Dylan Field - Designing The Future - [Invest Like the Best, EP.407]

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0:25 Operate smarter and stay ahead of the curve. See what Ridgeline can unlock for your firm. Schedule a demo at ridgeline.ai. Hello and welcome everyone. I'm Patrick O'Shaughnessy and this is Invest Like the Best. This show is an open ended exploration of markets, ideas, stories, and strategies that will help you better invest both your time and your money. Invest Like the Best is part of the Colossus family of podcasts, and you can access all our podcasts, including edited transcripts, show notes, and other resources to keep learning at joincolosis.com

1:00 Mm. Patrick O'Shaughnessy is the CEO of Positive Sum. All opinions expressed by Patrick and podcast guests are solely their own opinions and do not reflect the opinion of Positive Some. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a basis for investment decisions. Clients of Positive Sum may maintain positions in the securities discussed in this podcast.

1:23 To learn more, visit psum.vc. My guest today is Dylan Field. Dylan is the co founder and CEO of Figma and last joined me on Invest Like the Best in two thousand twenty. A lot has changed since then and we explore the evolvs of design and how Figma has been navigating AI while staying true to its founding vision of eliminating the gap between imagination and reality. Despite Figma's incredible success in becoming the default design platform, Dylan remains deeply motivated by helping users achieve their goals.

1:54 He shares fascinating insights about the underhyped aspects of AI reasoning capabilities, the future of design literacy, and why he believes truly great design will always require human craft and creativity. Please enjoy my discussion with Dylan Field. four years since we did this last, which is completely nuts. Terrifies me. I'd love to just get your state of the union on the world of technology today. Like what are you thinking? Like what are you paying attention to? What do you think's going on?

2:21 It's funny. I I can remember where we were. The last time we had a conversation for just the podcast versus the lab dominant conversation. And Am a

2:30 be in this like rental house. with my wife and some of her friends. And It was like Total lockdown.

2:38 Armor. Around the same time. N F T's were just Starting to take off if you're paying attention to them. I think we're pretty excited about the metaverse.

2:47 Crypto bull cycle is just starting again. And we're all trying to figure out what Covid would do to the world. And how that would change things. And what the Decade.

2:57 Of the twenties would be like And I feel like now we're like midway through a decade. There is some tweet. Thanks for Belsky Reddit.

3:07 And He was saying I think that the twenty twenties will be like the Roaring twenties. There's this period. With Covid bubble and the public markets that Everyone thought that might be the case, and then I feel like maybe we didn't think it was the case and

3:21 Certainly it feels like we're back in some strange bullish cycle right now. Both with regards to public equities and Tech in general.

3:31 And what people are willing to support and bet on. Do you look at technology broadly It feels like there's a lot of optimism about doing hard things right now. And perhaps that's sort of on the back of All this progress with AI.

3:46 And folks knowing now that The predictions from That is ten years ago. Like thirty years ago. Are pretty correct.

3:55 Down to a T. Kurt's File is right. It's wild how some of these essays from like Early nineties. Got it right on the money. And I think that opens up the possibility for people to think a bit more long term.

4:08 And be more bold, maybe. And With that. It feels like people are willing to do stuff that is a bit

4:15 Less traditional as well. So I feel like we broke out of the Overton windows across the board. In social discourse, but also technology. And yeah, let's see where it goes. the waters that you swim in include lots of these most ambitious people pushing those frontiers and windows.

4:31 Can you say like a click more detail about what it feels like to engage with those people relative to like the marginal entrepreneur that was talented that you met in twenty nineteen or something like that? How do they feel different? I think that the best entrepreneurs have like a level of certainty about them. And I think that same certainty exists. in folks that I was spending time with

4:51 in twenty twenty, twenty twenty one. Versus twenty twenty four, twenty twenty five. Most of which I'm still in touch with. We're still Train emails.

4:59 So it's not like these relationships fade. But I think that people starting things today On average Are thinking a bit more long term. It's less about what happens over the next six months and more about what happens over the next six years.

5:12 That'd be my macro observation. Do you feel like that was something that you had really harnessed in the early days? Cause I know it was like three or four years that you were building before you launched. Maybe take us back to then. That's a decade ago ish. Perhaps it's some selection bias with the story of Pygma. Yeah. Folks. Are going, Oh man, I gotta hunker down for a few years. I should talk to Dylan. I'm super curious about the hardest parts of building something in private for so long without

5:40 tons of open market feedback on the product or pricing feedback or whatever. How you keep a team motivated. when you have a strong vision for what something should look like, but you have to build for a long time before anyone can see it. That seems like a lot there's a lot of those projects going on right now. When I look back, I go, Man, I wish that we had gotten out earlier, first of all. I tell everyone that.

6:00 It's like what's the smallest increment of the idea That you could get out. In an inspiring form. I definitely look back and wish that we had found that

6:11 smaller bit sooner. It would have made everything a bit easier. It's also way easier to say that now. We don't have the split test of what happens If we were to have launched with Something very basic.

6:23 Or incremental. Would it still have led to the thigma of today? We just don't know. But the hard parts were Obviously just motivated the team, say milestones.

6:34 Conveying product feedback. When I would give feedback to the team, it was often writing. I'd write up notes from talking to customers I'd visit and put the Until I got to the point where I started just literally recording

6:47 User research sessions with people's consent, of course. And then playing those back to the team. in group studies we would just sit there and awkwardly watch people struggle with a product for five minutes. That was the way to get people motivated about like oh we gotta solve these problems. Well there's still a disbelief of

7:03 Okay, if we actually solve them. Well people care. And I think you don't know that viscerally. Until you get something out into the market. Or at least announce?

7:11 If you make an announcement and it's Big enough. then people will react to it and that can motivate An internal effort, but Even that is hard. A lot of people without traction struggle to launch things in a way that's scaled.

7:24 Gain that reach and that scale. If you're doing something that's truly unique. That's tough. So even that getting the right action, like you have to be pretty Clear about

7:32 what you're building and why to the team. And people would be really fired up about admission. One of the things that Obviously distinguish Figma early days was this leap inability to create things like the gap between one's imagination and

7:46 A realized output was collapsed by Figma. And the way that even the friction for how they use that tool in the browser was collapsed. Again, it feels like you're in a very interesting position in that the enabling technologies that are coming out right now in and around AI most specifically.

8:02 are like this on steroids. They are further collapsing the potential gap between one's imagination and a realized output. How do you think about navigating that? as one of the people running one of the big companies that does this as a service. Both the opportunities and the risks. It must be such an interesting time for you to think about

8:22 Both sides of the equation. And I would love to hear about both of them in whatever order you want. This was the founding vision was they'll meet the gap between imagination and reality. Was that literally the founding that was the vision statement at the start. At some point we

8:34 Made it more concrete about Made design accessible to all Because people are getting getting confused about the donated gap between imagination and reality. I'm I'm looking at time comp photo papers with my co founder Evan and Or seeing how many can use internet scale data to fill in Regions of a photograph to basically do content fill, but

8:51 Good away that is sourced from the internet rather than Something clever. So we're looking at like early machine learning approaches as applied to creative tools and we were getting excited. But Also starting to think about what's potential for some like a BCI in terms of human computer interaction. And I felt like that was

9:07 A vision statement that could last us a long time. And the feedback we got was this is so abstract. What the heck are you guys talking about? And some point we made it more concrete and now it feels like it's the time to make it. A bit more abstract again. But yeah, I think that in terms of how I think about What AI can do

9:22 And the applications. I think that It's both like underhyped and overhyped at the same time somehow. I feel like the reasoning capabilities in like O in Pro Mode right now. Recording this on January tenth. Got a time step. Yeah.

9:36 Yeah. In the week everything can be different. It's AI timelines. That still seems underhyped as of right now. I felt that way for the past month. I'm curious what you've experienced that makes you feel that way. Well, there's a leap from One Preview to Oen promote.

9:50 In terms of just how much compete is used, I think. Or perhaps it's something about the way they trained it. But the level of analysis And

9:59 Thoughtfulness that is now included in answers, the level of intent. That Can it be detected from your prompt? You don't have to be as mechanical about prompting things, actually. And the outcomes are just quite good. I mean I use it for so many

10:12 Things now. It's the first time I felt like there's Something that resembles intelligence on the other end. I get to work a lot with lawyers. And with O one pro mode I can

10:23 Often get a sense of What are the Important things to cover in a legal call. Before I have the call. So I can have like a shorter billable hour. Hm.

10:31 How do you prompt it? If you can Actually get conceptual Materi out. In preparation for

10:38 a conversation with somebody. Generates a lot of efficiency. And Let's you short circuit to the things that matter. It's been excellent as a learn. I can deep dive on concepts

10:49 that are not ones I've encountered and it has very good knowledge broadly and is much more accurate. At the same time I feel like it's overhyped to Yeah, in general. It feels like there's still very much this outer loop that exists around AI. It's like it can do things for us much faster and yet We have to help it maneuver.

11:07 We have to Give it guidance. Yes, it's getting better at predicting intent, but it's not All the way there at all. And so

11:15 Yeah, it's this interesting period where I think people see where Things could go if everything was perfect, but it's just not perfect. I don't expect it to be for a very long time. I think in the context of Figma We really thought about our I efforts as

11:28 Lowering the floor, but raising the ceiling. One example that is How do we generate a first draft for you? This isn't gonna be A system that's going to generate the final output.

11:38 But if we can make a first draft that then you can go off of build off of Iterate on explored the tree of possibilities with Then hopefully You can get to the point where you're able to deep dive on one of those possibilities, understand the trade offs. And bring even more craft to your design.

11:56 My sense is that the amount of software that will be created will continue to go up exponentially. We've been on an exponential curve, but it's gonna go more vertical. And so then what's the differentiator its design, it's craft. And it's really important to make sure that you bring that If you want to stand out in the market.

12:15 How do you think about the ability to continue to bet on things which won't change in an era of hyper change. What can you hang your hat on? that will still be true five or ten years from now and build around reliably. versus

12:28 Worrying that Two iterations of the model forward. Everything that Figma does becomes like a prompt and I can just like talk to O five. And there's a little screen and it just gets built, not just the design, but like the whole application. He started thinking about this crazy stuff.

12:43 How do you navigate That strategically. I saw a tweet recently and I wish I remember who posted it. I can't find it for the life of me, but Sorry, whoever it was, I'm not attributing you. But it was something like as a designer, I'm not worried about AI replacing my job.

12:57 because a product manager can't even prompt me the right way. And I feel like that's super true. Design is incorporating So many different aspects of Culture of user behavior of alignment.

13:12 Of craft, of just knowledge about Where people are in different flows. And more. It's so much about like the almost debate of how it should work as well as the pixel perfection of what it looks like. It's something about creativity meeting problem solving in an interesting way.

13:28 I feel like maybe design becomes much more accessible to people. Which I think is a good thing. But I mean if you work with A designer who is very new. to the world design. versus somebody who

13:40 is just incredibly experienced, knows deeply how every system works. Is able to keep incredible state in their head around a complex systems problem. For I mean the latter is is rare. You will see the difference. And

13:52 I just feel like even as design is made more accessible, it doesn't mean that craft is made More ubiquitous. I suspect that There will be high levels of craft that tools like Figma can help people reach.

14:03 But the thinking around What to bring to market, when, how And how exactly it should work in navigating these really complex systems trade offs that could unfold over years. Is just non trivial. I think those all remain constants.

14:19 Everyone is very focused on L's and their derivatives and and things built upon them. Are there any other new technologies that you are watching like you're watching

14:31 those core models as they roll out that you feel like are enabling of What you do or what you hope to see others do. Reasoning is a little bit different than LMs. We're conflating them right now, but they're seem to be two different things and I think it's pretty exciting to imagine what

14:47 Progress in math and science can be like. With the help of reasoning models that are able to think For extended periods of time on a task. And very exciting to think about how

14:57 that could create new technologies for everyone. In the figure context, I wouldn't say that there's necessarily like new technics. outside of the world of AI that I think are Really changing

15:10 A lot for us right now. That said. I think that markets and sort of preferences are ever shifting. And I think people are getting a lot more sophisticated about the way they build applications.

15:21 The way that they Think about their internal systems. And that's exciting. And stuff that we can think about as we work through our strategy. What about like technology advancements and

15:31 Tech trees is the term we were talking about before Hitler Cord, what WebGL represented and why it was such a big deal and the nature of the incrementality of this one. With WebGL. Similarly, Figma became possible for the first time. In the past, you had to be desktop. in order to do complex graphics in application.

15:48 And we were Not sure where the limits of WebGL would be. Originally. Evan spent a lot of time building something that was more cross platform, honestly, and could target desktop as well as Web. We had to rip it all out later'cause WebGL worked out.

16:03 But we even hedged our bets initially. Because we were believers, but it was like oh man, is there some part of this that's not gonna work out. And it turned out that you could do everything we dreamed of on the web. And do it in a really production ready way. Whereas

16:17 Web DV use. Awesome. We'll create All sorts of benefits, but I'd say it's more of an extension of What you can do with the GPU. Then

16:26 Going from not being able to use the GPU. to using the GPU. What do you think about the role of these fancy reasoning engines being plugged in to make your product better? There's this abstract idea like okay, now we have a reasoning engine It can do whatever, we can use it to do some stuff. How do you decide what stuff to

16:44 Try to have it do. To make the product better. What's the framework for which you attack that opportunity? It's Maybe counterintuitive at this point, but

16:52 Despite my excitement about reason engines. I think there's so much low hanging fruit. to dive into reasoning. To make Are probably better with AI.

17:00 And so we started off with the most basic of things like let's go make diagrams better in fig jam and we went into Okay, how do we get it so that you can do stuff like Name your layers automatically. Or create a first draft.

17:13 Of a design. Or can we help you rewrite text in Figma slides? to match tone better and create a interface to explore that. Without talking more about where we're going next to our red map. I still think that there's so much low hanging fruit that we can explore.

17:29 And that's super obvious before we get to fancy stuff like racing engines. And I think that There's not many examples in the market as of today. that are using reasoning At the product level yet.

17:40 I think the few that are trying are still struggling. To prioritize it. Doesn't mean it's not coming. I think it's harder to probably create a great experience around given just the nature of

17:51 Where that tree Can branch out into versus it's even less deterministic. In like an L M. If you conceptualize it as like an LM thinking

18:00 And talking to itself for a long time and ending up in Interesting spots down the logic tree. I actually It could be even more interesting, honestly, to Expose the tree of possibilities

18:10 Rather than try to Hide away from somebody. Think a lot of reasoning is when LM basically traversing that tree itself and then figuring out what do I tell to the user. Personally I think that

18:21 A lot of the value in design is actually seeing the tree. Think that's probably true elsewhere. Exposing the tree as a general idea. Maybe. Yeah. It depends on the domain probably. And also use case.

18:31 Does it worry you the notion that These things could get so good that You already mentioned the thing about the designer and the product manager. But if I imagine a perfectly designed Funded. competitor whose only mission in life was kill Figma.

18:45 that they would approach this as It's gonna be the same thing. But the thing you design in Gigma works. It's a fulfill app at the end. All the underlying code is written. It's not just a prototype, it's a live production app.

18:58 Is that a ridiculous notion? Do you think that will happen? Could Figma just be the one that does that? How do you think about that brain stretching possibility? Where everyone's a software developer now.

19:08 I may have a few reactions. I think that the amount of software created will go vertical. I think that A lot of people make a lot more software. Doesn't mean it's Good software. And I think that designers and people that are

19:20 Able to bring more craft to the equation. Yeah, they bring that temporal, emotional, cultural context. That can really differentiate something. And yes, I also Believe that

19:30 There's more we can do. to improve software development in general. That's why we with Figma have really tried to map out the process of software development. So we start with Big Gm, brainstorming ideation. Do we want a few more slides like alignment? Yeah, if they can design for design and then dev mode for design to development and

19:48 How to translate. Two developers. Yeah, I definitely think that there's way more we can do to make it so that people are able to achieve even more and go through that loop. Of software development. Even faster.

20:00 So that excites me a lot. Are there things that you're counting on happening that you expect to happen that you think to the average person would seem outlandish. Dyson Sphere by twenty one hundred. Say more.

20:12 The Transition to the next type of civilization that We might encounter.

20:19 Probably we like harness The energy of the sun by twenty one hundred. Or maybe it's not our sun, maybe we harnessed energy of a neighboring sun. No need to mess with ours. But yeah, then you can do all sorts of interesting things.

20:30 I think we set that as The goal maybe becomes a lot sooner, but I think certainly by twenty one hundred. We should be able to get there. What about in the next ten years? Is there anything that you expect to happen in the next ten years that you think other people might think is like outlandishly bullish or something?

20:45 The beauty of digital right now is that It feels like anything is possible. Yeah, maybe that's the Outlandish thing period. is that we're getting to a place where

20:55 I've kind of always Felt like the approach should be. You can build anything that's not violating the laws of physics. Given enough time. And now like the time portion of that even is decreasing on the digital side.

21:08 And certainly digital is not usually violating the laws of physics. So that's pretty exciting. If you were giving like a Graduate level. Seminar. presentation or something on the future.

21:19 Of design. How would you think about Structuring your slides. Built in Figma, of course. Whatever you're speaking to folks, I think you have to think about the audience.

21:28 I would probably try to make this presentation for as general of an audience as possible. By definition, it wouldn't necessarily be graduate level in the first place, pushing us back into the premise. Sorry, I'm not your LM to prompt. I'll keep trying. So yeah, I mean I would try to basically encourage everyone to try to build design literacy. And figure out How do you

21:49 Dead better. And increase your abilities. in the field of design. And I think that if you look at the next generation of entrepreneurs And founders and certainly software, but also in hardware.

22:00 They Are becoming so much more design literate. And again, maybe it's selection bias. I hear So many founders that tell me

22:08 They start Infigma. And they're like In Figma Design. A lot of the time.

22:13 They might not even have a designer on the team. They aspire to. But they don't yet because they're just starting off. That's where a lot of folks live now. is on this digital canvas trying to figure out how should something work.

22:24 And when I look at the future of people that'll work in technology or folks that are going to be founders when we look at the students that we reach with Figma through our EDU efforts. It's just incredible. To see How

22:37 advanced they are. And how much They are deep diving. On design as a discipline. Yeah, I think that

22:45 More than we ever could have imagined. It's becoming a skill that I hope one day it'll be more like listening Microsoft Word in your resume. Right now, people put Figma on the resumes.

22:57 If you put Microsoft in a word in a resume, it's kind of like a red flag. And I hope we get to that status. 'Cause it's so obvious that you should know how to design things. That doesn't mean you're gonna be a writer. But

23:08 Everyone should be able to engage the discipline of design. If I did like an eighty twenty analysis of design principles in the eighty What are the most important things to really grok and understand. for someone new to the discipline.

23:21 Design principles. Span UX but also visuals They're different when You're thinking about product versus

23:29 Branding. And so it depends a lot on Like context we're talking about right now. I think if you're talking more on the software UX side. I would say the first things I see people mess up.

23:40 are when to reuse versus when to be inventive. There are plenty of patterns that users already know. And sometimes it's very useful to be inventive and create new patterns, and that's why something can catch on and sometimes it's not. I would say that people fail to consider flows. So a lot of times they don't

23:56 think about where user's coming from. They think only about a certain state. That someone's in right now. And that context, if they lack it, can hurt them and hurt their experience. I think that they Often are too indirect.

24:09 So they have Complex ways of manipulating. Where you have to manipulate it. on maybe it's one screen over here and you have to go to different screen to be able to see the effect or It's not all in one place. You can't get that call and response, that immediate feedback loop.

24:23 That doesn't mean that you have to be direct manipulation like a tool like Figma, but The closer you can get to manipulation to the effect, I think, is better. And then I think more than the twenty is The stuff that we try to mimify inside of Figma. Make the simple things simple, the complex things possible. And that's not an original fighterism that goes back a long way. Same as design quote, but

24:41 I would say that It's easy to just endlessly do what users want. add more power to applications and then end up with something super complex that's not useful, not approachable. It's one of the biggest risks for Figma.

24:55 that we're always trying to counterbalance is how to make sure that we're not too power user. Despite people using us for powerful things. That's something that we work on a lot as an organization. Do you find yourself Curious about the next layer of non-flat digital screen design interfaces. How do you think about

25:12 the other potential spaces in which we might interact with systems and I guess that would be radically different design environments, new patterns, like Now I'm annoyed if something I might phone doesn't work the way that I'm used to a hundred other things using it or something. In a similar design pattern.

25:27 What do you think about new interfaces? Are there any that are Interesting enough to you to spend some Real time thinking about. I love new interfaces, so yeah, like all of them. DR for me.

25:39 Yeah, something that I've Deeply enjoyed exploring because I think that it's an example of So many new patterns being created. And tried. I still think that

25:48 Mobile. Whether it's iPhone. Side screen or a iPad size screen.

25:54 There's so many more. Patterns and interactions that could be explored that are being explored. Is really limited by how much people can learn. Just think about how hard it was for Apple to teach people how to long press on an iPhone in order to select text.

26:08 There's an unlimited potential for how many of those interactions exist. But there's only a limited attention span to teach the consumer. But when you have something like VR where you have a bunch of early adopters and you can teach them with your game mechanics, because it's mostly a gaming platform at this point. Then you have this awesome ability to

26:26 Go and experiment. And yeah, a lot of the experiments won't work, but just early computing interfaces, some of them will, and some of them will be like really fasting. And maybe We'll see what other platforms like more augmented reality. Type glasses, or eventually B C I's.

26:40 VCIs are kind of like the ultimate interface. And if you can get it to the point where your intent As an input and then you're creating something. And so it's very exciting to be. You strike me as

26:51 open minded and optimistic about all these things and curious about them all. Are there any like dark patterns in all this that have you concerned or parts of this proliferation that you're worried about? I mean the obvious dark pattern for BCIs, if you are like a true believer, is wireheading where you basically have the fentanyl button. You just keep pressing it.

27:10 In a dark room in the corner? That's a bad one. Yeah. I mean like that's like as dark as you can go. I've never never heard that term before. So maybe I'll be like the late majority on the BCI or something.

27:24 It's not an original idea. I mean, this is something that people talked about for a long time. What about in the traditional current AI world. It's already part of that. Proliferation that You think is really important for us to watch carefully?

27:35 Yeah. I do. I think that I think that there's A bunch of ways you can break down a safety argument.

27:42 And the one that I think is the highest risk in terms of Lack of visibility and transparency and also the potential for it to escalate quickly. Is if you remove a human in the loop. In the military context.

27:54 I think there'll be great temptation to do that. And I think it can be very dangerous. How we deal with these problems. I don't know, but I hope smarter people than me can figure'em out. Seems like the historical lesson is

28:06 really bad things will happen and then we'll backfill. Protective mechanisms. the protective mechanisms will come from A response to bad things happening.

28:16 And public outcry or just some version of that. I don't know. That seems to be the pattern of history. Very rarely do we thoughtfully design it ahead of time. Yeah, I think there's also a pattern though of people becoming immune to things over time. If you look at

28:30 The history of humanity Yeah, there have been times that broad swaths of the population have become addicted to things and yet we've gotten through them. The wire head in case I would uh Not be as fearful of and I think for

28:43 the military side. Like I think there's very thoughtful people there too. So I'm actually very optimistic. But you asked me to go into the the dark spot. I'm shining some light on them.

28:53 Do you feel your competitive juices flowing in any different way. in the last year plus of these amazing new technologies relative to Times prior. Does it kick off anything new in you?

29:04 Like the role of competition in your motivation and life. I think it's important to do things From a perspective of You want them to exist?

29:14 But yeah, like in any situation, if it's a game, then it's a game I wanna win. business, it could be a board game. I I like to win those two. I think it's fun to have that.

29:25 Gamer mentality, especially when you're on a team. I was never a team sports guy because I'm not very good at sports. But I really like Robotics Club. We're all together and trying to figure out

29:35 And it's sort of more intellectual. Activity, how do we win? My team didn't always win, but it was a lot of fun. And coming into Figma, I feel like we have the best team. So I feel very blessed.

29:45 You mentioned at the beginning that you've been using the O one Pro a lot more personally. Is there anything that you've used it for that you think is most novel to you or were the output or interaction has most surprised you so far? I'm trying to like collect these things and then share them with people to Just get them trying this stuff. Anything in that category come to mind?

30:03 Well actually my favorite Prompt was not my own, unfortunately, but it was my friend who's an elementary school teacher. And her prompt was Right. A story about a dinosaur.

30:15 For a six year old. Using only the first ten letters of the alphabet. That was a Really wild prompt. It taught for a long time on that one.

30:24 But actually did get results in the end. If I told you to do that right now, it's hard. I'm really interested by your point about our standards for these things already being much higher than any reasonable human except maybe like the number one person in the world in the field that you're querying about or something like that.

30:39 Does that mean to you that we're already past all these benchmarks of intelligence, general intelligence, maybe even super intelligence? Do you care about these things at all? Are they just Stupid. I think it's kinda funny how everyone's Like oh is it A G I is it not A Gi just no one seems to have a share definition of what A GI is.

30:55 I feel like Being able to talk to someone. At the level of depth that O and Pro can answer. That feels pretty general and pretty intelligent to me. Is it doing

31:05 Work at the end. Not just yet, but It feels like To me it's functionally. A GI.

31:11 And Plenty of people would debate me on that one. But when I said on Well, and I said everyone's time to put your down your definitions of A GI. Some people feel like it's already here, some people

31:21 We can keep putting the definitions out there. We skated right past the Turing test. And I feel like the default is just to keep Pushing. On

31:30 What that definition could be. When it comes to superintelligence. I actually get pretty excited because I think we'll see a lot of superintelligence. First is actually in Research domains. I think math.

31:40 In particular. We're gonna see novel theorems proven, maybe on the most elegant of ways. But they will be proven and then maybe it's like from there then people find the elegant proof because they know it's possible. Just like someone runs a fast mile and then everyone else tries to one up them.

31:55 And I think it's gonna be really interesting to see. The ways that humans and AI work together in these research domains. It seems to me that there's always been an incredibly high return on vision, drive, and motivation for people. Inertia reigns, unless those three things come together.

32:12 And someone pushes Something new into existence. These things aren't, at least to my understanding, not driven or motivated. Does that mean that the returns to those things go up.

32:23 in this world and That people should just focus on the areas where they're the most energized, motivated, and driven. Like how do you think about That part of this equation that progress happens through those things and these machines don't have those things.

32:36 I would argue that regardless of AGI or AI progress That's already where you should be. If you're So lucky to get to choose what you do. then yeah, you should already be focused on the areas where you're driven and motivated and

32:49 Have vision and Have it time up tier three. Tight. I already argue that I mean it's so easy to find something that's novel. Doesn't mean it's something that you're gonna be driven and motivated by over time.

32:59 Sadly, a lot of entrepreneurs fall into this trap of they find something. And they go and they like go build that thing and they're making some money from it. And they just keep going, but it almost always leads to burnout because it's not what they are truly motivated by. And I think

33:13 Long term probably the highest agency people Will deliver the best results. In the age of AI. Yes, currently.

33:21 Agents don't have agency, despite The words being very similar. What this far into Figma. still is the most motivating to you. I think everyone sets out to like build the default platform.

33:32 And You did that. It's now the thing that people put on their resumes. Hopefully your post resume soon. Maybe that's motivating. But what are like the really hot burning core fuel sources for you still, despite having built the platform of record for your world.

33:47 It's super Simple and by the way, I think that we're far away from what you're saying, although it's very generous, but I would say it's just any time that we can help a user achieve their goals. Anytime I get user feedback. Whether it's constructive, it's like I don't like this thing. I'm like, Oh man, we gotta improve the thing.

34:02 Or it's I mean I was able to do X because of Figma. Any part of the product. That Is the eternal fuel for me. And I just love

34:11 Interacting with customers. Where was that rooted in your life? Were you wired this way? Did it kick into gear when you were young? I think it's Probably hardwired. I have notebooks from when I was a little kid about

34:23 How would you go make the best bathroom? 'Cause that was something I was really interested in as like a Six five year old or six year old or whatever. By the way, there's still a lot of improvements being made to bathrooms. Play it on me, what would she do?

34:35 I'm less gerophobic now than I used to be. But as a kid he was a little bit of a germaphobe. I remember going to SFO for the first time and like it just be this magical experience that you could like put your hands in the faucet and it would automatically the water would come out. Big moment for you. Five year old Dylan was automatic Things everywhere it was a big deal.

34:53 One clever for instance is the ability to open a door with your foot. I mean Everyone's coming into the bathroom. Going out of the bathroom. Their hands may or may not be dirty coming in or coming out and opening it with your foot is like a really good move.

35:08 That should probably exist everywhere. Totos are great. I'll stop there. When you think about your role now at the business. you're a CEO, a traditional CEO, like there's lots of stuff you have to worry about.

35:20 How much do you force yourself to just do the stuff where you have special energy and farm out other things versus It's my responsibility to own like the different stack, different parts of the business. 'Cause I'm the leader of the business. Yeah, it's my responsibility to make sure that everything's going well. over Figma.

35:36 There are some areas I'm gonna bring zero level of expertise to. Our compliance functioned. Do I have any unique insight on compliance? No. Just that it should be done and done well.

35:49 When it comes to Design or The way that our products are built. My level of insight might go up a bit. I try to

35:56 Be self aware. of what I'm bringing to a conversation, but Ultimately, yeah, I have to have ownership of everything and Some things.

36:05 You know you've got the right leaders and you check onto them very infrequently. in other areas, whether you have very high confidence in your leaders or not. The stakes are so high. That you have to be always involved. And my point of view is

36:18 Design is like that for everyone across the board if you're building software. You need to be Deeply, intimately Working with your design team.

36:27 Or anyone doing design on your product, because otherwise. You might lose the business. This is the way you'll win or lose. And certainly I'd treat it that way for Figma. If you think back on the businesses history now, it's been around

36:38 What has gone the most wrong? in the business's history. I mean look, it all comes back to people. When you're

36:46 Talk about that and I think When you Maybe don't hire correctly. Or you don't set the standard the right way and you have to reset a bit.

36:54 That's always tough. But Something you can work through? And I feel like as long as you hire people who have that self awareness. They'll help you work through it.

37:03 That's the positive part. If you think about the next chapter of Figma, However Find I'm curious what chapter title you would put on it and a little bit of a description of the chapter. Maybe something like Make design bigger than design.

37:17 How do you take it so that Design is Not thought of just As pixel blushing. But also is something that people are really considering in doing

37:28 At all parts of The process of building a company. And how do you make it so that they have the tools to do that and they're able to be intentional about that? The thing I'm inspired by your make design bigger than design is to use a personal example with the AI tools or whatever. I've never made a recipe in my life.

37:44 I'm not a cook. I suck. But with these tools I'm able to say Here's kind of stuff that I like. Here's ingredients I like. Here's what I have available. Here's how much time I have. Make me a recipe. I can express a lot of intent and context.

38:00 And then I have a recipe that I make that I really like that no one's ever made before. Like I didn't think of the recipe, the thing did, but it seems like maybe there's an analog in design that In design. I have never designed software applications. But I have lots of intent and context. And desire and constraints. Is that the right way to think about it that like maybe Figma might make someone like me

38:20 expand the market by making me a designer. I mean I think that if you've got a point of view in the world and you're able to Articulate it. How can we empower you with the tools so that You can

38:32 Create something. And then also how do we empower you with the tools. Great. That to me is super exciting. And if you look at the number of people that use Figma And they're labeling themselves designers today. I mean, it's like one third of the people that come in and figure the label themselves as a designer.

38:48 They're two thirds. Do not. But my belief is that those two thirds will get into the design process. In various ways. Are there any other trends around design that

38:59 matter directly or indirectly to your business that you're most on top of and curious about. In the world right now. I think that we're always curious about design systems. And the more that you've got People in the organization who are

39:13 Deeply thinking about User problems through the lens of design. You also have Problem of consistency at scale. Yeah, that's where design systems come in.

39:22 How do you make sure that You're probably just speaking the same language as multiple people with multiple perspectives are working on it. And I think that the interplay between design systems and creativity Is something that we're always fascinated by Figma. And

39:37 How do you both help people standardise While also giving them the room to innovate and be creative. And those two things are somewhat in tension. Sometimes. But are both objectives that Figma should hold.

39:49 I'm so curious to think about That Whatever, one, three, five, ten year hence versions of What you might make possible for people. I'm asking like speculate here just for fun.

40:00 How long do you think it is until someone like me Can effectively work with Sigma to create the thing in my head.

40:09 with more or less complete fidelity. Like I don't have to compromise on what I'm imagining. To get it. prototyped on the screen or something like that. with r basically no design. Training or talent.

40:21 I would Hope within three years and if we can do it within one year. Then we should do another podcast on that. What's it like building with these things? With AI tooling.

40:31 What we're seeing right now is Uh Earliest. Tools. And it'll evolve a lot the way that you build with them.

40:41 And I also think that As you build with them in the context of design. People will realize that it's not enough just to get out what's in your head. At full fidelity. But

40:50 You'll want to improve what's in your head too. And you'll start to appreciate the work of professional designers as well, even more. And you'll be on your own journey to becoming one. How much of good design do you think comes after the initial draft? All of it.

41:06 That's the beauty of software products versus physical products. A physical product. It's so hard to be in an iterative loop for. Industrial design It's all about

41:16 Okay, you do all the iteration up front. And then you ship something and the thing you ship is gonna be around forever. You make your table. Someone buys a table, you don't get to update the table. In digital design, we ship A B tests all the time.

41:29 We're constantly trying new things, seeing if they work. They don't, you roll'em back, no big deal. Completely different mindsets. Anything that you would leave people with in terms of a challenge to like go try some of this stuff, one of the things that I feel like you're always at the forefront of

41:44 thinking about trying this stuff. You're like an edge tinkerer. And are always aware of New platforms, new tools, new trends. And that's so much of the power of these things is just giving them a try. Is there any favorite way that you've prompted friends or relatives or whatever to just get involved?

42:00 as a tangible Way forward. Well My prompt on the design side would just be to make anything. If you don't have an original idea

42:09 Literally go recreate something that you already know to get comfortable and familiar with the tools. If you have an idea Go try it. I think when it comes to More of the

42:19 A I side. To lean into your curiosity. And to use these models to learn as much as you can.

42:27 About all the areas you've always wondered about, but never had a personalized tutor for. That'd be my prompt. I was thinking about our conversation this morning and looking forward to it. And how cool it must be. for

42:40 you to think about all the things that have been created with the platform that you created. Like what a cool It's amazing. And that the era that we're in entering maybe or have been in, but are This era of new general purpose technologies. that enable people to make stuff Without having to ask for your permission.

42:57 That must be a cool feeling for you to have to look back on. And to look forward on to spread design beyond designers. I'm thankful you did it and It's so fun, as always, to catch up and hear your view on the world. Thank you for your time. Thank you.

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