This was the Coachella for design, but I'm literally seeing that. So, there's 10,000 people that are expected to come. What kind of companies are representing this crowd?
Pretty much all of them. It's international. People come from all over the world, not just tech or software. It's everything you can imagine. Any role you can imagine in terms of software and media, advertising and content. I mean, you know this better than anyone. The attention economy is real. Standing out is hard. I think that it takes not only human steering and human intent, but also it takes a point of view.
It is not enough to wear a thinking cap. You have to actually think. Elon Musk once said, 'If a product is special enough, it needs no logo.' What do you think about that?
Thanks for having me. Where are you?
I mean, I've heard this was the Coachella for design, but I'm literally seeing that it hasn't started yet, and it's already packed full.
Today we have Config Commons most importantly, and it's a good time for you to get your badge so that we don't have a long line tomorrow. One time we had like an hour keynote delay. It was very embarrassing. So, we have a pre-reg thing now. But also we try to give people food, hangout spaces, get them to mingle.
Yeah. So, we have a pre-reg thing now. But also try to give people food, hangout spaces, get them to mingle.
I think it's really cool because people are always reconnecting with old friends here, but also they have a chance to meet so many new people in the design community. It's a really special community, not just for Figma, but for design more broadly.
So, there's 10,000 people that are expected to come. What kind of companies are representing this crowd?
Pretty much all of them. It's international people from all over the world, not just tech or software. It's everything you can imagine, any role from IC to leadership. We have everybody from the chief design officer to students. So yeah, it's all over the place.
Yeah. Okay, we're gonna attempt to walk through the crowd.
Let's go for it.
And you already had some paparazzi on you, so we'll see how this goes.
I think they're coming for you, you know.
No, they're not, Dylan. This is literally the Config, like Figma conference. Okay. So, how many years have you been doing this and why start it in general?
We started in 2020 right before the pandemic. This is actually our 10th Config because we've done international Configs that are fast follows to Config in SF. The reason it started was that user groups were popping up all around the world. As they gained momentum, we wanted a way to bring everyone together. At first we thought maybe a few hundred people, but we decided to go big with 800, and it sold out instantly. Then we planned for the next one to be really big, but the pandemic hit, so it became a remote conference. We got lucky—we had the chance to bring everyone together three weeks before the world shut down. I can't imagine if it had been three weeks earlier.
Yeah, that's insane. So the big headline right now, which I think you have pretty much disproven, is that design is dead. Why is design not dead?
Look around you. I think the weird thing right now is that everyone is kind of putting down all the other roles. I'm seeing too many engineers saying they don't need PMs and designers, PMs saying they don't need engineers and designers, and designers saying maybe they don't need PMs or engineers. Why is that happening? I think we're in a temporary phase where people are really getting excited about what they can do with AI, but not yet realizing all the limitations. It's truly exciting what you can do, but the value of a team is really important. The idea that you're just going to work alone on everything forever is very lonely. If you want to build scalable, real systems, explore broadly, build the right thing, then it's really important to lean into design—not just from a visual standpoint, but from a user experience standpoint, understanding the user and the culture around you. Design is so much more than visuals; that's just the tip of the iceberg. What's promising is seeing so many engineers now getting interested in Figma. They can build something fast, but then they want to make it great.
Right. I mean, what I thought was interesting is that Figma not only unlocked design for normal people who didn't know how to design anything, but your software is really easy to use and intuitive. Now you're involving code into it, so engineers are literally coding design.
Yep. The aspects of what we're launching tomorrow will be even more in that direction. I'm really excited about that.
Yeah. So, now we're inside. Let's do a little 360 here. Come around.
This is the emptiest we'll see it.
So, how is it all set up? Where do people really mingle?
The mingling will occur everywhere, but downstairs is going to be more like mainstage keynote with lots of activations and areas to explore.
Is that your favorite part, the mainstage keynote?
Yeah, I don't usually remember it. Once I get past it, I'm like blackout.
But you can watch it later online and then you're like, 'Oh, I said what?'
Well, the content on all the tracks is amazing. We've had incredible speakers. One of my favorites was Jesper from Teenage Engineering. I got to interview him. He's a character.
Are there any speakers this year you're excited about? So many. Two that I'm off-the-wall excited about: Holly Herndon, a visionary artist who people don't appreciate how far ahead she sees things—she was into quirky ways of using NFTs early on, open-sourced her voice with AI in 2020. The time scale she's operating on is different. And Grant Sanderson from 3Blue1Brown on YouTube. He's someone I've followed for a long time and am lucky to call a friend. He uses graphics and design in his math explainers to be really craft-forward. He's been a teacher for so many.
That's why you're vibe mathing.
It's a form of psychosis, you know. Until it's not, but we'll see. I think the models are decent at math for pure math. It's an antidote to the non-verifiable domains I'm usually in. For Figma, it's all vibes—you try to figure out if you didn't center the div, but often you're dealing with styles that are very similar, and you need human judgment. Formal domains like math are as formal as it gets if you set up the systems correctly. It's a nice contrast.
I love that. It's very unexpected. So you were talking about some of the speakers. Were there anybody else you're excited about?
So many. I'm in keynote brain right now. The keynote will be awesome. We're going to have a bunch of Figmates showing incredible stuff.
I know. I love that. It's like we started by the big sign and then all of a sudden you got swarmed.
Those are all people I see all the time. We have a great team. Actually, Ian, who I was in a real analysis class with in senior year of high school, randomly applied to Figma without telling me. I was like, 'This is the smartest guy I've ever met.' He still went through the full loop.
Shout out to Ian. All right, so we're going to head over and sit down for the Panton Lounge.
It's super exclusive. Just two of us.
Yeah. All right, Dylan Field, we are in the Panton Lounge.
We're in the Panton Lounge. We made it through.
We made it through the crazy crowd who was screaming your name and taking pictures.
Maybe exaggerated a little bit. It was a great group out there. I'm glad you got to be there.
How did you convince all of them or their bosses that they should take the day off?
