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

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

Dylan Field, welcome to the All-In Interview.

Dylan Field (0:02)

Thank you. Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_1 (0:04)

We are here in beautiful Napa, Yonfil, California.

Dylan Field (0:07)

Yeah, you're three drinks in.

SPEAKER_1 (0:08)

We're a couple of drinks in, and we decided to go on camera.

Dylan Field (0:12)

Yeah, why not?

SPEAKER_1 (0:13)

Why not? Well, what are you doing here?

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Dylan Field (0:46)

I was for this event that you're going to be at tomorrow as well.

SPEAKER_1 (0:50)

I'm at an event tomorrow.

Dylan Field (0:51)

Same event. We were basically talking about design, product development. I stuck in a little bit of security. Thought that'd be nice. But overall, a lot about just like how product development is evolving. And in my point of view, the thing you'd expect me to say too is that design is the new code. 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. That's design, that's brand, it's marketing, it's point of view, it's being bold.

And it's like the emotional reaction you're able to elicit.

And I think that a lot of people are missing that. We all talked a lot about like AI and just kind of like...

SPEAKER_1 (1:46)

Okay, so you did a thing on stage today. You talked with Nikesh.

Dylan Field (1:49)

Sorry, I was recapping the interview here.

SPEAKER_1 (1:50)

Yeah, no, it's great.

It's good. We can fast forward. But I wanna back up. You're the CEO of Figma, publicly traded. Maybe you can just give the quick elevator pitch on Figma. And when did you start the business?

Dylan Field (2:01)

Yeah, we started Figma back in August 2012 And the quick pitch is this is where we wanna make it so that the best teams in the world can design and create and build the world's best software.

We're also used for all sorts of stuff. So marketing, advertising, slides, whiteboarding, diagramming, 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.

SPEAKER_1 (2:30)

People call it design software. Is that a fair characterization or does it not capture the full spectrum of what the service is?

Dylan Field (2:38)

No, I think that design is really our center and our core. And like when I'm in a product review and talking with the team, we talk about designers, we talk about what they want.

Design is also a term that's like so interesting because there's like a hundred definitions of design.

SPEAKER_1 (2:55)

Right.

Dylan Field (2:56)

I think about a lot about the definition of like, it's maybe creativity meets problem-solving.

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, they think about design.

SPEAKER_1 (3:16)

Just to get caught up on the history of the business, you started in 2012, you raised some venture money, the business takes off, you're selling enterprise software, you're doing really well, and then Adobe offers to buy the business for $20 billion?

Dylan Field (3:30)

Yeah, correct. Quite the fast forward. What year was that? It was a few years back now.

SPEAKER_1 (3:35)

I'm skipping through literally building the business.

Dylan Field (3:38)

Yeah, you're like 10, 11 years in. But no, I mean, we have always respected Adobe, still do. And we're a generational, incredible company that started everything from printing to making Photoshop what it is and the entire graphic design revolution.

SPEAKER_1 (3:56)

By the way, I was on Adobe Photoshop since 1990

I did graphic design. Wow, so you're pre-layers? Actually, you and I haven't talked about this. Pre-layers? Yes. So I did graphic design pre-layers as a kid on computers, and I did it as a service for people in the neighborhood and small businesses and stuff.

Dylan Field (4:14)

So cool. So how did you get access to it?

SPEAKER_1 (4:16)

I was at my school, and then I was on a Macintosh. I got the first Mac original in 1984