Dylan Field on the “Permanent Underclass of Zero Taste”

**Molly O'Shea** (0:00)
Dylan Field, co-founder and CEO.

**Dylan Field** (0:02)
Figma, Figma, Figma, Figma.

**Molly O'Shea** (0:07)
I heard 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 the crowd?

**Dylan Field** (0:16)
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. Potential economy is real. Staying 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.

**Molly O'Shea** (0:42)
Elon Musk once said, if a product is special enough, it needs no logo. What do you think about that? Dylan Field.

**Dylan Field** (0:58)
Thank you for having me.

**Molly O'Shea** (1:00)
Thanks for having me.

**Dylan Field** (1:01)
Welcome to Config.

**Molly O'Shea** (1:03)
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.

**Dylan Field** (1:08)
Yeah, this is day zero.

**Molly O'Shea** (1:10)
So what goes on today?

**Dylan Field** (1:11)
Well, today we got 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.

**Molly O'Shea** (1:21)
Really?

**Dylan Field** (1:22)
Yeah, so we have a free 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 people in the design community, and it's a really special community. That's not just for Figma, it's just for design more broadly.

**Molly O'Shea** (1:44)
So there's 10,000 people that are expected to come. What kind of companies are representing this crowd?

**Dylan Field** (1:52)
Pretty much all of them.
But no, really, it's international. People come from all over the world, and not just tech or software, it's everything you can imagine, and any role you can imagine. IC to leadership, we have everybody from the chief design officer to the students that are part of our student programs here. So yeah, it's all over the place.

**Molly O'Shea** (2:17)
It's pretty exciting. Okay, we're gonna attempt to walk through the crowd.

**Dylan Field** (2:21)
Let's go for it.

**Molly O'Shea** (2:22)
And you already had some paparazzi on you, so we'll see how this goes.

**Dylan Field** (2:27)
I think they're coming for you, you know?

**Molly O'Shea** (2:28)
No, they're not, Dylan. It's literally the config, like, Figma conference.
Okay, so how many years have you been doing this, and why start it in general?

**Dylan Field** (2:40)
Yeah, so we started in 2020, right before the pandemic.
And it was actually our 10th config, because we've done international configs that are fastballs to the config and SF. The reason it started, we had basically user groups starting to pop up all around the world. And then from there, as the user groups started to really gain momentum, we wanted some way to bring everyone together. And at first, we're like, kicking around ideas, like, oh, yeah, maybe like a few hundred people. We decided, let's go big, like 800 people.
And that sold out instantly. So then from there, we were planning to, right afterwards, like, OK, next time it's going to be really big. Well, it actually ended up being even bigger because of the pandemic. And so it was like, this is going to be a remote conference now.

**Molly O'Shea** (3:25)
Oh, my God.

**Dylan Field** (3:28)
We got so lucky the first time because we were able to, three weeks, I think, before the pandemic started in full in the US, the world shut down, had the chance to bring everyone together. And I can't imagine what it would be if it was three weeks earlier.

**Molly O'Shea** (3:44)
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?

**Dylan Field** (4:00)
Look around you.
No, I mean, I think that the weird thing right now is, everyone is kind of putting down all the other roles. So like, you know, I'm seeing way too much of engineers saying, I don't know, either PM and designer, and the PM is like, I don't need the engineer designer, and the designer is going, maybe I don't need the PM or the engineer. And so, like, why is that happening? And I think that we're in a temporary phase of people really, you know, getting excited about what they can do with AI.