How Figma taps into taste, simplicity, and storytelling | Yuhki Yamashita (CPO at Figma, ex-Uber, Google, Microsoft)

[00:00:00] Brett: Shall we do it?

[00:00:01] Yuhki: All right. Let's do

[00:00:01] Brett: right. Thanks for joining.

[00:00:03] Yuhki: Thank you for having

[00:00:04] Brett: I'm looking forward to it. Um, maybe one place to start is what, what is your theory as to why Figma worked maybe in the, in, in whatever non generic terms you can use to sort of describe it, like your current, Theory that may be imperfect, given how random and complex companies are like, but if you had to boil it down and try to figure out why or articulate why it worked, what sort of comes to mind

[00:00:34] Yuhki: Yeah. That's a good question. I mean, I think of maybe a couple of things. The first is, um, I think what was obviously, I think the first thing was just the bet on this technology web, um, that was a bit speculative back in the day. Um, and no one could imagine a company. Professional tool as complex as Figma in the browser, um, and but if it could be achieved, you know, it would be something that would be amazing from the perspective of what it opens up because all of a sudden every design file becomes a URL, not something that you have to download and download an application for.

[00:01:10] So that bet that Evan and Dylan took on the technology was probably the first thing that, you know, people didn't necessarily believe that we could get to that level of. Fidelity or performance on the browser. Um, the second and maybe less obvious thing is how Dylan went around and really got the influencers on board, you know, the people in the community who, whose voice mattered, whose voice people listened to, and so he actually visualized, uh, Design Twitter into this graph, uh, and, uh, Figured out the nodes that were the largest of, okay, who's following who, and then went to them and showed Figma, got their feedback, kept going back to them, not trying to sell them it, but just show them Figma and get them excited and kind of loyal because it's kind of coming back and responding to their feedback and over time, making them want to talk about Figma.

[00:02:07] And I think a important component of that was that he was supplying them with like an idea that was. Um, Kind of controversial, you know, every good narrative has a little bit of tension. And the tension was this idea that, you know, everyone could be in the file at the same time. And, That was now intuitive, but back then was considered undesirable to some extent.

[00:02:33] Like, you know, this idea that an hovering art director is always going to be in your file, like your product manager, your CEO is going to be able to see every movement you're making was not something that was necessarily welcomed, but it also had a you know, view about design and what it should be, uh, that was, you know, um, more progressive.

[00:02:53] And so that kind of balance of like, you know, standing for something of like, what design should be while, uh, also having a little bit of controversy kind of supplied a narrative that a lot of these, um, influencers or, you know, evangelists were excited to talk about and spread.

[00:03:11] Brett: on on the first point, how much of it do you think was which was about the enabling technology? How much do you think was just luck and patience? Versus a, a, a deep understanding and belief that, that sort of we're on the precipice that's going to allow something. to happen that couldn't have happened five or 10 years before.

[00:03:36] Yuhki: I mean, I think realistically both, you know, I wasn't there when it happened. So you're going to have to bring a Dylan and Evan on to really kind of grill them on that. But, you know, one of the things I remember was, uh, Evan was just famous for pushing the bounds of WebGL. Like he had this website that showed these amazing graphics of, uh, and we actually have, uh, A table inside our Figma office that is commemorates this, but he basically has is these balls inside a water pool that are, uh, you know, uh, that's really dynamic and you can play with that looks photorealistic and he had kind of, uh, he loved playing with WebGL in that way.

[00:04:12] And so he was really pushing the bounds of it. So I think he saw it, um, in a way that a lot of other people didn't. Um, but of course, like, you know, there's some luck as well as, you know, browser technologies kind of evolved in accordance.

[00:04:27] Brett: At what point in the company's life did you end up joining?

[00:04:31] Yuhki: So I joined when we were about 90 people or so, um, you know, I actually had joined because I was at Uber before and at Uber, we were, uh, one of the first large companies to experimentally use Figma and I happened to be on the team that brought it on. Um, it wasn't my ideas as, uh, you know, as our designers, but, uh, I definitely saw its transformation on how we work, but.

[00:04:55] It was still at a time when not everybody was all in on it. It wasn't, um, you know, it wasn't obvious that there was going to be kind of like one tool for a given company. It's a lot of fragmentation at the time.

[00:05:08] Brett: So what did you see in it in that early form that made you want to bet your career on it?

[00:05:14] Yuhki: Well, you know, I was someone who, uh, bounced back and forth between product management and design, um, and kind of. I had a worldview that these functions should be, um, the boundary between them should be more blurred, um, and, you know, I remember some of my early PM days where Figma or design mocks were, you know, maybe in, uh, Photoshop files or sketch files and that maybe files I didn't have access to or I didn't have access to You know sketch and couldn't open them And so I would take these PNGs that you know designers had created and then take them back to Photoshop to edit it in the way I wanted and it was just a such a roundabout process Um, and, you know, Figma completely changed that, you know, if I needed to put together a product review and I'm putting together a flow, I needed to make some adjustments, you know, to make it make sense.

[00:06:13] I could do that myself for the first time, and that just made so much sense to me. And I think that worldview that design shouldn't be something that only designers do, um, was something that resonated with me a lot as well.

[00:06:29] Brett: So even before you started to use the early version of Figma, you sort of had this feeling that, uh, product and design should sort of sit together more closely or sort of have workflows that were less sort of arduous and then sort of the, The products sort of fit the own vision that you had in your head.

[00:06:51] Yuhki: I would say so,

[00:06:53] Brett: And was it an easy decision to leave and go there?

[00:06:58] Yuhki: um

[00:06:58] Brett: was long before it was obviously

[00:07:00] Yuhki: Yeah, I mean Honestly, I went to figma not because I thought it'd be a big business but rather because they're building a magical tool that I loved and you know I always kind of take the perspective of well If I get to be a part of a company to make a tool that I love and have more people love That's like, you know, I'm happy about that.

[00:07:23] Uh, and it just so happened to be a good business. So, um, I remember seeing some of like the AR numbers and trying to make sense of it, but really it was just like my own conviction in the product. Um, and then also, you know, I really love the design community and, you know, this is really about making jobs like mine better for, and, uh, helping teams make Build products, design products, you know, much more efficiently.

[00:07:52] So I think. I was, I could get behind that mission. Yeah.

[00:07:57] Brett: What, what has building products across many different companies taught you about building product and in the sense of Figma and Uber, Microsoft, Google, All, I assume, build products differently, are all known for great products in sort of different contexts. And so like, what, what is the fact that you worked in those different environments?

[00:08:24] Like, what has that taught you about product building?

[00:08:27] Yuhki: Yeah. Well, it's, it's interesting because, you know, I think about all the different chapters of my life of different kinds of ways of building product. Like for example, at Microsoft, I started and it was very much about. The super detailed spec, um, where, you know, if you were the, uh, PM, you could be the PM just on control Z or, you know, undo feature of Excel or something, you know, and you would kind of have to think about all the different edge cases.

[00:08:58] and how they would work and document it really well and, you know, it would have a few, we would even have a process which we called Design Change Request, a DCR, which was when you realized that your spec was wrong and you actually had to go through a formal process to, you know, get it amended. Um, because it was already, you know, in development phase and, um, obviously, you know, I'm sure Microsoft has since changed its ways and, uh, you know, it's an artifact of kind of more boxed software.

[00:09:28] Um, but, you know, nonetheless, it kind of was about, it was a, it was a culture of extreme attention to detail, um, uh, which was, yeah, which is, uh, Which has, you know, stayed with me for, uh, uh, forever. Um, and on the other hand, you know, when I went to, for example, Google or even Uber, Um, you know, you're, the area of what you're responsible was so much bigger and so you had to really be sure that You have to really invest in kind of like the team understanding the problem so that they can make their own local decisions well, because you couldn't possibly make all those decisions.

[00:10:09] Um, and so, you know, investing a lot in storytelling, like, how do you actually get people rallied around the problem and like deeply understand it so they can make the right call, um, in a world where you came and audit everything. Um, and, you know, going all the way to Figma now, it's like, uh, you know, and the The tool itself enables that it's a much more fluid process because, you know, everyone can be in the file, keep updating it and you keep updating designs, uh, and, uh, you know, everything is kind of always a work in progress, including the product itself.

[00:10:45] And so, you know, those are kind of these distinct chapters, um, in different ways of working. And the only thing I can really take away from it is, like, There is no one way to build products. And in fact, it's really messy and non linear. Um, and I think that's like the biggest thing that I've kind of come to realize, which is that, you know, we like to distill this process of building products into these like distinct stages, you know, with really clean kind of moments in time when there's clarity and you're kind of handing off, but the reality is it just, you know, So, uh, it has to be so much more fluid than that.

[00:11:21] And today, we live in a world where you can update the product, like, within seconds. And so, you know, when you kind of take that world view, uh, you know, everything is, uh, uh, is live. You know, and that's kind of, uh, Um, you know, you kind of have to adjust your way of working accordingly.

[00:11:43] Brett: how does it map to sort of how you think about what the. Correct way to build a product is in the context of a specific company. is it whatever's working the company should sort of continue doing? Um, are there primitives that work across companies? Um, but what I like about what you're saying, but I think it's emblematic of Every aspect of building a company, which is that things are correct, mainly in the context of the company and what the company is trying to do.

[00:12:22] Right. And like, if you think about, Ops in the context of Uber versus Microsoft, it should be a different thing because the companies are in service of trying to do a different thing.

[00:12:35] Yuhki: For sure.

[00:12:35] Brett: Um, but I'm curious, like in, in the context of building products, like how, how do you think about what is correct? I, I, I, I, I appreciate the point that there are very few globally correct ways to build a product.

[00:12:51] Um, But there have to be more or less correct ways in the context of like the vessel that is a company. I'm curious if anything comes to mind.

[00:12:57] Yuhki: Yeah. Well, I, I think that, you know, at the end of the day, what you're judged by, uh, is whether you've, Solved the problem at hand, right? Whether you've solved the problem for the user, whether you solve the problem for the business, and that's what we're all trying to do in terms of building a product or, you know, designing a product.

[00:13:22] Um, because at the end of the day, building a product, design a product is just problem solving, right? And so, you know, like. Figma and Uber work in very different ways in terms of building products. Um, you know, Uber is very much about kind of like, you can be a little bit more fast and loose, get stuff out there, learn.

[00:13:42] Um, and to your point, um, Ops was really important to the point where sometimes Ops could, you know, have. Operational changes could make, have a drastically bigger impact on the business, on the user, on the driver rider than the product itself, and, you know, that's kind of a humbling thing to understand as someone who's always been in digital products, right?

[00:14:05] Um, on the other hand, with, uh, Figma, you know, Yes, we love to move fast, but at the same time, you know, if we just kind of start introducing new features left and right, it confuses people, right, and you kind of end up proliferating all these objects and primitives that you'll have to support forever, so you have to be a little bit more thoughtful about that, so, you know, like those two companies, I think, um, Okay.

[00:14:28] You know, rightfully so behave differently in terms of like how we design and uh, how we build products, but at the end of the day, there is kind of a goal that we're going for. Um, and you know, and Uber is about getting as many trips done, you know, um, as possible and that, you know, whatever it takes to get there.

[00:14:52] Um, and then, you know, with Figma, it's about, you know, how do we actually help teams. Build design and design and build products, the best products possible as efficiently as possible, and whatever we can do to, uh, to do that. And that's why people use Figma and pay for Figma. And so, um, you know, I think it's really about understanding that goal and, and optimizing around it.

[00:15:16] Brett: So in the, in, in the context of Figma, what are some examples of where you've observed that there was a chance to make the way that you build products better in the context of Figma? Like what, what are the indications that you use maybe over the course of the trajectory of the company's life? That you want to change some structure or do something different or go in a different direction.

[00:15:44] Yuhki: hmm. Yeah. I mean, you know, there. The examples I think of right now are as we've embarked on the journey of becoming a multi product company, you know, with building FigJam and Slides and DevMode and more things coming That has meant really changing the way we work in a significant way because you know While it's true that Figma has always been a product where it's not just designers that show up, you know, there's a lot of non designers who show up to the platform too, in fact, two thirds of our weekly active users are non designers.

[00:16:23] Um, you know, these products that we've built have started to, you know, really widen the aperture and try to really optimize for our different audiences. And as part of that, you know, the way we work, you know, we know how to talk to designers. Um, but. You know, when we need to figure out how to, you know, meet the needs of the entire product team, we actually have to change the way we work, starting from who we go and talk to and how we communicate with them.

[00:16:47] Uh, so that was really obvious to us. Or I think another thing has been, and recently a challenges that we've had is, you know, we have a very integrated product platform where every new product we build is built on the same platform and relates to each other in a really tight way. And that's what's caused.

[00:17:05] Uh, as to build something that's differentiated, but it's also created a lot more complexity, right? Um, and as you build these new products, like, you want to enable them to move fast, but also, you know, they have to contemplate, happens, you know, the change, whatever they do changes. The entire system or can impact other products too.

[00:17:25] And so we've now had to, we're now thinking about how we change the way we work to, you know, recognize that.

[00:17:34] Brett: So sort of on this thread of going multi product, before you started to do that, did you sort of get together as a team and say, we're going to be some, we're going to do something new and what ways do we need to change to do this? Or did you start doing it and you unearthed that we're in a new paradigm and we have to sort of rethink some of our previous assumptions?

[00:17:58] Yuhki: I would love to have had that foresight, but you know, we just kind of dove right in and, you know, with, FigJam, for example, which is our whiteboarding product. I kind of remember we were in the height of the pandemic and it was really like people were using Figma design as a whiteboard, as a brainstorm tool, just because it was the pandemic, it was remote work and people were doing, you know, we're sick of Zoom happy hours.

[00:18:18] So they started hanging out in Figma instead, you know? And we're like, okay, we should capitalize on this because, you know, whenever your users are hacking your product in a fun way, that's really great inspiration for there's a need here. And we kind of dove right in, um, and, you know, started building out a product and in that process started realizing a bit like, oh, um, You know, should we just let this team be completely independent and do whatever they want and just let them move as fast as possible?

[00:18:48] Or, you know, should we think about how these things are related, how these tools are related so that, you know, um, You know, you're kind of building for the greater good, but maybe kind of slowing down just the whiteboard tool development, right? Um, when we think about the competitive dynamics, it's a hard question to answer.

[00:19:07] Um, because there's a lot of great players out there, and we're trying to, like, at that time, you know, play catch up. And so speed seemed of the essence, but the more we create divergence, you know, um, then like later it becomes very difficult to unify. Um, especially in a world where we believe that there is, should be some fluidity between the tools that we build.

[00:19:31] Um, so yeah, there are debates like that that emerged and I think coming out of that, you

[00:19:36] Brett: things emerged after you had already kicked off the desire to build a second

[00:19:40] Yuhki: Yeah, and now, you know, like, as we build our third and fourth and, you know, many more products to come, I think we have a little bit more of, like, a framework of, okay, like, maybe there are some common, common things, or, you know, um, we should maybe have a different way of organizing, so there's a team that's thinking about kind of these shared primitives.

[00:19:58] Right outta the gate, you know, or we should maybe think about our go to market motion differently or how we incentivize sales differently. Um, you know, from the very beginning. So those are learnings. We were very much applying, but back then, you know, we're just kind of, um, winging it in a way. Yeah.

[00:20:19] Brett: Maybe kind of continuing going down this path. How does the needs of your business fit into the way that you think about product expansion, right? Like, I think, uh, you know, a lot of people start by saying, okay, when we build a second product, we're likely going to try to sell another SKU into the same end buyer.

[00:20:42] It's like one way of thinking about it. Other people are like, we want to sell a similar SKU and get a new end buyer. So that's like JIRA going from, Selling to VP avenge to to security, right? Um, and in one way, you can be rooted in the problem of the customer. Um, but the other is you could think about what you're trying to do as a business, which might be, you know, we can only right now.

[00:21:06] Our product is mainly used by product managers and designers. A business goal of ours is to create a reason for business users to have an account or non designers to have an account. Like how does all of that fit together to the way that you think about building future products?

[00:21:22] Yuhki: Well, I think we've, you know, we're in a fortunate position where, you know, both the user needs and our business needs are somewhat aligned, um, in that, you know, when you look at the landscape of product development, you know, like we think end to end about the product development process, you know, like a lot of people see Figma as a design tool where you draw some mocks and put, you know, build some prototypes, but we know that that's not the end goal.

[00:21:48] Like, you know, um, that is in service of this. broader goal, which is to actually get a product built, um, and in your user's hands. Right. And so, insofar as that's true, we've actually always been thinking about the end to end process. Like some of the reasons that we bring, um, you know, Primitives or abstractions that are inspired by code into design is because that is a thing that helps translate those designs into code later.

[00:22:14] And, um, you know, so we've always been thinking about kind of the end to end, um, and it's actually becoming a much more, um, Fluid and process now where, you know, the, the going from an idea all the way to a final product has become much more compressed in recent times. And that's because, you know, the design process is faster and with design systems, it's because of AI, it's because of kind of like stronger relationships between design and code.

[00:22:45] Um, so, you know, all of that is happening. And so it's actually imperative for us to think about kind of the needs of. more, for example. Um, and so that's kind of where, you know, the landscape of product development is going, where it's not design isn't just a step. It's actually kind of been part of the entire process to some extent.

[00:23:05] Um, and then, you know, uh, from a business need perspective, you know, we have You know, as I mentioned, two thirds of our users are, our weekly active users are non designers, like developers, like PMs and others. Um, and, you know, they are in our product and very engaged. They may not be

[00:23:24] Brett: Has that ratio been the same for years and years and years?

[00:23:27] Yuhki: It has, yeah. Um, and, you know, they're in the product because they need to see the designs first and foremost. Um, and then we've, like, started to think about, well, how can we add way more value, right? Um, and to, for developers, we started building dev mode, which is, Allows them to have a custom environment just for developers that makes it really easy for them to understand the designs or in some cases connect the designs to, uh, the code base in interesting ways.

[00:23:53] Um, and as part of doing that, you know, have compelled them to buy, you know, dev mode, um, and, uh, and, You know, we kind of expand that way. Um, and same thing with product managers and others where, you know, there's doing, doing a lot of jobs that surround Figma today. Um, and there's a lot of inconveniences around it.

[00:24:14] So if we can solve it, then we can actually, uh, you know, expand to, to those functions as well. Um, and that's a huge opportunity for us. So I think both kind of like the. Kind of defense and offense kind of aligned in that way.

[00:24:29] Brett: What about when you, when you zoom out now that you've shipped your first few, um, Standalone products after kind of the core Figma product. What are some of the most important things that you figured out that if you were talking to another product leader or CEO who has a single product company right now that's doing very well and is thinking about their next set of products, like, are there big ideas that you've kind of worked through now over multiple years that would be useful for them to know?

[00:25:02] Yuhki: Yeah. I mean, I think that uh, oh, it's interesting because uh, I think about for example dev mode, um, which is kind of a product that, uh, we started selling this year at the beginning of this year. And I would say internally, um, it wasn't, always clear to us, uh, that this is something that, uh, we, uh, had to do, or, you know, uh, I think that we had kind of an intuition that developers were struggling inside the Figma product and we could do better for them.

[00:25:36] Um, but we didn't really know necessarily that like productizing that something for them is going to kind of, um, you know, You know, have a really strong impact. And, uh, so there was a lot of debate about that, um, whether it's worth it. And, and it turned out, you know, uh, as soon as we launched, it was very clear that people needed it and wanted it.

[00:25:55] And, um, people were buying it. And so it was one of those things where like, you know, I kind of was like, We could have been a little bit less precious about, um, this idea of, like, I think there's this, um, idea of, you know, the gravity of a second product or a third product, you know, and as a result of that, kind of wanting to, you know, uh, get it out the door.

[00:26:19] or wanting to be a little bit more thoughtful before putting it out in the world. And I kind of feel like we could have been a little bit more experimental about it, to test it out, test out the waters, and not kind of, you know, feel like, uh, pressure that, oh, this is our second or third product and therefore it has to be a certain way, you know?

[00:26:44] Um, so yeah, that's, that's kind of like one reflection. Um, and some companies are really good at that, I would say.

[00:26:51] Brett: Are there other things that come to mind?

[00:26:54] Yuhki: Um, I think the other ones are really like, um, There's something, I think the best products are come out of a little bit of like internal kind of conflict around, uh, people standing up for a use case in a way that like maybe that is counterintuitive to the core product team. Um, and you know, like, The core product team is so used to one way of thinking and like a set of users and has built years of intuition and some, you know, like a decade of intuition in some cases.

[00:27:37] Um, and, uh, it can be hard to suddenly, you know, take on kind of the user needs of some things. Totally different persona. And so I think it's been successful and we've put leaders on these other new efforts that just bring in a completely new perspective and can challenge all the assumptions, uh, you know, uh, around, uh, Around the core product, right?

[00:28:02] Um, so as an example, maybe like, you know, uh, You look at our core product and you're like, well, of course, like, every product, uh, Every new product we have to have has to be an infinite canvas and, you know, like, that's, that's just, Table stakes at Figma, right? But then it turns out, you know, developers find it really hard to navigate that.

[00:28:22] Um, and, you know, someone who can advocate for like a pers perspective like that and challenge some core assumptions like that, um, I think it's really critical and through, through that debate, you kind of build the best product. So I would say, yeah, like, uh, you really need to create an environment where, you know, people can really feel ownership of like their, their new audience without feeling the burden of legacy in a way.

[00:28:47] Brett: How do you do that?

[00:28:48] Yuhki: Um, I think it's bringing in people who are, uh, kind of singularly passionate about kind of, you know, maybe like the new audience that you're going after or the new use case. Um, in some cases, for example, for, uh, or for developer efforts, our engineering leader was someone who we, uh, came through an acquihire of, you know, a team really thinking about kind of how to translate design into code.

[00:29:12] And so they built their own tool because they didn't think that Figma was doing enough, right? And so there already was this perception from them, like, okay, like, Figma, as it stands, is not doing, you know, enough here. So, like, they brought in a kind of outsider's perspective, which is really healthy, I thought.

[00:29:32] Brett: Do you think there's a difference between a great PM that maybe works on a portion of the core product versus a great PM in the context of creating a net new product.

[00:29:43] Yuhki: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

[00:29:44] Brett: Maybe you can talk about that.

[00:29:46] Yuhki: Um, and, you know, I would say that, like, I'm more of the latter, like, I've always worked on core experiences, and, you know, um, whether it was at YouTube or Uber or, you know, even, you know, initially at Figma, uh, it was about, like, how do you take this thing that's mostly working and then scale it, you know, um, and add more to it and make it more powerful.

[00:30:10] And that's like a skill set that's really thinking about kind of like, how do you extend the current system? How do you do it in a way that doesn't, um, you know, risk the current business? Uh, you know, and, uh, and a lot of it is also just about like, uh, in internal kind of convincing people of, you know, The importance of a change that, you know, might seem disruptive, right?

[00:30:37] In a world where it's easy to just fall into the innovators dilemma. Um, and so like, that's like one skill set, I would say. Um, and then taking something from zero to one is like, you know, being, uh, much more scrappy, uh, you know, being willing to take, uh, You know, risks because you don't even have users, you know, uh, really valuing speed, um, and, you know, uh, questioning kind of, uh, some core assumptions as we talked about, um, you know, in the current product.

[00:31:14] And, uh, yeah, I think it takes a different kind of like persistence, um, and, uh, and bullishness and, you know, and I'm not, it's not saying that. One person can't do both, but you kind of have to exhibit very different behaviors, I think. Um, you know, cause starting from zero is very different from starting from an existing system.

[00:31:36] And both, evolving from zero is, they're both hard. Um, but the techniques are so different.

[00:31:44] Brett: And so when you're now getting a new product off the ground, does it start with who has those sensibilities that you want to put on it as like the first place it begins?

[00:31:54] Yuhki: Yeah, I mean, I think, uh, you know, at Figma we often talk about kind of like, you know, starters, like people who are really great at getting something off the ground. Um, and, you know, people who can come up with that kind of core idea that, you know, you can latch on to that seems really interesting. So whether that's in engineering or design or PM, like we definitely look for that kind of skill set.

[00:32:19] Brett: And do you mostly try to take existing, existing people at the company and find somebody with those sensibility and put them on it? Or do you like to have somebody come in from the outside? What

[00:32:29] Yuhki: We've done both, um, you know, obviously as, uh, Yeah, it's always, it's hard to always just be bringing in new people every time you come up with an idea. So we definitely have, uh, folks who are really good at taking something, you know, um, some from scratch or, you know, creating something more experimental.

[00:32:47] Um, but sometimes like this is, this comes a little bit more bottoms up. So for example, uh, we have this thing we call maker week, which is kind of like a hack week, um, where people are making things, everything from, you know, things in software to just like. Things, physical things that, you know, express themselves, but, um, you know, I think it's part of that people are often pitching new products and you kind of, uh, see who emerges as like particularly entrepreneurial, um, and it's, it's kind of an, uh, A forum that kind of allows you to be experimental with these types of prototypes.

[00:33:27] Brett: does it look like to you if you, uh, are experiencing someone as particularly entrepreneurial?

[00:33:34] Yuhki: Yeah, I mean, I think entrepreneurs are slightly irrational, right? Um, and, uh, you know, they're necessarily, by taking something from nothing and bringing it into existence, you know, you're doing something that people didn't really believe was possible. Um, and so there's a lot more like brute force or there's a lot more kind of like selling the team on this, you know, and like with this story that you have to do, uh, and that's just, uh, you know, it's products don't emerge from just like, uh, You know, this rational line of thinking sometimes, you know?

[00:34:22] Um, or there needs to be a spark somewhere. Um, and there's, there are these people who know when they really need to dial it up and hustle. Um, you know, to get something from, you know, not believable to believable. So, yeah, I think some of those things, attributes, um, the passion, the scrappiness, you know, a little bit of irrationality, I think those are, you know, Attributes, I would say.

[00:34:49] Um,

[00:34:51] Brett: terms of your own experience, that people kind of either have it, like it's in them or not? Or do you see people kind of develop those sensibilities over time?

[00:35:00] Yuhki: you know, I think it's always possible to develop these things. Um, but I think it's not I wouldn't see it necessarily always as like you have it or you don't. Like, you may have it for a certain class of things. Ideas, you know, um, or, you know, there are people who are passionate about like certain things and like believe that the world should be one way and not the other, but they don't always have to think about that for every topic out there in the universe, right?

[00:35:24] And so, um, I think that you can be entrepreneurial in different areas, you know, because of your unique points of view. Yeah.

[00:35:34] Brett: Why do you think there haven't been more mega successful companies in the last decade in Silicon Valley that were started by designers?

[00:35:42] Yuhki: Hmm.

[00:35:43] Brett: It feels like there was a time in 2010, 2012, maybe when Brian Chesky was getting Airbnb off the ground, where it felt like there was a opportunity for a groundswell of more designers to build wonderful companies.

[00:35:57] And there's obviously examples of this, but it feels like it's an underexpressed founder archetype.

[00:36:02] Yuhki: Hmm. Yeah. Um, yeah. I mean, I think that like, uh, part of it I think is actually that, you know, these functions have also become more fluid. And that, like, you know, maybe back then in the Brian Chesky days, like, you know, the division of labor between all these functions is very clear. Um, and now, you know, like, uh, you know, design is, uh, you know, like, uh, there are a lot of founders who are not designers, but who, Kind of have more design sensibilities or who know what good looks like and who have these higher standards or who can do a little bit of enough design to be dangerous, you know, and it's kind of similar with coding too, right?

[00:36:48] Like you have a lot of founders who are maybe not traditionally engineers, but. Will actually sit down and build stuff and because they have to, uh, but, you know, there are enough tools to have made that, uh, accessible, um, and, you know, they have enough exposure to have be a good judge of talent. So I kind of think of it like, um, you know, There is a convergence of functions to some extent.

[00:37:13] And, you know, as an example, like Dylan was a design intern at Flipboard, right? And maybe he's not kind of like the traditional archetype of a designer. Um, but like definitely has, uh, many of those sensibilities. Um, and so that's kind of how I view the world where actually it might be a artifact of design having become more accessible or having permeated, um, you know, You know, everyone's kind of roles more.

[00:37:41] Mm.

[00:37:43] Brett: What about sort of the, the sort of idea of commerciality or commercial taste? And I think I don't know, my weekly health perspective is that if you were to take the broad population and designers, they generally under express commercial taste. And do you think that has anything to do with it? Or maybe you disagree with that.

[00:38:05] Yuhki: Um, yeah, I mean, I think it kind of, uh,

[00:38:13] Yeah, it's, it's interesting to think about. I mean, you know, I would say, I don't know if it's underexpressed and more that, you know, designers are encouraged to be, Completely customer centric, right? Like user centric. And so, you know, in a healthy kind of like triad of, you know, design PM engineering, for example, like, you know, engineering might be kind of thinking about feasibility, scalability, and, you know, the PM is going to be thinking about kind of like commercial viability and designers, you know, are thinking about like, what's the best experience for users, even if it's not.

[00:38:44] Doesn't seem technically or commercially feasible and somewhere along the way like in a great product is built with that kind of tension, right? and so That's kind of how I would explain why you know You don't necessarily always see that manifest so clearly with the designers because like that's kind of the the point of the function to be really focused on users to some extent.

[00:39:07] Um, I do think that like, there is a period in time where, you know, I remember when I was at Google, for example, you know, there was this like, saying of, you know, um, do right, do what's right by the user and everything else will follow. And when you looked at some of the goals that we had back then, like, it was pretty removed from commercial stuff, too.

[00:39:30] Um, but there was this belief that, like, somewhere along the way, that translated and, you know. Uh, and it's probably true that, like, uh, some of that is Changed, you know, um, and, you know, people have become more innovative around business models and like that has created a much more competitive landscape where like, you know, if you don't apply more creativity there, like you don't, you get left behind.

[00:39:57] So it's possible that that the sophistication on like the business model front has also made that way more important, whereas before, you know, you just build products that people love and like. Can stick some ads in there and it kind of works as a business kind of thing and that's like not how It works anymore.

[00:40:14] Yeah.

[00:40:15] Brett: Yeah. You also wonder, did Google do the ecosystem sort of a disservice for so many years? Because again, going back to, you know, each company is kind of like its own civilization with all of the things that kind of have to fit together in the context of what the company is doing, that you can kind of think about new products or building product differently when you have a cash geyser in the form of AdSense.

[00:40:38] And so, you know, that's very different than, you know, your business where at the end of the day, you're trying to build something great. That someone is willing to part with money for

[00:40:48] Yuhki: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:40:50] Brett: and I always I always Wonder when companies get very big and become these Vacuums of talent and then those people leave and join other companies like what are the tendencies that have been instilled in them?

[00:41:02] and is it like a Net positive for the ecosystem or is there like a lot of unlearning that has to happen? I think a lot of people that came out of Of Google, there's probably a bunch of unlearning because the environment was just so unique that allows you to do all sorts of things that you couldn't do.

[00:41:18] And maybe a more conventional company or a company that a different gross margin structure, all sorts of other

[00:41:23] Yuhki: right, right. Yeah, no, certainly. I mean, I think that like, uh, you know, those kinds of companies encourage specialization and that's great. You know, you get a lot of people with amazing talent, but, um, you know, you don't always have the luxury, you know, in certain companies to, you might just have one designer or, you know, you might need someone who is able to wear multiple hats.

[00:41:43] Um, and certainly there is a level of unlearning I even had to do, coming into a place like Uber where, um, You know, as I mentioned earlier, it's like, uh, I remember, you know, the experiment that moved the most, the needle the most for a business was like an email that our ops operations team sent to users.

[00:42:04] Uh, and, uh, it was this funny story where, you know, I was like, I had come from YouTube and we were kind of trying to figure out how to make Uber Pool work better. And we're trying to get more people to work, uh, walk to the corners so that, um, the pickups would be smoother, like, you know, so that everyone, for example, in New York, cars would just go up and down avenues.

[00:42:27] They don't have to go in and out of streets to kind of pick up riders. So it's like, you know, we're trying to encourage people to walk and We were doing that in the app, like, can you walk, please, et cetera, and then some, someone in operations just sent a blasted out email to be like, tomorrow morning at a.

[00:42:42] m., like, or, you know, we just need you to walk, and if you do, we'll give you, like, an incentive, like, we'll, and people did it, you know, and so you're like, okay, like, that's, uh, That's humbling, right? And I have to like unlearn this idea that like everything can be achieved via software, you know? Um, and so, yeah, I think there's always a case of like, you know, your environment shapes you.

[00:43:06] Um, and not to ding Google, I think every, there's a lot of unlearning you have to do every time you change jobs or change industries.

[00:43:15] Brett: back to the thread. We were talking about in in going multi product. Um, when you think about the next, Separate product you're gonna build or the last one talk more about sort of the team structure and how small the team is and you talked a little bit about the The sort of traits and the type of product people that you like to put on it But like do you cleave the team off now?

[00:43:38] Is it three people? Is it five people? Is it 30 people? Is it like what does it actually look like now?

[00:43:43] Yuhki: think we always start pretty small. And, uh, Really, uh, you know, we can do all the reviews that you want, but there's a moment where an idea becomes like an idea on paper to something that's actually believable. And, you know, there's nothing better than a working prototype. To make something believable, you know, and we have an environment called staging internally where people put something up and that feels like the moment where it feels like, Oh, this is actually a real, could be a real product or there's some magic there.

[00:44:18] And so I

[00:44:19] Brett: so is there a lot of things being prototyped in that context before you decide, like, if you think about slides would be an example of a big new product. Were the stakes very low at the beginning where someone was just prototyping what slides could be like, and eventually it crosses some chasm as it's going to be a new product bet?

[00:44:37] Yuhki: Yeah, I mean, you know, like we slides is a really interesting one where, uh, The product manager for Mihika was always asking for like the green light for the project and like there for a long time. We didn't give that green light. Um, but eventually there was something because we weren't sure we had just that we're trying to do so many things and we're like, we weren't, we believed in the product, but we weren't sure if it was something we needed to like, really focus on right now, given everything else that's happening.

[00:45:09] Um, but, you know, with her small teams kind of persisted and got to a point where. She got convinced some teams to start using it, you know, um, and, uh, And next thing you know, it kind of had proliferated internally. We're like, wait, like, this is great. Like, people are, you know, people like it. And especially the non designers in, in the company, you know, who are, who are always forced to use Figma just because, you know, we're Figma.

[00:45:34] We're like, wait, this is so much better. And so, I think there are ways in which, you know, um, A small prototype, or just getting something, an MVP, even internally, just completely changes the game in terms of like, Uh, you know, just seeing that kind of surge of everyone wanting it, gives so much more conviction that this is some, there's a there there.

[00:45:57] Yeah.

[00:45:58] Brett: And so then how does that map to now how you think about new products in the sense of Do you let a bunch of people follow their curiosity and sort of pitch prototypes? Do you get together as a leadership team and say, we want to make one big bet in 2025 or

[00:46:13] Yuhki: Yeah.

[00:46:14] Brett: what does it end up looking like?

[00:46:16] Yuhki: I mean, you know, I think that like, there's both the completely bottoms up things that happen in forums like maker week where we explicitly create time to do that. Um, and then there's, you know, a portfolio of bets, even as leadership where we're like, okay, we have like five or six things that we're maybe excited about.

[00:46:32] Let's put a small team on it and see where that goes. Um, and, um, let's incubate them and all of them. Like we actually deeply believe in, um, but you know, like the first milestone is getting to a point where, you know, even internally, and we, we of course have the luxury of building products that we ourselves internally use because we also build products.

[00:46:52] So like, that's kind of like a, like a first milestone we give those teams. Um, let's get to that point. Um, and then we can really like staff it in a serious way after that.

[00:47:04] Brett: When you think about those three or five or six, Sort of things that are coalescing at the leadership level it does that form just based on taste and intuitive judgment Or is there a structure or a way that you're thinking about those five or six things that you may want to pursue?

[00:47:23] Yuhki: Yeah, I mean, you know, there's there's a higher level framework. I think that we have, um, you know, and I'll share one of them, which is, you know, we really are have like a diagram of what we believe to be the end to end product development process. And of course, it's messy and it's nonlinear, but there are still these distinct things that need to happen for a product to go from idea to product.

[00:47:50] And when we look at it, we kind of have an overlay of like, okay, who are all the people involved and what are they doing? And where are the gaps right now? And, uh, and, and, and most specifically, you know, where are customers feeling the pain? Um, and right now, for example, I think the customers are facing most pain where, uh, between kind of the translation from the design to the final product, right?

[00:48:13] Um, and it's a common idea that, you know, you have like a beautiful mock and it looks great in theory, but then when it's actually built, like it's off, like, and it's not the engineer's fault always. It's like, it could be that it was under specified anything, but it's like that.

[00:48:27] Brett: is complicated.

[00:48:29] Yuhki: the world is complicated.

[00:48:30] So that is obviously a huge area that we need to invest in. So we're like, okay, like, what are the products that we can build to build that bit bridge better? So, you know, we kind of have a mapping like that. And so that's both coming from a place of, you know, many cases, our users and customers asking, like, we just go back, go to our buyers and say, what's, you know, What are the biggest problems?

[00:48:51] Like, forget Figma, like, what is the biggest problems that you're facing right now? Um, but also kind of conviction around, like, where we think the world is going, um, in terms of product development or where we see kind of, like, the industry moving. Um, so, yeah, I mean, you know, I think it's a good mix of, uh, well, I would say it's like intuition that is backed by kind of a lot of deeper conversations with our customers.

[00:49:17] Brett: Do you ever think about opportunities? that You just think are out there that are not as strategically tied into what the company is doing today, or you would never do that. Meaning like one of the things that I've always thought was intriguing is the whole story behind AWS, which seems in so many ways orthogonal to at that point, what an e commerce company was doing.

[00:49:39] But obviously they created probably, I mean, it's a top three, most valuable enterprise software company in the world. Do you ever think about About just opportunities that you see that that feel less integrated into something like an end to end the end end ways that products are built or that just doesn't sort of come to mind.

[00:49:57] Yuhki: Um, I think the reality of what the space that we're in, if we're thinking about product development is it's a vast, vast space already. And so, you know, even the things that we're building internally, um, are somewhat connected to, to that. And so, um, we haven't yet kind of encountered something like so orthogonal that, you know, of that nature.

[00:50:19] Maybe, um, but it might be also because, you know, for example, even AWS came, arose from an internal kind of need, right? Um, and, uh, you know, the internal need is related to product development and, You know, so, we're already in the, in a vertical product development, so I think it's, I don't know, right now, something like that different has not emerged, um, but, you know, certainly open to it, and, um, you know, the point of, like, Maker Week, for example, is, like, just, you know, forget what you're doing right now, forget, like, what team you're on, and just make something that you believe in.

[00:50:59] Um, and sometimes, like, wilder ideas emerge from that.

[00:51:04] Brett: Why has it not made sense for Figma to make meaningful acquisitions in terms of getting into the next product where you really buy something that's working and start to cross sell it away, a la Microsoft, Salesforce, so many other companies

[00:51:20] Yuhki: Yeah. Well, you know, we've, over the years, uh, You know, uh, brought in a lot of teams, um, and, you know, they, they've taken more the shape of an acqua hire, but, um, you know, to really extend to what we've, uh, built or in many cases they built kind of, uh, very relevant products, um, but we've taken kind of insights from that and integrated it into our, our, our platform, but it doesn't come from a place of philosophically.

[00:51:47] We're against that.

[00:51:48] Brett: just haven't found the right thing.

[00:51:50] Yuhki: That and also, you know, for now, we've been very building a very integrated product, um, and so it's a little bit harder to imagine something like completely orthogonal, um, and that being said, you know, um, certainly for the right thing. And if it isn't service advancing our vision for making products easier to build, then, you know, we're certainly open to it and open to ideas as well.

[00:52:15] Brett: We'd be delighted

[00:52:16] Yuhki: to have her up here,

[00:52:17] Brett: company. Um, I'm going to turn the air up here actually, cause I'm feeling like it's quite warm. That works for you.

[00:52:22] Yuhki: Am

[00:52:32] Brett: I love your, um, I love

[00:52:40] Yuhki: fine and Okay, good, okay. Because I realized I couldn't see I saw this going on, and I was like, wait. Okay. You're going to need to tell her to mirror it or something.

[00:52:51] Brett: your distinction between the two different types of VMs, between the ones who are going from zero to one versus four in the extension.

[00:53:02] Yuhki: Your idea.

[00:53:03] Brett: you go.

[00:53:04] Yuhki: It's,

[00:53:05] Brett: It's uh, it's, it's always interesting that that sort of difference between creating something out of nothing versus improving something. I think it's like under explored and I think it's one of the reasons why there are like one of the most interesting questions I think in technology is why aren't they more successful companies?

[00:53:27] Yuhki: Mm. Mm.

[00:53:29] Brett: Like what's the core binding constraint? Is it the size of end markets? Is it? You know, so many other things, but I think it's, it's somehow this taste, ability, tendency that's required in a human to get something from nothing to something. And that is one of the limiting constraints that there's something unique about those people.

[00:53:56] And there's not that many of those people. There's not many of those people that have seen those things from zero to one themself or been involved. But there is there's something there's something very peculiar and unique about that type of person And I haven't been able to quite pin it down One of the things that I think a lot about is that is the topic of commerciality like I think it's the most underexplored topic in products

[00:54:27] Yuhki: Yeah.

[00:54:28] Brett: And like what is the difference between a good product and a good business?

[00:54:31] And what's the difference between something that some people? Something that someone likes and something that someone will pay for, what will they pay for, why do they pay that amount? Um, and that's sort of the other sort of limiting constraint, I think. Um, is there's not that many people with incredible design taste, or technical ability, or what have you, that are also very commercial.

[00:54:54] Yuhki: yeah, yeah,

[00:54:55] Brett: think about commerciality and the concept of like selling something, but I think it's so much more than that. It's like being able to feel around a problem and understand the weight of the economic opportunity. Um,

[00:55:10] Yuhki: Yeah. Well, you know, as I, I would classify myself more as someone who's been more kind of in the one to 10 journey as opposed to the zero to one journey. And, uh, you know, as someone on that side, you know, it's like, uh, I think I, I find it really kind of. I come from a worldview maybe that like, not everything has to start from scratch.

[00:55:35] And I come from a worldview where like, I'm more optimistic that I can take an existing thing and like, evolve it or, you know, radically change it, um, or extend it in really interesting ways. Um, and so, you know, I think, and maybe that's, that's kind of, and also kind of getting scale out of the gate to play with is really interesting too.

[00:55:58] So I wonder, you know, if there's an opportunity to kind of like, Capitalize. I think there's no, it's not like there's a shortage of interest in that kind of idea of building something, but like, you know, I think different people channel it in different ways. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:56:14] Brett: I also wonder if, what would happen if designers were forced to do more selling themselves? And what were the, and I don't know how that works in sort of the context of Figma, but I feel like going back to this question about commerciality and is it over under expressed in designers? I just wonder as a group, there are a few groups in a company that conventionally are, are asked less in terms of selling than designers. Um, like I think a lot of the best zero to one product people should be forced to get the first million dollars in revenue for the thing, not just build the widget and have the sales team bring it to market.

[00:56:51] Yuhki: Right. Right.

[00:56:52] Brett: And and that happens sometimes I think in certain companies that think a lot about that topic.

[00:56:57] But designers like literally a designer being forced to go sell a product and get a contract from a company just tends to not happen. And I wonder if that's sort of robbing. The design community of something with so much goodness comes from getting someone to part with their money. And I've just kind of, I don't know,

[00:57:16] Yuhki: Yeah, that's interesting to think about. I mean, I think it's true of many other functions too, right? Like engineering and others, right?

[00:57:23] Brett: but a lot of times with engineering and maybe it's different in the context of Figma, there's sales engineering, there's post sales integration, there's, there's, there's engineering roles that get close to that customer and get close to the transaction where there's something a little bit more removed, at least in conventional companies.

[00:57:38] I obviously don't know the details of, of, of where design is situated in Figma, but

[00:57:43] Yuhki: and I think that's kind of like another thing that it touches on is we do think that, uh, you know, designers are a little bit distanced from production today, right? Um, you know, we have like, uh, you know, there's a design. It's really well thought out. And then there's a point at which it kind of moves over to the code base and it gets more and more distant, right?

[00:58:03] Like, um, and of course, like, you know, designers are part of the QA process and, and are really interested in kind of like the research and, you know, seeing what's on the field, but there's just large parts of that process that they kind of lose visibility into. And I think that's an interesting problem for us to want to solve, which is that, you know, going back to the biggest problem, I think the biggest problem is that kind of like.

[00:58:27] Uh, kind of gap between what's, you know, what's designed in their mock and what's actually built and, you know, the more and more we create tighter connections between them, you know, could a designer be interested in, like, of course, the designer would be interested in seeing kind of exactly what an end user sees, but today they don't have much visibility into that.

[00:58:46] Right. Um, or, you know, they would be interested to kind of, like, have better tools to check before something goes out that it, like, looks like exactly the way they want. Um, and there is a tooling gap there, I think. Um, as well as the mentality, but the mentality is kind of informed by the tooling in some way.

[00:59:04] So I think there is an opportunity there and some things that we think about. Yeah,

[00:59:09] Brett: What about something we haven't talked a lot about, um, thus far, which is the role of story around products and new products and maybe how that ladders into internally the way that you think about storytelling around products and then how that flows into the story that the customer is ultimately going to be the consumer of.

[00:59:29] Yeah.

[00:59:30] Yuhki: yeah. Well, I mean, you know, I think that. There, you know, when I think about kind of internal storytelling, going back to the zero to one, I feel like, um, you know, you kind of have to, In order for people to really buy into building something from scratch, they really need to be motivated by that story of like, you know, why is this product have to exist?

[00:59:54] Why is it better? Et cetera. Um, and so, you know, a story is even more important for those kinds of initiatives. Um, but I think like, you know, the most interesting thing is actually the external storytelling, something I've really learned from at Figma, which is, um, you know, early days, early days of Figma, um, honestly, like when I first joined, like most of our roadmap was just catching up to sketch, right?

[01:00:16] And there's a huge list of things that we just had to go after to that people thought of as table stakes, you know? And so, um, and when you go to these conversations with customers. You know, when you get to, when you end up in a conversation where it's just about features, this is not a place you want to be in, right?

[01:00:35] Because, well, technically, Sketch has more features, you know, our competitors have more features. Um, and so, what we really needed to kind of, like, sell people on was, like, our philosophy and our approach and really, like, Kind of have them bet on our trajectory. Like, can you squint and believe that in like six months, 12 months, this is a vastly better tool that's going to dramatically change the way you work.

[01:00:57] And so that's the kind of storytelling I think that's needed to kind of not have people index on current capabilities. I mean, not to say that you have, you should always be selling ahead because our, um, our sales leader is always like against selling ahead in that, from the perspective of like selling future features that don't exist, but.

[01:01:15] You know, having people understand the philosophy of, you know, how you build. Oh, this is a team that, you know, really, uh, prioritizes getting, being responsive to customers and getting stuff out quickly. Like, that gives me confidence that, like, when I bring things up, like, it's gonna be addressed. Or, you know, I see your vision of where you're headed and, like, that's totally, really exciting.

[01:01:35] And, and so, that's, that's really important, I think. Um, yeah.

[01:01:41] Brett: So what did that what did that sound like in the early days? Because to your point, um, in Depending on sort of how you look at the product, it was an existing category of sorts. Now, maybe you were focused more on product designers than designers broadly, but like you didn't create it out of thin air. You took something and radically improved it.

[01:02:01] And so because of that, I assume you had endless when you think about photoshop, for example, and the feature set in that product, it's like mind bendingly significant. And you had a relatively small team, um, And so what did it actually sound like to try to reset sort of the win conditions for the product?

[01:02:20] Yuhki: right, right. Yeah. I mean, I think that like part of it was really re anchoring everyone on no, this is not about just your design team. It's your entire product team. Because when you think about kind of like where we were, where our strengths were, it was that, uh, cross team collaborations, like for PMs and engineers, it was a dramatically better world.

[01:02:41] Right. And when I kind of like, Around the time when I joined, I like to describe Figma as designers reluctantly using it because they recognize the value of collaboration, right? But like they themselves, a single player tool, like they felt it was insufficient relative to Sketch. That, you know, so but, The value and the strategic value is like what we sold there of like, you know, this is a tool that is going to put design front and center, right?

[01:03:09] That you're going to be the hub of the product team, you know, and, uh, you know, you're going to really excite your engineers and product managers. And like that, those are some of the things that I think were really exciting and felt more connected to, uh, the kinds of transformations companies wanted to make.

[01:03:29] Um, so that's where we index people versus, you know, I also remember conversations where they're like, well, why can't we use Figma offline? Or, you know, like little features here and there. And, uh, as soon as they went there, it was just kind of a, you know, unproductive conversation because, you know, we didn't have all those things,

[01:03:48] Brett: So maybe sort of an offshoot of that is also just thinking back to when you joined working on the core product. Again, there's a thousand, I mean, maybe literally thousands of features when you look across Sketch or Photoshop at the time. Every time you talk to customers, they would tell you one of those features or a new feature.

[01:04:08] How did you actually figure out in what order, you know, the, the, the 10 year vision was going to be, we're going to do everything. I assume that Photoshop can do practically and better. Um, so how did you choose what you're going to do next month, next quarter, next year,

[01:04:22] Yuhki: I mean, you know, I think, I think it was both kind of like, uh, I would say, you know, I don't think there was anything particularly magical about the way we approach prioritization. I mean, but Uh, where we spend a lot of time with, uh, with our users, people in the community, and, you know, solicited their impact and had a strong intuition around what people were asking about, like, we could quantify, like, what people are asking for the most,

[01:04:50] Brett: just in terms of frequency,

[01:04:51] Yuhki: Yeah, it's just in terms of frequency, how much it comes up, whether it's in a sales conversation or just generally in our community. And so I think we had a pretty strong command of that. Um, but you know, I think there were areas that we were more focused on. So for example, design systems is that because we were really focused, we had an insight where, you know, uh, Our design systems features was actually one of the reasons, you know, people chose Figma, um, because it created economies of scale and the design functions were maturing and that kind of buying the buyer was becoming more kind of centralized in these design operations type kind of like functions.

[01:05:30] And so it was really clear to us that, you know, that was really important to us. Um, or, you know, we actually talked to, spent a lot of time with the customers at the most sophisticated design teams. So back then that was like a Facebook and Airbnb. Um, and those are the, uh, they represented the future of design teams, like where design teams might be in two or three years.

[01:05:52] So how do we like build for them so that we can get to a point where, uh, you know, everyone can operate in that way. So those are some ways in which we, uh, prioritized. But, you know, I mean, at the end of the day, like, uh, again, it was a little bit more like, uh, getting to a point where we could convince people that, uh, you know, our customers that we are listening to them.

[01:06:17] Like, I remember a lot of conversations where I was just really, you know, people would come in with all these asks, right? Like, here's the 10 features that I want. And I would just say, hey, like, we're working on these other features, like, Would you prioritize that over them? And they're like, no, um, those are more important.

[01:06:33] And that's kind of what one of the wonderful things I think about having customers that are themselves product builders because they're empathetic to the idea of prioritization and they can kind of, they understand the game.

[01:06:48] Brett: what are the, what are the worst parts of having customers who are also product builders?

[01:06:53] Yuhki: Well, I want to say it's worst. I mean, I think there's a double edged sword where, um, you know, we have a lot of designers who just design exactly what they want and show us that, you know, and which is like really wonderful in some ways because, uh, you know, it's just like a a very strong and evocative articulation of like what they want, right?

[01:07:15] With no ambiguity whatsoever. Um, and so that's really great. Um, but I think at the same time it could sometimes mean that, uh, they're frustrated if we don't act on that because they're like, well, it's so obvious. I even drew it for you. And, you know, And, you know, the reality is that sometimes we have to unpack that a little bit and be like, well, like you're asking for this, but actually, if you really come to the root of it is like, we have this problem and maybe this problem should exist in the first place.

[01:07:41] And there's ways in which you can come up with something better, you know? And so, you know, I think like kind of tempering expectations is like, can sometimes be hard as a result of that. But for the most part, I think it's a wonderful thing.

[01:07:54] Brett: often will somebody mock something up for you and it's actually the correct thing that you should build? Is that very atypical actually?

[01:08:01] Yuhki: Yeah, I mean, you know, we often ship things and in like our replies or in our, in our launch tweet people would kind of like, be like why doesn't it work like this or point out mistakes and you know, and we do our best to, you know, credit them and kind of celebrate that because like that's part of like the community we build.

[01:08:21] Um, but yes, like very often. Yeah.

[01:08:24] Brett: happen where they're prototyping something and you're like, yeah, it actually should work that

[01:08:28] Yuhki: Yeah, um, and you know, there are cases where, like, we have reasons for not doing it because there's these, all these other edge cases, et cetera, et cetera, but, like, um, and we have our community pitch us all the time on ideas, um, so, yeah, it's, uh, It is really cool because it's just kind of, yeah, it's just a wonderful type of engagement.

[01:08:51] Yeah.

[01:08:52] Brett: Going back to sort of the note around storytelling around product and product building. What does that look like in the context of a new product? Like when you shipped fig jam or slides, like what is the genesis of the language and overarching story that you're developing and where in the life of a product do you spend time or is it more improvisational?

[01:09:13] Like how does it ultimately work

[01:09:15] Yuhki: In terms of kind of, like, telling the story externally or

[01:09:18] Brett: both internally and then

[01:09:19] Yuhki: Yeah. Yeah. Um, I mean, you know, a lot of it, like, We are very kind of focused on our community, you know, and even internally, and as a result, kind of like some of the behaviors, even for slides and FigJam, um, it all started with an observation of how our users are using the product in the first place.

[01:09:43] Um, and for slides, for example, you know, something like 5 percent of Figma files are decks. Before Slides existed, right? Um, and you're probably familiar, you've seen a few pitch decks, you know, I'm sure, before we had a Slides product. Um, and so, you know, like, that already is like a big part of the story, right?

[01:10:02] Because, you know, a lot of the question is like, when we're building a new thing, is like, will people use it? And, you know, um, We have proof of that, like, there's demand, um, and so that's kind of, you know, that's a starting point for sure, um, and then it's like, okay, but why is it any better than, like, existing products and et cetera, et cetera, you kind of get into that from there, um, but I think that's been uniquely unique for us in that we have a pretty general platform where you can do a lot of things.

[01:10:34] When you look at our community, for example, you know, there are people who do like wedding planning in Figma, or they're doing kind of like um, Interior design or floor plans and stuff like that. And those are not use cases that are verticals that we're actively pursuing. Um, but it is indicative of like, we have a really creative community trying to stretch our platform in very different ways.

[01:11:00] And so, uh, I think like it usually starts there in terms of like. There's already actually people wanting this and really twisting our product to make it work. And I think those are kind of usually the most powerful insights to motivate kind of this, you know, yeah, the, the project in the first place.

[01:11:23] Yeah.

[01:11:23] Brett: And so then if you hear someone telling you the story of the product that they're building, or at least maybe with a customer lens, like the narrative they're going to ship, tell, tell the customer, um, what makes that good? Or if you're like, ah, I think it can be better. Like what are the underpinnings of product marketing or storytelling when you're bringing a product in the context of the, of the end customer?

[01:11:53] Yuhki: I like to think about this like, um, I sometimes have a more superficial way of looking at it, which is kind of like, what is, um, what is the one screenshot that is gonna like, You know, uh, it's completely self explanatory, you look at it, and you're like, I want that, you know, like, and, you know, and, maybe it's not a screenshot, maybe it's like a gif or something, but like, you know, if you can kind of distill it down to something so recognizable that, you know, Like, yes, like that is awesome.

[01:12:28] Like, I really want that, um, or that's really inspiring. Like, that's kind of like, for me, like the center of the story, because I think when we talk about stories, like it's, it sounds like words, but for me, just as important as like that visual, that is like super evocative, right. Um, that, um, and maybe, you know, because we're a design company, we think in that way to some extent, but, you know, as they say, like, you know, visual images were at the thousand words and, um, And I even think about kind of like, again, it's a little superficial, but like, what is the one tweet that we're going to do to like launch this thing where people are like, you know, because in many cases, um, you have to motivate people to even try in the first place.

[01:13:11] Right. Uh, and you know, in order to do that, like you need to show something that they want. Um, and so that's the design problem. That's a storytelling problem, but like that distillation, uh, I think is really important.

[01:13:25] Brett: And is there. Uh, a set of commonalities that tie together the great screenshot. Or do you just look at a bunch of them and it intuitively makes sense?

[01:13:38] Yuhki: so this is like an interesting one because, um, often, you know, I, I push my team a little bit, like when, uh, what in the process of designing and you're adding new features and stuff like that, it's just easy to just add more things and then you're kind of like, um, When you see the evolution to get there, you kind of empathize for how we ended up there.

[01:14:01] But if you don't see the evolution, you're coming fresh at a screenshot with no context. You're like, what is that? And when someone has to explain to be like, okay, let me just unpack this, like what's going on for you. To me, that's an indication of like, well, maybe we haven't made it simple enough, or maybe we haven't kind of like really distilled the value proposition enough.

[01:14:20] Um, and so like, for me, like a quality of it is just like, The fact that it's self explanatory, and that, like, it doesn't require, like, three paragraphs of explaining, like, what's going on, right? And of course, like, you know, not everything can be expressed in this static screenshot, but, like, you know, something that can even be, you know, reflected in, like, a five second gif, like, you know, can be that too.

[01:14:45] But, uh, yeah. And, uh, I think one of the nice things about it, thinking about it this way is like, it forces people to think about simplicity, but it also forces people to think about kind of like, brand as well, like, how do you want kind of like, uh, cause like, the best stories make you feel something, and the big experiences make you feel something, and so like, you can get a little bit more kind of like, okay, how do you infuse that into like, that Um, and that's, you know, um, yeah,

[01:15:21] Brett: Is there a, a, a, a screenshot associated with a launch that comes to mind that like just gets it this perfectly? Or a, or a tweet that sort of summarizes this idea? And

[01:15:32] Yuhki: you know, I mean, as an example, kind of like, uh, uh, there's some evocative screenshots, for example, for dev mode, I remember, um, you know, showing in dev mode, how you can have a diff. In your designs and for a designer developer that green red view of like, you know It's like a diff that they see in code all the time And to be able to see that with designs with code underneath that that's like really evocative of like, oh now you're speaking my language You know because that's not how I viewed figma before so that's like an example of that or you know with fig jam Um, we really leaned into these tools should be fun.

[01:16:12] Uh, you know, like these tools should uh, You know Allow people to express themselves in ways you can't because, you know, like, workplace tools are so boring and oppressive and so, you know, we kind of celebrated that kind of, like, quirky fun when we, uh, were promoting FigJam and I think that was kind of evocative in its own way.

[01:16:33] But yeah, I think, uh, those are a couple examples that come to mind.

[01:16:38] Brett: what do you think is the difference between a very good product manager and an extraordinary one?

[01:16:45] Yuhki: I think it's this very topic of like, of storytelling, because, um, you know, I think a lot of like what we just described in terms of like that screenshot, um, is to some extent kind of like, you can repeat that exercise for a lot of other parts of your product in terms of like, you know, That is like taste, right?

[01:17:05] Like, you know, what will people like authentically get excited by and like having a feel for that, right? Um, you know, there are a lot of like stories for which you have to be like, well, let me tell you and trust me. And, you know, you have to have all these caveats. Um, and when something can speak for itself and you knowing what that looks like is, and that kind of permeating every aspect of your product, um, is, is Um, I also think that like, uh, A lot of it is pushing for kind of, you know, all these products.

[01:17:38] Products only get complex over time, you know, and the best product managers are able to kind of like add more power while maintaining like that feeling of simplicity. And that's also kind of like, you know, that's, that's the same idea with the screenshot test too, of like, you look at it and you can quickly parse what's going on.

[01:17:58] And, you know, products often degrade into, like, I have no idea what I'm looking at. And so, therefore, I need these tool tips to point out to me what I should focus on, et cetera, et cetera. Um, and it's hard to hold a mental model of, like, all of it. And I think, you know, the best product managers, like, can push for that as well.

[01:18:20] Brett: Yeah, that's an interesting one because it feels like so many new products, the starting point is simplicity. Mm hmm. Because they're competing against a product that is extraordinarily complex. But then if you follow that company over the course of a 10 or 15 year journey, they end

[01:18:41] Yuhki: more complicated. Yeah. Yeah.

[01:18:43] Brett: single time.

[01:18:44] Yuhki: Every single time. So it's something that we think about a lot. And in fact, you know, in this past, uh, config, which is a user conference, um, you know, Dylan actually shared this tweet that people tweeted at him last year, which is like, well, next year, config thing was getting hard next year.

[01:19:04] Config should be Figma unshipping features, you know, Uh, and I think that really hit us hard of like, Oh, wow. We are at a point where like, we've added quite a lot here and we're proud of all the capabilities that we've added. But as a new user who didn't grow up with Figma, so to speak, it can be intimidating.

[01:19:23] And so, you know, we did this big redesign to try to simplify the experience. And there's a lot of other projects underway to try to figure out, you know, how do we don't fall into that trap of. Um, and how we get inventive around solving that. Um, but is definitely kind of like, uh, inertia takes you there.

[01:19:46] Brett: But why is that important?

[01:19:50] Yuhki: To simplify?

[01:19:51] Brett: Right. Is it that, is it that when you think about the marginal user you're trying to get? You want to bring them into a simple product or is it like, I don't, I, the story I tell myself about the complexity of Photoshop, the reason it's complicated is that it's one powerful and two, most of the people that use it fine with that.

[01:20:21] I don't think their biggest issue is, Oh it's a complicated product. I think if you've never used a design tool and you try to use Photoshop, that presents itself a problem. But like, it's simplicity like is it just is, is simplicity, Uh, globally, just a good thing.

[01:20:40] Yuhki: right. Well, I think there's two things. Like the first is like what you just said, which is like these swaths of new users with new, you know, who might have a way more narrow use case are definitively gonna choose the tool that allows them to do that use

[01:20:54] Brett: And that's, I think the whole canvas story in the early days. Like if you're a mom and dad and you're creating a, uh, something, it. An invite for your birthday party. You're not going to go on Photoshop. And so inherently a new opportunity was created

[01:21:06] Yuhki: Right, right. New opportunity, but perhaps the lost opportunity, right? And so for us, like, when we think about, kind of like, the new wave of designers and creators and new generation of, like, designers, like, that's really important for us. Um, you know, we have a big EDU investment right now and a lot of, like, I was recently, uh, Watching third graders in Japan use FigJam.

[01:21:29] and cute to watch them do social studies in FigJam. But, uh, you know, realizing, Ooh, like there's some things that are complicated even about this tool. And, you know, and so these are the people who are going to grow up on them and like, you know, be the next generation. So I think there's that from like purely from like the perspective of where your new user is coming from.

[01:21:46] Right. Because again, like they didn't grow up with the tool and therefore didn't see the evolution. Um, and then the other thing is like, uh, I actually think that, uh, You know, the simplicity shouldn't be equated with fewer features. Um, I think that like, it's really about, um, mental models. Like when you look at a really complicated product, um, you're like, well, I'm trying to do this thing.

[01:22:11] I know it's somewhere, but I have no idea how to get there. Right. And you go to help document or you're searching around like that sucks. Right. Um, and you know, it could be in a world where like if your app is organized in a way where you can know where to expect something, like that's a much better place to be in that.

[01:22:29] Doesn't equate to everything is always present right if some things are or you know organized Well, then, you know, it's it's in a good place and it may be possible that like with AI for example, you know, like things could change right because AI bypasses a lot of like Navigation and kind of complexity and so, you know, we might see kind of like a different Set of incentives emerging or kind of tools evolving separately or, you know, tools not feeling the uh, the pressure to kind of keep adding to their interfaces and rather just expose these capabilities, you know, and you know, to kind of like an AI or like a, you know, so that'll be interesting to see.

[01:23:13] Yeah. Yeah.

[01:23:15] Brett: it's definitely going to be fascinating to see if, if generally power and complexity go hand in hand and if that paradigm starts to change with what's happening with LLM's chat, GBT is probably a good example of like an infinitely powerful product that in so many ways is infinitely simple that breaks sort of that normal complexity power sort

[01:23:34] Yuhki: for sure. For sure. Yeah.

[01:23:37] Brett: One thing I just wanted to go back to in our last couple minutes that you talked a little bit about when we're talking about the difference between a very good PM and an extraordinary PM is like this idea of taste, some of its taste around the narrative, some of its taste around sort of power and simplicity.

[01:23:54] What else can you say about taste as it relates to product and design?

[01:23:59] Yuhki: yeah. Yeah. Um, well, I mean, I think the, the first thing is like, uh, in a corporate environment you can kind of, Logic your way into a lot of choices and it's, it can sometimes be hard to kind of like fight that because I think, you know, so much of the incentive is making progress, making decisions and so, you know, like someone who's willing to slow something down and say, no, like we don't have a solution here, right?

[01:24:35] So many kind of, like, reviews that you end up being, you're like, choice A or choice B, here are these trade offs, like, which one do we go with, let's make a decision, and like, you know, success is seen as, like, making progress and getting something out there and learning from that, but I think, like, you know, someone who's willing to put their foot down and say, no, this isn't, like, This isn't compelling.

[01:24:56] You know, this isn't good enough. We could do better. Um, and, you know, in order to say that, of course, it's not just taste. It's like, you know, conviction, and there's a certain kind of, like, way you have to, uh, exert yourself. You know, and so there are those soft skills, too. Um, but part of it is, like, the imagination that something could be better, right?

[01:25:17] Um, and so, like, I think those are, those are the people who, you know, I want to serve, Surround myself with, or, you know, I want leading product teams, uh, because, you know, Usually the incentive isn't there.

[01:25:32] Brett: Mm hmm. And do you think on that note, that It tends to be quite learnable, or it tends to be a part of someone in an odd, in an odd way, or a part of their genetic makeup, or just some random set of ingredients that get injected into someone.

[01:25:54] Yuhki: yeah, hard, hard to say. Um, I would say that there's some amount of like calibrate organizational calibration that's necessary. Right. Which is like, what is like our bar for craft here? And you know, like learning that, right. Um, because like, uh, sometimes like. You know, depending on the environment, you might have like changed your bar because there are other kind of like incentives that play, right?

[01:26:21] Like a culture that, for example, is very experiment heavy and, you know, like metrics driven, et cetera, might kind of force you to kind of optimize in a different way. And you have to like unlearn that. Um, and so, so there's that for sure. And there's been these calibration moments we've had to have internally too.

[01:26:41] Um, But, you know, I do think that, uh, to me, like, I don't know about the philosophical question of whether it's nurture or nature, but like, um, I do think it's a combination of like, a lot of exposure to like good and bad things. And like, you know, if you've been exposed to great products or great, you know, designers, like you tend to know that you can hold out.

[01:27:10] For something better, for example, right? So that is important, and so from that perspective, there's some I've learned being something learned. Um, but, yeah. Um, there's probably some innate aspects to it too. Yeah.

[01:27:25] Brett: me of sort of filmmaking. Like, I think if you talk to, if you listen to a lot of the best filmmakers, they're obsessive consumers of movies forever. Every genre, every type of movie.

[01:27:37] Yuhki: Right.

[01:27:38] Brett: And yet, when you go look at their work, it's not like they're taking Tarantino or Wes Anderson and just jamming it into their storytelling, but That sort of consumption sort of your point about seeing and studying products, I think is a big part of what generates their own taste.

[01:27:53] Yuhki: yeah. And I think the other thing is like, um, some amount of like, it comes back to the kind of irrationality, but like irrational obsession, right? Like, you know, sometimes like I. Stay up all night to, like, make a perfect deck for all hands or something, but it's just because I care. Um, and, you know, like, I know that, like, that extra effort might mean that something is that much more memorable, or, you know, and so, like, that willingness to do that is also part of this, right?

[01:28:24] Like, cause, you know, part of, like, not settling is knowing that there's something better, but also willing to do the work to, like, find the thing that is better. So, there's both parts of that. Yeah.

[01:28:38] Brett: Yeah. That goes back to jobs with the back of the Mac, or there was something or the inside where nobody would ever see it, but it had to be meticulously designed, you know, kind of way of thinking.

[01:28:49] Yuhki: right, right, right. Yeah, and so I think there's just kind of this, like, craftsmanship, uh, that maybe is, uh, Yeah, and maybe it's, it might be true that I'm like, over idealizing it, you know? Cause like, it's just so like, deep in my own values to some extent for whatever reason. But um, but yeah, uh, I, I really look for that.

[01:29:15] Brett: I wanted to wrap up where, where we often do, which is when you, when you think about in the context of your work and building great products, who's the person that's, Like most shaped your worldview on that. And is there something they lodged in your brain? That's sort of a big part of the way that now you approach building products that maybe we didn't talk about or you kind of expand on a little bit.

[01:29:38] Yuhki: yeah. I mean, uh, I think that like, uh,

[01:29:46] for whatever reason, what's, uh, coming to mind is actually, uh, my high school English teacher, Georgina MacArthur. Uh, and, uh, you know, part of like, um, what she taught was kind of literary commentary, um, and just like reading something, um, and like, uh, and You know, making a case for like what it's about and finding the evidence for it.

[01:30:13] And, and, um, and I think like part of why it is connected to me with product building is like, uh, it, it's actually, it comes back to a little bit of this storytelling of like, you're picking up on these little insights here and there, and you're trying to synthesize it into something cohesive. Um, and you know, you can kind of look at a, like a, like a, thesis, and like, be like, that's like a BS thesis, right?

[01:30:41] Like, you just kind of like, took up these things, and you're just saying something. Um, and then at other times, like, you've really synthesized it well into something like, oh yeah, this is, there's something here. And like, that difference is like, um, is something that she taught me. Um, and, uh, you know, being able to kind of like, the act of kind of taking these little insights and laddering it up into something more meaningful.

[01:31:03] Um, it's like, well, why does this alliteration matter here or this or whatever? Um, I felt like, uh, is kind of an approach I take to product building to some extent. Cause like, you know, users are telling you things in really subtle ways about what's working, what's not. And sometimes the data insights, sometimes it's like something you personally observe or have felt.

[01:31:23] And like, you know, like taking those little bits and like, deriving like the thesis of like what we need to build and why is like so much of product building. Um, so yeah, a little bit of a out there answer, but, um, but that's the first, first person that came to mind.

[01:31:44] Brett: Nice, great place to end. Thank you so much for spending the

[01:31:46] Yuhki: Thank you for having

[01:31:47] Brett: I really enjoyed it.