Dylan Field live at Figma's Config: Intuition, simplicity, and the future of design

Summary

In this special live episode, host Lenny Ravich interviews Figma CEO and co-founder, Dylan Field, at Figma Config. They explore Dylan's approach to product design, the importance of intuition and simplification in product management, and the future of design tools. Dylan shares anecdotes from Figma's early days, discusses the community's response to AI in design, and even hints at his favorite AI tool, websim. The conversation is interspersed with humor, including a playful discussion on 'raccoon feet vs. muffin hands' and a nostalgic clip of Dylan as a child actor.

Takeaways

• 🎙️ The podcast episode features a live recording with Figma CEO and co-founder, Dylan Field, at Figma Config, emphasizing the excitement and unique nature of the event.
• 🏆 Dylan Field expresses gratitude to the Config team for organizing the live podcast and acknowledges the importance of the community in Figma's success.
• 🤖 The conversation delves into the role of AI in product design, discussing the balance between AI-generated software and the need for unique human design.
• 🔮 Dylan shares his intuition and product taste development process, likening intuition to a hypothesis generator that is tested and refined over time.
• 🛠️ The episode highlights Figma's commitment to simplicity, with Dylan discussing the challenges of adding features without increasing complexity.
• 👶 A light-hearted discussion about Figma's 'raccoon feet and muffin hands' tradition showcases the company's culture and Dylan's approachability.
• 🔍 Dylan emphasizes the importance of understanding user needs deeply, mentioning his active engagement in social media and support channels to gather feedback.
• 🎨 The episode explores the definition of design as 'art applied to problem-solving,' indicating the balance between creativity and utility in design.
• 🌐 Dylan talks about his early strategies for gaining users, including reaching out to influential designers on Twitter for feedback and advocacy.
• 🚀 The podcast touches on Dylan's ability to spot trends, such as his early interest in WebGL and CryptoPunks, showcasing his forward-thinking mindset.
• 💡 Dylan shares his belief in the importance of mentorship from various sources, including peers, community members, and even those he mentors.
• 🎬 Lastly, the episode concludes with a fun look back at Dylan's childhood acting career, reflecting on his journey from actor to tech leader.

Q & A

What was the significance of the live podcast recording with Dylan Field at Figma Config?

This was the first-ever live recording of the podcast, featuring a conversation with Figma's CEO and co-founder, Dylan Field, in front of a live audience at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, showcasing the community aspect and the excitement of the event.

How does Dylan Field describe the role of intuition in product development?

Dylan describes intuition as a hypothesis generator, which is used to create and debate potential solutions, and then refine them based on data and feedback to form a working hypothesis that guides product development.

What is Dylan Field's perspective on the future of product management?

Dylan believes that the roles of product management, design, and engineering will continue to exist and hold immense value, as they each bring unique qualities essential to creating great products.

How did Figma approach the challenge of simplifying its product?

Dylan emphasizes the importance of making Figma more powerful without increasing its complexity. He acknowledges the difficulty of this task and the need to constantly revisit the system to maintain coherence and simplicity.

What was the initial strategy for gaining early users for Figma?

Figma's initial strategy involved identifying influential designers on Twitter, reaching out to them for feedback, and building relationships. This approach was more about seeking valuable feedback and less about a traditional growth hack.

How did Dylan Field's early acting experience influence his current role as a CEO?

Dylan humorously reflects on his childhood acting days, noting that the ability to read and sit still were his differentiators at the time. While he enjoyed acting, his interests shifted towards computer science during puberty, leading him to his current path.

What is the importance of mentorship in Dylan Field's journey as a leader?

Mentorship has played a significant role in Dylan's growth, coming from various sources including the community, employees, investors, and even those he has mentored, highlighting the importance of being open to learning from all around.

What advice does Dylan Field have for product creators regarding the balance between quality and speed to market?

Dylan advises that product creators should aim to ship their products as quickly as possible to gain feedback, but also emphasizes the importance of maintaining a minimum quality bar and iteratively improving the product post-launch.

How does Dylan Field view the role of product managers in the context of Figma's team structure?

Dylan sees product managers as essential in creating frameworks that bring everyone together, providing a point of view and strategy, and ensuring the team shares a common understanding of the product's direction and goals.

What is Dylan Field's opinion on the importance of simplicity in product design?

Dylan believes that simplicity is crucial in product design, as adding more features without maintaining simplicity can lead to a 'monstrosity'. He stresses the need for everyone in the organization to be responsible for maintaining simplicity.

Can you provide an example of a time when Dylan Field changed his mind based on feedback or data?

One example is when Dylan initially had skepticism about implementing 'Pages' in Figma, but the community and team's needs convinced him of their necessity, demonstrating his willingness to adapt his views based on user requirements.

Outlines

00:00

🎙️ Live Podcast Recording at Figma Config

The script introduces a special live episode of a podcast recorded at Figma Config with CEO and co-founder Dylan Field. The host expresses gratitude to the Config team for setting up the live recording and studio. The episode delves into Dylan's approach to product development, his use of intuition as a hypothesis generator, and the future of product management. It also touches on Figma's efforts to remain user-friendly and the early days of the company. Dylan shares his favorite AI tool, 'websim,' and the audience is treated to a humorous clip of him as a child actor.

05:00

📣 Sponsorship and Design Philosophy Discussion

This paragraph features sponsorship messages for WorkOS and Anvil, highlighting their services for enterprise feature integration and document workflow development, respectively. Following this, the conversation shifts to design philosophy, where Dylan expands on his view of design as a fusion of art and problem-solving. The discussion lightens with a quirky inquiry into a Figma tradition called 'raccoon feet and muffin hands,' which showcases the company's culture and Dylan's engaging personality.

10:02

🤔 Building Intuition and Product Taste

Dylan discusses the development of his intuition and product taste, describing intuition as a hypothesis generator that is tested and refined through debate and data analysis. He shares his process of staying informed about Figma through various channels and emphasizes the importance of understanding user needs at a deep level. The conversation also covers his openness to changing his mind when presented with compelling evidence or arguments.

15:05

🛠️ The Role of Product Management at Figma

The dialogue explores the value of product management, with Dylan reflecting on the blurred lines between product managers, designers, and engineers. He stresses the importance of each role having a diverse skill set and contributing to a holistic product vision. Dylan also addresses the importance of product managers having a clear strategy and point of view, and the ability to create frameworks that guide the team towards a shared goal.

20:08

🛑 The Importance of Simplification in Product Design

Simplification is a key focus for Dylan as he believes that adding features without consideration of complexity can lead to a 'monstrosity.' He discusses the challenges of making Figma more powerful without increasing its complexity, emphasizing the need for constant vigilance to maintain simplicity. The conversation also touches on the redesign of Figma and Dylan's dissatisfaction with certain aspects that he found overly complex.

25:10

🚀 Early Days of Figma and Growth Strategies

Dylan reflects on the early days of Figma, the lengthy period from inception to launch, and the initial struggle to secure paying customers. He acknowledges the importance of hiring effectively and getting products to market quickly. The narrative includes anecdotes about personally engaging with early adopters and influencers to gather feedback and build a user base.

30:13

🌐 Spotting Trends and the Future of Figma

The conversation shifts to Dylan's ability to identify emerging trends, such as WebGL and CryptoPunks. He talks about his interest in 'websim,' an AI-driven platform that generates simulated web experiences. Dylan also shares his enthusiasm for the future of computing and encourages the audience to share their innovative projects with him.

35:18

💡 Learning and Growth as a Leader

Dylan discusses his journey from a small startup to leading a thousand-plus employee company. He emphasizes the importance of continuous learning and adaptation, highlighting the value of mentorship from various sources, including community members, employees, investors, and even those he mentors.

40:18

🎬 From Child Actor to Tech Entrepreneur

In the final paragraph, Dylan's childhood as an actor is highlighted, and he reflects on his career transition from acting to computer science and entrepreneurship. The podcast concludes with a light-hearted moment, playing a commercial from his childhood acting days, which Dylan humorously comments on before signing off.

Keywords

💡Figma

Figma is a cloud-based design and collaboration tool used for user interface and user experience design. It is central to the video's theme as the company's CEO, Dylan Field, discusses the product's development, philosophy, and future. The script mentions Figma's features, such as simplicity and the ability to handle complex design tasks, and its impact on the design community.

💡Intuition

Intuition in the context of the video refers to the innate sense or immediate understanding that guides decision-making, particularly in product design. Dylan Field describes intuition as a 'hypothesis generator' in the creative process, emphasizing its role in shaping Figma's product development and how it complements data-driven insights.

💡Product Management

Product Management is the process of guiding a product from conception to market launch and beyond. It is a key concept in the video as Dylan Field shares his perspective on the evolving role of product managers and their importance in shaping product strategy and maintaining simplicity in complex systems like Figma.

💡Simplicity

Simplicity is highlighted as a core value in the design and user experience of Figma. The video discusses the challenge of maintaining simplicity as a product becomes more powerful, and the deliberate effort to avoid unnecessary complexity, which aligns with Figma's design philosophy.

💡AI Tool

An AI tool, as mentioned in the script, refers to artificial intelligence-driven software that assists in various tasks, such as design or data analysis. Dylan Field shares his enthusiasm for a particular AI tool called 'websim,' which he finds intriguing and innovative, showcasing the intersection of AI and design.

💡Podcast

A podcast is an episodic series of digital audio or video files that users can download or stream. The video is a special live recording of a podcast hosted by Lenny, featuring Dylan Field. The format allows for an in-depth conversation about Figma, design, and product management.

💡Community

Community in this context refers to the group of people who use and are passionate about Figma. The script emphasizes the importance of the Figma community in providing feedback, shaping the product, and being part of the ecosystem that drives innovation in design.

💡Config

Config is an event organized by Figma, where the video's recording takes place. It serves as a platform for discussions, demos, and community engagement around design and technology, highlighting Figma's commitment to its user base and the industry.

💡Craft

Craft in the video refers to the skill, art, and expertise involved in creating high-quality designs and products. The script discusses the importance of maintaining a high standard of craft in the era of AI-generated designs and the impact on the uniqueness and quality of design work.

💡Iterative Improvement

Iterative improvement is the process of enhancing a product or service through repeated cycles of feedback and refinement. The video mentions the importance of shipping a 'minimally awesome product' and then continuously improving it based on user feedback, which is a core approach in agile product development.

💡UserTesting

UserTesting is a platform that provides feedback on products and experiences through user research. It is mentioned in the script as a service that helps teams make informed decisions by gaining insights from real users, which is crucial for building effective and user-centric designs.

Highlights

Live recording of the podcast at Figma Config with CEO Dylan Field.

Dylan discusses building and refining product taste and intuition.

Intuition as a hypothesis generator in product development.

Future of product management and its evolution.

Dylan's approach to keeping Figma simple and enhancing user experience.

Stories from the early days of Figma's development.

Dylan's favorite AI tool, websim, and its capabilities.

Importance of community in Figma's growth and success.

Dylan's thoughts on the role of product managers at Figma.

The challenge of balancing simplicity and power in Figma's design.

Dylan's strategy for operationalizing simplicity in product development.

The process of getting early users for Figma through direct engagement with influential designers.

Dylan's perspective on the importance of mentors and continuous learning.

Reflection on the journey from the early days to leading a thousand-person company.

Dylan's view on the early days of computing and the future of technology.

Lightning round with Dylan revealing his thoughts on various topics.

Transcripts

Today I am excited to bring  you a very special episode,  

which was recorded live at Figma Config  with Figma CEO and co-founder, Dylan Field,  

in front of a live audience at the Moscone  Center in San Francisco. This is the first  

ever live recording of this podcast and it  was so much fun. If you watch this on YouTube,  

you can see the epic stage that they built  specifically for us to recreate my podcast  

studio. I could not be more thankful to  the Config team for making this happen. 

In my conversation with Dylan, we dig into  how he builds and refines his product taste  

and intuition, how intuition is a hypothesis  generator, the future of product management.  

How Dylan attempts to operationalize keeping  Figma simple and to continue simplifying the  

experience. A bunch of stories from the early  days of Figma that I've never heard before. Also,  

he shares his favorite AI tool called websim,  which is wild. And if you wait till the very end,  

you can see a very young child actor Dylan Field  in a clip that I found online that was hilarious. 

If you enjoy this podcast, don't forget to  subscribe and follow it in your favorite  

podcasting app or YouTube. It's the best  way to avoid missing future episodes and  

it helps the podcast tremendously.  With that, I bring you Dylan Field. 

Dylan, thank you so much for joining  me and welcome to the podcast.

Thank you, Lenny.

Hi all.

Is this your first live podcast?

This is my first ever live podcast.  Also, a big thank you to the Config  

team who set up this crazy studio. I had  no idea this was going to happen. I feel  

like I'm in my studio here with a thousand  people watching us. It's very impressive.  

I very much dig the background and also  the mics that may or may not be wired.

That's right. Don't say that. Don't tell people.

Oh, sorry.

There's no wires coming out of them.

There's no one behind the curtain either. Okay,  so Dylan, I want to start by just checking in on  

how you're doing. So Config is about to wrap up.  We've been at it for two days now. I know how much  

lift goes into doing these sorts of things. I  imagine you've been thinking about this for a  

long time now. I'm just curious how you're doing,  any surprises, any highlights, any low lights?

The highlight is the community and just  the incredible, incredible people here at  

Config. Y'all are awesome. I don't know  why I keep talking in the mic like this.  

It's instinctual. But seriously, it's just  the most amazing community to be part of  

and I feel so lucky. And then in terms  of how I'm doing at this exact moment,  

exhausted, but riding on caffeine and  whatever this really cool probiotic drink is.

Any surprises from the past couple of  days? Anything that's like, "Oh wow,  

that went a lot better than  I thought, maybe less well."

Demo, definitely things I would've improved. But  also Emil and Mihika were phenomenal, and it was  

just so awesome to see them do their demos and  present materials. I was just really pleased  

with the conversation, I think, that's getting  started at Config around AI. I was looking online  

on social media and I think people are already  zeroing in the right conversation, which is, okay,  

in a world of more software being created by AI,  what does that mean and the impact on craft and  

the impact on quality and the need to have more  unique design and how design is a differentiator. 

And I think some people are saying, "I agree with  that." Some people are saying, "That I disagree  

with that", and that's exactly the bounds of  what the conversation I imagined would emerge  

from yesterday. It was funny, the make design  feature, I think that I said on the keynote,  

I was like, "This is going to give you the most  obvious thing in the most obvious form possible."  

And then people online are like, "It's just  going to give you some obvious thing." I agree.

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free trial. That's use-A-N-V-I-L.com/lenny. Let's keep talking about design. You once  

said that the definition of design is art  applied to problem solving. Can you just  

add a bit more to that? What do you mean  by that? Because that's an amazing line.

Well, I don't think it's my original  line. I think someone else said it,  

but there's a lot of definitions of design out  there too. There's also 'design is dialogue'  

or 'design is problem solving'. You just go  straight there. I could go with 10 more. But  

I like art applied to problem solving because  I think that design is often... There is some  

component of creativity to it and unique  expression that you're trying to provide  

and create and put out into the world. But you are  also trying to do it and match it to a user need,  

a problem that needs to be solved.  And I think that it's not pure art,  

but if you lose the art and you're just  solving the problem, it's totally utilitarian  

and it lacks soul. And so the combination of  those two things is to me really beautiful.

I'm going to pivot to a very hard hitting  question. I hope your PR people don't kill  

me for asking this. Many people asked me  to ask you this question. Very important.  

Please explain a Figma tradition  called raccoon feet and muffin hands.

I should probably just leave this interview  now. So this is a conversation, I'm not sure  

exactly where it started, but it started in early  Figma. And basically we had these lunch tables at  

Figma where we would just all gather and have  very long, interesting meandering conversations  

before we got back to work. And one of the  questions that, was a 'would you rather',  

was would you rather have raccoons for feet or  muffins for hands? And I think this is a deeply  

philosophical question. I have pondered it since  I've heard it. I still don't have one answer.  

If you've got an answer, I'm curious what it is.

I've got follow up questions. Can  you control where the raccoon take  

you or are they just deciding  on their own what's happening?

I think that raccoons probably wouldn't  even agree with each other where to go.

Okay, that's complicated.

If you had raccoons for feet right now, do you  think that it would interfere with this podcast?

But muffin hands would also interfere with my  newsletter and I feel like I'd be out of work.

I don't know if you can type.

I'd need a special keyboard.  This is very difficult.

You haven't even thought  about the upsides of this yet.

What are the upsides?

We can get there, it's all-

Maybe I could eat some of the muffins.

It's the case for optimism.

Cupcakes?

If you have muffins for hands,  maybe if you're hungry...

Do they regenerate as you you eat them?

That's a good question. There's no answers  here, just questions. Do your nails grow?

Yes.

Oh, okay. Interesting. It's  deeper than you might think.

I'm going to play a short clip  with Rick Rubin and then I have  

a question about it. So we'll see if that plays.

But exactly what he does and how is difficult  to describe. Do you play instruments?

Barely.

Do you know how to work a soundboard?

No. I have no technical ability  and I know nothing about music.

Then you must know something.

Well, I know what I like and what I don't like.  

And I'm decisive about what  I like and what I don't like.

So what are you being paid for?

The confidence that I have in my taste and my  

ability to express what I feel  has proven helpful for artists.

So I'm not going to say this is you. You  need to grow the beard. But I think this  

is a little bit you because what  I've heard from a number of your  

colleagues is that one of your superpowers  is intuition and product taste. And someone  

said that you have the sixth sense for what's  going to work, when you're designing Figma  

and you're making decisions in the product.  So I'm curious how you've built and refined  

your intuition and product taste when  it comes to Figma and then even broadly.

That's a lot kinder than I thought you were  going to be. I thought you're going to be like,  

"You don't know how to code and  you don't know how to design."

No.

But no, here's my framework for it. I  think intuition is like a hypothesis  

generator and you're constantly generating  these hypotheses and others are generating  

hypotheses as well. And you then take these  hypotheses and you put them forward and you  

debate them and you try to find data to  support them or negate them. And then  

you winnow it down into what is our working  hypothesis? And from that you move forward.

I heard that you read every tweet that  mentions Figma and share them with folks.  

There's a Slack channel where you paste them.  I imagine that is a part of this where you're  

just constantly watching what people are saying  about Figma, what people are complaining about.

I definitely look everywhere trying to  constantly ingest information about Figma,  

and it's not just Twitter/X, whatever that's  called now, but anywhere on the internet,  

support channels, et cetera. And I'm always  trying to understand. I also ask a lot of  

questions and I try to get to root problems  and understand where people are coming from  

and what are they actually trying to solve.  Sometimes people are saying, "Hey, I need X",  

but they really want Y or Z. And trying to do that  myself and engage and dive deeper there, but also  

to encourage our team to do that, I think leads  to really good outcomes in terms of what we ship.

Is there something you've changed your mind  about, building on that, either based on customer  

feedback or some employee just making a case and  like, "Okay, you're right." Is there something  

that comes to mind of something you've changed  your mind about recently? Somebody said Flides.

For when we started out Flides. I have not.  It's Figma Slides. Well, it's not recent,  

but one good example of me changing my mind is  that you all have Pages in Figma, you're welcome.  

But I think I have deep skepticism of Pages still.  I'm not sure they're... If you could freeze time  

and I could just go in with my team, work on Figma  for a very long time, I'm not sure we'd come to  

the same implementation of Pages that we are at  today. I just don't think it's the most elegant  

solution in the context of the entire system of  product design that you could create. The world  

told me and our team that that did not matter  and they needed Pages. And don't worry, we're not  

shipping Pages. But I am still very skeptical of  them and I think that in general, probably my team  

would tell you that I don't always change my mind,  but I also build trust with people in deep ways. 

And I think across our organization, if things  are not going to be fatal, then if I hear from  

someone, "Hey, I really think we should do X",  then I'll say, "Okay, just go with it. And here's  

my feedback, here's what I'm skeptical of, let's  see what happens." And then sometimes they come  

back to me and they're like, "See I was right."  But usually they're pretty polite about it.

Just to build on that, something a lot  of people try to work on is being good  

at influencing leadership execs, CEOs. What  do you find works to change your mind? What  

do people come to you with that helps  you like, "Okay, you're actually right?"

I think the more concrete an artifact  is or the more you can debate something,  

the better. I ask for examples a lot, I try to ask  follow up questions about things and make sure I  

fully understand it. And I think where I get stuck  sometimes is if I ask follow up questions and we  

don't have answers yet, and then my response might  be, "Let's go find the answer to these questions  

and then let's go back to this conversation", if I  think it's something that's really important. And  

I think for some people they might go, "Okay, this  is actually really obvious. I can't believe you're  

so dense and you don't get it yet." And sometimes  they're right and they come back and they're like,  

"Okay, here's the data now, can we move on?"  And we do, we move on and they're right. And  

I just think that it's important though to just  really understand something from first principles  

for a lot of decisions. And maybe it's just a  perfectionist quality repeated over time, I think  

it leads to good outcomes as long as you make  sure it's not bottle-necking the organization.

So following up on that, let's talk about  product management. So last year you had  

Brian Chesky here, I think maybe on this  stage, maybe a bigger stage. And he said that  

they got rid of product management at Airbnb and  everyone cheered and all the PMs were very sad.  

And he didn't actually mean they  got rid of product management,  

they changed the function and evolved  it. I'm curious just to get your take.

It's funny. This year we have you here  Lenny, so that's your answer. No...

I had him on the-

Before and after, all. Surprise.

We're still here. We're still here. I want to  get your take on product management. You all  

have amazing product managers at Figma. I've  had three of them on the podcast already. I'm  

curious just what value you find the  best product managers bring to Figma?

It was really funny last year after that  interview, so Yuhki, our chief product officer,  

had invited me to a dinner for our PM team. And  it took a while to get out of Config at the end  

of the day, and I eventually made the dinner but I  was 40 minutes late. And I walk in and Mihika who  

was on stage yesterday, presenting Figma Slides,  Flides, she was standing up and doing a mock Brian  

Chesky impersonation. And she's standing up in  front of the entire product team and she goes,  

"And then Brian Chesky's like, 'There don't need  to be any PMs.' And Dylan's like... Ooh." And  

I'm like, "Hi, Mihika." And I'd never seen her  so red. And then I gave a quick, "Hey PM team,  

I believe in you. Thank you for your hard work." Seriously, I think that if you zoom out, it's  

always tricky whenever you're asked to formally  define, what is the separation between a product  

manager, a designer, and an engineer? It's always  hard to actually create those clear lines. And  

I think in many organizations they're blurry.  But at the end of the day, a PM and designer,  

they need to have some technical expertise or at  least understand how some systems work to probably  

create the best things they can possibly make. A  designer, engineer, they should probably have some  

sense of the business objectives. They should  have some sense of what users want. An engineer  

and a product manager, they should have taste and  craft and some sense of the option space, and some  

desire to care about the visual implementation. And I think you can include research in there too,  

if you want to make it four legs of the stool  rather than the trio. And you can talk about  

all three probably should have exposure to users  and be talking in dialogue with users. So I think  

that if you think about that group holistically,  each is important. If you think about a team,  

there's all these qualities that you have to  have to make a great product. And that said,  

I think for product managers and the product  function... I think sometimes when you see people  

that fall down in that function is because  they treat it too much like process. Which  

is very important too, don't me wrong. Good  process can help support good outcomes. But  

I think that you can't lose sight of the problems  that you're solving. You have to go talk to users  

and you have to actually have a strategy. And  if you're really good, you should have a point  

of view. And some point of views are going to  lead to good outcomes and some point of views  

aren't. And there's some tense sense of taste. And you also have to bring everyone together  

and make sure that they get to the objective,  that it's celebrated, and that at the end of  

the project or when you complete a milestone,  everyone's stoked. Otherwise, it's not going to  

be a team that gels, you're not going to get to  the next outcome. Even if you get to an outcome  

and it's a milestone, but if everyone's unhappy,  you failed. And so somehow good product people are  

able to do all this and they're able to create  great frameworks that bring everyone along with  

them. And so everyone's able to have a shared head  space around what it is they're trying to get to.

Someone once said that if PMs disappeared or if a  PM goes on vacation, everything's okay for a week  

or two or three and then things start to crumble a  little bit because they glue everything together.  

Do you find that sort of thing? Let me actually  ask a different question along those lines,  

are you bearish or bullish on the future of  product management? Do you think PMs will continue  

the way they are? Do you think PMs will dwindle  any sense of the future of product management?

I think probably everyone's learning to do a  bit more of everyone else's job in this current  

moment. That said, I definitely think there's  still immense value in product, immense value  

in design, immense value in engineering. And  so I think those roles will continue to exist.

So maybe I just want to come back to the question  of just, with the best PMs that you work with,  

do you find, what value do they most bring?  I guess is there anything that's like,  

"Here's what would be gone  if we didn't have these PMs"?

The best PMs, I think again, create those  frameworks that bring everyone else along  

and those frameworks also have a point of  view and a strategy associated with them.  

So you're able to take the strategy, take the  point of view, wrap it all up in a framework,  

and then make it so that everyone knows what  the destination is and how to get there.

So along these lines, something I've heard you're  really big on is simplification. Somebody told  

me that when you're in a designer view and  things just feel too complex to you, quote,  

"You furrow your brow and insist there must be  something simpler." Why is simplification so  

top of mind for you, why is it so important  for you and just why is it so hard to do?

Oh, gosh. Well, I think probably anyone here  who's worked on product knows how hard it is. I  

think the more that you add, the harder it is to  create something that's coherent. One essay that  

Evan, my co-founder, introduced me to early  on in famous history, I think from Stevie's  

[inaudible 00:23:06] grants or something like  that, contains the term irreducible complexity.  

And it's basically this idea that one plus one  does not equal three, it sometimes equals one  

and a half. And the more that you add and the  more that you continue to put in something,  

the more complex it gets and the worse it gets.  And I think this is definitely true for tools. 

So in the context of Figma, we can make  it more powerful, but to do that in a way  

that's not making it more complex at the same  time is extremely hard. And we have to always  

be paying attention to how complex or how simple  things are because if we don't, it just becomes a  

monstrosity really fast. And there's parts of our  product that, I don't want to dive into that part  

of the conversation, the self-critique,  but definitely as I'm in conversation  

with a bunch of our product leaders at  Figma, there's parts where it's like, "Okay,  

this thing is too complex as a system and we made  all the right local decisions and yet together  

they're too complex and they're not working  anymore. And let's go revisit the system now."

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I know you just redesigned Figma. I imagine part  of that came from things are just getting too  

complicated, not as simple as we want. Is there  anything that's been bugging you in the old Figma  

but like, "Oh, this is way too complicated,  I really want to simplify this thing"?

Yes.

What's that?

We'll move on, but many things.

Sounds good. And in terms of how to keep things  simple, so I had Dharmesh Shah on the podcast,  

he's the co-founder of HubSpot,  and the way he described it is  

that you're always fighting the second  loft through more dynamics of entropy,  

just the product getting more complicated.  And he sees himself as part of the solution,  

of top down, you have to be on top of that.  Is that the way you see it? That's your role,  

to keep things simple. Do you think people  further down the ladder can do that?

Absolutely, everyone's responsible for  simplicity. And I think another quote  

that is not mine but is a really a good one  is "Keep the simple things simple. Make the  

complex things possible." And I think that's  a really important principle to hold as you're  

designing tools. And I'd say that it's really easy  to make the simple things complex, unfortunately.

I want to pivot to talking about early days  Figma. So I don't know how many people know this,  

but it took three and a half years to launch  Figma from when you were beginning to work on it.

Way too long, don't do that.

This is my question. So it took three and  a half years to launch and then five years  

to get your first customer. Dylan, what  the hell were you doing all that time?

I don't think it took five  years for a first... Well okay-

Paying.

First paying customer, sure. Okay, fine.  Slightly less but approximately five years,  

it gets to be round up. I think that if I had been  probably better at hiring and recruiting... I see  

Nadia in the audience, making eye contact with her  the entire time, for some reason. She's our chief  

people officer. If she had been at Figma from  day one, we would've hired probably faster and  

we would've gotten to market faster. But I think  that it was a hard product to build and to get  

everything to come together with. I also see Sho.  And I think for... Sho's joined us as a director  

of engineering. He's a VP of product now. Again,  people can wear many hats. And he was someone that  

joined Figma and said, "Hey, y'all need to ship  this thing, you're really close." And he really  

helped catalyze us to ship in that moment. And  I think, in week one, he gave a presentation. It  

was like, "Here's what we got to do, here's  the gap. Everyone agrees on it. Let's go."

You already said that you wish you  shipped earlier. Is there any advice  

there for just people building something today of-

Get it out as fast as you possibly can.  Everything they tell you about making sure  

that you get a product out really quickly  is totally true. The faster you get it out,  

the more feedback you get. That is a positive  thing. And now I index on that when we try to  

build. And FigJam's a great example of that, we  shipped it incredibly fast and it helped us get  

to market and get feedback faster. Figma Slides,  great example of that too. Dev Mode, for what  

it's worth, it took us longer. We just had to keep  iterating and building it and building it again.  

Certain directions we tried didn't work out  and we really had to get to a place where we  

were able to really believe that we were adding  value and really understood the developer's user,  

and it just didn't happen for a long time. So  it's interesting because I think people look  

at Dev Mode and sometimes they go, "Oh, this is  quite simple", to the point about simplicity. 

Figma, is this simpler than FigJam? And the  reality was it took at least three times as long.

So your advice is ship quickly.  There's also this push the-

I'd hold the bar, for sure.

That's the question I have, is there's also a  lot of talk of just the bar has risen. You need,  

especially B2B software, craft is really  important. Linear talks a lot about this,  

just the bar is very high for people to  switch from something out there. Is there  

anything... I don't think you'll have, "Here's  the answer. When you're ready to ship...", but  

just any advice of just like, "Here's good  enough" versus "No, you should probably wait."

Well, another thing that Evan taught me  was that for a new launch, you got quality,  

features, deadline, choose two. And I think  that the beautiful thing about software is  

you can keep iterating on it. So it's not  like a physical product where you have to  

always have quality in there, otherwise  it's never going to have quality. You  

can ship it with features and deadline and  then improve it iteratively over time. I'm  

not saying you should always do that.  Sometimes you need to at least have a  

minimum bar of quality for the things you have  and you're going to ship less features maybe. 

So you choose quality and deadline and sometimes  you say, "Actually here's the minimum feature  

set and we're going to have this quality bar and  you're willing to push it out." But I think you  

have to know when you're introducing a new  thing, what it's going to take and then to  

make that minimally awesome product. But also I  think that when you're iteratively improving it,  

you shouldn't just be focused on the features,  you have to focus on the quality too.

I like this term you use, 'minimally awesome  product'. Love it. So the way you got your  

early users for Figma is quite fascinating.  I don't know how many people know this story,  

but you basically wrote a script to scrape Twitter  

and create a graph of the most  influential designers on Twitter,  

and then you made it your mission to convince  them to use Figma and make them evangelists.  

Is there anything more to the story there?  And then I have a question along those lines.

You can't do this anymore, first of all, because  the Twitter API doesn't exist anymore. Rest in  

peace, Twitter API. But look, I was an intern at  LinkedIn and when I was there I saw some really  

cool work people had done with Gephi, which was  a network visualization tool. And based on that  

I thought it'd be interesting to try to, like  you said, look at who the design network was,  

who the central nodes were, which you can just run  [inaudible 00:31:31] on and see. And you could do  

that for other communities too, which I have done  in the past just because I'm curious about social  

network dynamics and social network analysis. And you could just do those things back in 2012,  

2013 when Figma started. So I constructed this  list of, "Here are the most central designers  

in the graph", but also then I looked at their  work. And the ones that I was really inspired by  

as a total fanboy, and someone who wanted  to learn as much as I could about design,  

was inspired by these folks, the ones I was  inspired by I reached out to and said, "Hey,  

can I buy you a coffee?" And most of them are  really kind. The design community is amazing.  

And they said yes and then from there was able  to learn from them, show them Figma, get their  

feedback. And I think it started honestly  more as me fanboy and me getting feedback. 

One example is Tim Van Damme. I saw him on  Dribble. Max [inaudible 00:32:35], I'm like,  

"Oh, my God, this guy is just genius. These  icons are incredible." I think the first  

time I met Tim was at Dropbox and think  I had this total fanboy moment. I'm like,  

"I've been tracing your icons." He's like, "Hi." 

And I had been working on vector networks  with a team, and my test cases were a lot  

of his icons. Because they were just beautiful  and I liked looking at them and studying them.  

And to now have Tim on the team and have him  doing the icons for UI 3 is such an honor,  

and privileged to work with someone of that craft.  So reaching out to your hero sometimes works.

It's interesting because when people hear that  story, when I've heard that story many times,  

it was always like, "Here's a growth hack.  Find the most influential people in your field,  

go try to convince them to use your product." And  the way you're describing it is you were using it  

more as feedback. "I just want to show you the  product, get your feedback, make this better",  

and then it ended up working. They're like,  "Oh, I love Figma, I'm going to use it."

Well, I think it especially works for designers  that way, because designers are really good at  

giving feedback. It turns out that not everyone is  good at giving feedback, but designers are awesome  

at that. So we're really lucky. And literally  early on in Figma's existence, folks... I think  

Payam [inaudible 00:34:00] is here somewhere. I'm  not sure if he's in this room, but I was hoping  

to see him before the end of Config. Payam wrote  a very long doc for us about all the things that  

he wanted to see in Figma after we did a user  research study with him. With a bottle of wine  

because our text editing didn't work very well  then. So I ran him through the user study, I knew  

we'd need a bottle of wine to finish and it took  hours. The type of sentence in Figma was so slow.

That reminds me of a story I've heard where...  One of your first customers was Coda, sponsor I  

think of Config. It used to be called Krypton.  And there's a story where you installed Figma,  

you helped them get set up, you drove  home and then they called you like,  

"Hey, Figma is not working anymore." And you  drove back yourself to help fix them and it  

ended up their wifi was down or there  was a wifi issue. Is that the story?

I don't remember what the solution was, but-

That's what I heard.

... we were halfway home and somehow I saw... I'm  sure I was not looking at my email while driving,  

definitely is not something anyone here  should do. But somehow found out that  

they had an issue and we turned the car  around. Shishir is amazing by the way,  

and has been a mentor for a long time to me and  many people on our team. And he, I think, at the  

time did not know he was the first customer. And later on he came over to Figma's office  

and I introduced him without really thinking  about that. And I was like, "This is Shishir,  

he's team was really the first user of Figma  as a team." And he goes, "Wait a second, I am?"

I want to talk about something totally different.  Something I've noticed you are good at is you  

spot trends ahead of other people. So obviously  WebGL you were on early and that's what allowed  

Figma to exist, to link it in the browser.  I saw you tweeting about CryptoPunks way  

before they were worth millions of dollars.  You're just like, "Look, CryptoPunks. Look,  

I got a few, they're really cool. They're  super cool, little pipe." I'm curious if  

there's anything these days you're really excited  about that might become bigger in the future?

Well, we talked about websim. We were just talking  

about them backstage and I think  before this conversation too.

Talk about websim.

And that's an example of something  where it's so interesting because  

there's a generative UI component and yet  it's not what we're going for, for Figma,  

it's totally different. So we actually  invested in websim with Figma Ventures.

Maybe explain what websim is for folks.

Websim is a hallucinated internet basically.  If you go to websim.ai, you can use different  

models like Claude or GPT-4o, and you can do that  either through their defaults or you can use open  

router to get a bigger context window. And the  more that you use it, the more you construct  

this context window of this almost universe that  you're building up in websim. And as you do it,  

it's almost like you're world building. And I just  have gone deep and geeked out on this when I've  

had time, and they've evolved the platform a lot. So we were back there and they were showing  

me some new functionality that's really  cool too. But I think it's so interesting  

to see it as this almost lean forward  entertainment tool using the internet.

So I thought you would answer this and so  we're going to have a picture come up here,  

that I tried websim and played around with it.  And hopefully a photo comes up somewhere. So all  

I typed here was gmail.com/dylanfield. So this  is in an invented Gmail. Just came up with this  

using AI of what your inbox should look like and  it looks pretty accurate. There's Adobe stuff-

DOJ, not FTC.

... financial. This is not actual information.  Nobody buy stock based on this. So it's pretty-

No comment on 75% year over year.

So the way it work-

I hadn't ever tried Gmail before.  Did you try you? What was your inbox?

I didn't do me. I don't think it would  have anything. It'd be like, if it does-

Who are you?

So the way it works is just you  type a URL or a prompt in the URL  

field and it'll just invent what that  website looks like. It's hilarious.

It's awesome.

It's awesome. So I think they're going  to get a lot of traffic right now.

One time someone posted in our random channel on  Slack, they said, "I had a dream last night." It's  

always a good start for the random channel. "I had  a dream last night that I was working on FigJam,  

but it wasn't FigJam, it was Frog Jam. And websim was like figma.com/frogjam  

and it came up with a whole marketing  website complete with toad puns for Frog  

Jam. The sticky notes were lily pads and  you were supposed to... It had this whole  

metaphor of hopping from lily pad  to lily pad to generate new ideas.

This is genius. Interestingly, before Figma,  your only other job was an intern at three  

different companies and now you're leading  this juggernaut of a business, a thousand  

plus people. I imagine there's a lot you've had  to learn over this time. So I'm not going to  

ask you what you've learned because I think  it's probably a lot. I'm curious just what  

has most helped you scale and learn? Is it  exec coaches, is it co friends? Is it hiring  

execs? What's most helped you scale with the  business and become the leader you are today?

I think all the above. And also just having  a mindset of, you have to constantly adapt  

and grow and change and adapt. But I would say  that mentors can come from anywhere. It can come  

from the community, all of you. Mentorship can  come from the people you hire. It can come from  

folks that you actively seek out as investors or  explicit mentorship and mentors. It can come from  

people that call themselves coaches. And what's  interesting too is it can come from people you  

mentor as well. There have been plenty of  people where they ask me a question at some  

point and I give them an answer and they think  it's insightful for whatever reason. And then  

years later where we're talking again and I ask  them a question and they're like, "Well, years  

ago you told me..." And they repeat back what  I told them like, "That's a really good point." 

Or they've grown and they've changed and they've  learned and they tell me something completely  

different. They give me a new framework. And  so I think that when you're... A lot of times  

when I talk with new founders, they teach me  things that are totally things that I've just  

never thought about. Or interns at Figma have  been mentors to me, in many ways. So you really  

have to have a ready mindset and just always  be ready to absorb new information, I think.

When you were just tinkering around with  Figma 12 years ago, I think at this point,  

did you ever imagine you'd be running a  thousand person company and audience just  

spell bound by what you're building? There's  people lining up to take photos with your  

logo in the lobby. That doesn't happen. That's  very rare. Just to give you a chance to reflect  

on just how it feels to have built that over time,  how does that feel? I'm sitting here right now.

I feel very, very lucky, but also very humbled  by just the community that is around Figma. I  

mentioned in the keynote, but just the people  that are in the Figma community are the people  

that are shaping the world's technology. And  the chance to serve them and to make software  

for them and hopefully improve their life in  some little way is such a privilege. It's a  

responsibility and one I don't take lightly,  but also I try not to carry that as a weight,  

but rather as pump me up and get  me excited to go build for them.

When we were talking about this idea earlier...  The first thing you said is it's a responsibility,  

which I didn't expect. Is there  anything more there just like,  

"Wow, I really have to help make..."?

Well, again, going back to the simplification  point, it's very important that we continue to  

make Figma more and more simple. We make Figma  as powerful as we can for the people that are  

in our community. That we figure out what  people's needs truly are and that we advance  

the state of the craft, make it so that we do  that in a responsible way. And that we champion  

design and champion quality. So we're trying  to do all those things. We sometimes mess up,  

but people have been very patient with us and  we're very thankful for that. And thankful for the  

support of just everyone here and in our community  that are giving us a chance to make this impact.

Is there anything else you want to...  Oh, there's some applause. Love that.

Thank you.

Applause break. Is there anything else  you want to share? Anything else you  

want to leave listeners with before we  get to a very quick lightning round?

Well, no, one thing I'll share is I think we're  so early on this journey of computing in general.  

And in our lifetimes, we're going to have  the chance to just build such incredible  

technology and incredible products. And I'm really  excited to see what everyone in this room builds,  

but also everyone on the internet that  [inaudible 00:43:48] maybe also builds  

and send me cool stuff. If you build something  cool, message me somewhere and share it with me.

What's the best way to message you?

Email's good. You can probably  figure out my email if you-

Just use websim.

... [inaudible 00:44:03] for five seconds or use  

websim. Twitter/X is good. Those are  two places at least you can find me.

Dylan, with that, we've reached our  very exciting lightning round. We  

only have a couple of minutes left. It's  a very short one. Do you have a favorite  

product that you've recently discovered  that you really love other than websim?

Well, I'll say that, and it's  not like a favorite product,  

but I will say that if you get...  Hesitate if I should say this or not.

We'll cut it out in post, don't worry about it.

I'll say this, it's so fascinating to look  at all the different LMs out there right now  

and what each one is uniquely good at. And  it's really fun if you can hack them the  

right way and get them in the right mood,  what they'll do. That's what I'll say.

Whoa, what does that mean?

It's my diplomatic answer.

Interesting. Do you have a favorite  life motto that you come back to,  

repeat to yourself, share with friends  or family, that you find really useful?

I don't know if I've got a life motto, but  one piece of advice I've always appreciated is  

when people give you advice,  they're not giving you advice,  

they're giving themselves advice in your  shoes. I think that's an interesting one.  

So if I gave you advice here, I'm  giving myself advice in your shoes.

Final question. Not many people know this, but you  were a child actor when you were five years old.  

Do you think you made the right career move?  Do you feel like you sometimes regret acting?

Yes, definitely. That's my mom. My mom's in  the audience and she says yes. No. We've been  

talking about product. If you're an actor, you're  a product in some way. And that's not to disparage  

actors, actors are awesome. Acting is awesome. I  loved it. But my differentiators when I was five,  

five and a half I think, was that I could read  and I could sit still and I was decently cute.  

And I hit puberty and those things  were no longer differentiators. And  

then it was like, let's do some computer science.

So to close, we're going to play a...  Oh, applause. We're going to play a clip,  

something I found on YouTube to  close and enjoy. 30 seconds clip.

Where will you find a world of  ideas for your child? Only at  

eToys. From Barbie to Brio to SwimWays.  eToys, where great ideas come to you.

That was a good find. Thank you.

Dylan, thank you so much for doing this.

Thank you. Can I make one  comment about that commercial?

Okay, one comment.

One comment before we end. That  commercial made that company go  

bankrupt. Thank you all for joining.  Thank you for having me, Lenny.

Good luck. Thanks Dylan. Bye everyone. Thank you so much for listening. If you  

found this valuable, you can subscribe  to the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify,  

or your favorite podcast app. Also,  please consider giving us a rating or  

leaving a review as that really helps other  listeners find the podcast. You can find all  

past episodes or learn more about the show at  lennyspodcast.com. See you in the next episode.