up: How to Find Jorge Fino and the Nex Playground