Figma CEO Dylan Field is optimistic about the future and AI

Decoder with Nilay Patel

Vox Media Podcast Network

Technology, Business

4.3 • 3.2K Ratings

🗓️ 18 March 2024

⏱️ 55 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

We’ve got a fun one today — I talked to Figma CEO Dylan Field in front of a live audience at South by Southwest in Austin, Texas. And we got into it – we talked about everything from design, to software distribution, to the future of the web, and, of course, AI. Figma is an fascinating company – the Figma design tool is used by designers at basically every company you can think of. And importantly, it runs on the web. It became such a big deal that Adobe tried to buy it out in 2022 for $20 billion dollars, a deal that only just recently fell through because of regulatory concerns. So Dylan and I talked a lot about where Figma is now as an independent company, how Figma is structured, where it’s going, and how Dylan’s decisionmaking has changed since the last time he was on the show in 2022. Links: Why Figma is selling to Adobe for $20 billion, with CEO Dylan Field — Decoder Adobe abandons $20 billion acquisition of Figma — The Verge Adobe’s Dana Rao on AI, copyright, and the failed Figma deal — Decoder Figma’s CEO on life after the company’s failed sale to Adobe — Command Line Amazon restricts self-publishing due to AI concerns — The Guardian Wix’s new AI chatbot builds websites in seconds based on prompts — The Verge Apple is finally allowing full versions of Chrome and Firefox on the iPhone — The Verge What Is Solarpunk? A Guide to the Environmental Art Movement. — Built In Transcript: https://www.theverge.com/e/23866201 Credits: Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Today’s episode was produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and was edited by Callie Wright. Our supervising producer is Liam James. The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Support for this show comes from Atlassian. With a new story about AI coming out seemingly every day,
0:05.3	it can be hard to know what it all means for you and your job.
0:08.2	Atlassian thinks there's a lot to be excited about in the AI-powered future.
0:12.1	Even right now, Atlassian's AI-powered software
0:15.0	can help you boost productivity by eliminating
0:17.3	menial tasks, generating insights,
0:19.6	and helping you find information
0:20.9	about projects, policies, and processes.
0:24.0	No matter if you're a team of two or two million, or if you're around the corner or on another
0:28.7	continent, the Lassian software keeps everyone connected and moving together as one, towards shared goals. And T-L-A-S-I-N dot com.
0:44.8	Atlassian.
0:48.3	Hello and welcome to Decoder.
0:49.4	I'm NEL A Patel, Editor-and-Chief of The Virgin, and Decoder is my show about big ideas and other problems.
0:54.0	We got a fun one today. I talked to Figma CEO Dylan Field in front of a live audience at
0:59.3	South by Southwest in Austin, Texas. And boy, did we get into it? We talked about everything from design to
1:04.8	software distribution to the future of the web, and of course, AI. Figma is a fascinating company.
1:10.4	The main Figma design app is used by designers at basically every company you can think of to build websites and mobile applications and everything else.
1:18.0	And importantly, Figma is a web app. It runs in a web browser that makes it really easy to share
1:23.8	Figma designs with other people and work on them together. It's kind of like
1:27.6	Google Docs but for design. That sounds like an obvious idea now, but it was a
1:31.6	revolution in the design world when Figma launched in 2016, and the company quickly grew into a serious player in the creative software world.
1:39.8	So much so that Adobe tried to buy Figma in 2022 for $20 billion, a deal that only recently fell through because of regulatory concerns.
	...

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