As AI lowers the barrier to creating functional software, "good enough" products become mediocre. To stand out, companies must differentiate through superior design, craft, brand, and storytelling, moving the competitive battleground "up the stack" to more subjective, human-centric values.
Figma's CEO argues that as capital and talent flock to AI, significant opportunities are being ignored in less-hyped industries. He cites his investments in fintech for farmers and cryogenics as examples of valuable, missionary-led companies thriving outside the crowded AI spotlight.
After launching, Figma structured its product development into two parallel workstreams. The "blockers" stream focused on removing known issues preventing user adoption, while the "differentiators" stream focused on building unique, strategic features like design systems to evolve the product and win the market.
Figma's CEO Dylan Field now realizes that a user sending a 14-page feedback document after a buggy, non-performant product demo was an unmistakable sign of strong demand. Intense engagement with a flawed product indicates a deep user need that founders should act on decisively.
When its Adobe acquisition fell apart, Figma offered "Detach," a program letting any employee leave with three months' pay. This forced a clear decision: opt-in to the hard-charging independent path or leave gracefully. This cultural reset ensured only the most committed people remained for the next chapter.
When Figma started, VCs deemed the designer market too small. While this made fundraising harder, it also meant fewer competitors rushed in. This perceived niche gave Figma the time and space to build a complex, defensible product before the market's true potential became obvious to everyone.
The narrative of tiny teams running billion-dollar AI companies is a mirage. Founders of lean, fast-growing companies quickly discover that scale creates new problems AI can't solve (support, strategy, architecture) and become desperate to hire. Competition will force reinvestment of productivity gains into growth.
Instead of using AI to generate final creative work, use it as a tool for anti-inspiration. Figma's CEO asks generative AI for the "10 cliche ways to say this" so he can consciously push beyond the obvious and predictable. This technique helps creators find novel angles and maintain a unique voice.
For creative work like design, AI's true value isn't just accelerating tasks. It's enabling designers to explore a much wider option space, test more possibilities, and apply more craft to the final choice. Since design is non-deterministic, AI serves creative exploration more than simple speed.