We are so excited for our next guest. Our next guest is the CEO of Figma, an AI and web-based design application founded in 2012. Uh, it's Dylan Field. Dylan, welcome.
Hey. Thanks, guys. Good to see you.
Ah. So, Dylan, I want to start by reading you a Facebook message I got on August 5th, 2009. "Hey, Kevin. I recently picked up your book at the library. Just wanted to let you know how much I enjoyed it. Anyway, best of luck with your future endeavors. I'm going to Brown this fall. Who knows? Maybe I'll meet you in Providence someday." That message was sent by a teenage boy named Dylan Field, and I want to just, first of all, apologize. I never responded to that.
Can you imagine you write a book and a college student emails you out of the blue, and you're like, "Yeah, whatever." It was, you know, going on in 2009. Anyway, I'm sorry for ghosting you. And second of all, a good book. You should all read it. How did your freshman year of college go?
It was awesome. Yeah, and I got to meet you.
Because I don't know if you remember, but uh, for the a cappella group that you were in, you came back as a super senior uh, to hang out with everyone, I guess.
Including the new freshman.
Well, uh, it went so well that you dropped out and moved to Silicon Valley to seek your fortune here. And it's been quite a run for you. Um, Figma went public last year, has had a wild ride. And I want to talk to you first about AI, because I have heard uh, that you are quite AI-pilled, and I have seen on your social media accounts that you are constantly experimenting with AI, doing all these AI side projects. Um, what are you doing, and then do you have AI psychosis?
I think it's best to front-run the psychosis uh, rather than like having it sneak up on you. You just got to dive right in and you get it over with. Um, but uh, yeah, I ask myself sometimes and I don't think so right now. Uh, I think I've got a pretty reasonable take on what models are good at, where they're not so great. Uh, but it's really interesting to see the new capabilities. Right now, I'm vibe mathing.
Well, it's basically where you do math but with AI. Uh, and...
Are you proving Fermat's Last Theorem? What are you doing?
No, I'm not. Uh, but um, basically like I think it's just interesting to see uh, how AI attacks these problems. It's kind of the opposite of Figma. In Figma, we're uh, a design platform. We often are evaluating the models, trying to see how good they are at design, what we should use, uh, what we should put in our product, supposed users. And it's like the opposite of verifiable. You know, uh, you and I could look at something and disagree or agree on the merits of it and the design merits of it. But you know, there are some domains like math, uh, some aspects of computer science where things are correct or they're not. And so, I think it's really cool to see that range in the verifiable domains models are very good at now.
Casey vibe mathed his way through high school. They flunked him, but I'm glad it's going better for you.
I don't know. I don't have any results. So, just be very clear.
I want to hear a little bit more about like what direction you are taking in all of your AI use as you sort of, you know, pursue these projects. This sounds like a lot of sort of like personal stuff that you're doing for fun. Is that just sort of like the curiosity of a lifelong learner or is there something specific that you're trying to find?
Um, I find that just in general, the more that you like exploring technology, you don't know how it's going to pay off or what benefit it will have, but it ends up having some benefit in weird ways you can't expect. And uh, I don't know, you had uh, node up here earlier. I was very excited about NFTs early on and then they became what they are now. They weren't called NFTs then. They were called crypto collectibles cuz that was the cool phrase. But, you know, it was like whether it's that or um, you know, WebGL, which led to Figma. I just always try to explore stuff and like go deep on it, figure out new capabilities cuz you can find ways to use them.
I have a theory that I want to run past you, which is that you know that now every startup founder, CEO in Silicon Valley is obsessed with vibe coding. They're all doing it on the weekends. They come in on Mondays and then you know they say why, you know, why are we building this thing? 50 people used to build this thing. I just built it in a weekend. It's driving their employees crazy. But my theory about this is that this is reminding CEOs of what it was like when their jobs were fun. Do you agree with that statement?
You said you're fearful of that.
Oh, theory. Okay, sorry. I misheard you.
Um, I think that people like to make things and they like to design stuff and they like to actually put their ideas out in the world in a more tangible way. And I think we're just going to see more of it from everyone. Uh, not just CEOs trying to have fun on the weekend.
Speaking of making stuff, uh, Figma recently launched an ad campaign organized around the uh, idea sort of making fun of the idea that design is dead. Sort of a more common sentiment maybe in the era of AI. Make that case for us that design is not dead in a world where I can just sort of, you know, type what kind of app I want into a box.
This is a real roller coaster from, you know, my 2009 Facebook message now to design is dead.
It's taking a turn. Uh, no, I mean the um... Look, I think that there's so many hot takes online. I'm sure you get a few of them an hour. And you know, I think when new models drop, everyone's looking for something that they can say is dead uh, because you know on social media now it's like either you're so back or it's so over. And I prefer to be back. But no, I mean in terms of the case, I mean look, like it's interesting to see folks catch up with the capabilities. And it's like yeah, you can do a lot. But the average sort of response from AI, whether it's the domain like writing, you know, my hot take right now would be I actually think that people that know how to write and actually engage in thinking, critical thinking around writing, it's a good time for them.
It's a good time for them.
Yeah, well, you tell me, but I think so.
It's like half the audience is a body and they're like, I don't know. Should we, should we not? Is it too like... Are we talking it up?
I mean I think like, you know, to the extent that writing is a showcase for your critical thinking abilities, like yes, like having great critical thinking skills are always like a boon.
What's it's a style of writing.
Like if you're funny, if you've got an actual like way you phrase things, if you have voice. And I think it's especially true right now in a way that wasn't a few years ago. Like 3, 5 years ago, I would have said, "Oh, man, there's a lot of people on social media that are writing really interesting things." And we're in this world where like there's, you know, Substack and like people are putting content there and it's really good. And now I look at that and I'm like, man, it's a lot of Claude. You know, maybe I'm over-rotated even on identifying people that are basically using AI to write. Same thing's true for design. Folks are basically looking at these websites or applications and seeing the average. Maybe they're even over-identifying it, but I think if you have a creative voice, writing or design, you put yourself out there and you like take a risk, this is a good time to do that. It's something that's going to be rewarded.
And I can imagine, you know, maybe in your view, there's a world where the fact that I can use an AI tool to quickly uh, whip up a design might make me more interested in actually getting good, right? And sort of like not settling for the first generation.
Yeah, exactly. It's like how do you not settle for the first draft, the first thing out there, the first output, and actually mold it and craft it and push it further. And I think that the more you can do that, uh, the more you'll send out and also the more you'll be differentiated. And I think that there's going to... I mean we saw the uh, the data recently on the number of apps in the App Store. It went up a ton, but the number of apps actually being used and uh, getting frequent traffic is still the same. And so you're basically in this hyper-competitive environment now where you have to differentiate. You really have to like lean in and figure out how to uh, have a unique voice and a unique take and unique point of view put on view, just like writing.
The big buzzword in San Francisco right now is taste. Everyone's talking about taste as the sort of bulwark against being replaced by AI. If you have taste, you'll be fine. Um, it's the first time taste has ever been a big subject in San Francisco, I think.
Yes, this is the city that made Allbirds.
Yeah, proudly tasteless since 1821. And then I've heard some people argue that actually taste is just the word we give to the stuff that models aren't very good at yet. You know, researchers in AI used to say, "Ah, but they don't have taste." Um, and then the models got better and it was like, "Oh, wait a minute. Maybe they can do all of the taste parts of the job, too." So, defend the concept of taste as being either important or cope from people who just haven't used the good models yet?
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, 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 that 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 can argue about do they um... to just recognize people can detect the average. They can detect that output and they can dare to do more. Um, but I also do believe that this is a great time to be creative. And I think that the more the models put out that's in distribution uh, because it's how the models are trained. They're trained on the distribution of data. And if you're in distribution uh, and you're not actually pushing the bounds like I think that uh, you're in a worse shape than if you're actually going and exploring the frontier of human knowledge, creativity, and what you can find in the world and making something that's finally new is an expression of yourself. Uh, so I get excited about that. I get excited about our opportunity to be the place where people uh, can really unlock their creativity at Figma. And um, we're one of the places that we many uh, and just like creating tools that can empower people.
I'm curious if you're seeing a reaction in the world of art and design to AI and what that looks like, right? You think back and the invention of the camera gets us impressionism. Do we have an analog for that yet in the design world now that AI makes design easier to access?
I think it's interesting how we're seeing some of that reaction maybe in the world of marketing and advertising. I don't know if maybe it's happening in uh, the art world. Like I would have expected by now that people be really into sculpture in a way that they're not uh, or just things with textures. Uh, and I'd be like art thesis, you know, so probably don't hire me as an art advisor. Uh, but like you know, I think that that's probably uh, natural reaction is like leaning into the things that are not digital. Um, whereas I think in advertising now we're seeing ways to prove authenticity, to prove that you are actually making uh, something that is not generated by AI, and some companies are really going for that. Uh, in the world of design, I think that what we're going to see and what we are starting to see, a lot more interactivity, a lot more creativity, uh, people really making software more of a creative medium. You know, I think back to the early days of the internet, and it was so fun. And I feel like the last 15 years uh, or so, like basically the time we've been working on Figma, we kind of have been in a bit of a rut, honestly. Um, you know, a lot of very monoculture takes when it comes to design and the way it expresses. And I, you know, and the people that are trying to do hot takes in the audience will be like, "And Figma's to blame." Uh, hopefully not.
Yeah, exactly. Casey said it. Uh, but um, no, I think that uh, the more we can do to make it so that people can push further and like actually create really dynamic interfaces as well as uh, marketing and media in general, the better.
