00:02:28 · Molly O'Shea, Dylan Field
[00:02:28] S0: No, they're not, Dylan. This is literally the config, like Figma conference. Okay. So how many years have you been doing this and why start it in general? [00:02:40] S1: Yeah. So we started in 2020 right before the pandemic. This is actually our tenth config because we've done international configs that are fast follows to the config in SF. But the reason it started, we had basically user groups starting to pop up all around the world. And then from there, as the user groups started to really gain momentum, we wanted some way to bring everyone together. And at first, we're like kicking around ideas like, oh yeah, maybe like a few 100 people. We decided, let's go big, like 800 people. And that sold out instantly. So then from there, we were planning to, right afterwards, like, okay, next time it's gonna be really big. Well, it actually ended up being even bigger because of the pandemic. And so it was like, this is gonna be a remote conference now. Oh my gosh. We got so lucky the first time because we were able to three weeks, I think, before the pandemic started in full in The US, the world shut down, had the chance to bring everyone together. And I can't imagine what it would be if it was three weeks earlier. [00:03:44] S0: Yeah. That's insane. Yeah. So the big hot headline right now, which I think you have pretty much disproven, is that design is dead. [00:03:57] S1: Yeah. I don't [00:03:57] S0: I Why is design not dead?
00:03:57 · Molly O'Shea, Dylan Field
[00:03:57] S0: I Why is design not dead? [00:04:00] S1: Look around you. No. I mean, I I think that the weird thing right now is everyone is kind of putting down all the other roles. So like, you know, I'm seeing way too much of engineers saying, I don't know, either PM or designer, and the PM's like, I don't need the engineer or designer. And the designer's going, maybe I don't need the PM or the engineer. And so like, why is that happening? And I think that we're in a temporary phase of people really, you know, getting excited about what they can do with AI. Yeah. But not yet realizing all the limitations that they have. And hey. And yeah, so I think that there's like, it's truly exciting what you can do, but also the value of a team is really important. And I think we're we're hitting the line here. [00:04:56] S0: We're we're in a line. What is is this for is this for food? Yeah. Okay. Heard that you guys not to deviate too much, but I heard you guys are gonna sell out of merch in, five seconds.
00:04:56 · Molly O'Shea, Dylan Field
[00:04:56] S0: We're we're in a line. What is is this for is this for food? Yeah. Okay. Heard that you guys not to deviate too much, but I heard you guys are gonna sell out of merch in, five seconds. [00:05:07] S1: I I hope not. Hopefully, it lasts a little longer. But the but yeah. So I I think it's, like, very lonely, the idea that you're just gonna work alone on everything forever. And I think that, you know, if you wanna build scalable real systems, explore broadly, build the right thing, not just like something fast, then I think it's really important to lean into design, not just from a visual and aesthetic standpoint, but also from user experience standpoint, from like understanding the user, understanding the culture around you. Like design is so much more than visuals and aesthetic. Yeah. That's just the tip of the iceberg. But what I think is really promising is how I'm seeing so many engineers now that are I I hope our cameraman did not trip. We're seeing so many engineers now just get interested in Figma. And as that happens, they're starting to really pick it up because you go build something really fast. That's awesome. But then you're like, okay. Can I, like, actually now make it great? [00:06:11] S0: Right. I mean, what I thought was interesting is, like, Figma not only unlocked design for just normal people who, like, just didn't really know how to design anything, but your software is, like, really easy to use. It's very intuitive. But now you're involving code into it, and so now engineers are literally coding design.
00:06:11 · Molly O'Shea, Dylan Field
[00:06:11] S0: Right. I mean, what I thought was interesting is, like, Figma not only unlocked design for just normal people who, like, just didn't really know how to design anything, but your software is, like, really easy to use. It's very intuitive. But now you're involving code into it, and so now engineers are literally coding design. [00:06:30] S1: Yep. And I think that the aspects of, like, what we're launching tomorrow will be even more in that direction. Really? I'm really excited about that. Go for it. Thank you. Thank you. Alright. Yeah. So now we're inside. So it'll be a [00:06:48] S0: little inside. Let's do a little three sixty here. Yeah. Come come around. [00:06:52] S1: This is the emptiest it'll be. [00:06:54] S0: So how is it all set up? Where do people really mingle and all that kind of stuff? [00:06:59] S1: The mingling will occur everywhere, but downstairs is going to be more like main stage keynote. And that's like where there's a lot of activations and area to explore. [00:07:09] S0: Is that your favorite part? [00:07:10] S1: The main stage keynote? [00:07:11] S0: Yeah. [00:07:12] S1: It I don't usually remember it. So once I get past it, then I'm like [00:07:17] S0: Did it blackout? Yeah. It's a [00:07:18] S1: little bit of a blackout experience. Yeah. Get that. Yeah. But you can watch it later online and then you're like, oh, said what? [00:07:23] S0: Yeah. I was talking to Michael about this before, but I was, like, watching all of the previous config videos, and I like, shit. This is really cool. [00:07:31] S1: The content that we're doing is
00:07:31 · Dylan Field, Molly O'Shea
[00:07:31] S1: The content that we're doing is [00:07:33] S0: so much. Yeah. [00:07:34] S1: The content on all the tracks are amazing, and we've had such incredible speakers and, like, at legendary times too. Actually, one of my favorite ones was Jesper from Teenage Engineering. I don't know if you saw that one. No. I got to interview him. And yeah, he is a character. Definitely watch that one later. [00:07:54] S0: Okay. Yeah. Are there any speakers this year you're excited about? [00:07:57] S1: So, so many speakers that I'm excited about, but two that I'm, like, off the wall excited about. One is Holly Herndon. She's a total visionary artist who I think people don't appreciate, like, how far ahead she sees things. You know, she was into very specific, like, quirky ways of using NFTs or we don't recall it then. Early on, she open sourced her voice with AI early on. You know, this is back in, like, 2021 or something, 2020. I mean, it's just like the the time scale that she's operating on is different than the rest of us. Yeah. Grant Sanderson, three blue and brown on YouTube, is another person that I think will give a great talk, and I can't wait to watch it. He's someone that I've been following for a long time and lucky to call a friend. And he does these explainer videos for math that are just incredible and really uses graphics and design to be really craft forward in his explanations. And he puts so much care into them and just has been a teacher for so many to Is this [00:09:07] S0: why you're vibe mathing? That's just for fun. What does that mean?
00:09:07 · Molly O'Shea, Dylan Field
[00:09:07] S0: why you're vibe mathing? That's just for fun. What does that mean? [00:09:12] S1: It's just a form of elm psychosis, you until it's not, but we'll I think that the models are really decent at math, pure math. And it's a bit of an antidote to the non verifiable domains that I'm usually in. So for Figma, mean, it's all vibes, right? Like you're trying to figure out sometimes it's very clear, Okay, like literally you didn't center the div, like learn to center divs AI. But I think more often, it's more like, Okay, well actually you're giving a lot of styles that are very similar here. You're not as broad in your range as you could be if an LM provider is asking us for feedback or we're trying to steer it. And the evals were running on stuff we're doing, stuff others are doing Like a lot of it is inherently non verifiable. It's like got to be human judge at the end of the day. And you can set up more automatic methods for that, but you still have that human intent. Whereas formal domains like math, I mean, that's as formal as it gets if you set up the formal systems correctly, which are really easy to mess up. And I think it's kind of just a nice anecdote in contrast to Figma experience. [00:10:28] S0: I love that. It's very unexpected. So you're talking about some of the speakers. Were there anybody else that you're excited about? [00:10:37] S1: There's so many. I think that well, I'm in keynote brain right now. [00:10:41] S0: Yeah.