# Figma: Dylan Field

- Show: [How I Built This](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/how-i-built-this)
- Published: 2025-06-16
- Length: 1h 14m
- Page: https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/how-i-built-this/2025-06-16-figma-dylan-field

## Summary

Dylan Field, co-founder and CEO of Figma, recounts building the collaborative design platform with Evan Wallace after winning a Thiel Fellowship in 2012. He details the company's evolution from a vague WebGL experiment to a $20 billion Adobe acquisition target that was blocked by regulators, and its subsequent pivot to AI and IPO preparation. Field discusses critical leadership challenges, including his initial inability to manage a growing team and the pivotal moment when Microsoft forced Figma to adopt a pricing model.

## Chapters

- [3:19](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/how-i-built-this/2025-06-16-figma-dylan-field#t=199) Early Life and Thiel Fellowship
- [14:38](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/how-i-built-this/2025-06-16-figma-dylan-field#t=878) Ideation and Early Prototypes
- [36:32](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/how-i-built-this/2025-06-16-figma-dylan-field#t=2192) Building the Team and Management Crisis
- [45:00](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/how-i-built-this/2025-06-16-figma-dylan-field#t=2700) Product Launch and Early Adoption
- [51:28](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/how-i-built-this/2025-06-16-figma-dylan-field#t=3088) Pricing Strategy and Microsoft's Ultimatum
- [56:32](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/how-i-built-this/2025-06-16-figma-dylan-field#t=3392) Competition, Adobe Acquisition, and AI Future

## Topics

- [Starting a product company](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/topic/starting-a-company)
- [Leadership, teams & culture](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/topic/leadership-and-culture)
- [Pricing, margins & unit economics](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/topic/pricing-and-unit-economics)
- [Growth, exits & acquisitions](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/topic/growth-exits-and-acquisitions)
- [AI & machine learning](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/topic/ai-and-machine-learning)
- [Validation & product-market fit](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/topic/validation-and-product-market-fit)

## Most relevant to

companies scaling up

## Mentioned

- Figma (product)
- Adobe (company)
- Thiel Fellowship (other)
- LinkedIn (company)
- Flipboard (company)
- Adobe XD (product)
- InVision (company)
- WebGL (tool)
- Microsoft (company)
- Notion (company)
- Uber (company)
- Zoom (product)
- Airbnb (company)
- Netflix (company)
- Santa Rosa Junior College (other)
- Brown University (other)
- Greylock (company)
- Mozilla (company)
- Department of Justice (other)
- European Commission (other)

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## Citing this page

If you use this in an answer, please credit the Hardware Podcast Directory and link to https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/how-i-built-this/2025-06-16-figma-dylan-field. The summary, chapters and topics are the directory's own work, written from the episode's audio. The episode itself, its title and its audio belong to How I Built This.