Dylan Field is co-founder and CEO of Figma, a beloved tool used by every modern product team. Founded in 2012, Figma has expanded from a single design tool to a comprehensive platform including FigJam, Slides, Dev Mode, and, most recently, Figma Make. After a $20 billion acquisition by Adobe fell through due to regulatory pushback, Dylan led the company to a successful IPO in 2025. What you’ll learn: • How Dylan kept internal morale up after the Adobe acquisition fell through • His approach to maintaining pace and a sense of urgency 13 years in • How to systematically develop taste • How Figma decides which product lines to add • Why Dylan obsesses over “time to value” • How AI is making design more valuable — Brought to you by: Stripe—Helping companies of all sizes grow revenue — Transcript: ⁠lennysnewsletter.com/p/why-ai-m… — My biggest takeaways (for paid newsletter subscribers): ⁠lennysnewsletter.com/i/17556946… — Where to find Dylan Field: • X: x.com/zoink • LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/dylanfield — Where to find Lenny: • Newsletter: lennysnewsletter.com • X: twitter.com/lennysan • LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky — In this episode, we cover: — Referenced: • Dylan Field live at Config: Intuition, simplicity, and the future of design: • Figma: • Adobe: • Vision, conviction, and hype: How to build 0 to 1 inside a company | Mihika Kapoor (Product at Figma): • Notion’s lost years, its near collapse during Covid, staying small to move fast, the joy and suffering of building horizontal, more | Ivan Zhao (CEO and co-founder): • $46B of hard truths from Ben Horowitz: Why founders fail and why you need to run toward fear (a16z co-founder): • FigJam: • Cursor chat: • Figma Slides: • Figma Sites: • Figma Buzz: • Figma Draw: • Figma Design: • Dev Mode: • Figma Make: • Zach Lloyd on X: • Warp: • Dylan’s post on X about Figma on an AI product leaderboard: • Kurt Cobain: • Damien Correll on LinkedIn: • Marcin Wichary on LinkedIn: • Loredana Crisan on LinkedIn: • Amber Bravo on LinkedIn: • Figma’s 2025 AI report: Perspectives from designers and developers: • Jevons paradox: • AI prompt engineering in 2025: What works and what doesn’t | Sander Schulhoff (Learn Prompting, HackAPrompt): • Pantheon: • Retro: • Thiel Fellowship: — Recommended books: • Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art: • The Spy and the Traitor: The Greatest Espionage Story of the Cold War: • Codex Seraphinianus: Production and marketing by . For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com. — Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed. My biggest takeaways from this conversation: