Figma: Dylan Field

0:03 And they were just going, Dylan, you gotta be more commercial. I'm like, What does that mean? And they're like, You gotta be more commercial Uh and I'm like do you mean do I have to like say more sales terminology and stuff like that? Like like what are you getting at? What they meant was price the product. And um When this design leader came and said, We can't use it unless you price the product, I was like, Oh, everyone, we gotta go charge for the product. As fast as we can. So I was a little dense on it, but it got there eventually.

0:33 Welcome to How I Built This, a show about innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists, and the stories behind the movements. Built. I'm Guy Raz and on the show today, how Dylan Field left college to figure out a better way for designers to collaborate. built a company called Figma.

1:00 Now we're Billions. If you've ever booked a trip on Airbnb, watched something on Netflix, or joined a Zoom call, you've interacted with a product that was designed using Figma. Figma is the platform behind the platforms, a tool that lets teams of designers collaborate in real time from anywhere in the world. And while that might sound obvious today, back in 2012, it was a pretty radical idea. At the time, real-time design collaboration was clunky and slow. Most people still emailed files back and forth. Even designers were skeptical that something like Figma could work.

1:44 But Dylan Field and his college friend Evan Wallace believed there was a better way. So much so that Dylan left Brown University at 19 after landing a Teal Fellowship to give the idea a shot. He had never managed a team, never built a company, and had never launched a product. It took four years of development before Figma officially launched, and even then, adoption didn't happen overnight. But eventually, it clicked. And in 2022, Adobe, one of Figma's biggest competitors, offered$20 billion to acquire it. But as you will hear, the deal was blocked by government regulators.

2:26 Today, Figma is used by some of the most recognizable companies in the world to design the apps and interfaces we use every day. But this story isn't just about software. It's about a young founder learning to build, lead, and grow up, without a whole lot of experience to guide him. Dillonfield grew up in the late 1990s and early 2000s in Sonoma County, California. He was into math and computers from an early age, but also he did a lot of act. even some pain gigs. You know at five, five and a half, whatever I was, like

3:01 I could read, I could sit still. Uh and and I think in comparison to how I am now, I was actually a very I was a cute kid. You know, but that's to change to puberty. We can get to that later. But the um Uh but as a kid, you know Mm-hmm. Was cute.

3:16 And so I guess someone referred me to an agent and no major roles or anything, but Lots of auditions and some commercial work, a little bit of T V work. So you were really I mean, you were on this kind of path to becoming a child actor. I mean I know you you you said that you didn't

3:34 really land any major roles, but I read that you were I mean, which is kind of crazy, you were in like a a Windows X P commercial. Yes. That was a funny one because there is a performance of Tommy the Who. That The original actor Who's gonna play young Tommy.

3:51 felt through for because she refused to shave her head. Or cut her hair, rather. They needed someone else. And so I got pulled in. And this is a this is a performance where? Where was the where was it? Uh it was at S R J C San Rosa Junior College. Santa Rosa Junior College, okay. Yep.

4:07 And then after that I got to be Michael and Peter Pan. San Rose June. Also San Rose Junior College, but during their summer program, which is really cool. It's actually my most embarrassing moment. And acting as a kid.

4:20 Was during that production because I fell asleep on stage. In that scene where in Peter Pan where you're All the kids are asleep and Wendy is talking to Peter. And uh The um

4:31 Actress. Playing Peter Pan. Gave him my Q. And I was still asleep and she gave my cue again. Still asleep and stuff she gave me a kick. And then I leapt up and gave my line. But

4:45 Um Yeah, it was like Dylan didn't get out. Anyway, um But due to that production I had the experience with stunt flying. And then uh that was what they're looking for for the XP commercial.

4:57 So it was kind of a fun chain of events that led to that one. So how did it I mean, so you're doing all this community theater Um what what happened? Why aren't why am I not talking to a An adult actor today. I mean first of all

5:12 I was very thankful that My parents, especially my mom. Who was the one who was you know driving me all these places was willing to do that. But also that she was never pushing me to do it. Uh the combination of like

5:24 Become a teenager. Acne, braces, awkwardness in general. Uh plus. You know, game more interesting, math, computers. Um. And then

5:35 Hey, Math and Computers is pretty fun. So I started diving in on that instead of. Jill and in there's an article that was written about you and we're gonna talk about why later on in twenty twelve in in the local paper, the Santa Rosa Press Democrat, which I still read, I still subscribe to, just if anyone's listening. From the Santa Rosa Press Democrat.

5:52 Um, and your dad and he is quoted in it and um it was on the occasion of you winning an award, which we're gonna talk about later. And he said, You know U when Dylan was six he was already Solving algebra problems and You know, by the time he was in middle school

6:09 he was hanging out with a janitor who was kind of a math savant helping him uh learn more advanced mathematics. F first of all, was your were your parents Kind of. doing math problems with you as a kid were they

6:23 Mathematicians, was that something that they were kind of exposing you to or Or how did you come to just become really fascinated with math. Um, my mom was an elementary school teacher and so I would press her for while we're waiting for things, I'd press her for uh hey, give me more problems to solve. Who who was who was the

6:45 I mean, apparently in middle school there was a janitor. Sounds I mean it sounds like goodwill hunting almost. Yeah, he Was very cerebral, um, very into math and physics. And I think the reason you took the janitor job

7:03 Just kinda think about stuff all day long. And be in his head. Uh and so I try to Always.

7:14 cultivate friendships with people who are are older than me. I think now uh that I'm sometimes the older one, I it's like okay you're straight out of college, like there's a lot I could probably learn from you, you know? And Different.

7:27 Ideas and concepts that he was worrying about. Uh and study himself and At some point he said, Well, look Uh the really cool stuff isn't proofs. You should really learn a little bit of set theory.

7:39 And somebody who's super sweet. I I know that I know that you also um got really into computers when Kid and Then when it came time to go to college, um Yeah.

7:52 uh to study computer science and and I believe mathematics. And tell me a little bit about You know, your time there because Uh from what I read you you went through a bunch of different

8:03 like you were interested in computer science but you were actually more interested in like art history classes. I think you even explore like political science, maybe thinking at a certain point, maybe law school, um you know, which is which is great, right? That's that's like what college is for. But did you start to kind of I don't know get more interested in other things and less interested in in computer science or computer programming.

8:27 Yeah. Um I've always been a little bit more than I've been. Most everything. And at Brown.

8:34 One of the best parts is there's no formal requirements for the school. Right. Uh than technically a writing requirement. You need to make sure that you can write. And Yeah, I kept getting pulled back into Sort of Silicon Valley startups that's something that I felt very engaged with. Yeah, you get as you say, you get kept getting pulled back'cause I think the first summer uh of your freshman year, you go and work for LinkedIn. You do a summer internship there. In c back in California.

8:58 Yeah, I um I met DJ Patel. Who later on became the chief data science officer of uh America. under the Obama administration. Mm-hmm.

9:07 And DJ uh contacted me pretty early in my freshman year and said, Hey Uh what are you doing this summer? Uh you know, it was it was pretty informal at the time. Uh that was kind of the process. And

9:22 Yeah, did you was Great. You know, the start of the internship he said Hey, you know. Everyone at LinkedIn. On this team.

9:31 Yeah, they all Do something the first three months. They do something that's like really incredible and foundational. So you gotta figure out that is for you. I was like, Oh, okay.

9:42 And uh You know, it's in the back of my head, I'm kind of searching for that challenge as well. And There is a inday. Which is kind of like a hack day.

9:52 And I kinda noticed that people were really excited about Uh this idea of LinkedIn for good. Like like see if we can harness the power of LinkedIn to do Exactly. So that was kind of the idea is. Is there a non profit aspect that we can explore, et cetera.

10:09 In the meantime, I saw a lecture. uh from someone who was talking about the work he had done. To uh Translate text messages for victims of uh the Haiti earthquake. But the issue was they didn't have enough crayle speakers.

10:25 So they couldn't translate to the emergency responders the text messages of people ever. Stuck in rubble, it was horrible. And I'm sitting there and going, My gosh, we've got All the data.

10:37 Uh to know who the speakers of Crayle are. And so It kind of responds this idea of okay, maybe there's some way to connect people to nonprofits based on skills. So you so you ended up working on this project called LinkedIn for Good, which basically aggregated all of the all of the skills that were available on the site. Um I I guess it even caught the attention of of the CEO of Jeff Weiner. Mm.

11:02 Yeah, I um the real effort started after to develop it start after I I left my internship. Jeff Wiener. Certainly. Uh

11:11 You know count to me after the I present up at the project at all hands and um Yeah, yeah after the all hands he goes, Hey, so like You know. Do you want to

11:21 Keep going LinkedIn. Uh I said, Well I think I want to go back to school. Thank you though, and and he uh So you're thinking about starting something someday?

11:30 I said maybe Uh I said well if you do call me. Uh at least my v recollection. His recollection is slightly. Better. Uh which is or a better story.

11:41 His recollection is Sane Hey Dylan, uh are you gonna start something someday. Maybe, I don't know. Well if you do I'll fund it.

11:51 Yeah, I gotta say I like his version better, but that's I I don't remember it quite that way. Um And foreshadowing a little bit, we'll get to it, but A few years later he did become one of your earliest investors in Figma. has been an incredible advisor

12:05 Uh and Mentor and investor and Figman supporter from day one. Wow. All right. So you go back to Providence, Rhode Island, and um start your sophomore year. And really getting into more into design, right? Because you'd done a lot of

12:21 You know, you've been interested in web design, but you were a programmer, but you were getting more into design and I guess the summer after your s your second year. You go work for this company called Flipboard, which I think I think they're still around. Yeah, they are. Yeah. And and they basically created this

12:40 way to look at At the internet, the web, look at a web page, but like you were flipping through a magazine. Yeah, so Flipboard was Uh one of the first iPad apps that really took advantage of the iPad surface to iPad, yes. And so good. It looked so, so good. Yeah. Yeah. And you and you ended up go going to work there. They were i also in California in in the Bay. Yeah, they were in Paul. And

13:05 Yeah, it was a very buzzy company at the time. And Oh, it's just a Absolutely gorgeous product. And Yeah, I I uh just

13:15 Start to get to hang out with the designers. And I'd always been really interested in design and um You know. One thing that I got to learn at Flipboard was just really the more about the history of typography, of layout.

13:28 Um And Yeah, I'd always been surrounded by magazines growing up. Uh my My dad found some ways to like

13:37 Yeah. Crazy discounts and magazines through some Coupon goes online or something like that. And so there's always just like endless magazines around the house. Yeah. And I guess the next year um you go back to Flipboard to work there again for a while, I think th uh this time in in design. Uh, and then in your third year at Brown, you decide to apply for the Teal Fellowship, uh, which is uh

14:01 this fellowship where the winner gets, you know, a couple hundred thousand dollars to basically drop out of college and start a business. Um so did you have An idea in in your mind of what you you might want to do or or even like Who who you might want to do it with.

14:17 Well I thought to myself, okay, there's no way I'm gonna you know, go start something if I'm not doing it with someone that I think is amazing. And I thought okay.

14:28 The only person I'd start a company with And whatever way it goes, I'll learn from them and it'll be an amazing experience because just being with them will be You know, a gift into itself. is Evan Wallace. Evan Wallace, who's a year older than you at Brown.

14:44 And just somebody you really Respected and admired. Yeah, Evan was my TA for a a computer vision class at the time I said, Hey, do you want to get dinner? We got dinner and I said. You know, you're

14:56 About to graduate next semester. Uh what what are you gonna do? And He goes well I've got offers from you know you list all the places he had interned, you know, Microsoft, Pixar.

15:08 And Because you know, I just think that Like I'll be probably not as challenged in those environments. But

15:17 You know, it can be cool. We'll see. And by the way, Evan's not like a like a super Cocky guy. Like he is as humble as humble gets. But Also he was very clearly the most genius person I'd ever met.

15:33 His nickname was CJ. Computer Jesus. Because uh Evan. was basically on the computer. Every chance he got.

15:42 And It turns out. If you spend ten, twelve hours a day programming from a young age. Every single day

15:51 You are a really good programmer. Yeah. And I got uh dinner and Yeah, we started talking about okay, well Would she ever

16:00 Start a company with me. And he goes, Yeah, w I consider that that'd be That might be more fun than joining a bigger company. And Oh, we said great, well let's meet up some more and see if there's any ideas we like.

16:13 And so what did you guys start to bat around? What kind of ideas? Uh Kind of everything. So the the question that we were trying to answer was Why now? Like what is the change that's happening in the world

16:25 That would make a Idea interesting. You know I had a huge list. You know, passed it he and kind of merged them and then Start striking him out.

16:35 And at the end we got we had two. that we thought were kinda interesting. One was one that I was more bullish and excited about, one w was uh Something that he was more excited about. But we're both kind of interested in the other one too. And the two were drones.

16:48 And WebGL. Web GL, which is uh oh Uh basically way to Tip tip. to do two D and three D

16:57 Graphics in in a web page, right? Mm-hmm. And so this ship just made it. this is gonna factor into what he would eventually create, because this was a a revolutionary change. WebGL introduced um frictionless the this frictionless ability to see like three D renderings in a web page, which today we take for granted, but Two thousand eleven, that was still quite radical, re revolutionary.

17:19 So yeah, so one of the directions web GL. Which oven was you know, way ahead of everybody else on. And I was also a fan of too. I thought that there's so much you could do with it, but I also had some concerns. And the other one was drones. Um I looked at the world in late twenty eleven and said, okay Uh Still need to figure out the use cases, but I'm pretty sure that uh quadcopters

17:44 And sort of what will come out of that. will be huge. And I think we're both right. I wanna go back to What made you

17:55 could compelled you to apply to this fellowship in the fall of in in twenty eleven. I mean,'cause they want you to drop out of school. But why did you decide to do this when when you were absolutely convinced that you were gonna graduate from college? It wasn't necessarily like a dropout situation. You can always go back. Right. Yeah. And plenty of people take leave of absence. So I I think that was my mindset first of all. Like even if the startup flames out, I learn a lot from Evan. had some savings from the acting days, uh and at the same time I thought that the probability of this happening was very low. Will I get the TL Fellowship? Almost certainly not. Uh will Evan decide to do this with me? Who knows? But it'll be fun to explore. And well yeah, I'll put an application in just in case. So you get the application and just

18:43 you know, an hour or two before the deadline. you submit they have all these in uh questions about you. They wanna know what uh publications you've been in. So of course you were written about in the Brown student newspaper a couple times, but you were also In an N PR story in two thousand eleven, um, which was about one of your mentors, DJ Patel, and he in this article he's quoted as saying, Oh, this kid uh is just phenomenal. I've known him since he was sixteen. And so that's a pretty great endorsement to have that guy saying in this article. But the other thing that I noticed about your your um

19:14 Application. 'Cause there are five hundred people who applied for this that year. There's a question that they ask, which is something like, you know, tell us something counterintuitive, like what the world strongly believes in, that most people you know that most people think uh Is true.

19:30 Uh, but that you just disagree with. to something that you completely think is is wrong. Your answer is, I'm gonna just read a little bit of it, is it says Tell us what you think is true, but that Um most people think it's not true.

19:45 And you write. Chocolate is repulsive. And then you go into a whole essay about why You hate chocolate, you think it's horrible, you can't stand the smell of it, and then you include the fact that Apparently two percent of the population.

19:58 doesn't like chocolate and then Nestle did uh did research into this and they found that maybe there's one, but yes. Uh maybe there's a uh uh a an imbalance of gut bacteria that's which'cause to most people you're thinking Chocolate is repulsive? Insane. Who thinks that? Everybody knows chocolate is Delicious, but this is truly a counterintuitive idea, and I have to think that that really caught their eye'cause all of a sudden you're just

20:25 It's just like a left turn. Unconnect totally not connected to technology. Uh you know, it's funny, I I was really proud of that essay, uh and I had a lot of fun writing it because I really don't like chocolate. And uh people have always thought that was the weirdest thing ever. So I thought I was answering the question the purest way possible. Uh and maybe even being a bit Medicontrarian. But I think that they want counterintuitive thinkers. And I mean cu you're competing against five hundred of the smartest

20:53 you know, kids in the country under twenty. And I guess your parents initially were not psyched about you. uh really pursuing this'cause they wanted you to finish sch school, but your mom and dad wanted you to finish college. Yeah, they they were Yeah, savers and I had my own savings as well, but I'm not sure.

21:11 They were not written in the ton of money, not at all. solid, you know, middle class careers. And um They had put a ton of resources in my education.

21:21 So the idea of You know. Potentially squandering that. Uh is It's like what what are you doing?

21:28 And With Evan. Uh we would talk every weekend even as this process was ongoing and just kind of Keep moving forward. Talking about ideas to prototype.

21:40 And The the thing we were exploring then was using WebGL, but it was'cause again, that's the hammer and everything was a nail. So basically We were exploring how do you take a photograph? And convert it into a three D scene. Mm.

21:55 And so we thought maybe there's a way to go and explore many different tools that Well let people do The sort of things that you can accomplish and high end programs such as Photoshop uh or three D tools

22:10 but do them in a way that anyone can access. And really democratize that. Alright, so you guys are batting around ideas. And you you really kind of land on this idea of web using WebGL.

22:24 To create something that will give that will sort of empower people to to to be designers somehow. You aren't really sure what it's gonna be. And then you you become a finalist for this fellowship. You get you get to the final round, forty people under twenty. And you get it. You're you're picked. You present, you're sent to San Francisco you fly to San Francisco, you present. Then

22:45 Finalist and went. Oh. Whereas my dad put it, he goes, I always thought you were weird, but these people are weird too. Yeah.

22:56 Right. Yeah. And so you are f you find out at the end of your junior year, May of twenty twelve, that you you get the fellowship. Um Evan is about to graduate.

23:07 And he's gonna join you. You're gonna move to California. Back home. And you're gonna start working on it. So you took technically, I think you took a leave of absence. You did not drop out of Brown, right? Yep. Yeah, I mean there's a v w th and you know, these fellowships get so much attention because it's such a big deal. I mean you know, Peter Thiel is encouraging people under twenty

23:26 Who have great ideas to Yeah. Um I was excited about the fellowship and and also the other people that were taking the fellowship were or or applying were just so cool. And

23:39 The chance just to Have this community around Uh people that Like literally knew what I was going through and spent time with them.

23:49 It it was just uh Socially. Very helpful. And Also very inspiring. People would push you and say, Hey, like why are you thinking small? Think bigger.

23:59 And that actually I think was a big input to why we got to where we Eventually headed for Figma. Alright, so you In in in and Article, an article written about that time.

24:11 Um, I think the press democrat wrote a piece about you. Um, you were still I well don't w don't want to say vague, but you were still s s like working out what this is gonna be,'cause you're starting to work on this. And it was described at the time as like Photoshop in a browser. You know, m journalists and and I say this as somebody who was a journalist. Uh I think for for well intentioned reasons like to s simplify things so people can understand, right? So they can visualize what it is. And that was kind of initially how people described it. Um

24:39 And and I guess that summer it was just you and Evan kind of working together. And what were you w tell me what you guys were literally doing every day. So first of all, I'm not going to be able to We didn't start till August because I didn't want to graduate, of course. Uh and

24:56 We got Started a bit later than the When we receive the fellowship and The The start.

25:03 Coincided. with media that the fellowship had kind of offered up. And so You know, the actual like first or second day of doing The fellowship starting to work with Evan. I float to New York with my mom to be on the Today Show.

25:18 And uh I had no idea what we're doing yet,'cause we hadn't barely started. And they probably were like, and today we're gonna introduce you to a whiz kid genius, Dylan Field. Welcome to the Today Show and they were saying, And and tell us what what are you gonna do? What how are you gonna change the world? Yeah, I gave him a very vague answer'cause we really didn't know.

25:39 When we come back in just a moment, Dylan and Evan launch a tool that will change how designers work. Only to learn that a lot of designers don't really want to change how they work. Stay with us, I'm Guy Roz, and you're listening to How I Built This. Hey, welcome back to How I Built This. I'm Guy Roz. So it's the summer of 2012, and Dylan and his partner Evan are gearing up for the Teal Fellowship, working on an idea that has something to do With design.

26:20 The first thing we looked at was to face swapping. So basically You know, I got your face, I got my face, how can I take your face and swap it onto my face? Kind of a cool party trick. Um but with uh something called pus on blending, which uh Evan found a way to do very fast in real time in the browser with uh you know some graphics wizardry. We were able to

26:44 make it so that uh we had an amazing demo in just like a week. And just to interrupt for a sec, you weren't necessarily Like playing around with these ideas sounds like you weren't going for like the serious Designer crowd maybe like more like people who wanted to make memes. Yeah, I mean it

27:01 It was That first one, yes, I think. We were also looking at more um consumer cases that were not as meme oriented as well. At some point later on, we literally create a meme creator. Mm-hmm. Um that was the darkest week of Figma.

27:16 Uh Yeah, I was pitching Evan saying Look, I've Done the research. I've looked at The data.

27:24 This meme thing. You know, we're just used to it because it's internet culture and we see it online all the time and we share'em with our friends, but like Most people haven't discovered it yet. Like the is a co it's a very early part of an exponential trend around memes.

27:38 Memes are gonna be. Way bigger than we could ever possibly imagine. We should make a meme creator. And Evan's like, Are you serious? Uh and so he kind of humored me for a week or so, like five days. We made a meme g generator and Uh

27:52 You know, it was a very good meme generator. And You know, at the end of the week. We just kinda looked at each other and And I'm like going, Man, I

28:02 I dropped out of Brown for this and Evan's going I think I'm gonna quit. And it was a good sign of like we're gonna work on some more serious stuff. So So you guys are working on this and they go and just so I can understand this

28:17 You know, today oftentimes Figma is kind of described in shorthand as Google Docs, but for images, for for graphics, for design. When did that idea start to converge. When was it in twenty thirteen when you when the two of you thought, Well, what if we build a collaboration tool like Google Docs, but for for design, for for for graphics or images. Yeah, so I think that that

28:42 experience of working at Flipboard, working with the designers there. It always been my mind as something that was amazing to be part of this design process. And Flipboard was Way ahead of its time. And

28:55 Uh the collaboration Didn't exist. It was, you know, emailing files or At best you put them in a Dropbox folder, but You know. And oftentimes if if you were a designer working collaboratively

29:08 you might start to work on something that was emailed to you fix it up but then only to realise that like This is like already two days old and people. And I you know, Evan and I both grew up using Google Docs.

29:22 Um You know, playing multiplayer games. And so the nature of real time collaboration Uh that was native to us. And just kind of like obviously the way that things should work. That said.

29:35 We weren't sure about the market size for design. Um Yeah, I looked at the bureau of labor statistics. And it said there is something like two hundred thousand designers in the United States. Or web designers it is.

29:48 And so that's obviously like a pretty small number. Yeah. And At the same time, we felt like there's something there. We felt like maybe this is a starting point. We go broader afterwards into other

29:59 But Let's try it out. And and just to just to clarify, you looked at the Bureau of Labor statistics numbers and saw that in in twenty thirteen there were only two hundred thousand web designers in the US, which is kinda hard to believe. Um but because it's a small market.

30:15 If if that's who your target audience was. But you had a hunch that given the the tools that were available, which are clunky and there were plugins and they weren't really They didn't make collaboration easy. you felt like there was a real opportunity here. Did you get I mean and this is still you're still w miles away from having a product ready to go, but did you hear that from people where you did you have an opportunity to to interview designers or to talk to them and ask them what they wanted?

30:42 Yeah, so both I Then Working as a designer. Uh flipboard or design internal. I

30:49 Uh went in. Talk with other designers that I knew. I also started talking in uh researching and learning about how companies were growing their design teams and there's something that was like Seemed very off because

31:02 These companies were investing a lot in design. You know, Facebook was acquiring entire design agencies. To try to Make their design team. Bigger.

31:12 And It was like wait. How is it the case that All this hiring is going on. Yeah, there's only a few hundred thousand.

31:21 Well designers in the United States. Like Are the numbers wrong? Or it's growing so fast. That it doesn't matter. In either way, we can go into other areas later, so

31:33 I think let's go. Let's go do this. And At first we were very focused on What are the things that we can just do so much better from the tool standpoint? Not the collaborative standpoint, but as an individual user. Yeah, what are the breakthroughs we can reduce? Can we make a better way to create

31:49 Uh grids and guides. Also, how do we Honestly build a Project of this magnitude on the web. You know, we had a lot of technical work to do to figure out

32:00 was possible. Alright, so you have um so you guys are really focusing doubling down on this idea. And because of the TL Fellowship, I'm sure there are a lot of people who are interested in in

32:14 e even blindly investing in whatever you're I'm sure there are people who are like I'm just gonna put No, half a million dollars down on every single one of these people. You had already had a relationship with Jeff Weiner, the CEO of LinkedIn, he had told you like two years before, hey, if you ever start something, get in touch with me. And in fact you guys went to him and a group of other people

32:34 to raise some money for seed funding. Um, which you did. You raised almost four million dollars since June of twenty thirteen, so about a year after You got the Teal Fellowship. What did you um what was the I mean, at that point was it a fully formed idea? Was it were you able to articulate what this was going to be?

32:54 You know. Not not yet. You know, I I uh Honestly, I've Who's back of that pitch? And

33:01 I don't know if I would invest in myself if I saw it, you know. No, back in twenty thirteen it was it was very vague. It was not clear yet like what we were gonna do exactly. Exactly the strategy was. I think that came very shortly afterwards. Uh, but we were just a bit ahead.

33:18 Of being concrete on our direction. There was a one guy you really wanted to be involved with this, and this was a guy named John Lilly, who was um He had been the CEO of Mozilla. And was now a partner at Greylock. And I'm I imagine you wanted him involved because of his experience with Mozilla, you know, running a a browser business. But he did not

33:38 He decided he was not gonna invest at the seed level. that you he didn't feel like you guys really knew what you were Gonna do. And and normally not normally, so oftentimes people just move on and they're like, Okay, he doesn't want to do it. But you were really

33:52 You wanted him uh involved, right? And I guess You you felt like you had to figure out a way to get him. What Tell me a little bit about that relationship. Well I mean John is just a

34:06 Excellent human. And uh immediately I was just so impressed. Like not only was he super high integrity, it was just very clear. Um in principled But he was also uh his his belief his care

34:21 About design. It was off the charts. Um And said hey I'll I'm down to keep in touch. I like you guys.

34:29 Let's just keep Talking. You know, at some point maybe a year and a half or so later. John said.

34:38 You know, if you're ever thinking about Raising another round. Let me know. Right. So it would be another year and a half before he would

34:47 factor in again financially, but during that year and a half, you had four mil almost four million dollars to work with, which is a pretty good pretty good runway. And Now you begin to build something. Right. In your mind

35:01 When did you expect to have a product ready for At least for Some people to play with. Oh I I uh Was

35:09 Totally unrealistic. I'd have to check the deck. But um I think we probably expected it to be like, you know, a year or so, maybe a year and a half. But yeah, we we thought it would be a pretty straight shot. It was not Uh it was it took a while.

35:26 So just to kind of put this in context somewhere to dig into this, it would take about two years. before you had something that you could let designers play with. And you had a team, I think around ten people, that you were able to bring on to help you and Evan Build this thing. Mm-hmm.

35:44 You're the CEO. Right? Evan was the CTO technically or or officially. Yes. Okay, and Both of you are like I mean he's a little bit older, but you're

35:54 Got what? I don't know. twenty One maybe by this point, twenty? And your only experience only you experience, but it was an as an intern, basically, a paid intern. You had been an intern for a bunch of companies and now you're twenty and you um are A very nice guy,

36:14 But zero experience as a leader or a manager. Understandably, who'd what twenty year olds have that experience and I don't you weren't even a camp counselor, right? Like you d I've been. Okay, you've been uh sorry, you've been a resident advisor on your dorm, right? But now you're running a business of ten people, probably a bunch of'em older than you, if not all of them. And um I think everyone was older than me at some point. And and and you were also building this product. So tell me a little bit about about being a manager, running a team. How did you how did that work out? Well I think that we had a very clear prog road map. And

36:51 We All felt that there was something here. But I could have done a better job of helping people see it through like conversations with customers and whatnot. I was having those conversations. You know, I'd kinda come back, share all my notes, but If but I found is that if if um

37:10 Employees are not talking with user directly. They just don't See it the same way. And they don't understand the pain that people have. Unless they Can

37:20 actually interact with folks and hear about it firsthand. And um Yeah, I think you know. There's plenty of things that get done on the on the manager side to be better. Uh but I think it was uh

37:31 It didn't really have a Like blow up per se until a little later. And what was the blow up about? Because like at a s some point everybody on the team like ten people that confronted you and they were like I don't know what they say to you.

37:46 Yeah, so that point we Raised our A round from John Lily. So we moved to December of twenty fifteen, okay. Yep. Yep. And San Francisco. And uh

37:56 You know, also I was Like Definitely going through a A hard time personally. Um, you know, my dad had

38:04 been diagnosed with uh with cancer. And I I certainly was not an experienced manager. I was still kinda getting the mechanics right. Around how do you just uh set goals and Motivate people.

38:17 And And we still haven't shipped anything. You know, and now people are kinda looking at the clock and going Is this ever gonna ship? Is this just like endless? What would you Dylan, what would you do?'Cause I I don't think you were yelling at people or you were mistreating people Were you micromanaging? Were you slowing the process down? Were you

38:36 Tell me what you were doing that was causing Frustration among your team. Micromanaging is a good Way to describe it. Uh perhaps even a mild way.

38:45 I Had for quite a while thought about every aspect of the product experience we wanted to build. And I uh You know, felt a lot of pressure to get some men out there.

38:58 And so I would just kinda come in and say, Hey This is the way we're gonna do it. Turns out when you hire smart people. They have ideas too.

39:08 And also turns out that sometimes those ideas are like Really? Really excellent. But I think the time urgency combined with like having thought about it a lot made me We need to you know, we just gotta do it this way, let's go.

39:22 And that was not a fun environment to be in, I think. When you say Uh people were getting frustrated because the product wasn't Was that because of you? You kept saying it's just not ready, it's not good enough yet?

39:35 Well we we validated that. So we went out And uh found all these companies in Silicon Valley in San Francisco especially. And We talked with You know. I don't know, it must have been dozens of companies.

39:49 We chose Figma. And just kind of like a A flat response. Hm. They were not too interested. They're just kind of like, Oh

40:00 Cool. So you were You are basically uh try I mean you had tested and people were based the feedback wasn't great. So you couldn't You couldn't put it out there yet. And

40:11 And when your team came to you, I mean What did they say? Did they say Dylan. You know, you're not You're not managing well, like how do they confront you?

40:21 Yeah, I mean People were We're clearly not happy. The Felt like I needed help.

40:28 They're right. I actually did need help. I needed someone to help on the management side. We were not gonna be able to scale Fast enough. Without Bring

40:37 Someone else on to To help you. Run a part of the company. I just kind of like Felt offended though, I think.

40:45 Because you know, I obviously poured my heart and soul into this and Um Yeah, I I Felt bad because I at some point it let me I did raise my voice.

40:56 Just in response to one of the kindest guys on our team. who was saying something that was actually quite Constructive. And probably you were under a lot of pressure because you had now raised money and there's real money on the table and you probably felt like Personally, you know, this was

41:13 On you. to m make something. How did you start to um take in that feedback and criticism and I don't know.

41:24 uh maybe change the way you operated. Well I First uh called. John Willie, we talked about and said, Hey.

41:34 Uh something happened and Yeah I'm Uh I'm taking a few days away from the office. I gotta clear my head. And John's like

41:44 Whoa okay. And you know I he knew I'd been going through stuff With my dad and and that things were getting pretty tough. Uh medically. And

41:53 You know, he went Into the office and Yeah, talk with folks. And I think his Sort of

42:01 Okay. The sense was okay. Like this is solvable. Don't raise your voice.

42:07 But like We just gotta get this thing shipped. And Um We can get this back on track.

42:13 Huh. Fortunately, right. Um, right around this time You were able to hire someone a a a lead engineer named Sho Kuamoto who was a guy who'd worked at a a lot of other companies like like Adobe.

42:28 And and he was identified as somebody who could, I guess, kind of help Steady the ship a bit. Well, he was identified as someone who had just like really unique experience that was relevant to what we're doing. And Yeah, I think he came in and week one was like, Man

42:45 What company I just joined. This is uh there's some weird weird stuff going on here. But very quickly he Kinda got a sense of where people are at. And said, Dylan, we gotta ship this thing. Uh let's figure out what it is that's wrong, why people are not

43:01 Resonating with it. But You know, my sense is there's only a few features missing. We already know that we need to redesign it. Visually.

43:08 And He did a presentation to the team end of week, first week about like kind of rallying cry of You know, we've you all been working so hard so long. We're really close. Here's what's gonna take, here's the gap. And

43:22 Uh We rallied. We got it out. This is in sin December of twenty fifteen, just to clarify. You you say you got it out, but this was in This is closed. It was just for

43:33 Beta users, right? Yeah. We Made sure that we had a really great early blog post, formed a press strategy. Create a launch date.

43:42 got out there and it was controversial. Honestly. It was not well it was not universally well received. It was it was very mixed reviews. Very mixed. I think And again, it was closed, so it's not like everyone's using it and giving it mixture views. It was mixture views to the perception of what it could be. Yeah.

44:02 You know, there's some people that immediately got it, but a lot of people went Why would I want to design collaboratively? Right,'cause it was seen as a very kind of solitary thing. Like this is my vision, I'm gonna design it. You can maybe make some improvements, but this is my thing. Yeah, a lot of designers at that point were coming from an agency culture. Where

44:20 You know, you go explore, you Come up with a few solutions for the client to present. You know, three solutions and then you have a grand reveal of like here's the big amazing thing that you should obviously do. And uh that's just not the way that product development Should work on a team internally.

44:39 Instead You know. There's a oh wide range of things you consider. You collaboratively need to work through them. But people.

44:47 Yeah, we're so used to that. agency method of working that, you know, some of the initial comments in the launch were Stuff like If this is the future of design, I'm changing careers. I mean people peop a lot of the early comments were like and this is interesting because it this is twenty fifteen. People were people I mean, th this idea that design being a collaborative thing was not a thing necessarily. Like one comment was uh

45:11 was a a camel is a horse designed by committee. Yep. I if if you design things by committee it's gonna Be it's gonna suck. Yeah, I mean I think that that was maybe the the mainstream view of the design culture then, but

45:27 There are also a lot of people that sign up for the wait list. And then we started to every week let more people off the wait list. Into the product and We saw right away that people were using it. Even without everything we knew that they needed.

45:41 And then every time we added additional functionality to the product. We saw Uh That conversion. Of

45:48 People going from Okay, you're off the wait list too. You're actually using it, it would go up. So Early customers like Coda.

45:56 Um Notion, Microsoft, Uber. Mind body. You know, there's a bunch that that started to really use the platform. Did you find that people were um were were starting to use this in ways that you didn't anticipate'cause initially it was for

46:13 Right. Web design, software design, but eventually You know, people would use it gr designers and and agencies would use it for like restaurant menus or like even the interface on a screen on the on an airplane. Like did you anticipate that or did that happen organically by by users? so much happened organically. It was kind of like anything visual that could be created

46:34 You know, ended up being created at some point in Figma. All right. Dylan, that year I just want to ask you because we're talking about you professionally

46:44 focused on this, trying to put this out there. But this is a tough year. I mean, your dad is very sick. Yeah. How are you Balancing. Is this really

46:58 intensive Development, but also going back and forth to see him. Yeah. I was Doing everything I could to

47:06 Try to be there for him. And also at the same time, I mean he He did. Really want me to be Yeah.

47:14 Progressing Figma. He was really excited for What we're doing. Yeah, it was it was definitely back and forth. There are days where

47:23 Things were really dark and I would Just not be in the office and I'd go up and see him. It was unclear sort of like How long he had? Uh, he was in just such immense pain.

47:34 But his body was Yeah, he was he was a athlete his entire life, uh Uh strong dude. And Even with the

47:44 immense amount of pain whether it comes with Cancer spread everywhere, including bone. He was his body was just holding on. And Yeah, so

47:55 That launch happened, you know, he was he was very proud to see it. But yeah, he passed uh Uh quite soon after. Yeah. He was able to see

48:04 Uh beginnings of what you Would go on too. become very well known for, which is amazing. Um Mean time.

48:13 You guys are Building this thing. You launch it to general use in October. of twenty sixteen and it was free. Right, initially it was free.

48:24 And And You really wanted, I think you guys wanted to keep it. free as long as you could you knew eventually you had to have some business model, right?'Cause you're you know, you've raised money, you had a series A, you've ra you you raised fourteen million dollars in a series A december in in December of twenty fifteen, but

48:42 eventually you had to figure out a plan. Um What I mean, did did you is that was that thinking that okay, we're gonna make this free for as long as we can, but we will eventually have to charge for it? Or was was that Not the plan. We

48:56 Definitely we're playing a charge. But Knowing what to charge, how to charge Yeah, we wanted to kinda watch people use the product first. And also

49:07 I personally, after all this time of being told it's not ready by A lot of people I was not yet in the mindset of like It's working. Right.

49:17 I just had in my head there's so much more we gotta build. Why don't we come back in just a moment, Figma gains more traction. then loses an acquisition. worth 20 billion dollars. Stay with us, I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to How I Built This.

49:48 Hey, welcome back to How I Built This. I'm Guy Raz. So it's October 2016, and Dylan and Evan have finally released Figma to the general public. They're not charging for it yet, but they soon discover but they probably should. you found out that Microsoft

50:07 They had um designers there who were who really using it. But I guess corporate m said, hey, you can't keep using this product because it's a free product and it's not, oh, you know It's not reliable enough. We need y if you really Uh we we can't trust it. It's not But

50:25 The idea was that because it was free. It was somehow not not fully baked, and and that was sort of a kick in your butt, right? You thought, well we better start charging for it or we're gonna lose Microsoft. Yeah. Microsoft was actually really cool about the way they did this. Uh one of their design leaders

50:41 Came to our office and spent some real time with me. And he uh I think with Sussing out, like is are they serious or not? At the end. Because you know.

50:51 Your tool is free. I said, I I know, I we gotta make some improvements I think before we pay. He goes, Well We're gonna have to probably rip it out at Microsoft if you don't charge us soon. Because we've got to make sure you stay in business. So crazy. Yeah. And

51:05 Um Yeah, I just had a conversation with our board where they took me out to lunch. It was like a pretty hard conversation, I think, for them. And they were just going, Dylan, you gotta be more commercial. I'm like, What does that mean? And they're like, You gotta be more commercial. Uh and I'm like do you mean do I have to like say more sales terminology and stuff like that? Like like what are you getting at? And I think

51:29 What they meant was price the product. Uh and um and then you know that didn't really break through, but when this design leader came and said, We can't use it unless you price the product, I was like, Oh Everyone, we gotta go charge for the product. As fast as we can. So I was a little dense on it, but it got there eventually. So you start charging for this and um And meantime

51:51 You guys are Presumably working on ways to make it better. You start in the f in August of twenty twelve and you've you're shipping something out in December of twenty fifteen. So it's a long time. Just to just for a moment, during that time, that three year period. When you didn't have anything yet to show for

52:12 Were you feeling anxious? Were you feeling like Did you Have a lot of sleepless nights. I think the sleepless nights were more because I was just so excited about like what was possible to build. At least once we got on the track of what would become Figma.

52:25 I think Between When we started. And When we got to we're gonna go build a design tool.

52:33 That period I had sleepless nights'cause we didn't know what we were doing. Yeah. Once we're on that track. And we had it validated and I had talked to people and I knew what they needed. No, I mean like the

52:45 It was more just my head was spinning about there's so much that's possible. Weren't you getting impatient? Oh yeah, for sure. I'm patient. I mean always been impatient about like how fast can we build this thing. Uh that's just my default state. But

52:58 Anxious is the wrong word. I I was You know, very confident in our approach. No one else was doing it the way we're doing it. It was just like how

53:09 How do we get this in front of people? And how do we build a great product. I mean it it's it's not I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that. From the time you've released it to general availability

53:21 It was a hit. I mean people really adopted it. Designers really began to adopt it. I mean the The parallel I can think of it's not the best parallel, it's a little bit it's a but a little bit, it's Instagram. Or SNAP. I mean it w not obviously the same kind of virality because that appeals to just a mass consumer audience.

53:38 But for designers And your intuition about companies hiring more designers was was true. It it it proved correct. So Were you I mean when when people start to adopt this pretty quickly in large numbers.

53:53 Or you like, yep, I knew it. Oh well it's more about Like what's the next thing to go do? Um, how do we go and make sure that We

54:04 You know, there's there's still even as people were adopting, there was a lot of things that they told us they needed. And Those were the same things that would cause people not to adopt. And then Separately.

54:15 We start to see that. Our assumptions about the ways teams work were maybe correct for small teams, but not as correct for large teams. Larger teams needed different ways to You know, organized their work. The different security things. And so

54:30 uh we need to meet the large the needs of uh these larger teams as well. Meantime, as you started to really explode in in growth and y and usage, and and I mean we're gonna can't talk about every funding round, but you do another twenty fifteen was the last round, and then there's a uh a series B in twenty eighteen, and then a series C in 2019, which valued the company at half a billion dollars. Um Were you um Uh I mean w w w did you start to see competitors come out. I mean, uh you must have by that point started to attract the attention of

55:05 you know, the Adobe of the world. Yeah, I know. Literally I mean Adobe came out with Adobe X D, which was their offering. Uh not web based, but um a very solid And um interesting desktop application. We also saw and this is probably the one that For me

55:22 felt more concerning at the time. Uh There was a company called uh Envision. Which had been around since we started. What by when. I believe it was around twenty seventeen was when they announced it.

55:38 But it was And that to you felt like a real threat. We were pretty worried because the mine share they had was so huge. And They made this huge announcement and said we're coming out with uh Invision Studio. And

55:52 Yeah, I remember for our series B round. Even with all the traction we were starting to get. And how inevitable it was starting to seem. There were certain VCs that you know, I t take the meeting, but then they go at the end of the meeting, you know, look Very impressed with what you've done and uh great job. But

56:12 I just cannot reconcile this with the work division's doing. Like I I'm sorry. I mean just to jump ahead and vision eventually shut down in twenty twenty four. Um they don't exist anymore. Um but it it is amazing, right,'cause at the time They could have been the the Figma killer, right? And that was the prediction by some people. But how did you guys you had an advantage'cause you've been working on it longer. But but were you

56:37 looking at what they were doing to make sure you were staying ahead of the curve. Well I mean yeah, we looked at Of course their product and um Why people are resonating with it.

56:48 Tight. But then the day it was like no I think. Our roadmap is correct. And We just continue to push ahead.

56:57 To the things that we thought people really needed. And Uh I I feel like that was the right strategy. Alright, so you guys are just moving forward and you're growing.

57:09 at a pace and by twenty twenty. You raise a series D at a at a two billion dollar valuation. I mean s c it now Of again, you know, you started this in twenty twelve, so kind of, right? So this is eight years on, and by twenty twenty. You guys have

57:27 Really. Maybe you're Growing. Yeah, the start of twenty twenty about hundred employees And in twenty twenty, we were

57:36 Two thirty, two forty. Wow. And so We're growing at pretty rapid speed. And we're also opening up presences internationally. Uh at the start of twenty twenty we

57:48 Put into motion. Uh opening our first Office outside the United States in London. Or create a leader for that. And

57:56 Uh you know, it kinda opened right as uh Covid started and everyone went home. Yeah. But the thing that happened I definitely didn't anticipate, which was

58:07 Because of the multiplayer aspect of being in this infinite canvas. People started to hang out in Figma. Yes. You didn't need to be in an office anymore. You could do this all you could basically collaborate. But she didn't have to be in the same room.

58:21 Yeah, it was it was pretty wild to see this behavior emerge. And at first it was like Across companies people were Illustrating virtual cities together to like have a sense of community. And then it was um within teams. We started hearing about how people were

58:38 brainstorming together and using it as like a hangout space. Or remember one day Slack went down. And people were you know typing in text boxes in Figma. For their slack. Replacement comms for the day. Obviously it's not made for that. And it's kinda like we're watching all this behavior.

58:53 And going. Wow, we've always seen whiteboarding, diagramming, brainstorming cases, and Figma. I think We need to go build. Like a virtual whiteboard.

59:04 And diagramming tool. Mm-hmm. And we started to dig into Um, how are people using Figma? And the thing that kind of kept coming back. For this

59:13 uh use case of of ideation brainstorming in a remote way. Was fine. Like People wanted to have fun while they're doing it. That was the way that they were trying out the best ideas.

59:25 Yeah. They were There's something about the Figma setting that was Enjoyable. And uh

59:32 That that element of fun became the differentiator. You know, doing things like if you wave your cursor around a lot. It turns into a giant hand you can high five somebody. Uh or How do you make it so you can

59:44 Yeah, put stamps on things or have emoji reactions. Covid, of course, this was the perfect product for Covid because all of us and remote work because all of a sudden you could do You had this collaborative tool that could be done remotely and so the adoption increases. You come out of Covid.

1:00:02 You know, just a really well placed. product. Um and For a a a brief moment you guys had not brief, but for a moment you had considered going public, but but decided against it. And then September of twenty twenty two, Adobe announces

1:00:20 they are going to acquire Figma for twenty billion dollars. So to ten billion dollars over your last Fun ride. Um and Uh that's A big deal. I mean this was a

1:00:34 You know, uh arguably it is w was certainly more than arguably a competitor. They were gonna acquire you for twenty Billion dollars. Which was, I'm sure

1:00:44 Extremely exciting. you know, to get that kind of validation. Yeah, I mean I think The validation was less what

1:00:54 We cared about. Uh yeah, there's lots of validation from the world, but It was obviously like a uh something that kind of came out of left field for a lot of people at the company that that was not what they expected. Uh us to go do but

1:01:09 What made us excited about This Adobe acquisition was First of all, we have a lot of respect for Adobe. Always have. And

1:01:19 The chance to Continue our work at Figma there. Wall also Doing a lot to Help them.

1:01:28 Rethink. What could Creative Cloud, you know, all their traditional project products look like? An age of AI Uh in a way that

1:01:39 you know, really was design centric. That was so exciting to me personally. Part of that agreement was that if for any reason it didn't happen, they would, you know pay billion dollars. I have to imagine that

1:01:53 that on your side there was maybe some concern that the government would not approve it, but immediately after it was announced. Uh the Department of Justice. you know, European Commission UK regulatory bodies announced that they were going to

1:02:09 Investigate this as an antitrust. Um violation, uh violation of its trust law. Um and they begin this investigation. Which wouldn't now last for over a year.

1:02:20 Um were you nervous. I mean I I mean, you know, we did a story about Harry's razors here a few years ago on the show and similar thing happened. You know, they w they were gonna be acquired by a bigger brand. There was an antitrust investigation that was launched and eventually it unraveled. Did you feel like you guys were would be able to withstand this? Well first of all.

1:02:41 Obviously never would have agree to an acquisition by Adobe if I thought it wouldn't go through. Yeah. So the breakup fee was something that I was advised. That we should have.

1:02:52 So we include it as part of the negotiation, but honestly it was a pretty fast part of the negotiation, you know. Uh we're focused much more on Yeah, the amount of time I spent Talking through the Dobe, how exactly You know, will the setup work? Like will we have Figma.com emails or will we have Adobe.com email? Yes. Right. Like that part of it.

1:03:10 was you know, probably a hundred X longer, not joking. than you know a conversation about the breakup fee. Excellent. Just D Th

1:03:19 There's any reason why that would be an issue. Our lawyers said that it'd almost certainly go through. And so I also felt like, you know, Figma is all about software design development. And Adobe.

1:03:31 Is not. So it's just To me it was despite, you know, some of the earlier aspects of the company when we first started thinking about some of the creative use cases, it just felt very complimentary to me. The deal basically by by mutual agreement, you guys decided to abandon this. And in December of twenty twenty three, it became clear that

1:03:50 the government would not allow this at the time. Maybe it would be different today, who knows? It's all Depends on who's running the Justice Department. Um And and that was it. I mean they paid you a a breakup fee, it was a billion dollars. But here's the thing I'm I'm curious about. I mean You know, Adobe was a competitor.

1:04:08 All of a sudden they were an acquirer and under and I think cor rightly so, you were all in. You were Mr Tim Adobe as I would be if I was in that position. Adobe's a great company. They make great products. But they but they were very well aware, I mean they'd been in your data room, they'd really looked at your product. They knew how it worked, they knew what you were doing. Now No longer could you

1:04:30 Could you join forces so they're once again a competitor? And how does that it's like they're very focused on other aspects of their business. And that was Made abundantly clear. the antitrust process to all the regulators too. I don't know if they believed Adobe, but that was what they said and that's how they behave since. They they the regulars believe they were gonna b this is gonna be anti competitive. Your argument is that they're not competing against your product at all. Correct.

1:04:58 But What was good was we kept accelerating. And Coming out of it, you know, obviously. Yeah, it's a hard thing for the team to absorb that.

1:05:07 Okay, we thought it was gonna be Um One thing. And we're gonna all work at Adobe. And actually no, we're we're still in hard charging startup mode.

1:05:16 And if anything, we gotta prove ourselves even more now. And The team I think just um There's a a really a sense of relief, not because

1:05:26 People weren't excited about it. Adobe, but because We finally had certainty. And then we just rallied. Like the

1:05:35 Launch of Dev Mode. Came a few months later. But And this is basically allows you to take designs and translate them into code. Yeah, and also make it so that you can help designers explain to developers. how to go build products in the right ways.

1:05:51 And that was a huge launch for us at minutes that The thirty percent of our our users who are developers We can provide them with a much better experience in Figma. And uh You know, we really just started to invest in our platforms so that we could go build more products and also improve the stuff we have. I I'm curious, I mean you guys are uh uh you know, you're a much bigger company, I think sixteen hundred employees, right? As now in in cities around the world.

1:06:18 Um we are entering and we're already seeing it every single day. A really Just a Rapid pace of sort of innovation around artificial intelligence. I mean, we're talking now

1:06:32 you know, here, by the time this airs, who knows what what's gonna be available just a couple of weeks ago You know Chat GBT said, Oh, you can you can turn anything into a Studio Ghibli or a Simpsons thing and you know, everyone was doing that and Now you're seeing people Anime.

1:06:47 Um home. you know, Tom and Jerry cartoons based on what they're writing into An AI uh platform. Products like Figma, even this podcast, right? They develop they depend on the creativity of

1:07:02 people like me talking into a microphone, but I can tell you right now In in within five years. AI generated podcasts will be they already are pretty good. They will be so good. that people will make money off of them and and my value will probably be going doing things live. Or or people trusting that it's really me and not not a an A. I that just sounds like me and mimics

1:07:27 I have to imagine that that y that this is something that is also uh top of mind because If if it requires teams of really smart designers to collaborate and put something together now, It doesn't take a huge leap of imagination, a figment of our imagination, so to speak. To imagine that. You know, with a couple of sentences, the

1:07:47 People will be able to generate. the things that they're generating in Figma now that take Days or weeks. Or months. I think what becomes differentiator, differentiator is design.

1:07:56 It's craft. It's how it works. Brand. And As we look at the future

1:08:03 That's what I believe. will still be the differentiator for software. It's going to be that craft. And I think that the value of design of good design Well actually go up even more.

1:08:14 This environment. And can you create A piece of software that has Some design. With a prompt, absolutely. Can you explore the entire option space?

1:08:25 And figure out. What it is that you should ship. I think that requires human judgment. to go navigate that and to figure out What is the right approach?

1:08:35 And uh I think we're still very early And Any level. of AI being applied. To that process.

1:08:43 Uh so I'm actually more bullish today. than I've ever been on the role of design in the software process. Dylan, um Evan left the company we we didn't mention this uh uh I think shortly after the pandemic he wanted he was sort of wanted to just kinda move on and understandable is a lot of you know, it's probably a really hard You know, to get to where it's like. the company got to and um

1:09:05 And are you guys still in regular touch? Yeah, Evan is uh Still. One of the people that I look up to most in the world now is Why I was so sad you left because Um

1:09:16 He's somebody that Challenge we Like I have so much respect for. So yeah.

1:09:22 He's an amazing, amazing guy. And uh the work he's done after Figma two on the open source side has been incredible. M surprise. Um you know, I'm sure over over certain various rounds you were able to

1:09:34 to take some money off the table, um, and you did not grow up. uh wealthy, but you will certainly you s are and certainly will be even more so. Um I mean the company's last val I mean tw twenty billion dollar acquisition offer from Adobe is is quite significant. Um and you're you know you're young, very young. You're um Gosh, how old are you? Thirty uh thirty three. Thirty three? Yeah. Many founders we talked to on the show don't even start. until they're thirty th you know, to really get things going at thirty three, forty, forty five. Um if you could I don't know, look out into the first of all, into the future, you know, what do you yeah, what do you think you Wanna be I mean d do do you imagine in 15 years you're still gonna be running this company that you started?

1:10:25 You know, I think that the chance to work on a platform like Figma And uh to Impact an industry like this. It's truly once in a lifetime opportunity and the more that I Get to know other companies and um whether it's an investment or just friendship.

1:10:43 Watch other founders, the more I appreciate how unique this experience and opportunity is for us. And I just Think about the the vision that we started with. Like

1:10:56 I can't think of a better thing to work on. When when you think about, you know, the journey you took and and where you are now, I mean, so many things happened Um, because you you sort of manifested them, but also There was a lot of really just fortunate encounters, you know. getting to LinkedIn and managing to meet the CEO and

1:11:19 You know All these different things. Um And and you know, all those connections over the years um would play out. You know, the the you would these characters would come back and you know into your life, in and out of your life, and and here you are, you're just thirty three and

1:11:35 overseeing a company that's you know, multi billion dollar value value to you know, billions dollars and By neat, by some accounts d does over six hundred million dollars in revenue a year. Um You know, when you think about

1:11:50 Where you got to now. How much do you attribute it to luck? How much do you tribute it to to the work you put in? Oh wow. There's there's a lot of luck, not just in the connections along the way and

1:12:02 the ways that folks have helped and and I really care to pay that forward. And try to. But also I think the timing. I mean if we had started this A few years earlier.

1:12:13 We wouldn't have had WebGL. A few years later. Maybe someone would else would have already been at it. And That timing is truly lucky.

1:12:21 A chance to to interact and intersect with Evan. And the fact that we're in the same place at the same time, I mean. That was luck for sure. Yeah.

1:12:30 But also I think yeah, I I I um Yeah, there's always the question in your back of your mind of like With an incredibly talented team. A people How much am I adding versus how much is this amazing group of humans around me adding?

1:12:45 I I think Yeah. Acting from childhood and whatnot and Just Not being afraid of failure.

1:12:54 And uh even the days where we get punched. In the face. It's like great. You get back up and you keep running at the same thing. Wha what do you think was the

1:13:06 Afraid of failure. Looking back. As a kid. I wanted all these auditions. There are so many that uh you get

1:13:15 Rejected right away. And then sometimes, you know, you get to the final audition. For like a big, big part. And it's actually like two or three people in the room and they actually look just like you. Then it's kind of hard to blame on a look, but it's like okay, well

1:13:30 Whatever reason they have what they're looking for and I didn't this time. But I it always felt like there's another one ahead. It's about Playing over a long period of time.

1:13:42 And the more that you can keep going. The more you can win. That's Figma CEO and co-founder Dylan Field. Shortly after we did this interview, and about a year after the deal with Adobe fell through, Figma filed for an IPO.

1:14:00 Hey, thanks so much for listening to the show this week. Please make sure to click the follow button on your podcast app so you never miss a new episode of the show. And if you're interested in insights, ideas, and lessons from some of the world's greatest entrepreneurs, please sign up for my newsletter at guyaz.com or on Substack. This episode was produced by Carrie Thompson with music composed by Rantina and Louis. It was edited by Neva Grant with research help from Casey Herman. Our engineers were Patrick Murray and Jimmy Keeley. Our production staff also includes Alex Chung, JC Howard, Carla Estevez, Sam Paulson, John Isabella, Andrea Bruce, and Elaine Coates. I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening.

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