Transcript

Design dominance sparks a blockbuster IPO, with Figma’s Dylan Field

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0:53 Hey folks, Jeff Berman here. I am thrilled to share some of the new names who will be joining us at this year's Masters of Scale summit. This may be our biggest stage yet. Reed Hastings, Meredith Whitaker, Van Jones, Amjad Masad, and more. Will be there with us October 20th through 22nd in San Francisco. If you're building something great, or you want to build something great, We want you there with us too.

1:20 Join us at masters of scale dot com slash apply twenty six. That's mastersofscom slash apply. Twenty six. I think that designers Have

1:36 for a long time had mentality. Of Almost like this imposter syndrome. Then we kinda got into the Apple era and Steve Jobs really Championing

1:47 Design. When we started Figma. We didn't know if Figma Design was a big enough market because the bureau labor cystics said that there are two hundred fifty thousand designers or something like that in the United States. Well now design has to see the table. What we had hanging from the walls of the New York Stock Exchange was

2:05 Signage that had the words design is everyone's business. That's Dylan Field, co-founder and CEO of Figma, the collaborative design platform. Figma burst into the public eye in 2022 after Adobe made a$20 billion bid to buy the company that was then derailed amid regulatory issues. Dylan hasn't looked back. He engineered a splashy IPO this summer at nearly twice that valuation. In today's episode, we talk about that journey, what sets Figma apart from Adobe and Canva, and what it takes to level up your skills in an AI world. Dylan represents both a rising generation of tech native CEOs and the increasing centrality of design for all industries and roles in a software dominated economy. Plus he offers some great practical insights on how to improve your AI prompting, so let's get to it. I'm Bob Safien, and this

3:10 is rapid response. I'm Bob Safian. I'm here with uh Dylan Field, co-founder and CEO of Figma. Dylan, thanks for uh joining us. Thank you so much for having me. You first got on my radar because you were a Kleiner Perkins design fellow working at Flipboard. My son was also a Kleiner fellow who ended up working as a designer at Flipboard for a couple of years also. And he always raved about Figma. Now, you know, since then of course the this passion from the design community, you've you've moved past that to grow

3:46 Into broader audiences. It it seems kinda tricky to build a product for like a specialized audience. And the general one. Is that part of the fun, like solving that challenge.

3:58 The challenge and the fun part is that Uh Design Is So broad now and it's how you win or lose. It is the differentiator that's core.

4:09 to every software business. And so A lot of people, whether they're calling themselves designers, not calling themselves designers, uh, they are now part of the design process. And I think Looking ahead. What we're going to find is that more and more people really care about design since it's how you win or lose in a world of more and more software.

4:28 But Right now. the way we kinda wake up every day and think about it is How do we make it so that Uh Figma is approachable.

4:38 But also It is powerful. And that is a constant tension that we wrestle with. We're trying to go from an idea in your head To a shipped Product that's awesome.

4:49 And we're seeing not just designers, but product managers. developers, you know, and more people in the organization About Two thirds of our users are those non designers and so how do we help them succeed in Figma as well.

5:03 Even though that designer uh persona is the core of what we do. For those who aren't using Figma. And I know Figma's used by almost all the Fortune five hundred companies. What makes Figma different from From like Adobe

5:17 Canva like. How do you describe that differentiation? Yeah. So Figma is focused on digital product design. We're trying to get you from idea to product. How do we eliminate the gap between imagination and reality? We've got Not just Figma design and make, but also

5:32 Whiteboarding. Brainstorming diagramming ideation tool. With Fig Jam. Tools for illustration, tools for graphic creation and scale. With thing my buzz.

5:43 Thickness sites, a way to Go. Ship websites. Uh and we have depth mode.

5:51 to bring people from design To code. You know, Canva is an amazing platform if you're trying to make Templated graphics, especially for consumer use cases. Like if you want to make a birthday card. Kimba's probably gonna

6:05 Yeah, have a Great. Template or set templates for you. And uh Adobe on the other hand. You know, if you're taking a movie.

6:13 They're awesome. Uh we're not trying to make movies, we're not trying trying to make uh birthday cards, we're trying to make software. I should congratulate'cause you you had a a a blockbuster IPO this summer. The stock settled a bit, but you still got nearly a a thirty billion dollar valuation, which is uh Double what

6:32 You know, what what Adobe tried to buy you for a couple of years ago. Going public with with so much fanfare and attention. And success. Like has has that been fun? Like h how much do you look at it as sort of distraction in some ways for you and your team versus like let's ride this wave as long as it'll go. This is this is great. I've been really proud of the team. I think

6:56 Nothing's really changed in terms of our focus. I think the day itself Was not just a celebration of Figma, but a celebration of design. And for design to Uh go public. In that way.

7:08 I I just felt very honored. To be able to be part of that. The slogan of the day. When we had pain from the walls of the New York Stock Exchange was The words design is everyone's business.

7:19 There are some champagne toast, uh some people who are singing karaoke that night. What's your go to karaoke song? After two weeks of Road Show My voice was gone. So I was just trying to make conversation, not sing that night, but uh there were some epic performances for sure. I mean I I you know I I thought about you a a a lot. And it

7:39 the the whiplash you had to go through with the a dir Adobe merger getting blocked. And I and I'm curious how that How the companies Different Because of that experience? Are you different? Are your products different? Like there were strategic reasons you wanted to become part of Adobe. Initially.

7:58 Yeah, it's interesting the company that's acquiring In this period. Between uh sign and close. They can't direct activities. And that's something I think people don't really know.

8:10 And so We had a roadmap going in to the deal. And that was our roadmap during the deal. It didn't change. And

8:18 I think was on the gas. Throughout the And the more that we started to You know, have to ask ourselves with

8:28 Just regulatory being what it was. Uh whether or not That was Like a correct assessment, not a correct assessment. You know, we'll leave it to history to tell.

8:37 But I think that Throughout as we saw that regulatory risk was real. That gave us even more impetus to say, okay, foot on the gas even more. I was like, Okay, if we're part of Adobe

8:51 Great. We're going in strong. And if we're not We should definitely be keeping our phone in the gas. It was hard. You know, as you're talking with regulators all over the world. That's almost a full time job in itself.

9:04 And to do that while also keeping the company going at full speed, and then some The team was incredible through that period. Hm. My assumption in some ways that was that part of the appeal for Adobe of having Figma was like you guys are future tools that they didn't have and a future way of of operating. Where they want to go is where you are. And To a certain extent, maybe where they are is some of the places you want to go.

9:31 We still don't really see Adobe as competitive. Uh I think it's The easy framing maybe a lot of the Adobe Suite I'm not rushing to go build any of that. We have so much to go cover this journey from I D product. And I think that the the focus for us right now

9:48 is on a lot of um the eye stuff that's opportunities. To make it so that we can lower the floor, bring more people into the design process, but also raise the ceiling. Make us the designers can do more. It's easy to say those words. It's a lot to execute on to actually make that really good and up to the standards of designers.

10:07 Because Ultimately. All of us humans We expect more From AI than we expect from a human.

10:14 You know, if you say okay Here's a small prompt to Uh change my spacing. In a file. Uh

10:23 Yeah, Figma better get it right. Uh Otherwise people dismiss as out of hand. I'm not saying that we have to do the work of a world class designer because we won't. Uh there's a need for designers to lead the charge.

10:35 And AI will only get you so far. Um But The Drudgery.

10:40 How do we remove that from the design process? How do we give more access to more people? Bring more people into the world of creating prototypes and software. Those are our big uh things to to bite off.

10:54 I've noticed that the word design and uh The definition of what a designer is is often misunderstood. By people in the business community, often by in investors in the and the Wall Street community, you know, people think, oh, designer like they're deciding what color the curtains are gonna be, you know, or something like that. And you know, and I've had that I've had these conversations before with like Mark Parker when he was the CEO of Nike, who was a designer, Brian Chesky at Airbnb. Like Designer CEOs are still

11:24 sort of a small club. Wha w w what do people not understand about design? What makes the designer CEO different? There's a million definition of design. Uh But Uh

11:39 I always like to think of it kind of as um And it's core problem solving. And I think that people kinda go on this design journey in Maybe the first step is like Does it not even matter?

11:50 Yeah, I I made something cool. Why do I need a designer? And then I think at some point people go, Okay, well I should at least make it pretty. I'll hire a designer. How do I make it pop? How do I make it cool? Sexy. And then I think from there people go, Wait a second, it's

12:05 Maybe that's not enough because I'm putting this in front of people, my product, my software. Map. And uh they don't know how to use it. They're getting stuck. And I think then from there they kinda think about uh okay, well what's the overall system? How do I think through how this entire thing should work.

12:22 What's the brand? What's my point of view as a business? What are the business constraints? What's the culture right now? Uh, how does that a affect everything? You know, it's like you can kinda go out in these outer rings and just keep going. And um I think that uh designers Have

12:40 for a long time had mentality. Uh Almost like this imposter syndrome. If you think about the way that design has evolved as a career There were almost no designers in you know nineteen nineties, early two thousand.

12:56 Th very few in number. They were Oftentimes misunderstood. And yet they did incredible work despite it. Then we kinda got into the Apple era of

13:08 You know, design is how it works. Um, and Steve Jobs really Championing. Design. You start to see this rapid growth. The number of designers being hired. When when we started Figma

13:20 We didn't know if Figma Design was a big enough market because the bureau labor cystics Said that um there were two hundred fifty thousand designers or something like that in the United States. And But the reality was that just there's this total exponential trend. of how many designers were being hired and how design to engineer ratios were changing.

13:39 True. That growth. There were new challenges that were introduced. How do I keep everything consistent when all these different design voices have All sorts of creative ideas they wanna explore.

13:51 And also How do I be efficient? On a team. With many designers around the table. How do I

13:59 Bring my voice designer. to the highest levels, how do I have a seat at the table? And that was kind of the meme then. Well now design has to see the table. Like in the Era of today.

14:10 I think people recognize the importance of design. They might not always understand it. But everyone's trying to understand it. So now I think it's like how do we lead? How does design bring people along And how did more designers step into uh roles?

14:24 Where they can guide their organizations because The design process of Uh thinking through Different ways things can work, diverging And then uh being able to converge on a solution.

14:36 And Deliver it to customers and iterate. That is the business process that you go through for everything. And that's what everyone needs to be thinking through. As they adapt.

14:46 in this new age of software that we're in. There's this expression like stay in your lane, right? And in in for a lot of corporate roles, like you're a marketer, you stay in your lane, you know, and and as you're talking about the history, there was a certain point where like people push designers to stay in a certain kind of lane. But I but I've always found that design is most effective because it crosses over between different disciplines, right? And it And it and it finds connection in in that problem solving. Yeah, and and in the early days of Figma, that was such a boost for us because the collaboration and the way that people could come together in one space. More recently, the roles of

15:24 design, engineer, product management, researcher They're blending so much more than ever before. And we've actually done some research around this. Fifty six percent of non designers Said they engage uh a lot or a great deal In at least one design centric task.

15:43 And then almost two thirds identified with more than two or more roles. So I think people are breaking out of those lanes. People are identified more and more as just product builders. Um

15:56 And Not necessarily they're their singular role or title they've been assigned. That doesn't mean that more people call themselves designers. But it does mean.

16:05 That more people be involved in the design process. So how do we welcome them in? And how do we give them the tools they need? For you as a CEO, like How do you

16:15 Approach. leading and running the company differently because you're a designer. I think I definitely Do take a uh more expansive view of okay, what are the

16:27 different path here when there's a decision it's just a decision that really matters. I like to You know, try to play it out, see how it connects to other things. I sometimes have to curb this impulse a little bit because sometimes you just gotta move. And so I'm always learning about when that right time is

16:44 Uh 'Cause at some point you gotta converge. Sometimes you gotta converge fast. Sometimes for really strategic decisions, you gotta converge slow. Dylan's focus on when to act with speed versus patience isn't confined just to Figma or to the design world. It's a leadership challenge I've been hearing from lots of CEOs as they navigate so much volatility. So for Dylan, How does his decision making adjust when working with the fast evolving arena of AI? And where does he see the design of AI interfaces and prompting adjusting in the time ahead? We'll talk about that and more.

17:22 After the break. Stay with us. Hey, listeners, Bob here. If you listen to Rapid Response on Masters of Scale, you may be missing half the show because every Friday we release a second Rapid Response exclusively in the Rapid Response feed. The guests and topic are just as compelling and timely. From Ford CEO to NASA's administrator to the lessons from The Devil Wears Prada. It takes about 10 seconds to find, just search rapid response wherever you listen to podcasts and hit follow to make sure you never miss an episode. I hope to see you there.

18:09 Humans will never be more intelligent than AI. There's gonna be two types of companies. Those were great at AI and those that went out of business because they weren't. How do we build a future? That is human centered. I'm Rana El Chayubi. And on my podcast Pioneers of AI, we answer that question and so many more. As an AI scientist, entrepreneur, and investor, I know what it takes to build AI that works for everyone.

18:38 Every week, I sit down with the pioneers shaping our future. And we take you behind the scenes of the AI that's transforming our lives. Find pioneers of AI wherever you tune in. Before the break, Figmas Dylan Field talked about the company's blockbuster IPO and the rising role of design in a software centric economy. Now he explains how AI is poised to raise the ceiling on what's possible with design tools and where he predicts AI interfaces will move. Plus his advice on leveling up your own AI prompting skills.

19:16 Let's dive back in. AI is impacting every industry. It's impacting design. You said You don't think it's gonna replace jobs, the designer itself. I'm curious how you do think it's gonna impact I think What ends up happening is

19:37 You're able just to explore more. As a designer. More of the option space faster. And I think this will be very helpful.

19:47 In a world where you're Needing to design for so many different screens. And there's so many different places that uh your system that you're creating Needs to surface. We are

20:00 Working on and We'll soon ship. features around how do you prompt to edit, prompt to Rif. And

20:07 Uh the added in the Prompts especially Once people learn those, I think it will sp save a lot of time. Vib coding is is this rising craze, right? And and and the the um allure, I guess, is that it's more natural language based. Although I'll have to say that when I use most of these tools, like It's not intuitive. Like you do really have to learn how to use the prompt and the tool the right way.

20:32 It sounds like that's what you're saying also, right? You do have to know how to use these tools. It's not gonna necessarily Be as intuitive as maybe we might We might think from the outside. You have to try different things. You have to experiment And you have to see what works. I think it's important to know how to sort of discretize tas.

20:53 If you're able to break up tasks the right way. That really helps. Because if you tell Yeah. Whether it's Figma Make or You know, whatever.

21:03 Uh agent. You know, go make me um Uh Google. Like Microsoft. Like you know, it just makes no sense. Go make me Figma.

21:13 It's not gonna go make you Pygma. Yeah. Yeah, I've you said okay, um Oh one. To make A line drawing tool.

21:22 And here's how I think it'll work and here's what I want to see And you give it a pretty clefication figma make. that has a better uh chance of converging And Converging the way you want to.

21:34 But still. Yeah. Even if you're very good with your prompting. You might get to good enough, but good enough Is not enough.

21:44 Good enough is now mediocre. And In this world where There's an exponential amount of software that exists. And it's going up all the time.

21:54 I think that competition has never been more fierce. Design if you accept that's the differentiator. Then You have to differentiate through design. And craft.

22:05 And so you have to push these tools. Uh but also uh Your team. Way further than you ever have before. I find when I use the tools like

22:15 I'm I'm often like amazed at how quickly, you know, it's able to create something, right? Whether it's whether it's code or whether it's, you know, a video or w whatever. But then at the same time, when I look at that closely, I'm like, But it's still kinda messy. Right. Like like you still I I have to spend more time to fine tune it and maybe I have to end up fine tuning a lot of it myself, not not using those tools. Yeah, I think the riffing, the refinement

22:46 Uh the creative iteration. Is everything? And Some of that can be done with AI. But a lot of it needs to be done.

22:54 By hand still. And even As we get to a place where AI can help you with more of the workflow. It still requires the human push.

23:04 And I think in the coding case You know Zero to one, one to a hundred are totally different. So Zero to one we're going to a Pro type.

23:14 Like the models are exceptional. At that Maybe not getting it high quality from a design standpoint, you're gonna have to push there, but Just making it work. Yeah.

23:24 It's very impressive. But then going from one to a hundred. If you're in a established code base. the productivity that gains there are are not what they are in that zero to one stage. And so um

23:36 I think that uh uh things are not changing maybe as fast as Some would claim. But also no one knows the curve we're on. Is it uh, you know, are we at the flat end of an S curve? Are we on an exponential? Are we on an S curve about to become an exponential? With some architecture shift? I mean Stay tuned week over week there's updates. Uh you know. I mean, you just gotta always know there's a new model to drop.

24:01 And You have to make sure that your strategy aligns with the I game better. And For Figma. That's what we're always checking is okay.

24:10 If The models get better. We should get better. I think that's true for most companies. That's the test. I'm curious about your take on where sort of the interface

24:21 might be moving the interface for I AI. I mean we've been we've been consumed with chatbots. Brian Chesky talked to me about his conviction that voice would not be the answer. You know, open AI is doing something with Johnny Ive, although it's not really clear what that is. Meta seems to be betting on glasses. Like, do you have a a a prediction, a theory about where the interfaces are moving. The only thing that's clear to me Is that There'll be

24:48 An explosion of uh Options. And space to cover in terms of how people are consuming Uh software and digital content.

24:59 I kinda think everything has its place. And Um It'll all be used. The question is what will be used the most.

25:09 And I think when it comes to the interface for prompting. Uh To me, it feels like we're still in just this MS DOS era of AI. Uh where Basically

25:21 We're gonna look back and go, Wow. Can you believe we ever prompt it like that? Like, can you look at the stuff we were writing down? To get The models to do that thing.

25:31 Um The way I think about it is like the models are This Incredible spaceship. that can navigate through

25:40 You know, this hyper dimensional laden space. But The only way that you can steer it right now is textual prompting. Uh what is The interface, what is the compass that can be created?

25:52 per use case as we start to really understand the use cases of That will let people more intuitively And with more ability to steer

26:05 actually control where they want to go. in that laden space. So I I just think that's a giant opportunity that We're gonna see a lot of exploration in. I I I wanna ask you one question about your yourself personally. You co founded Figma when you were nineteen, which is a f a formative age for for most of us. For a lot of people sort of

26:24 Their twenties is a time where they do a lot of sort of Very loose exploration, right? And and you've been very Task. Focused and had to be and clearly you enjoyed it, but But I wonder whether you ever think about like

26:38 The things that do Didn't get to do'cause that was the choice you made. You know I uh I had plenty of existential crises and um

26:49 You know uh Random paths I was able to explore. During two and a half years at Brown. There's always more from like a college setting that I wish I was able to have learned. And

27:01 You know, yeah, maybe I had a little less time to Read the books I would have loved to read. Uh Do the math, I would have loved to explore Uh be able to Yeah.

27:12 go on all the hikes I would have liked to go on, but Uh, it's been very meaningful and I have no regrets. That was the reason that I started. Working with Evan in the first place was I was Yeah, comparing contrasting going

27:26 I'm gonna learn more from Working with Evan, my co founder. than any other situation I can put myself in. So whether Figma works, doesn't work This doesn't feel like a risk to me. Worst case scenario is I learn

27:38 A ton from heaven. And then I go back to Brown. And

27:44 Like, how blessed am I? How lucky am I to be able to say that, you know? Uh so I've just felt A lot of gratitude all along the way too. Well Dylan, this has been great. Thanks so much for doing it.

27:56 Thank you again for having me and really fun to chat and catch up. I love talking to young leaders like Dylan, hearing them explain how they think and see the world, their fresh approaches, even as they work to refine the stories they tell about their business and themselves. I'll confess there was a time where I was a design skeptic. It just seemed squishy to me, but I've learned that design is a discipline for problem solving that meshes well with our modern pace of change. While design is sometimes defined as appearance or style, it's really a holistic way to connect across tasks and silos and to test assumptions.

28:38 It's also distinctly human, which is what makes Dylan's commitment to software and AI as a tool for democratizing design so fascinating. While we might not all call ourselves designers, the best entrepreneurial leaders are always finding new ways to look with fresh eyes. grappling with the fine details of what's under the hood, while also focusing on the big picture. I'm Bob Sathien. Thanks for listening.

29:13 Rapid response is a wait what original. I'm Bob Safian. Our executive producer is Eve Tro. Our producer is Alex Morris. Associate producer is Mashimaku Tonina. Mixing and Mastering by Aaron Bastonelli. Our theme music is by Ryan Holiday. Our head of podcasts is Lytal Malad.

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