This week, we're bringing you our latest episode of the In Depth podcast 🎧 with Figma's Chief Product Officer, Yuhki Yamashita.
How Figma taps into taste, simplicity, and storytelling | Yuhki Yamashita (CPO at Figma, ex-Uber, Google, Microsoft)
Listen now on Apple, Spotify and YouTube.
Today, we're coming to your inbox with something a bit different. Instead of a new Review story, we thought we'd share a recent conversation from our popular podcast, In Depth. (Next week we'll be back with more written goodies—there are a few exciting pieces we're cooking up to close out the year!)
If you're not familiar with In Depth, it's hosted by First Round Partner Brett Berson, in conversation with some of the sharpest founders and operators in tech. Each episode tackles different company-building firsts that skip the talking points and go deeper into not just what to do, but how to do it.
This week, Brett sat down with Yuhki Yamashita, the Chief Product Officer at Figma. Previously, he was a product and design leader at Uber, where he orchestrated the redesign of the rider and driver apps, and he also had PM stints at Google and Microsoft.
Here's a preview of what's in store in the episode:
Why Figma worked
Yamashita explains the offbeat approach that Figma's founder Dylan Field leaned on to rally support from early evangelists. He also unpacks why "every good product narrative has a little bit of tension." In Figma's case, the thought of having people (like your company's CEO or Art Director) jumping into a designer's work-in-progress files was a bit of a controversial bet at the time.
How Yuhki came to join Figma
While Figma would go on to become a decacorn, Yamashita admits he didn't have the foresight at the time to predict this atmospheric rise. Instead, he was drawn in by the product's rallying crying that "design shouldn't be only something designers do," and his own conviction in the product that would make jobs like his better.
How Uber, Google, Microsoft and Figma approach building products differently
Across each chapter of his product career, Yamashita has pulled different pages from the playbooks top companies use to build impactful products.
-Microsoft: "At Microsoft, you could be the PM of the 'undo' feature of Excel. There was a culture of extreme attention to detail."
-Google & Uber: At both Uber and Google, PMs were given a much broader product space, and as such had to be more comfortable making bets (and rallying folks around those bets).
-Figma: The nature of Figma's product is that everything is a work in progress. It's a much more fluid way to build product, Yamashita explains.
Figma's approach to going multi-product
As Figma has begun to expand the product suite beyond the core offering (like FigJam and, more recently, Slides), Yamashita explains how this multiproduct expansion has changed how the product team works. From prioritizing what to build next, to how Figma approaches resourcing, He also unpacks why "the best products come from a bit of internal conflicts."
Why aren't there more designers-turned-founders out there?
There are a few notable designers who later became founders out there in tech (Airbnb's Brian Chesky and Linear's Kaari Saarinen are two that come to mind). But designers are largely unrepresented in Silicon Valley's C-Suite. Yamashita points to commerciality as one such explanation here.
Storytelling as the secret weapon in your product toolbox
"When you end up in a conversation with a customer that's just about features, that's not a conversation you want to be in," says Yamashita. He explains the Figma approach to product storytelling, including his "one screenshot" test for evaluating whether a product story is hitting the mark.
You can listen to the full episode on Apple, Spotify YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Thanks, as always, for listening and sharing!
-The Review Editors (and In Depth producers)
Here are the timestamps for the episode:
(00:00) Figma's early days
(06:21) Product culture across companies
(10:52) Knowing when to change things
(14:50) How business goals impact product expansion
(18:10) Advice for going multi-product
(21:40) The skills of a “0 to 1” PM
(24:46) Identifying entrepreneurial talent
(26:16) Why aren't there more designer founders?
(32:32) How Figma launches new products
(38:29) “0 to 1” versus “1 to 10” talent
(43:11) The role of storytelling at Figma
(46:32) How Figma prioritizes product
(52:21) Advice for product storytelling
(56:12) “Good” vs “extraordinary” product managers
(58:31) Why product simplicity matters
(61:02) The importance of taste in product and design
(65:06) The biggest influence on Yuhki’s product thinking