Dylan Field: Is AI Replacing Designers?, Design is the New Code & Democratizing Creativity

Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Yeah, you're three drinks in.

Yeah, why not?

I'm at an event tomorrow, uh, same event, and we were basically talking about design, product development. Uh, I stuck in a little bit of security. Thought that'd be nice. Uh, but overall a lot about just like how product development is evolving. And my point of view, the thing you'd expect me to say too, is that design is the new code. Uh, and what's happening right now is as coding models get better, I'm not saying that you don't need engineers. We definitely need engineers at Figma. We love our engineers. But also the nature of programming is changing, and as it changes, the value is rising in terms of differentiation to the top, right? That's design, that's brand, it's marketing point of view. It's being bold. Uh, and it's like the emotional reaction you're able to elicit. Uh, and I think that a lot of people are missing that. We also talked a lot about like AI and just kind of like...

Yeah. Sorry, I'm just recapping an interview here.

Yeah, we started Figma back in August 2012. And the quick pitch is this is where we want to make it so that the best best teams in the world can design and create and build the world's best software. Uh, we're also used for all sorts of stuff. So, marketing, uh, advertising, slides, whiteboarding, diagramming, uh, you know, you name it. Like, if it's visual at all, someone's probably doing it in Figma, even if it's not meant for that.

No, I think that design is really our center and our core. Uh, and like when I'm in a product review and talking with the team, we talk about designers, we talk about what they want. Uh, design is also a term that's like so interesting because there's like a hundred definitions of design, right? I think a lot about the definition of like it's, uh, maybe creativity meets problem solving. Um, but there's like so many others you can find. And then also design can refer to everything from interior to industrial to product design to brand design and so on. And so people think about a lot of things when they think about design.

Uh, yeah, correct. Quite the fast forward.

Uh, it was a few years back now. I'm skipping through literally building the business like...

No, I mean, we, uh, have always respected Adobe, still do, and the generational incredible company that like started everything from printing to making Photoshop what it is and like the entire graphic design revolution.

So, cool. How did you get access to it?

Kai's Power Tools is really cool.

Yeah. I mean, Photoshop of course is like a product that is very mature and maybe beyond mature too in that it has so many different parts of it that have been added over the years. Uh, which I think is the nature of a lot of software. Uh, it gets more bloated over time if you're not careful. But there's just so much that's possible with it and, uh, you know, Adobe as a company has been very inventive. So I've always had respect since I was a kid too.

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, antitrust is kind of like a broad way to refer to it, but you have the United States, European Union, CMA, and, you know, it's very different vibe. And a couple years ago, Adobe would be taking out a big competitor.

They said a lot of things, but I think the most important part for us was that we just kept putting our foot in the gas. I mean, yeah, I thought it would be like sort of we would just go right through, and as soon as a month or two in, it was clear that was not the case. It kind of became, okay, like we got to like really power through as an organization here and ship and build like the next stuff because if we don't power through and keep our foot on the gas, you know, what's on the other side? We don't know what's on the other side. Uh, we got to make sure everything's fine no matter what.

I want to say it was about 1,100, 1,200. I have to double check.

Well, I think you have to remember the length of the regulatory review, which definitely needs to be fixed somehow because it's, you know, if you're in a situation where it's actually anti-competitive, which I don't, I still don't believe the Adobe thing was, for what it's worth. A lot of people, you know, on the internet probably would say it is, uh, like, or at least they did back then. But I thought their arguments were poor and they were fighting past battles, not looking at the future and what this all would become. Uh, but the, um, and I say that not because I'm not, like, I'm stoked to be independent, too. I'm stoked to be running Figma. That was the plan for Adobe was just run Figma. Uh, either way, uh, running Figma, I'm happy. Independently, we do move fast. I'm glad, I'm grateful for that. But, uh, you go back to your question, it's like we had 16 months of regulatory review. 16 months of regulatory review for any company is punishing, and, uh, in an actual anti-competitive situation, that could be like very destructive for one of the parties, right? Or both. Um, and I think Roomba is a great example, actually. Roomba, uh, was going to be acquired. Small deal. Uh, yeah, it wasn't like a crazy deal, but they wanted to punish Amazon, and so they did not let it go through. And because of that, Roomba went bankrupt and the entire market at the time basically went to China. Uh, so from the United States standpoint, it made no sense, right? Anyway, I go on a tangent, but I do think it's an important point. And there's some policy stuff here that's like when you go for the idealism, it doesn't always practically like help America.

Like, 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? Uh, and that could be very different in terms of how you think about market sizes. But, um, in 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 because 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, that was awesome just to see the turnout, you know, first day of break, really. And secondly, I'd say just like the mood was relief because it wasn't about relief of not Adobe, it was relief of not having ambiguity. To have ambiguity that long is really intense, and people have to kind of have two worlds in their head. They're not exactly sure what the future holds. So that was the immediate mood. It was just kind of like lighter. And then from there, uh, yeah, I think that the question you asked is right, how do you make sure everyone's all in? And the way that we did it was we said, look, I just kind of put a video out into the company Slack and emailed everybody and said, hey, if you're tired after working really hard, if you're someone who joined during this period thinking you're going to go work at Adobe and actually the startup thing is not for you, like, please know, we're going to be working very hard, hustling hard, and no shame, like, we're still on good terms. If you want to leave, here is a few months' pay. Uh, and you're welcome to just let us know. We'll make it super easy. And from there, uh, you know, six months before you can reapply. That's the only condition. Uh, after six months, you can reapply and we'll, uh, rehire you. And it was a pretty small percentage of people that took us up on that, but overall it was healthy. And some people actually ended up doing total career pivots, like in wild ways. Uh, went on different life paths. Like, I think it was healthy for everyone.

We, not quite. We had been working with Anthropic as a partner, and Anthropic, uh, separately announced Claude Design. Yes.

Yeah, we have an MCP. We are partnered with many companies. But yeah.

I mean, the nature of online discourse right now is, uh, we're so back, it's so over, and it's just a cycle, right? I mean, how many times have you been all over, uh, in the last like month?

Probably, you know, a bunch of times I don't even know about.

And everyone, I think I was kind of used to that at that point because, you know, when you kind of die, uh, so many times and then you're actually like not dead, right? You kind of realize at some point maybe this is like not the truth. Social media is actually like not reality. But, um, yeah, I was overall surprised at the way that kind of communication happened. Uh, I think that, you know, look, everybody wants to do good, usually. I mean, there's some exceptions, but for the most part that's what I assume for people. They want to win. They want to do good. And I think that organizations scaling really fast, Anthropic, like, are there any examples of organizations scaling that fast ever? Can get very confused and, um, mixed up internally. And due to that, weird stuff can happen. And I think that it's just the case that, yeah, we're on the other side of kind of like a weird bout of, uh, communication there.

Oh, no. Uh, like, not to any degree that was like, you know, significant.

Yep. Um, no, it's been continuing to do well. And I think that, look, the hard part about model companies and product is like, what is the product? Is it the model? Is it the UI on top? Is it some hybrid of both? If it's a hybrid, how is it weighted? And, uh, in any case...

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, Gemini, like, whether it's a harness for coding or it's a product like Claude Design, which you mentioned.

I think it's easy to mistake model progress for product progress, right? The reality is a tool like Figma, you know, has taken a very long time to build, uh, and a very long time to make sure that we get the workflows right for our users. And we still have work to do. Our users will tell you that. Uh, and we're always trying to make it better. So I think that, like, it's sort of, um, not surprising that it wasn't an instant hit or something when there's actually quite a lot of work on the just core user journey workflow side that you have to do to meet the needs of professionals. Now, they've made Claude Design into a product that is broad. So it's trying to do a lot of things. Like, you'll see like posters and stuff as well, like graphic design scenarios, I believe, when you go to their homepage. And, like, maybe they'll do well in some areas and not other areas. Like, I'm not bullish or bearish on the product. I think it's just like hard to make good design tools for professionals.

Yeah. And we've stressed every detail of that and have had a lot of feedback over the years about what people like and don't like. It depends on where they're coming from. It depends on, uh, their task and sort of like what they're trying to overall do. And there's so many scenarios. But overall, uh, you know, I think that, um, there are more modes for software than are implied by the SaaS apocalypse. And it's not like software as a category is binary, good or bad. Uh, there are plenty of other ways that you can, um, make sure that you're able to sustain yourself long term and have a growing business long term as a software company or app layer company. Uh, and part of it is, yes, if you're as specialized as possible on a target audience and you know your audience, you're building for them, that is something that matters, right? Uh, and I think a great example of this is Cursor. Um, Cursor, like, by all means, should not have grown the way they did. You've got all these frontier labs that are chasing them with their own models before Cursor had a model of any kind. But yet, Cursor really obsessed over the user. They saw around corners. They strategized. They made sure they're doing the right thing for the customer. And they've had an incredible success.

Well, I think that it's not true that all SaaS companies are fine. Yeah.