In the world of CAD, few individuals have had as profound an impact as John McEleney. As the former CEO of SolidWorks and co-founder of Onshape, McEleney has been at the forefront of two major platform shifts in engineering design software. His journey provides valuable insights into how technological revolutions reshape industries and create new opportunities for innovation.
McEleney tells his story on the latest episode of the Masters of Technology Happy Hour Podcast, hosted by yours truly.
McEleney’s story begins in the mid-1990s when he joined SolidWorks in its early days. The CAD industry was undergoing its first major transformation, moving from 2D drafting to 3D solid modeling. During this period, McEleney developed what became known as the “plume chart,” a conceptual model illustrating the evolution of CAD systems. This parabolic representation showed how the market would expand from simple 2D drafting tools at the bottom to complex 3D systems for aerospace and automotive applications at the top, with a vast “mainstream” market emerging in the middle.
SolidWorks strategically positioned itself to capture this emerging mainstream market. Rather than targeting existing Pro/ENGINEER users or focusing exclusively on AutoCAD users, they sought customers with mixed environments—typically organizations with “two seats of 3D knowledge and eight seats of 2D,” as McEleney describes. This approach allowed SolidWorks to avoid the high “activation energy” needed to convert committed Pro/E users while also not taking on the challenge of educating pure 2D users about 3D concepts. This strategic focus, combined with Windows-based technology that made 3D modeling more accessible, propelled SolidWorks to market leadership.
The second major platform shift came with cloud computing. After leaving SolidWorks, McEleney recognized the transformative potential of cloud technology early on. Attending an AWS (Amazon Webservices) event in Boston, he returned home convinced that “if even half of it’s right, this is going to totally change things completely.” This insight led him, along with Jon Hirschtick and others, to co-found Onshape in 2012, creating the first fully cloud-based CAD platform. Despite initial resistance from a conservative industry, the advantages of cloud-based design—including real-time collaboration, platform independence and immediate security updates—eventually won over users.
Looking toward the future, McEleney sees artificial intelligence as the next frontier in CAD development, though not necessarily as a complete platform shift like the move to the cloud. Rather than creating AI systems that attempt to “design a car” from scratch, he envisions AI augmenting human capabilities by helping engineers navigate complex design decisions, identify implications of changes, and connect unstructured data to solve problems more efficiently.
One of the most fascinating aspects of McEleney’s approach to innovation is his willingness to take calculated risks based on intuition and experience. He shares the story of FeatureScript, a programming language developed for Onshape that allows users to create and customize features. The decision to pause development and implement this language was based on a gut feeling about its potential power, even though the team couldn’t fully articulate its applications at the time. This intuitive decision proved transformative, enabling capabilities like infinite configurations that would be impossible in traditional systems.
As we look toward the future of engineering design, McEleney’s journey reminds us that technological revolutions often begin with platform shifts that create opportunities for disruption. Whether it’s moving from 2D to 3D, desktop to cloud, or now exploring the potential of AI, success comes not from applying technology for its own sake, but from deeply understanding user problems and applying new capabilities to solve them in ways that weren’t previously possible.