Taste is your Moat (Dylan Field of Figma)

[Music]

Hey everyone, welcome to the lid and

inspace podcast. This is Allesio,

founder of Colonel Labs and so happy to

be at the Figma office today with Dylan

Field. Welcome.

Thank you. Thanks for having me on the

podcast and welcome to the Figma office.

Yeah, you know, we almost couldn't

choose where to do this because there's

so many beautiful spaces in it, but we

finally decided with this corner. Super

excited to have you on today. I was

reading through some of the history of

Figma and your initial mission was um

you know to close the gap between

imagination and reality and if I heard

that today I would assume it would be

the slogan of one of the vibe coding

platforms and so maybe talk about what

was like the first we should take AI

seriously moment where you were like

okay imagination to reality in the first

phase of Figma was like helping

designers bring what they had in their

mind into a canvas and now with Figma

make you're obviously moving to like a

much broader audience So what was the

journey to get there?

Yeah, I mean I think if you go back far

enough, you know, AI showed up in

different forms for Figma. So I had the

chance to be on the data science team at

LinkedIn as an intern prior to working

at Flipboard and getting more into

design and then starting Figma and we

were doing you know a lot of more

classical machine learning approaches

and I was kind of absorbing that and

there's plenty of discussion about

agents back then with my mentor Pete

Scumrock and thinking through okay what

might it look like if some of the ideas

from the '90s were to resurface.

And you know, those were just kind of

like fun, geeky conversations that were

pretty abstract because obviously the

world wasn't there yet. And then back at

Brown with Evan, my co-founder and our

original CTO, who's no longer at Figma,

but an absolute legend. I mean, just

check out his GitHub if you're not

convinced of that. He and I were talking

a lot about some of the stuff we're

starting to see as uh sort of ML and

combinational photography approaches to

doing image editing and what could be

accomplished with that. So for example,

there were uh papers being written about

how do you use internet scale data to

complete scenes and make it so you can

basically do the equivalent of like

content aware fill but instead of doing

it in an algorithmic deterministic way,

how do you do that based on the entire

internet? And we thought that was like a

pretty fascinating concept. And there's

a professor at Brown who was doing some

cool research in this area. We also were

getting very excited in the early days

of Figma before we even incorporated

about stuff like how do you turn a 2D

image into a 3D scene. So more

combinational photography, you know,

plus on blending and some of these early

techniques that you kind of get like 85%

of the way there to something awesome,

but not 100%. And it wasn't until, you

know, we really had deep learning that

you could get to 100%. But all of these

individual demos that we were able to

work on, and by we, I mean mostly Evan.

He's the real genius in the equation

here. But as we started to explore a

bunch of these areas, it just felt like

there must be some way to make creation

easier. And so that's why it's the

vision was stated as idea to reality and

not like idea to X as a subset of

reality because we thought actually you

could do this for a lot of different

areas and I still do but we're starting

with a data product and fast forwarding

to today Figma make for example we're

really trying to make it so that you can

go from idea in your head to a actual

ship product as fast as possible and

that might take the direction of an

internal prototype. to explore different

ideas. It might uh be an internal app

that you're using. Uh I've been this

morning was uh some work on like random

data munching but I was using bake for

it which is kind of fun and rather than

like write a Python script and uh it's I

think very exciting to think about how

far you can help people go and how you

can make them both more productive but

also help them explore more of the

option space of design with some of

these techniques. And then of course

we're also excited about what that means

in Figma design as well. How do you

prompt to edit, prompt to do generation

and do it in a way that's consistent uh

with everything else that's in your

design system uh the patterns you are

using and how do we actually infer from

what's already inside of Figma uh what

you want to do and really be expansive

in the way that we understand your

intent.

So you have a background in obviously

math and CS and now you run Figma. So

you have this kind of like duality of

like aesthetics and code. Were you first

AI pill by the image generation kind of

like more creative things? Uh I I think

early on in the podcast most people

would say midjourney was their favorite

AI product and another half of people

will say get up copilot. What was your

first product that you fell in love with

with AI?

Not a product but my first like AI pill

moment was I think it was like 2014 or

so maybe a little bit earlier. Uh I was

a teal fellow and in my class was a

number of amazing people but one of

which was Chris Ola and Chris and I

would be going to these retreats

together for the teal fellowship every

you know 3 to 6 months and I remember

one of them Chris had been working on

some cool like hasll 3D generation stuff

and it was all a bit like out there and

not clear how it would be productized.

At some point he was just like deep

learning neural nets. This is the future

of everything. And I remember him um

sitting down with me. We were at like a

wooden table outside in some like Santa

Cruz, you know, nature setting and he's

on the Wi-Fi, which is super slow,

connecting to AWS. And he's like, "Look

at this. I can go on AWS and I can spin

this up and I can train this like tiny

neural net to classify, you know, header

and digits. I'm like, Chris, this is

like a solve computer vision problem.

Like, why are you excited? And he's

like, no, you don't get it. It's a

neural net and there's like

hyperparameters. I can tweak them. I

think I can actually make, you know,

another neural net to like figure out

how to tweak the hyperparameters. And

like, uh, that's all great, but like

this is a solved problem. I I lacked the

vision at that point to see where it was

going. And uh but it started to get me

to pay more attention and then uh

watching his work when he was at Google,

some of the great blog posts he was

doing as well as starting to listen in

on more of people around me and the

conversations that were happening around

AI and machine learning got me more and

more excited about where this might go.

But I don't think I truly internalized

scaling laws uh for quite a while longer

and what that could mean. But I think

GPT3

was probably the first time that I was

like, "Wow, the delta between this and

past models is so great. Something

exponential is definitely happening

here. It's not just like hype." And

then, you know, plenty of conversations

around that time with other AI figures

uh that we both know well definitely

started to make me think, okay, there's

something very important to focus on

here. But I think it's very different to

be in a context of, you know, more

deterministic software building uh than

AI research. There are completely

different motions uh of how you kind of

run those teams in those areas. And so

um it definitely took us a lot uh longer

than you know starting at okay GPD3

amazing to get to the point where we're

starting to ramp up and push the

boundaries of what might be possible at

Figma.

No, that's great. And yeah, I would say

Figma Make is one of the maybe most

impressive releases I've seen this year.

U I was playing around with it the last

few days. I built a Figma clone in Figma

make. So you guys are are cooked. Uh you

let us you let us exactly

or are you so back? I don't know.

I know. I don't know. So hard to keep

up. It depends on the day. Tomorrow that

might change.

But to me there's this interesting triad

in software engineering which is like

you have the test, you have the spec,

and you have the code. And you usually

have if you have two of the three you

can generate the third. I'm curious how

you think about the Figma model so to

speak the almost Figma data model of you

have Figma design which is like where

the visual work happens then you have

Figma make which is basically in my mind

the bridge between the design and the

code and then you have the Figma MCP

which is like how do you bring that into

code in a way that it's not even UI

driven it just like the model is kind of

doing the work for you. Does it feel

like it's changing in a way the tools

that you need to build? And how do you

think about Yeah, you mentioned using AI

for like you know editing the design and

whatnot. Do you feel like natural

language is becoming more and more the

interface even in design that the work

is going to be done or Yeah. What are

like the pieces in in your mind?

Yeah, lots to unpack there. I'll start

with just the is natural language the

interface. Yes. Right now I've said this

before but I really believe it. I think

we'll look back on this era is like the

MS DOS era of AI and the prompting and

natural language that everyone's doing

today I think is just sort of like the

start of how we're going to create

interfaces to explore latin space. So,

I'm just like cannot wait for an

explosion of creativity there because I

kind of think of these models as like

they're almost like a uh n dimensional

compass that lets you explore this this

wild unknown fog of war in laden space

and you can kind of push the models in

different directions through natural

language. But if you have a more

constrained end there and you're able to

dimensionality reduce a bit so you can

push different ways, there should be

other interfaces available than text.

These might be more intuitive, but they

also might be more fun to explore. And I

think sometimes constraints unlock

creativity in ways people don't expect.

So I'm excited for that. But right now,

yes, natural language is where we're at.

And while I'm excited to push that

forward, meet people where they are. I

think is usually a good model for

product development before you get to

the point where you've really refined.

Going back to your triad, I think uh

maybe we can start with the spec like I

think the notion of a spec is evolving

so much right now and what should be in

a PRD versus what should be in design

versus what should be in code. That is I

think much more blurry than it used to

be. used to be that we had obviously

this like very kind of waterfally

process of oh yeah we're gonna go gather

some requirements and then we're gonna

go you know make a big dock and then

we're

going to go make some designs and we'll

code it up and we feel it's ready maybe

you go repeat and few times but it was a

process and I think with Figma you can

absolutely follow that process but also

we recognize that roles are blurring

status are blurring

And as all that blurs, how do you

actually support different ways of

working? You might want to make a

prototype as part of or in place of, you

know, a PRD. You might actually want to

focus more on the design as a high

fidelity descriptor of what this could

mean if the the cost to make design and

to create designs is lower. And I think

that the more that you can kind of

expand that option space for people and

bring them into a surface to align

design and visual fidelity might be the

place where you actually can align best.

And there's also the question of okay,

how far can a spec get you and why is a

spec different than code. So if code is

the complete spec in terms of it is the

most determined uh clear way to show

intent of what should happen every edge

case well how much that can be inferred

I think it's an open question but one

that we'll all be like thinking a lot

about soon and if you think about sort

of the value stack overall it feels to

me that um the better code generation

gets the more design matters and the

more that actually the human pushing on

design matters too because even if you

have a good starting spot from your

design system from you know AI

generation whether it be code or image

you I think need to push design forward

not just as an individual screen but as

a system in order to actually compete

differentiate and win. It's been our

thesis for a long time. Design is

differentiator. But I think it's even

more true in this world where we're at

now where the rate of software creation

is going exponential and maybe even

vertical. And in that world, you have

more software, there's more competition.

So what wins? Well, it's brand, it's

point of view, it's taste, it's craft,

it's design. And I think that's if

that's the world we're headed for, which

I'm very confident it is, then it's not

enough just to use AI to generate an

output.

I think you have to push further than

that and really get in the detail into

the craft in addition to utilizing AI to

explore the option space faster so you

can go as deep as possible in the

direction you choose.

Yeah, you know, I only have the pro

plan, so I don't have code connect. But

I'm curious how you think about that

because code connect the whole idea in

my mind was like, hey, instead of having

to make sure that the code stays in sync

with the design, we kind of build this

bridge between the two.

But now if you have the design, you can

in theory every time regenerate the

component anyway. So why add, you know,

this maybe this additional layer that

before was there is not needed anymore.

To me, that's the most interesting

thing. I was like what's going to end up

being the source of truth and what are

like the two-way bridges. So for example

right on Figma make I use the MCP to

bring that code into cursor my actual

codebase but there's no way yet I'm sure

you'll do it for the MCP to write back

into the design and say we actually

ended up implementing it this way.

I'm curious where you feel like the

center of gravity is going to be like

obviously you're biased in a way but as

an engineer you know I'm curious your

thoughts.

Yeah well first I'll just kind of

explain code connect a bit more. So, uh,

to expand on what you already said for,

I think there's different situations

that you might find yourself in. So, you

might be going to zero to one, making a

prototype of something that's rather

disposable. You might be actually

working on a personal project where

you're not making something that's

disposable. You're building on something

that's existing, but the codebase is

small. it's like pretty clear uh what's

going on to you and there's not a lot of

patterns that exist

or you might be in a pretty large code

base where there's a lot of existing

patterns a lot of code and you're trying

to fit those patterns so especially in

that last example I think as you get to

these larger code bases code bases and

larger sort of settings inside of

companies it's very important to be

consistent with existing patterns in the

code, but also it's important to create

a design system where you're able to

create consistency at scale for

designers and make it so that people are

more efficient so they're not always

recreating different buttons, etc.

There's the world of Figma and design

and there's the world of code and there

are advantages to having a source of

truth in Figma and a source of truth in

code. So in some cases we look at

libraries that customers make and they

are one to one. The design components

perfectly reflect the code components.

So the components the codebase in other

cases you're working on the thing that's

next in Figma and that's not yet all

built out in code and both cases are

important. In the case where you are one

to one and there's more of that bjection

between components in Figma, components

in your codebase, you want to define a

formal mapping so that way you're able

to give context via MCP make it so that

developers are easily able to implement

a design on the front end and code

connect serves that goal. We're doing a

lot of investment to make it easier to

set up because right now it's too much

of a pain, but also trying to get uh

further in terms of how many people can

use code connect. And in terms of where

the source of truth lies, I think

there's a variety of ways it will

probably play out in parallel. I think

that um it's okay if for example in some

times that code is source of truth and

you'll see us do a lot of work to make

it so that you're able to bring your

codebased design system in something

like Figma make or Figma design but also

if you're wanting to rapidly iterate and

be able to express and try out different

visual explorations and if you think

visually if you are someone who's not

necessarily um maximal comfort with

code. I think a visual surface is uh

very important as a place to explore and

I think there are different modes of

thinking and uh it might be the case I

think it's likely the case that the

visual sort of metaphor is easier for a

wider set of the population to gro than

to go into code. I also think that it's

going to be something that as we move

forward in time with more agents writing

more parts of your codebase,

you will also be less familiar with the

code. And so then you might want a

different abstraction where you're able

to work on things and uh basically plan

out what your app should be, what your

software should be. And Figma can

provide that. Yeah, I I almost think of

Figma as like the context repository for

aesthetics. To me, it's almost as an

engineer, right? The design product is

not even that help that useful in a way

as long as you can generate the

components and I can do small tweaks.

And I think one of the big tailwinds

that Figma has is, you know, pardon the

pun, but like tailwind CSS bringing a

lot of this more like, you know,

classes, named classes as like a way to

define style and the way the Figma

variables and uh, you know, the the way

your system is is set up. For me, it's

been once I saw Figma make, I'm like,

okay, now now I get it. Before when I

had the blank Figma canvas, it's like

I'm not talented enough to start from

here. But if you can build an initial

thing through AI, then I'm good enough

to like tweak it and then have that be

now the bridge and then I can take that

in clock. Yes.

I can take that in cursor or maybe I'll

just say in Figma make forever and like

the pro prompts just go there.

Yeah, I I think that what you're saying

is super important as a point. Um the

blank canvas problem is real. We're

always trying to figure out for Figma

Design, how do you make it less

intimidating for someone to come in? How

do you make this more approachable? And

there's always tension between the power

users of Figma Design who would like

every single power feature that you can

imagine. You know, why can't you make a

feature for like everything in the CSS

spec? And you know, of course, we can

over time. on the other side of it is

okay, you've got someone coming in for

the first time, technical, nontechnical,

whatever. Are they intimidated? Do they

feel invited to go create something? And

the first, regardless of our UI, the

first thing that can block people is

that blank canvas. So getting people

from the place of um, you know, I have

an intention to actually putting

something on that canvas is so

important. And I think once you start

getting people in that loop, then it's

less intimidating. You have more that

you want to explore. One of the things

I'm excited about that we just actually

shipped today is a way to copy designs

from Make into Figma Design. And if you

think about Figma make as a just easier

entry point for Figma design, you know,

it's like uh the flight simulator to the

airplane cockpit or something, then

perhaps you're able to make it so that

uh that's an early entry point you go

through and then you actually can do

more than just tweaking components, but

actually visually manipulate a design.

And you might find that you actually can

go faster that way than if you're doing

it in code. Yeah, I think I I don't know

what your model internally is between of

diffs,

but to me it's like it's easy to

communicate what a diff and code is, but

it's kind of hard to communicate in

design in a way that I can then put into

a LLM to like apply.

So, I'm curious how you think about

that. It's like there's obviously the

design is more than the sum of the

components, right? It's like if you just

took any piece that is in Figma

individually doesn't look like anything.

that when you put them together it looks

great. How do you see the way people

communicate design also change now that

more of it needs to become language

because of the interfaces?

Yeah, I think that I might push back a

bit on the more of it becomes language

um part but maybe we can explore that

later.

Depends on exactly what you mean by

that. But in terms of the way that we

represent diffs, you can go to version

history in Figma and see uh sort of

composits of diffs. You can make a new

version at any point and of course

internally there is the journal of every

single edit and I think there is

opportunity there to your point around

how do you basically use not just what's

in Figma design as a source of truth but

also the tool calls that made via MCP

and when they were made to understand

what is the context that's changed

uh since I last made a call. So that's

an opportunity that I think is a smart

one to point out, but also I think it's

just interesting to think about the

journal data and um what can be possible

in terms of thinking about what you

might do next, how to help you be more

efficient and help you explore more

ideas. Yeah, my my language uh natural

language part is if I give a llm

get a protocrust, it can understand from

the code

what type of changes I've made.

I'm trying to figure out and this is

just because I'm not a Figma power user.

If I gave an LLM a Figma journal or

diff, could it understand aesthetically

what has changed to then update maybe

like other docs or like parts of my

system?

Yeah, right now that's not there. Um, I

think it's a really good idea and I

think it also mirrors other ideas that

are going to be important too. For

example, if you pull in Figma context

into your ID or your agent, whatever

format it takes. Let's say that the

design is not perfectly implemented

because currently that's where we're at

is a lot of times it's wow, this is a

great start, but there's more work to

do. Well, what's the delta? Uh, how do I

get to the point where it's perfectly

imputented? And that requires some back

and forth, too.

Yep. Yeah. The only when I did the Figma

to cursor, the only thing I got wrong

was the border color.

Everything else

I'm glad to hear that. That's awesome.

I was I was very impressed.

And to be clear, some of the time it

does just work.

Well, yeah. No, exactly.

And it's like magical. So, and by the

way, I'll point out that's not like a

comment on uh oh, front end engineering

is dead. There's so much more to front

end engineering, right, than just that

translation step. That's kind of like

the most mechanical part and actually

thinking through all the states, all the

intended behavior, um, and how to make

the design truly come to life. That is a

lot of the interesting work. And I'm

excited for like how interfaces will get

much more rich and much more interesting

as we uh make it so that they're easier

to go from design to code in that first

place. That's just the first state,

right? Yeah. Yeah, when we had Greg

Brockman, we talked about, you know,

these purple and blue gradients kind of

taking over the web because of all this

training data. Do you feel a sense of

responsibility in a way in Figma make

also to like set the new standard for

what things should look like? And how

much do you think about making that

explicit for the user? Right on. It's

like, hey, I'm actually not going to you

need to make some aesthetic choices uh

early on. Yeah, I I feel very strongly

that um across the FIMMA platform,

we should do our best to find ways to

help people explore more of the space of

aesthetic uh rather than impose like a

personal viewpoint on aesthetic, that's

a hard problem. But if we can accomplish

that, I get very excited because if you

can actually open that space up more and

uh figure out how it applies to software

to product design, then um not only

could we be in a place where we help you

generate high quality visual output,

whether you're a trained designer or

not, but also we could get to the place

where you could be nudged into or nudge

yourself into different directions that

are underexplored relative to the design

community and design history as you know

it's like there's an ability to

interpolate between different styles

different ideas and AI can help you do

that but also the designer can then take

that so much further yeah I think uh uh

regurgitating the median website is like

you know maybe that's where a lot of us

are today but where we need to get to is

one is a place of uh really pulling out

new styles And I think overall the other

thing I'd say is you look back at the

flash era of the web, you know, we both

grew up through that

and it was uh maybe not always high

quality but dynamic uh exciting, fun,

you know, this was a era where

experimentation was happening and then

we um you know at some point it was like

okay Steve Jobs gets up on stage and

goes flash is dead you know here's my

new world and um you know brief skuorph

phase than Swiss minimalism and we've

all been Swiss minimalism for quite a

long time now and I just think that

again going back to okay more software

created than ever what needs to happen

well designers need to push us forward

and that's going to mean a exploration

and explosion of creativity and so many

different visual styles that will be

explored so much more dynamism in

interfaces and new patterns emerging

especially as you start thinking about

what are all the screen targets we're

going to have those are going to explode

too and states you know all the

different surfaces that will be created

and designers will have to think through

systematically

that's a big challenge a big opportunity

as well

yeah I started you know kernel labs a

month and a half ago and James our

designer I've been working with him on

our initial landing page and our product

design and he's almost like my laten

space shepherd you know it's like even

if I had even if Figma was AGI I still

wouldn't necessarily know what to ask

for you know I think That's like really

what people a lot of time get wrong

which is like software is like the same

thing. It's like you could give a

software GI to anybody and like doesn't

mean they could build great software,

you know. I think to me that's the most

exciting thing. But what I really like

is then the ability now that I have to

like reuse this across surfaces in a way

that wasn't possible before

because I can create ideally in Figma

now my design system but now you have

make to generate all new types of

products. I have the NCP. You also have,

you know, slides, you have like

different products on the other end of

the spectrum. And again, going back to

being like the context repository of

aesthetics. I know that as long as I

have, you know, the context from Figma,

whatever the AGI or whatever I'm talking

to is going to generate, it's going to

have some sort of like rooting like what

I think looks good.

Yes.

I think some people have it personally.

I I think some people should have some

sort of like personal figma almost

whereas like you know when you're

generating images on chv or mjourney you

should have some sort of like aesthetics

to to draw from. How do you think about

that evolution because you're going from

a world where like only designers work

on your product to now it becomes a core

part of like a lot more constituents.

Yeah, I I think um in a world where

design is the way you win, it's only

natural that we need to get more people

involved in the design process. That is

not going to dis diminish the role of

designers. In fact, I think it expands

the role of designers because then you

have to shepherd people through the

design process and help them uh go from

okay, I mean there's kind of a journey

you go on, right? like not even being

aware of design, you know, kind of like

blindly going through the world to oh

man, aesthetics uh they they matter to

uh oh, can we make it pop? Can we make

it cool? And then people start to

actually think about well wait a second

like I'm looking at one screen. What's

the actual experience here? What is the

entire flow? And then it's okay well

let's take mental models of how we can

think about this experience and consider

it in different ways. What are the

potential different paths, metaphors uh

and experiences that we can create here

and what are the abstractions that

matter? And then from there it's like

okay wait a second well this all exists

in the context of like our brand the

greater culture of the moment and uh the

business constraints and all sorts of

other things you might be optimizing for

and I think um more people coming into

the design process that can help add in

context as well and there's no reason

why someone uh who's outside of design

or doesn't call themselves a designer

designer, whatever they identify as,

engineer, product manager, CEO,

whatever,

everyone should be able to come in and

say, "Okay, here's an idea." And the

idea hopefully could be parsible in high

fidelity uh to the standards of at least

a design system and consistent so it's

not distracting because an idea should

be evaluated on its own merits.

But then I think from there the actual

exploration and making that great that

is a hard design task still. So how do

we lower the floor for everyone coming

in but also raise the ceiling make it so

designers can do even more and produce

even greater work.

I think like I mean obviously you know

it's cliche like everything is changing

right uh but I think there's just like a

fundamental shift in both how people

perceive software. I think you know Sam

tweeted someone tweeted about the fast

fashion era of SAS but there's also like

a negative connotation to fast fashion

but I feel like in software it's like

man if you can get the software that you

need at any moment that's not a cheap

thing that's like an expensive thing

that is now be made cheap and it's like

still high value

and I'm curious like how different

products are going to drive that even

though it feels like hey I just created

this for you very quickly but like there

was so much that went into that, you

know, that is like maybe sometimes

undervalued, you know. So, I'm curious

like if there's something that you think

about where okay, in a way people should

come to Figma and do a lot of work, but

maybe in a way we can kind of help you

from like all the work you've done in

the past kind of like come to the right

result much faster in the future.

Well, I think uh especially in the

context of teams where there's, you

know, they've done a lot of work in

Figma, of course, there are patterns

that with that team's consent, you can

tap into and um figure out how to help

improve outputs. But I do have a little

skepticism about the like fast fashion

interpretation. I just think that

there's uh where we're currently at at

least with the models and you know of

course we're on this trajectory whether

we're on an S-curve or an exponential or

it's an S-curve that'll turn into an

exponential I I don't know maybe you've

got a point of view uh but I I was kind

of like okay uh I'm excited for the ride

and as long as

I'm here today well my mental model and

strategy is just like

your strategy should always be okay

assume AI models get better and make

sure that makes Figma better. As long as

I believe that's true, I'm happy. If

not, change strategy. Like that's the

algorithm. Uh you know, but um wherever

you're at, I think that uh in terms of

that interpretation of where models are

going, I don't think the world is in a

place today where the fast fashion era

is here. And I also think that so much

of designing software is doing in a way

where many people can use it. Like it's

it's rare I think that you've got an

individual piece of software that is

truly just for you. I think it's awesome

that more people are exploring their

ideas and creating software and tools

for them. But then the next step if they

want to go further is okay, how do I

make this good for other people too? And

in a setting where people are trying to

learn software, most people learn it

from other people. So now you're in the

same place you were before. You had a

piece of software. You made it just for

you. You decided actually this applies

to other people the problem that you

solved. Now you got to have something

that is probably consistent enough to

actually share with others so they can

learn it and it gets adopted. And so I I

I don't know. I think it's like yes,

more people will create software. That's

awesome. But also, I'm not sure that

software will just be like disposable.

And if you look at the way that people

work, whether it be with cloud code or

cursor or warp or whatever, so much

right now is like you said, you need to

have some expertise about how software

is built that lets you discretize the

task just like you would to an intern.

And you know maybe it goes beyond intern

level but still I'm not saying okay go

build Figma and you agent are just going

to go figure out all the complexities of

Figma. Uh I think that's just not

something I see happening in any

near-term future even as longer running

agents start to occur and um we've got

better capabilities. That's uh that's a

long ways out. Now maybe that's a high

bar but you look at the actual uh

workflows that happen with you know the

very big SAS applications let's consider

workday for example or Salesforce a lot

of CIOS would you know love to go okay

yeah I've uh vive coded workday uh and I

just saved my company all this money or

whatever but okay you actually peek

under the hood of a workday or a

rippling these are very complex pieces

of software

that have accounted for every edge case

that you can run into as you're thinking

about your HIS and the platform of data

that you can tap into and then go build

out from there into different workflows

and they've done that through you know

over in W's case decades and Ripley's

case you know not quite a decade but

also a lot of prior knowledge about what

needs there are in the market and very

intentionally built so I I'm skeptical

that like without that knowledge of the

workflows that people will encounter,

people will actually make something that

um can scale. I think you run into the

same problems that you've run into all

along and uh and then it's a loop. Maybe

that loop goes a little faster, but it's

not like just going to replace. I think

that's the bullcase for software still

being helpful post AGI whatever that

means

because in a way you still need to

prompt the GI and I think you're going

to end up having this interfaces that

again just like you you're going to help

people explore the lid in space and

design there's going to be a way for

interfaces to like compress the way that

information gets passed through the

system

I think in data analysis you're kind of

seeing a lot of the applications kind of

going away in a way because the models

are like so good at it and it's so

natural to do on a conversational level.

But again, sometimes it's like, well,

how do you give it the right data? How

do you ask for the right type of charts?

How do you ask for like the right

follow-up questions? I think there's

like a good question of at what point is

a software a piece of software? At which

point is just like again a latency that

just helps you project your interest

into the model.

Yeah. And it's it's interesting. It's

like if you look at data analysis maybe

break it up into a few things they have

to go right you need to have first of

all trust that the right queries are

being written in the correct way and

that's a lot of trust because if you get

that wrong you know you have a bad bad

shaky foundation for the rest of your

experience then there's okay what's the

next query I'd probably be more bullish

about AI predicting your next query uh

or a follow-up than I am about like you

know 100% rate on the query being

constructed correctly Um, and I think if

you were to show people some prompts

around here are example, next queries

you might want to run, that might spark

other ideas they have for follow-up

questions that further their analysis.

But then there's also like how do you

display the data and the visualization

itself? Yeah, there's canonical

visualizations we're all used to, but I

think visualization is uh fascinating

and we've only scraped the surface in

terms of how we can visualize data. I

think that um especially as you get to

larger data sets, more complexity and

you're really trying to communicate data

to people that is one of the most

interesting design problems out there

like how do you communicate how much

money in the budget of the federal

government is spent where people have

tried so many times. I've never seen

something that is clear and actually

gives you any sense of scale that you

can relate to, you know, and uh how do

you communicate the data inherent in

biology to a layman person who hasn't

studied biology? Like again, people have

tried. It's a very hard problem and uh

maybe breaking into sub problems, but

still there's so much to push on there.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. There's

almost like the two-way. So like me, how

do I communicate to the model what I

need? And then there's also the other

side which is like the models have like

so much imbued into them that we need to

get out of it that we don't quite know

how to do. And like one part is like

information communication, you know, one

part is like once I prompt it, how do I

get the response in a way that I really

parse? I think yeah that just like I

don't know it's been breaking my brain

for the last few months just thinking

about what will feel like software what

will feel like a conversation

and like I know that obviously open AI

you know has like this big goal of like

kind of being your companion and like

you have the voice mode and whatnot but

at some point you just need something

that is beyond component rendered inside

a chat interface you know and it's hard

to figure out especially when you think

about I know you do a lot of angel

investing so I'm also curious about how

you think about startups and like what

kind of products are like now possible

that maybe weren't before like what

products people should stop pursuing

because you think will be a part of the

models. First of all, I'm I'm hesitant

to give advice on that because first of

all I think that the idea that all

software will or lots of software will

exist in a session with an LLM or any

model, I think that's a little

overblown. There's so many different

ways this could work out whether it be

you know kind of a back and forth of the

model is an origin of a request and then

you go elsewhere to the model is

embedded in software but you still have

a destination you go to first is not the

model

and we can think of many other ways too.

I think that um that's maybe a a a bit

of a shaky assumption. And then also I

think that uh uh people it's often the

case that you've got some space that

like a thousand people are starting a

thousand companies in and everyone's

going oh don't go there it's too crowded

but then one person comes up with some

really new clever idea and it's totally

different take and they propel from

there. So I I never uh try to say don't

do something to an entrepreneur because

somebody that's listening to this

podcast is going to have some ego

insight in some space that both of us

think is really dumb to work in but uh

then they'll be the next like you know

trillion dollar company. Uh so uh and

you know of course like whoever that is

you know let me know

right yeah let us be a part of it at

least you know

let us both know. Um but but yeah I

think uh there is some amount of

mimedics around like people see other

people doing something they follow on

and you have to have a unique insight

if you're starting a company or working

on a product.

It usually should be something that's

unpopular,

right?

And this is just cliche advice at this

point but like I think there's something

deep to internalize there about the kind

of contrarian nature. um going more teal

language now, but I think he's basically

right about this. I mean, as in if

you're investing in something, unless

you're just going after momentum, which

a lot of people do,

but otherwise, you need to have some

point of view that like a lot of people

would just blanket disagree with. And it

should be scary to you if uh you're

investing in something and uh you tell

your friend about it and you say,

"Here's my point of view on why this is

really cool." and your friend is like,

"Oh, yeah. I totally agree. Makes

complete sense." That should be a

warning sign if you survey people and

and they're all saying the same thing

about that.

Yeah. What have you learned about

yourself during the to fellowship? What

are like things that you change about

how you approach Yeah. just life,

thinking, learning? I think um whether

it be like that interaction with Chris

Ella where I look back and go, man, I

maybe dismissed that one too soon, you

know, and then learned over time

thankfully. Or another example is uh I

think in 2013 there was like a Bitcoin

hype cycle, you know, Bitcoin went to

$1,000 or something and like half the

teal fells at the time were were really

excited about Bitcoin. I'm just like

these idiots like how do you short this

thing? uh and uh like that was my

default reaction. And I think that the

overall meta lesson that I've learned

over not just the teal fellowship but

just being around tech for a while now

because I was paying attention even as a

kid was in a in some commercials that

were like for you know Microsoft Tiny

Toys for example and so then I'm

starting to track like what's this do

bubble and wait why is that when like am

I not getting residual checks anymore

you know that became from monary

standpoint. I'm like, I'm going to read

the newspaper. And then, you know,

working in high school at O'Reilly Media

was a great point to get exposure to

some of the starts of cycles, jail

fellowship, and the metal lesson I think

that I've learned is don't look for

reasons why things are not going to

work. That's important, too, but it's

not the place to start from. The start

place to start from is like, what could

this be? How big could this be? How

important could this be for society? and

let yourself imagine and dream and then

go and think about all the ways it's not

going to work so you can mitigate each

one but like start with the dream and I

think if you start there it's just a

better default uh position to go from.

Yeah, I'm really worried about the X

algorithm and what it has done to

optimism uh because it's so easy to get

likes just being negative about about

things. And

I do think the X1 seems to have changed

a little bit recently. Yeah, maybe

Nikita's in there tweeting things.

I'm thankful for that. Um, but yeah, I

do think algo feeds reward controversy

and be negative is a way to get

controversy. But also, I don't know, I'm

default optimistic. I feel like uh

society just builds antibodies to

different things over time. I mean,

remember when we're all worried about

like, oh my god, everyone's going to be

a zombie playing Farmville all day?

like, well, here we are, you know, and

some people still play Farmville, but

like it's

I don't I don't I don't know anyone that

does that, like, you know, all day long.

Uh, and most of us kind of forgot about,

you know, the social gaming era.

So, when I drive by the Zinga building,

I'm always like, I remember back in the

days. How do you use X? Because I mean,

you were famously on IPO day responding

to product feedback on on X. What's your

routine for staying on top of that? Oh,

I mean I try to just like search for

Figma a lot and um see what people are

saying, but also I've like trained my

ago feed to show me a lot of stuff

that's relevant to Figma, you know, and

and uh there were ways I don't know if

they still are as powerful signals with

whatever algorithm shifts have happened,

but it's like you kind of find out what

signals matter, you know, like

ironically right?

Not interested in this post seems to not

do anything. You know, a like or a

bookmark. I'm not sure how much that

matters, but copy link. Turns out that

really matters as a signal, or at least

it did. So, you know, I wasn't always

sharing the link, but I'd copy it

whenever I saw something. I wanted a

signal boost to my feed. It's like,

okay, the more you learn as for the algo

feed, better you can train it, better

you can make it useful. And then, you

know, I think feedback across any

surface, not just social media, but

support sales conversations,

conversations with our community. We

gather people together and then just

talking with folks research both

qualitative and quantitative these are

extremely useful signals for our team

and uh I think of intuition as like a

hypothesis generator then you have to

test the hypothesis so using feedback to

be part of that test is important but

also I'd always rather give feedback to

the Figma team by surfacing the voice of

a user rather than being like I have

this this point of view

you know do the latter as well, but the

the former is my preferred method. And

so I'd much rather champion user

feedback or a user bug report or a

feature request and then dive in with

that person than, you know, just have it

come from me. And the other thing is I'm

always looking for those visionary users

who are a step ahead of everybody else.

They know just kind of intuitively

what is needed. And I think that uh when

you can find them and separate them out,

that signal that is just uh amazing to

get. I remember early days of Figma,

there was this one user test that I

literally brought a bottle of wine to

because Figma is so slow yet at that

point. I mean, like to complete the user

test, I knew it would take hours. So, uh

it was kind of a a a tough one to

administer. We went through the bottle

of wine during the user test and um the

person that we were doing the user test

with this guy named Pyam who's an

amazing designer then was working at

Corsera and the next day he followed up

with like this super long doc. I mean it

was 8 to 10 pages and it laid out

basically a lot of what ended up being

our road map. Not like we literally

follow the doc, but I look back and

compare contrast and yeah, he's an

example of someone who was a visionary

user. And for a person like that,

there's a lot of people that will give

you more local feedback, but some people

can see the big vision, too. And that's

always really exciting because it's

validation for you and the team about

where you should go, but also a source

of new ideas and insights as well.

How did you think about hiring and

building the team back then? Because I

remember I was working at a YC company

and we were all on Sketch

uh kickback. Okay.

Um and we were all on Sketch, right? And

so I think a lot of people are maybe

like well why isn't Figma just going to

be like Sketch and blah blah blah.

How did you figure out who are the right

people to bring on the mission? Because

I think the same thing is happening in

AI which is kind of like the you know

the meme of what should be built and

then maybe there's like some more

missionary people.

What were some things that you think

people should take on early stage

recruiting especially?

Early stage recruiting is so hard. So,

first of all, just don't give up,

right?

My first piece of advice. Uh, second

piece of advice is just think long term.

You know, there are folks that I talk

with in the first year or two of Figma

and they didn't join until like year

five, year six. But those relationships,

it's amazing how if you're consistent

and just spending time together with

people you like, how eventually it turns

into something that could be they join

the company or actually just they're a

friend outside the company, but someone

that inspires you and that's great, too.

But yeah, I um I think taking the long

view is super important. Of course, you

need conversion today. you got to hire.

And I think um the kind reality of being

early stage and having a lot of risk is

you have a natural filtering function.

Only the true believers are going to get

on board.

And uh I I'm a fan of just not selling

too hard. It's like make sure people

understand what's going to go on and

what's going to happen and where you're

pushing and what you're going to do. But

like if someone needs to be sold so

hard, it's usually a sign they're not

gonna stick around. Yeah, I think you

have to have a really good process. Um,

best recruiting advice I got in the

early days, you know, I told uh John

Doer one day that, you know, I was

having a lot of problems with

recruiting. I wasn't very good at it.

And he's like, "Well, do you wake up in

the morning and is the first thing you

think about recruiting?" I'm like,

"Well, no. I'm thinking about like

coffee." like, "Okay, well then, uh, you

know, it's like midm morning. Like, are

you thinking about recruiting?" I'm

like, "No, I'm probably thinking about

like what snack I'm going to have." He's

like, "Okay, it's it's lunch. Are you

think about recruiting?" I'm like, "No,

I'm probably think about like what

emails I got to do." Okay. It's like

last thing the last part of the day,

you're about to go to bed. Are you think

about recruiting? I'm like, "No,

definitely not. I'm like tired." Uh he's

like, "Well, just like if you're

thinking about recruiting all these

moments where you just have a moment uh

have a second to pause and you're

actioning on it, then it'll fix itself."

And the way that I think can manifest as

a process is you just basically make a

spreadsheet of here's my funnel and you

obsessively look at it all the time and

go okay like how do I make sure that

this funnel uh keeps going just like you

would with uh sales if you're a

saleserson you have to continue to feed

the funnel you have to move people

through it and if you're not doing that

you're not recruiting so yeah you have

to be very disciplined

which is something that you know I'm I

have to push myself to I like to kind of

be in the cloud. So

definitely like to have coffee.

Um how has that changed now? Now you

have like you know public company that

you run obviously with make I'm sure you

have to build a new team to kind of lead

that.

How has that changed and also like you

know this is a great call for recruiting

uh for engineers listening. What are

like the type of people that succeed at

Figma today? One thing that's been

interesting is that uh yes, of course,

we've hired amazing researchers who are

pushing the boundaries and thinking, you

know, in a way that's, you know, on its

own life cycle in terms of not as tied

to, okay, we have an explicit date we're

trying to release on because that's just

not how research works. But what I found

is um very good engineers who are just

more full stack and oriented towards

learning new things. They can be quite

successful on AI products. There's some

reorientation they might need to do.

They might need to of course learn new

skills just like designers need to learn

new skills. But in general, we're

looking for smart, high agency people

who have product sense, who care about

design, who see the world the way that

we do, and and want to learn skills and

keep growing and work on hard problems.

I I think that's the filter that's

always been the case for Figma. And um

if that resonates with people, then

yeah, please apply. One question I had

from Zach from Warp Yeah. was how do you

position Figma make and like the

universe of this like prompt to app

prompt to creation like how should

people think about how you fit do they

feel like competitors to you? Do does

make just feel like an extension of the

design team? What is like the competitor

universe for you?

You know it's depends on how you define

it, right? Like I think um engineers

feel much more comfortable in ID than

non-engineers.

And as we get to more agentic

environments, perhaps that's a different

vibe. But still, I think most people

feel like uh an ID or cloud code, if

they're not engineers, they feel like

that's not made for them. And I think

that with the platform we have and the

visual metaphor, the opportunity for

free form exploration, ideation on an

infinite canvas and being able to try

out lots of things and then also see the

big picture of what are the different

paths I can go down. That is a a

metaphor that I think works for a lot

more people. And in that sense, as we

tie make even further than just, okay, I

can copy a state and put in Figma design

and tweak it. That's what we launched

today. But there's so much further we

can go and the further you go, the more

you're able to then, I think, bring more

people into this sort of surface. So in

that case, you know, it's it's just like

we're trying to race against ourselves.

I think um you know if you evaluate make

as it launched we race towards launch

you know is prompt to code and not a lot

around that not a lot of integration

with Figma platform then sure there's a

million other tools and more coming

every day that you can evaluate against

but I don't know if that's the right way

for us to think about it. I was um

listening to the Brett episode you did

and he had this one line that just stuck

with me which is he was talking about uh

you know do you want to resell coffee

beans as roasted coffee beans or do you

want to like go make the amazing like

special latte obviously want to make a

special latte you know everyone does but

like how can you make something that is

uh unique and plays the needs of

designers and does that in a way where

we can really bring advantage uh to

people And I think there's so much we

can do there. So many different tiers

that are coming that I'm just really

excited about.

Yeah. Nice. I know we don't have too

much time left. I want to just talk

about some outside of tech. So you

obviously have a crypto punk as your

Twitter PFP. How do you

It's actually a chain runner, not a

crypto punk.

See,

but it's okay. We'll we'll go through

NFT later. How do you think about in the

digital world especially like you have

you're going to have this huge divide

between scarcity and like you know

abundance right? How do you feel about

the future of like these digital

collectibles and like communities and

like yeah how that fits into the

universe of like hey you can generate

anything at any time you know Enzo

Ferrari used to say a Ferrari can never

be readily available to be desired. I'm

curious how you think about the

distribution of things people will see

on the internet between the super niche

tailored just created for you and like

these kind of like iconic cultural

properties.

The paradox of like digital scarcity is

what made me excited about NFTs before

they're called NFTs back in 2017,

whatever it was. And I I think that uh

not everyone is like has that collector

gene, but some do. And um for those that

do, whether they're whatever it is

they're collecting digital items,

they're scarce and people will enjoy

getting into whatever collector aspect

they want there. But I think in general,

I've I've found myself wanting to

distance a bit from the NFT space. It's

like kind of interesting. It actually

has some parallels, I think, to AI. I

got in it so early and that point it was

like this like just niche community on

the internet of weird people that

thought digital stuff could be scarce

and might you might want to collect it

and pay real money for it. Yeah,

but it was not expensive and so anyone

for example in the states like could be

part of that and you really it was gated

more on just like do you know about it

and do you get

the idea of it and is that idea exciting

to you or is it repel you and um then I

like over the next 3 to four years it

went from this like very idealistic

let's think about what the future of

creation and digital items and scarcity

could be to get rich quick scams and

just sort of this overall vibe of like

flipping stuff and trying to make money.

And I don't know, it just the the whole

meta of it changed and I

that's when I pieced out, you know, I I

realized at some point I was like, "Oh,

I get excited about collecting some NFT

project because I think that the art is

cool. I think that the creators are

awesome and there's some intention

behind the work that's unique and then

you know if I talk about online like the

project might do worse right

it might attract people to buy it and

folks can apparent I learned do scams

where they basically pump and dump and

create you know trading behaviors that

are are no good and so I stopped talking

about things I'm excited about for the

NFT space the parallel that I think is

kind of interesting is, you know, you

compare AI to that and it's like there's

been a long era of people that I think

are very on mission and thinking about

the big picture, the risks, the

opportunities, the possibilities,

and that's kind of meeting in this

moment the get-richqu, you know, if you

look on YouTube, there's a lot of people

making videos about like, okay, how do

you use AI to make passive income? And

I'm not trying to dismiss that because

great, if you can make money using AI,

that's that's great for you and some

people certainly will. But I think

there's um too much just like do it

because it's going to make you some

money energy in the space right now that

uh makes me like a little bit nervous

having been through that NFT cycle and

seeing where it ended up. that has been

on you know I own a card store in S

Carlos so I do like Magic the Gathering

Pokemon and there's similar thing

happening where like you know there's a

lot of speculation just because

everything

is Magic the Gathering like super cool

now

it is

oh yeah I've been waiting for this

moment

let's go we'll do we'll do a Magic the

Gathering event

draft night I'm down

nice

we used to in the early days of Figma we

used to do draft nights

nice what what sets were coming out then

do you remember yeah

there's a a guy named Andrew on our team

and he

wowed me so much with his expansive

encyclopedic knowledge of Magic the

Gathering that I was like wait a second

like can we move you from support to

product education

uh and then he killed it at product

education because he has just as

encyclopedic knowledge of

um and uh but yeah it was like basically

Magic the Gathering draft night that

gave me the confidence and insight of oh

wow like these skills are transferable

So

that's funny.

Imagine the gathering career

opportunity.

Exactly. You know, I should go around.

I'm going to play the regional

championship for the Americas in

November. I should just go around and

say "Okay

you're going to the regional

championship." You're like really

hardcore.

So some I think to me that's like the

best way to like disconnect because you

have to be so focused on the game that

like you're not actually thinking about

things.

U but there's kind of like obviously the

collectible side, but there's still at

the core like a community. let's come

together at the store, hang out, play

games. And I hope that like that's what

we'll see more out of AI, which is like

enabling more of these like small

communities locally to like, you know,

have more entertainment and like support

themselves in a way that doesn't have to

be, oh, is this going to make money?

Like, is this going to be profitable?

You know, I

I think the more you can go from a mode

of like I go on social media app of

choice and mindlessly flip through my uh

algo feed to I'm going and making things

like that is good. We want to move

consumption behavior to creation

behavior and yeah I think that will

happen. I just a little nervous about

the get rich quick vibes,

right? Yeah.

Awesome. Dylan, we'll have you for draft

night at the new colonel space.

Looking forward to it. But thanks so

much for the time.

Thank you. Thanks for having me.

[Music]