The Exchanges

Q 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?

A Yeah, so we started in 2020, uh, right before the pandemic. And it was, this is actually our 10th config, because we've done international configs that are fast follows to the config in SF. But the reason it started, um, we had basically user groups starting to pop up all around the world. And then from there, as the user group started to really gain momentum, we wanted some way to bring everyone together. And, uh, 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, okay, next time it's gonna be really big. Well, it actually ended up being even bigger because of the pandemic, and so it was like, this is gonna be a remote conference now.

AI assessment note: “we started in 2020... the reason it started... wanted some way to bring everyone together.”

Q Are there any speakers this year you're excited about?

A So, so many speakers, um, that I'm excited about, but two that I'm, like, off the wall excited about, um, one is Holly Herndon. She's a total visionary artist, too. I think people don't appreciate, like, how far ahead she sees things. Um, you know, she was Into very specific, like, quirky ways of using NFTs, or they weren't called it then, uh, early on. She open sourced her voice with AI early on, you know, this is back in, like, twenty-twenty-one or something, twenty-twenty. I mean, it's just, like, the, the time scale that she's operating on is different than the rest of us. Yeah. Um, Grant Sanderson, three blue and brown on YouTube, is another person that I think will give a great talk, uh, and I can't wait to watch it. He's, Someone that I've been following for a long time, I'm lucky to call a friend, and he does these explainer videos for math that are just incredible. And, um, uh, really uses graphics and design to be really craft forward in his explanations, and he puts so much care into them, and just has been a teacher for so many.

AI assessment note: “two that I'm, like, off the wall excited about, um, one is Holly Herndon.”

Q proud to be sponsored by Brex and they're all about performance and spending smarter, moving faster as a startup or a large enterprise. I think performance really comes down to who you surround yourself with and like who you get inspired by, maybe who's mentored you along the way. Um, are there anybody in your circle or like on your career path of building out Figma that's really inspired you?

A So many. How long do we have? Uh, the, um, I mean, look, like, There are people that have mentored me and have no idea because it's from before Figma times. And, uh, maybe we didn't interact as much during the building of Figma, but like their voices in my head, uh, you know, so folks from O'Reilly, LinkedIn, um, you know, Microsoft research. I think that, um, during Figma, the folks that I've got on the board have been incredible and I'm very thankful for them, but also our employees, you know, Our first manager hire, uh, show director of engineering at the time, uh, he really taught me management. I didn't know anything. I was an intern before Figma. Um, and just in general, I mean, we've had interns that have taught me stuff. Uh, we've had, uh, folks from anywhere in the org that I think you can learn from, and also the community, and just the folks, uh, that have surrounded us with great feedback. I mean, I'm so grateful early on, but today as well, For the designers have sat down with me and given me that gift of feedback. We are very lucky as a design company, uh, to have designers as users and customers because they are trained to give good feedback.

AI assessment note: “So many. How long do we have?”

Q What is the biggest question right now that people should be asking?

A Actually, I think that, um, you know, for recording this on Tuesday, maybe I haven't looked at the news this morning, maybe it's already a different question, but as of right now, we've got Um, uh, a live situation with U.S. government, Anthropic, where they're discussing a jailbreak. I'm not even sure if jailbreak's the right word, but the use case they're concerned about seems important. Um, but I would say that jailbreaking is something that is, uh, understudied, and I actually think that there needs to be a kind of different posture towards, um, trying to get people to break jailbreak models in order to battle test them, the same way that we do with, like, HackerOne. There are programs that are being run by the labs, of course, but, uh, I think that there needs to be way more incentive out there to do that, and we need to find what it means. Like, jailbreaks are very wide in terms of the spectrum of what they do. You know, um, and I don't think we can have a conversation like this without even, like, defining what a jailbreak is. So that's one question I would say, is what's a jailbreak?

AI assessment note: “So that's one question I would say, is what's a jailbreak?”

Q I talked about that with Mark Pincus. He's a super product guy. He definitely pays attention to that. But in that point, you were saying execution is cheap, but design and creativity are actually very, very important and separates the wheat from the chaff. But in terms of that, like, what kind of risks should people be taking? Like, what do you see is kind of, like, overlooked right now?

A I think so much is overlooked. I mean, everything from like, what problem are you even tackling to, uh, how do you brand? What positions do you take as a company? Uh, how do you connect with people and what emotions are you trying to bring through your brand and marketing, but also through the application software? Uh, and then for the software side, I think, you know, I'm just eager to see not only more interaction patterns Tried. Um, but really folks understanding, like, what is the core thing that people need and pushing all the way to get there. It's so much easier to apply patterns that you've already seen, but, um, I think that there's just like this huge unexplored space out there of stuff that, uh, you know, it takes a long time to get right, and that is a risk because you might not actually hit, but If you can actually, uh, go all the way and think through the system really well and hold it in your head and hold it in your team's head, which is, you know, even harder, um, to communicate it. Like, you kind of have to memify it inside your company sometimes. Uh, but if you can do that and you can come up with, like, more novel ways for people to interact with systems, that's where I think, uh, you know, it'll really be amazing. And the example is, Uh, I'm still shocked that we're in a prompting age. Like, it's been, what, five years since GPT-III now? I think it's twenty…

AI assessment note: “I'm just eager to see not only more interaction patterns Tried.”

Q that actually reflects your thesis, visit public.com slash sorcery paid for by public investing full disclosures in the description. Founders scale faster on Deal. Set up payroll for any country in minutes, hire anyone anywhere, get visas handled fast, and get back to building. Visit Deal.com slash sorcery. That's D-E-E-L dot com slash sorcery. What did you learn the most while you were a Teal Fellow? What was that like?

A It was, um, A really special experience overall. I was the second year of the Teal Fellowship, so, Or sorry, I rather, I started, uh, yeah, I started in 2012, and it's a two-year fellowship, so the class I was with, I got to know well, and they're doing amazing stuff, and still some of them are, are really dear friends. Um, and there's also folks from the first class, too, who have stayed in my life as close friends, and, uh, people who have been mentors, and, uh, people I've looked to for advice on all sorts of things. You know, the amount of learning from that group off the charts, but also I think it's just so lonely to start a company when you're younger. Like, I was doing an internship at Flipboard before the Teal Fellowship, and at Flipboard, It was awesome. My coworkers were great. I hung out with them, but they're like in their thirties and I was 20. Yeah. And just, you know, my friends hadn't graduated yet. I grew up in the Bay Area, but my friends in the North Bay, they were doing their own thing and it kind of was further to go. The chance to just be with this group of people and socialize with them, like for me was very important. Some people probably don't need that, but I don't know, like once a week seen a human, and, uh, other than my co-founder, you know, uh, who I loved dearly, uh, but you know, his preference in the weekend was to write, work on his, uh, comp…

AI assessment note: “It was, um, A really special experience overall.”