Inside the public subscription in Dylan Field – and his larger plans for his plans

When Dylan is a field Fixed organic pollutants on the zoom screen, its face is a mixture of languages and fatigue. He returned to work, after a tweak trip to New York City, where his company fired Figma on the New York Stock Exchange, floundering in the direction of billions of dollars in emerging companies. Even before it became clear that this may be the fiercest general launch in years, the Figma scientist has turned from employees, employees (known as his colleagues), and investors – already Wall Street to a block party, distribute a booty, offering free pizza, and bombing from DJ shook this from Mamoun. But the best music was played on the large painting, as the price of the stock, which is $ 33, rose to 142 dollars before settling at $ 90.

By the time the stadium returned to California, it was worth more than $ 5 billion. But he does not want to talk about it. The story, in his mind, is not related to a company that is applying to the public, but rather the public subscription to the design itself. “What matters to me more is what our product will be within 5 years, 10 years.” “Do we move forward forward?”

The focus on money may be a good idea. On the day we are talking, the Figma share price decreased by 27 percent, reducing its evaluation from about $ 60 billion to a little more than $ 40 billion. This is still much higher than anyone expected. While Figma’s public subscription celebrates the design, it is not the only company that hopes to revolutionize this field. Artificial intelligence will start a new era in design. Figma, like its competitors, will be defined by how to process this technology. Ultimately, it is still unclear whether artificial intelligence will help or detonate.

Field work

Every time I talk to Field, it seems that a huge thing happens in Figma, the company that he made as a 19 -year -old Thiel colleague and leak from Brown University. From the beginning, the Figma app allowed to the individuals browser to cooperate and mushrooms on the online design. Loyal followers have grown, threatening the giant in design tools, Adobe. During our first meeting in 2022, I pressed a field on David and Goliath Tropy – and whether to pull Instagram and sell it to a larger company. The field talks about how it is in the long run. In fact, he had a secret he could not share: Adobe offered $ 20 billion to his company, and he would have taken it. The news broke out weeks after our conversation. when I faced it About this at the San Francisco wireless conference, he apologized. He told me: “I felt very bad about it.”

The next time we spoke, in December 2023, this deal was Just collapsedBecause the former President Joe Biden, the Ministry of Justice indicated that it would object to the integration. The field was clearly shook, but it is determined to continue its original plan to build a company that will change the way people create applications, websites, documents and floors. It was not easy, as months of momentum were watered by preparing to integrate with the largest company.

Over the next two years, Figma has expanded its performances and continued to win fans. Its users, which number only 13 million people, alludes to its spread: the work produced is seen on its application by billions of people. Between the Fortune 500 companies, 95 percent uses the product. Figma converts profit. And Post-IPO, even after settling the shares, the company deserves more than twice as much as Adobe was paying for that.

However, I was somewhat confusing that the field felt that it was necessary for public subscription when startups these days could reach stratosfire assessments without becoming the accounting of the accounting that comes from becoming a public company. Field cited the virtues of community ownership, the cleanliness of companies represented in the reporting rules, and how the option to buy shares in Figma will better understand their business. In the end, he says: “If you are going to be eventually, then why don’t you do it now?”

Design or loss

As dedicated to many technology leaders who go to public places, Field wrote Founder’s message In the release bulletin in which he pledged higher values than profits. (These promises usually end up chasing their authors, as the amazing entrepreneurs turn into the profit that searches for the yacht.) Basically, the message is an argument that the design now has a central place in the lives of peoples. It is not just an important factor in the way people build products and express themselves: It is the factor. “Design”, books, “larger than design”. When I ask what it means, the quantum does not spoil very easily. “It is something that can mean a lot of things,” he says. “It is the climb of the design from the pixel level to solving the most general problems, to how to win or lose.”

He explains that in the early first decade of the twentieth century, the design was about making things beautiful. By 2010, people were simulating the philosophy of Steve Jobs, which was the design around the job. Now, Field says, the design is not only these things, but our means of communication – who you are, and what your brand represents, and how you deal with the audience. Field says that our world is based on programs, and the more programs are created, the design becomes the most basic difference. It is our new language, and Figma wants to be Duolingo for those who seek to master it.