Yeah, it's

like, do you define the market looking back at the history, which is like the only logical way you do it as a regulator? Or do you do it as a technologist looking forward? And that could be very different in terms of how you think about markets, sizes.

But in any case, all hands, it was actually the first day of a winter break.

which is pretty funny.

So we had told everybody, okay, you know, enjoy the holidays.

We actually have way less traffic during the holidays because we're a work product.

And that was a Friday.

Can you just give me your view on the future of human creativity in this era, this future era that we're waltzing into, the singularity we're falling into? Where does human creativity play a role and where do the gaps still need to be filled for taking human creativity to the realization moment?

Right

... you think about markets by sizes.

But, um, any case, the all hands, uh...

It was actually the first day of a winter break, uh, which is pretty funny.

So we had told everybody, "Okay, uh, you know, enjoy the holidays." We actually have way less traffic during the holidays 'cause we're a work product.

And that was a Friday, and then, um, realized sort of over the weekend, okay, this is going to come to a conclusion.

And on Monday morning, uh, sent a message to everybody saying, "Hey, all hands at noon, and, uh, dial in if you like, and here's what's going on, and here's, like, the full sort of, uh, details." And so, first of all, so much of the company showed up.

Can you just give me your view on the future of human creativity in this era, this future era that we're waltzing into, the singularity we're falling into? Where does human creativity play a role, and where do the gaps still need to be filled for taking human creativity to the realization moment?

What did you learn about this agent in beta and what's actually getting launched today?

Well, most importantly, and first of all, so we learned that this is already something we kind of knew, and then we viscerally learned it.

We viscerally learned how I think designers, product managers, they're willing to deal with the terminal, the IDE.

It is not the preferred way of working.

It doesn't feel like home.

uh and they want home they want a better way and so i think that agent is uh a part of that code layers which we announced at config as well uh will also be a part of that and can't wait to be able to share more on that but the um we also i think learned how uh you really need to just go back to the basics when building non-deterministic software.

And this is also obvious.

What do you expect to come in the next maybe few months around what are the specific areas that you're trying to improve?

Mm-hmm

... you might be aided by prompting.

And also, it might be the case that that's just the starting point.

You might have to do more work, and that requires more integration with the global system, uh, of Figma.

And so you kinda have to teach the models Figma first and, uh, make it so that they can understand how to go and work with Figma as well as do good design work.

Uh, but I think that right now, um, you'll probably see, you know, just as much on the slop side, uh, across all products than, you know, uh, in AI.

Uh, I hope you'll see less in Figma.

Yeah

Um, w- uh, what does the business even look like now?

Yeah.

Uh, well, we just finished our Q2 and reported on that, so those were strong results.

Uh, we had our revenue up 48, uh, 46%, uh, year over year.

And overall, um, when we look at NDR, I mean, that came in at 136%, uh, which also I'm really proud of, and then free cash flow, uh, was strong as well.

And I think that, um, the opportunity ahead is so much in the code space and, uh, thinking about AI and inference and consumption on platform.

As we think about everything we can do to help our users be more efficient, have more power in their everyday workflows, there is so much opportunity, and we see people trying to bring AI onto the canvas and into this design environment.

That you're building yourself, right.

Mm.

Uh, and it's not just enough to go and, uh, be able to have a lot of different aesthetics that a model can tap into.

And for what it's worth, the models, they can tap into these different aesthetics if you prompt them right, but, um...

Or some of them can.

But I think that overall, uh, it's also a requirement to be able to get to not just great, but, like, really awesome with these different aesthetics that you're trying for, and it's not just aesthetic.

Uh, you know, as you think about the UX and actually how different screens or interaction patterns connect, how you actually communicate data to a user, uh, the more emotional qualities of a brand or product.

Like, we're so far beyond, uh, or so far away from rather, what people need to get to great design, and there's tons of opportunity there.

Yeah.

How are the customers behaving? Like, what's the, what's the story in, in the fields that you sell your, your software into, Dylan?

Yeah.

Uh, I would say that customers have been on definitely a journey as they look to figure out, how do we integrate AI into the workflow? Um, and some of those customers, that journey, they really understood where they're at and what they were doing, uh, even end of last year, and were doubling down on Figma then.

Uh, others I think have ...

Those may be the early adopters.

Others have been working through that process of figuring it out, uh, throughout, you know, the last, uh, six months, and they're also coming back to double down on Figma fully.

And I think that, uh, as workflows change, what we're trying to do is meet customers where they are.

Uh, we just have 30 seconds, Dylan, but what are you most focused on building right now?

[laughs]

I, I, I think that the models are really decent at math, uh, for like pure math.

Um, and it's a bit of an antidote to the non-verifiable domains that I'm usually in.

So for Figma, I mean, it's all vibes.

Uh, right? Like, you're trying to figure out, um...

Sometimes it's very clear, okay, like literally you didn't center the div.

Like, learn to center divs AI.

Mm

... to get to the net results?

We've always taken a modular approach on what models we can use, and so we can swap models in, out whenever we like on behalf of the user or at the user's request.

And what we do is basically you can take your design and just move it over to a code layer, and it'll automatically convert it.

You can then make that interactive.

You can also in the future imagine a world where you're prototyping or even going to production with code in Figma.

And by being part of that token flow, we're very excited about what that can mean for our users and their abilities to really impact the platform.

Because as code is commoditizing, what we're seeing is that the value's moving up the stack to design.

His own IP, his own branding, logos, artwork, et cetera.

[laughs]

I mean, the cycle seems to be the model comes out, you think it can do everything, you discover the limits, and then you realize that, like, life goes on.

And, uh, it, you know, will at some point that be different and affect the world in a different way? Perhaps.

We'll see.

But so far it seems like everyone's adapting, and part of the adaptation is, uh, realizing the sort of new average that's being put out by the models.

And I think it's not even...

You don't even have to defend taste and people having taste because then we'd argue about do they, um, to just recognize people can detect the average.

Do we have an analog for that yet in the design world now that AI makes design easier to access?

But how do you then fight this narrative that investors just wanna sell first, ask questions later, and, and has put your stock under pressure since the IPO?

Uh, I mean, I think we control the inputs and, uh, we need to deliver for our customers.

Simple as that.

And so we're working very hard always on making sure that we're doing the right thing for the long term.

Uh, and it...

I think that, um, the long term is thankfully, uh, aligned with our strategy.

Uh, we're in the best position we think we possibly can be in.

Uh, regular of the show, Ben, "How do you see inference and token costs affecting your margins going forward?" You kind of alluded to it earlier.

Mm

... and tried a few different directions out.

And, um, yeah, you know, very quickly got to, okay, here is sort of, uh, with some cus- custom prompting, like a list of ways for them to go viral, given who they are.

And, uh, and then it was all collected together in a nice way.

But even for a fun project like that, uh, it's just like, you know, I'm gonna send it to them, they're gonna do whatever they do.

I don't know if they're gonna look at it more than a few times or even a few times, but I don't know.

For me, I wanna go explore wide.

Mm-hmm.

Mm

... and tried a few different directions out, and, um, yeah, you know, very quickly got to: Okay, here is sort of, uh, with some cus- custom prompting, like, a list of ways for them to go viral, given who they are.

And, uh, and then it was all collected together in a nice way.

But even for a fun project like that, uh, it's just like, you know, I'm gonna send it to them.

They're gonna do whatever they do.

I don't know if they're gonna look at it more than a few times or even a few times, but I don't know.

For me, I wanna go explore wide.

Mm-hmm.

Does AI have taste?

I think AI is still a pattern matching machine.

And humans have taste and it's been trained in the data.

And so if you can RLHF the right parts of AI, you can emulate taste.

But that's only with advanced prompting that you can access it.

And so perhaps prompters have taste and can pull it out of this pattern matching machine.

with a sophisticated large model.

How much did you own with the company by then?

Is that right or am I misreading it?

I think it's changed over different periods of time.

In the beginning of Figma, when we first started, I remember looking at the Bureau of Labor Statistics because I wanted to know the market size.

You should know if you're reading any business book.

And the answer was 250,000 designers.

There's 250,000 designers in the United States.

I'm like, shit, that's not the market that we can use to go get VC funding.

So like, um, how'd you, how did you navigate that? I guess starting with your own psychology.

How did designers, how did people build stuff before? Like, w- what, what were people using before Figma?

Yeah, I mean, it was single player, and there's a culture that I think came out of agency culture, where there's a lot of, like, "I'm gonna show you three things, and, like, the first two are not gonna be like just what you want, but the third one, everyone's gonna go, 'Oh, it's so good,' and then I'll go back in my corner and I will do my work and we won't interact that much, 'cause I'm gonna have to try one too." And so that's completely different from the multiplayer experience of Figma, and I think that cultural shift was real.

Like, the first comments we got on the launch were, you know, uh, it was controversial.

People basically, uh, said in the launch comments stuff, stuff like, uh, you know, "A camel is a horse designed by a committee." They said, "If this is the future of design, I'm changing careers." But also, there was a small set of people that loved it and saw that vision of what it could mean to make multiplayer design in the browser, and with a tool that was high quality, and a tool that, um, could actually really meet their needs and be focused on their use case.

Hmm.

And you can be a good leader and a bad manager, or vice versa.

For me, I think I'd always, you know, been a leader in terms of leading different initiatives that I'd been a part of, or trying to help whoever was the leader really, uh, do their best.

And from that, I kind of came into starting Figma, just thinking I was good to go.

What was it that you saw that maybe everyone else didn't see at the time that allowed you to get to where things are today? Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm curious where the prelude to AI goes.

So we'll get there next, I guess.

I think that it started with my co-founder, actually.

So I got to give him all the credit.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I sat down with CEO Dylan Field, who began by explaining the impact of growth from acquiring Weevy, a startup focused on generating imagery with AI within a web browser.

Weavey is this amazing product where you can bring in all sorts of models.

You can compose them in a node-based system, which basically means drag and drop visual programming.

And from there, you can really start to explore what's possible with various models.

So for us, it's a bet that the starting prompt is just a starting prompt, it's not the end.

What you need to do is shape these outputs almost like a medium, like clay, rather than try to go for the one shot.

And then the final destination should be what you get through throughout this process.

But I guess it's, is this existing customers using more products or is it a customer count growing higher because you're offering a wider range of products?

Is that right or am I misreading it?

I think it's changed over different periods of time.

I mean, in the beginning of Figma, when we first started, I remember looking at the Bureau of Labor Statistics because I wanted to know the market size.

Like, you should know if you're reading any business book.

And the answer was 250,000 designers.

There's 250,000 designers in the United States.

I'm like, shit, like that's not the market that we can use to go get VC funding.

of psychology

Is there a, a counterintuitive decision you made along the journey of Figma, something that was very unpopular and just un- and unconventional and controversial, let's say, that people were like, "Now why are we doing this?" And then proved out to be really, really s- important to the success of Figma?

Looking back, one thing that, um, was definitely unpopular and controversial at the time, and now we look back on it, and it's like, "Duh," uh, FigJam.

So FigJams are a whiteboarding, diagramming, brainstorming tool, uh, and it's basically a digital whiteboard.

And you can go in with your team, uh, or maybe if you're a researcher, you can invite folks in from outside the organization, and, uh, you can create diagrams, you can put stickies on the canvas.

Um, and, uh, kind of the entire process of getting FigJam out to market, going from run- one product to two products was hard.

Uh, first of all, I had been noticing the diagram and whiteboarding case in Figma for, Figma Design that is, for years and kind of kept pushing on, "Hey, we gotta make a simpler product surface here, and this is important." And then people, uh, would correctly ask me all the why questions for why now.

"Well, we haven't made Figma Design everything it needs to be yet.

A lot of companies are thinking about, "When should we launch our first, uh, expansion? When do we go beyond that?" What are a couple lessons you learned from going through that, that might be helpful to other founders?

What does that signal to you about when OpenAI communicates, there is that level of response from your investors and the technology industry at large?

Yeah, you surprised me with that earlier before we started talking on the interview and I'll check it later.

But I don't know is the honest answer because it's not really something that I'm as tuned into.

I told the team before we IPO'd, during the IPO, after the IPO, number goes up, number goes down.

What matters are the inputs.

Every day we got to be driving to make sure that we are making a better user experience, better products for all of our users on the platform.

And so I think if it means anything to me, it's people see possibility in how these systems can work together.

Just as a moment in time like this Dev Day where there are thousands of people here in Fort Mason, San Francisco, in your technology career, could you try and summarize what you think is happening in particular with AI and what's happening in this city? I

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 gaining 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 Skomrock, and thinking through, okay, what might it look like if some of the ideas from the nineties 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.

Mm-hmm.

What do people not understand about design? What makes a designer CEO different? There's a million

definitions of design, but I. I always like to think of it kind of as core problem solving.

And I think that people kind of go on this design journey and maybe the first step is like, does design even matter? I made something cool.

Why do I need a designer? And then I think at some point people go, okay, well, I should at least make it pretty.

I'll hire a designer.

How do I make it pop? How do I make it cool, sexy? And then I think from there, people go, wait a second, it's Maybe that's not enough because I'm putting this in front of people, my product, my software, my app, and they don't know how to use it.

They're getting stuck.

Right? Like you still, I have to spend more time to fine tune it and maybe I have to end up fine tuning a lot of it myself, not using those tools.

Are you different? Are your products different? Like, there were strategic reasons you wanted to become part of Adobe initially.

You know, it's interesting, the company that's acquiring in this period between, uh, sign and close, they can't direct activities.

And that's something I think people don't really know.

And so, we had our roadmap going into the deal, and that was our roadmap during the deal.

It didn't change.

And our foot, I think, was on the gas throughout.

And the more that we started to, you know, have to ask ourselves with just regulatory being what it was, uh, whether or not that was, like, a correct assessment, not a correct assessment, you know, we'll leave it to history to tell.

What w- w- what do people not understand about design? What makes a designer CEO different?

Mm-hmm.

And, uh, they got someone who was legendary design talent to be able to be at the forefront of their work on Oculus for- for quite some time.

And, um, I- I would not be surprised if similar things started happening, um, but I also think that, um, you know, back in the early days of Figma, it was this question even of, like, how many designers are there in the United States and the world? I mean, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said that there were 250,000 designers.

It's like, well, that seems wrong in 2012.

But, like, how many are there actually? I don't know, maybe it's like 500,000, not 250,000.

But like, eh, is it, like, a venture scalable business? We don't know.

And, uh, but what we noticed was that values move up the stack, and it was going to be the case that everyone's going to build up, uh, their design team and the design would be so important as this overall system changed.

Yeah.