The SaaS Apocalypse Is a Goldmine With Figma’s Matt Colyer

[00:00] The SaaS-pocalypse or the next era of software, if you will. I'm really excited about it. And I think Figma and a lot of other SaaS businesses are too, because like I've worked in developer tools for a long time. And maybe five, 10 years ago, the estimate of like number of developers worldwide was like, [00:13] 25 million, 30 million, 40 million, give or take. [00:16] I think what's most exciting about this time is that I think it's going to be like a billion, maybe even more than that. [00:22] incredible time that we're moving through. [00:24] of product development and really the democratization of technology. I think the end result is that there is dramatically more software out there in the world. If you're in that space, it means it's a gold mine, right? [00:59] Matt, welcome to the show. [01:00] Thanks for having me, Dan. [01:02] So, for people who don't know you, you are the Director of Product Management for Developers at Figma. [01:07] . [01:08] And [01:09] I want to start with [01:12] I think the big question on everyone's mind [01:14] I should probably say I bought a bunch of Figma, like probably like two months ago, something like that, because there's this whole SaaS apocalypse narrative. And what I want to get in detail or get into with you, I think you have a lot of stuff to share about AI, AI and product management, all the stuff that you've been doing yourself. But also, I'd love to start with...

[01:36] What is going to happen to SaaS tools [01:38] in AI. [01:39] Um, and I think fig was a really interesting example where, um, [01:44] there are all these people who are like, oh, I don't have to use Figma anymore. There are, you know, you guys just launched an agent like in your product, you also have Figma MCP. So if you're transitioning from [01:57] So if you're transitioning from a world where there was no AI when Figma started to now you're a big scale product and now there is AI. [02:06] How does that work? And how are you thinking about, do we open the product up to agents? Do we build our own agent? What's working? What's not? All that kind of stuff. I'm really interested in that. [02:14] Yeah, I'd love to talk about that today. I think for me, it comes from a couple different angles. I think the first thing is like, [02:21] the SaaS-pocalypse or the next era of software, if you will, maybe is more of positive framing on that. [02:28] I'm really excited about it because I think I've worked in developer tools for a long time. And maybe five, 10 years ago, the estimate of number of developers worldwide was like, I don't know, 25 million, 30 million, 40 million, give or take. I think what's most exciting about this time is that I think it's going to be like a billion, right? Like maybe even more than that, right? And so I think there's this incredible time that we're moving through of product development and really the democratization of technology.

[02:58] stuff later. But I think the end result is that there is dramatically more software out there in the world. [03:03] And so kind of coming back to your point about the SaaS-pocalypse and what does that mean for companies that have an established product is like if you're in that space, it means it's a gold mine, right? That there's all this opportunity out there. [03:16] and that [03:17] I'm really excited about it. And I think, you know, Figma and a lot of other SaaS businesses are too. And so I think the other part, you know, kind of some more of the negative sentiments of the discussions you see online is around like, well, what if I could just vibe code every app, right? [03:32] And I think what's really interesting about this time is like, for whatever reason, like January of this year was like, [03:37] the point at which I became the larger narrative. Like I've been doing this stuff for like probably 18 months or two years. So like I was already like, yeah, let's go build everything. But I feel like the whole world's caught up in January of this year. And I was like, yeah, let's go build everything. And like people are. [03:49] And I am excited to see what happens because I know my own personal journey through that is really fun. [03:55] um to build the initial version of it right and like i actually built one of my own agents two years ago and the very first one was like an email agent [04:02] And I had to look back at how it started. And it was literally this terrible Python script. [04:06] And it kind of was rickety. And sometimes the replies didn't work. And I was like, okay, but like... [04:11] And the larger narrative here is like, [04:14] software companies build more than just like code, right? Like, there's a reason that I [04:18] pay for Gmail to like operate my email. It's like it turns out it kind of stinks when you're like, [04:23] the SMTP version needs upgraded. And you're like, I don't care. Like, I just want to receive email. And so like,

[04:28] as I've had to run my own agents for my personal life, like I've had to experience that pain of like, [04:33] the product I want doesn't exist and I built it and now I get the ongoing cost of it. And like, [04:38] I'll be honest, I'm buying more software these days than I ever did before because I'm like, you know what, that tool seems cool. I'm just going to pay somebody else to run my agent for me. [04:45] I totally agree. As someone who has vibe coded my fair share of tools and [04:52] A, yes, the personal maintenance, but B, I have vi-coded tools that we've released into production. And let me tell you, it's not as simple as saying, like, fix this bug. And I do think that that's something that is really missed in the, quote unquote, SaaSpocalypse discourse. I got to say, though, [05:14] If one of the first things you did was an email agent, I'm super curious how you're doing your email right now because I feel like things just got to a point where you can kind of just do your email without doing your email. And I'm so excited about it. [05:26] Yeah, I can tell a little bit more about the story. So the problem that started two years ago, as I was using chatbots at work, because at that point, that was kind of like the primary interface, like agent usage was not really a thing yet. And so, [05:39] my personal life, like I have kids in three schools. [05:42] And if there are any parents out there listening, you know what it's like to get the PTO emails and like, what is the. [05:49] What's the theme for today? And like, you know, the feeling of like a missed like this is like the worst parent feeling in the world. But like, [05:56] if you miss the spirit day because your kid didn't do crazy hair day, like you feel like you have failed at life. I will tell you that and having done it more than once. And so I was like, I can't, I can't miss another one. And I was like, you know what I have? I have. And it was because I had to

[06:09] 15 emails a day. Like you think we produce a lot of email in corporate America, wait till you get to the PTO emails you get at school. And so I was like, you know what, I can't read all these, but who can? Agents. And I was like, why can't I just do this? And you know, one of the major, many agent platforms out there. And I was like, the missing part here is like, I just want to hook it up to email. And so the very first version of it was just literally like, [06:30] grab an email inbox, look for the top email and literally paste it to like one of the LLMs and like dump the response back. [06:37] And, um, [06:38] I know you like to talk a lot about prompts and like my favorite prompts in those days was basically like forward the email and it would just be extract the facts. And it was always shocking to me that I would send like a multi page email and get like three bullet points back. [06:49] That is, yeah, I remember those days, like the wiring up and the copy and pasting. And I feel like that's so far away, but it's only like a year or two ago. Yeah, well, and then like, you know, to your point about agents, so then I've added a memory system, right? Because like, to your point, I've like, haven't fully automated and like, not sure that I trust it to reply on my behalf. But like, [07:09] Having the memory system was like a total unlock. [07:12] And like now how I've evolved it is like I have a daily. So like this is an interesting thing, like open call, I feel like hit on this. But like the proactive part is I think the thing that really like set it on fire. And my version of that was like I would have my agent take a summary of all that stuff. [07:26] and send me an email every day at a certain time. And like the unlock for me was like, instead of having to go to a tool and ask for the thing, like it was just like it would show up. Now, not that it was particularly smart. It would just do at the same time every day. But like, [07:38] I think where agents are going, it's much more proactive. And then thinking about, do I need to reach out and contact?

[07:44] my owner and let them know what's going on. [07:46] So if that was the like where you were a couple years ago, like what are what are the you know, [07:52] What are the workflow things you have now that... [07:55] you rely on that you're excited about. So it seems like there's some sort of brief functionality you're using an open cloud, but what are a couple of things that [08:02] you know, you've been tinkering with that you like. [08:05] I think one of the things I'm trying to figure out in my work life is around summarization. I think part of the job is understanding an immense amount of information and then figuring out, [08:15] how do I filter that information and how do I imbue my agents with that skill of like, [08:20] this is the thing that matters and this doesn't. And then like, [08:23] It's actually a really hard problem because there's a lot of stuff that you read and that the first pass, you're like, "Oh, that doesn't matter." And then it will matter three days later. [08:30] And it's like, how do you describe which things matter and which things don't? It also feels like the agents are a little bit. [08:37] Like, [08:38] You know, one of the things I will have it do is go through all my meetings. [08:43] And like all the meetings in the company, we recorded all in Notion so I can have Codex just like go through all the meetings and be like, here's all the stuff that you might be interested in, which is really cool because I can be in all these meetings that I'm not in. But then it feels like... [08:54] If it gives me stuff that is not quite right and I tell it it's not quite right, it overcorrects and it gives me all the things that I said I wanted, but like way too much and way too literally, you know, and it's just like you're never it's never quite right somehow in in in this weird way. [09:10] Yeah, I was curious to see where you're at on that. Because I feel like this is one of the unsolved problems at this point. I think we're all kind of grasping for like,

[09:18] Like you said, I guess you mentioned with the email and your inbox, [09:23] Have you fully automated it? Like, does it reply on your behalf? Or like, do you approve every reply? Or like, what does that look like? I have to approve every reply. But basically, what I have what I do is in codex, I have a little [09:34] app that I open in the codex in-app browser that an app runs locally. And basically every day it just sweeps through all my emails. [09:44] And then gives me a list of here's here. Every email is like on that page. And there's a draft that it has said, here's here's what I'm going to probably try to reply to. And because it has access to my computer and everything, like if it's an email from the lawyer, my lawyers or whatever, it can like go and search and like be like, here's basically what I think I should say. And then I just scroll through and talk to it. We have this tool called monologue. So I just like monologue into it and just say, no, go fix this. [10:14] and [10:16] I've been at inbox zero for like four weeks straight and that is like [10:20] a huge, I've never, it's never happened before. My assistant is like, what the fuck is going on here? I will fully admit I am part of the religion of inbox zero. So I've been running it for many years and I believe in it, but it sure does take a lot of work. I'd be curious about the monologue thing. Do you actually talk to it or do you type to it? [10:39] Yeah. [10:40] Does it know video or is it only just the audio? It's only audio right now. [10:44] Yeah, that is one again, hidden tips for like most people like the audio unlock is huge.

[10:49] And like one of the things that I've learned about it is like, it's kind of weird to talk to your computer. And so like my trick for that is like, [10:55] actually use Loom a lot. [10:57] because it feels less weird to pretend like I'm screen sharing to somebody. [11:00] And that allows me to like actually talk through the problem. That's so funny. [11:04] Huh, like in the office? [11:07] Yeah, like I feel well, I guess I do it from home mostly. So people don't hear me talking to myself. But like even in the office, I feel like people aren't like they'll just think you're on a zoom or something. [11:15] Yeah, there's always there was this like barrier at some point. Now everyone in the office, I just assume they're not talking to me. I assume they're talking to their computer. So it's like weird when they're talking to me. What a world we live in. What a world. But I think it's it became this this like social thing where you kind of like you can see, are they looking at their computer? Are they looking up or like, there's also like the whisper, you know, just like, [11:39] they're just like getting kind of close to their computer and they're like, I want you to like do this little thing. And you're like, okay, I know what's going on here. [11:48] But it's like twice as fast, I forget what it is, I don't know, it's like roughly twice or three times as fast to talk. And like I've got, you know, carpal tunnel and shit, so, uh... [11:58] it doesn't aggravate my hands as much. It's much more ergonomic. So yeah, huge, huge unlocked use voice. I do want to get back though to the original thing that we were talking about, which is, [12:12] Okay, let's just say I think we're on the same page. SaaSpocalypse, not a thing. Like actually making a piece of SaaS software that works all the time is a gigantic thing.

[12:23] effort that only some some people want to do and other people just want to pay for. [12:29] I'm not sure. [12:30] But then let's dive more distinctly down into Figma land. So... [12:37] You know, there are questions about [12:40] in a design world [12:43] what kind of do I want to just chat with my landing page and move things around that way? Or do I want to be on the infinite canvas? And I know internally, like, pretty much all of our designers, they're super AI pilled super early adopters, and they're all like, [12:57] Yeah, like the, you know, typing is good for first pass, but like to actually get the details right, I need to be able to like, [13:03] move stuff around. So [13:06] In the design world, like how does that change? [13:11] How do you think that changes the product strategy when the [13:14] Mwah. [13:15] the possibilities for how you might design something have changed so radically. [13:19] Yeah, I mean, I think it's a lot to unpack. And I think, you know, we're in the early innings here, and we're kind of figuring it out. I think we're still in kind of this hangover of, like, the text box rules. Like, I think so much of us are defaulting to, like, chat as the experience for generative UI. And I feel like we're starting to enter the second chapter of that, of, like, what does it mean and, like, [13:39] That's part of the reason I'm so excited about our agent's launch. We've had it internally for a while. And for those who haven't seen it yet, it's the ability to use an agent directly on the Infinite Canvas. [13:49] And I think going back, [13:51] It's funny about what's old is new again. There's a lot of this happening throughout.

[13:55] LOM and ML land of like [13:57] We've reinvented evals. It's like, OK, well, we had unit tests before. And it's like, well, we've reinvented prompting. And we had user input before. And it's like, OK. [14:06] And design in the new AI era is still like the principles still matter. Right. And so one of the core principles of design for me is like the diamond. And so there's this idea of divergent thinking and then convergent thinking. And most design problems are like, [14:21] And this is the idea behind brainstorms. And when people tell you, don't ever shoot somebody's idea down, brainstorming is all about just generating ideas. [14:29] And one of the things that I don't think we fully unlocked yet from these new capabilities is the ability to supercharge generative thinking. [14:36] Like I think oftentimes like we get stuck on our own. [14:39] life stories and lived experience and we approach a problem from a certain angle. And this is what's so valuable about having teammates, right? It's like you go to talk to your teammate and they have a totally different starting point. And it's like the answer to this problem is different. [14:52] And like the creativity comes between [14:54] the conversation between the two of you of like, oh, like I hadn't thought about it from that angle. That's interesting. Let me take it and then build on top of that. Right. And so like, [15:02] Going back to the like, what does this mean in this new AI world? [15:06] If we get outside of the text boxes, because I think text boxes are super limiting and it's very much like a linear like, well, this and then that and then this. [15:12] If we get to the canvas and you have the ability to have some of those same kind of concepts, [15:17] But the agents allow you to do different thinking that it's like, hey, I have this frame. [15:22] let me start here. It's like, hey, I think it should be grayscale. And then you have another frame, you're like, well, let me try SEPA. And then it's like, oh, the SEPA thing is cool, but like the type is wrong. And it's like, oh, let me try that. Now it's like the accessibility is off. Let me like duplicate the frame and try again. And so like,

[15:33] I think... [15:34] And even that is still, I think, early innings. That's very much the human driving the input. And you kind of have talked about the proactive flow. And I think we're starting to figure out, [15:43] What if we had an agent that's like, here's a bunch of frames that I threw on the canvas, like your job is to like, [15:47] Push them. [15:48] like try different directions or don't just like double down. [15:51] But then I think there's a separate set of agents that it's like, okay, [15:54] We have 25 frames on this. [15:56] Canvas of concepts for a new marketing page. And then it's like, how do I channel them down? So then there's a convergent agent that's like, okay, these three are kind of like this, and these are clustered around this. And I think [16:09] And you can ask it for its opinion. You're like, pretend you're a customer clicking through it. It's like, which one makes the most sense, right? And so... [16:15] I don't think we've really tapped all of that stuff yet. And so I think [16:19] Even the best... [16:20] agents, like the command line agents, don't have the ability to do those workflows. And so that's kind of where I see the future of design and product thinking. [16:29] I think that makes total sense. [16:32] Yeah, it seems like [16:33] From what I can tell so far, the agents are really good for I already have a design system. I need a new landing page like. [16:41] get me a landing page in the design system I already have kind of thing, which... [16:46] To be honest, a lot of designers don't really want to have to spend time doing the nth landing page or the nth graphic for this, you know, [16:54] post or whatever. [16:57] is more convergent and a little bit less divergent. [17:02] What about

[17:04] What about the future of... [17:07] maybe Figma design tools are just generally software with... [17:12] I, [17:12] allowing external agents in versus [17:15] building your own agent or having both, which you all do have. How do you think that works? [17:21] I mean, I think we embrace both. Right. Like, and I think this is like, I think design workflows are different than engineering workflows, but like the lines are blurring. And so like, I think, [17:30] In the future, we're going to be all builders, right? And that kind of comes like, which perspective are you coming at the problem from? [17:35] And so we definitely very much support third party agents today. And our answer for that is our MCP server. Right. And so [17:42] I think one of the nice things about MCPE is it allows a standardized interface across all these different kinds of tools. [17:47] And so we kind of think about the problem in two directions. We think about it as like, [17:51] code to design. So it's like, okay, in that scenario, you just said like, [17:55] That's like a pretty common thing. You're like, hey, I have a signup page, but like, [17:59] it doesn't support GDPR, right? [18:01] Most people are not going to be like, you know what I should do? I'm going to start with a greenfield page and reimagine what our sign of flow should be to add GDPR. Most people are trying to get their job. It's like you like it on Monday morning. You're like, OK, I just got to get this thing done. Right. And like, let me add the checkbox here. Right. And so for that workflow, it's like if you are comfortable in Codex or Claude or Windsurf or Cursor, you pull up your code base. [18:22] you fire up the MCP server and you ask it like, Hey, can you copy like, [18:27] go to this page, like fire up the dev server, go to this page and copy it into Figma canvas. And it will actually do it. Like that's one of the releases we had earlier this year, which is like a little bit mind blowing that agents can do this faithfully.

[18:37] But it turns out they can. And now you have just removed all that drudgery. And you've got it into a medium where you can actually interact with it. It's like, OK. [18:47] Let me go move things around very precisely with the direct manipulation tools that most people are comfortable with. And then the other kind of [18:54] workflow that we think about is like, OK, now that we've got the design, take that design and bring it back to code. Right. And so we've got a tool called Git Design Context. [19:01] which takes a Figma design, wraps up all the different properties and like, [19:06] components that you're using as well as like any other kind of [19:08] guidelines you've provided in your design library and provides it to the agent. And again, it's kind of like magic. It's like the agent would be like, okay, [19:15] cool, let me look at your current code base. I'll make a branch, create a PR, make the changes. And then you can ask the agent, be like, okay, take me a screenshot and put on the PR. And then your job is kind of like what you're talking about your workflow earlier with email. It's like, [19:27] You don't merge it, but you're like, OK, well, I've got a good starting spot. Right. And then it's like you can come in there and then riff. [19:33] Mm. [19:34] What have you learned about what makes for a good internal agent experience internal to a product that you may not have known before Figma agent? [19:44] I don't know. That's an interesting question. What would make it a good product? [19:51] I think... [19:52] specifically, this is like very specific to Figma, but like the context and personalization matters. Like in other products like I've worked on in the past for like AI companies is like, [20:02] personalization is often like kind of the last thing, like you get it just working for everybody first. [20:06] but [20:07] I think the thing that really differentiates an OK agent to one that people really love is the personalization aspect. We talked about memory.

[20:13] like as a form of it and these like third party chat agents. I think for Figma's version of that, it's like the design system. [20:19] That it's like if you have assistant but without [20:22] like the concept of like, well, this is like how we structure our designs and like, [20:25] how we put them together, like the designs that it creates just aren't usable from that perspective. I don't know what your plans are for Figma and and, you know, the like proactive. [20:36] being a proactive agent. [20:38] But I'm curious, to the extent you have those plans and those experiments, [20:44] how that's working. Obviously, like we've talked about that being kind of hard to get right. [20:49] Yeah, I mean, I think that's where the future is going. Like if you look at like how like Asians have kind of evolved. [20:56] I will say we've got a lot of things cooking internally. I don't know-- can't talk about specifics too much. I definitely think this is an area we want to head. And so I think I can talk about the problems that we see. [21:07] today. It's like, [21:08] if the amount of software is really exploding in the world. [21:11] one of the bigger challenges then becomes like, okay, well, like, how do you make sure that it's like, [21:15] consistent with your values, right? [21:17] And so like, I think and like [21:19] we become the bottleneck then, right? It's like we only have so many human eyes to review all of this work. [21:23] And so it's like, how do we provide a solution that [21:26] allows people to make sure that they can continue to innovate at the speed [21:30] that these agents create. [21:31] but also maintains their values. [21:34] What has been the... [21:36] transition like internally in Figma in terms of your own workflows in the engineering org, in the product org, in the design org?

[21:45] from a pre-AI world to now. [21:49] So I joined in January, and I would say even in that period of time, it's been like kind of night and day. Like, I think folks in January were kind of experimenting with these new ways of working. [22:01] And across all the functions, right? I think probably engineering was leading the way, as they do in, I think, most of these cases. But... [22:07] I'll give you an example on the product org. So we had an offsite, I think you might have actually come by [22:14] Yeah, weirdly enough, it was like small world. I think one of my favorite memories of that offsite is that we have a product operations team and they had put together what we call PMOS, [22:25] Um, [22:26] And to take a step back for a minute, one of the unlocks to me about AI is you kind of realize every problem becomes a context problem. [22:34] And then the work becomes about framing the problem with the right set of information. [22:39] And so our product operations team is like, huh, [22:42] Like a lot of the work that we do is like in the structured data. [22:46] as a PM. [22:47] And it's like, why don't we aggregate that all together? And it's like, okay, let's get a copy of the org chart. We'll throw that in a SQLite. [22:53] table and put it in the file system. And then it's like, OK, why don't we create a connector to Asana? And then we'll connect Slack. And then we'll connect GitHub and a few other things, right? [23:03] And then the real insight was like, skills had really taken off at this point. And it's like, okay, the magic sauce here is like, [23:09] One of the skills that I really like is this onboarding file creation. So when you add a new team member to your team, [23:15] as a manager, you got to like create a customized like, okay, here's the channels you should know, here's the people you should know. And like,

[23:21] It takes a lot of that knowledge that I would have previously said was entirely in my head. [23:25] But then you start to look at how, if you shape the context right, [23:28] that data was actually already there. Right. Like I already had the org chart and I can walk the org chart and figure out like who's the team and like, [23:34] Here's the trifecta on the product engineering design side for this new team. You just have to identify, like, here's the new person. Here's the team they're going to join. And it's like, OK, [23:42] And then it can do a bunch of research. And then it goes into Slack and it figures out the channels. It's like, oh, this team is probably these three channels. And then it reads the last 30 days of content. And then it's like here. And then it goes and checks the Asana board and finds all the projects. And so like it comes back and you're like, oh, this is like uncannily good. It's like, yeah, this is a pretty good starting spot. [24:00] That's one of the things that I think it's weirdly the it's weirdly I think the thing that made cloud code so good and is is the thing that makes codecs so good right now is. [24:12] everyone tried to start with agents that like live in the cloud and are always on, but then [24:17] You have to like manually connect them to everything. [24:20] And cloud code is just, yeah, no, it's just an agent on your computer has access to everything you have access to. And then that just totally changes. [24:28] all the stuff it can do because it can get all the context it needs and same thing with codecs like [24:33] I can just ask a random question to Codex. Like we just published an article today and I was like, who should I send this to? And it just went through my emails and my texts. And like, I didn't even know it had access to any of that. It just found like, [24:45] like five people that I probably would have forgotten about, but that I should have sent it to. And I did. And that that's like the sort of magical thing that's starting to happen now that was very, it was, I think the technology, like AI itself, if you gave it all the context would have been able to do this for a while. But it's only now that it can, it's

[25:05] in the right harness and form factor and it can do it a little bit more independently than it was able to before. [25:11] Yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna put a plea out there. Like I remember WWDC, it was like 24. I can't remember when it was like Apple intelligence, whenever the headline WWDC was. Oh my god. I think that was more recent. I think it was 25. [25:24] Was it 25? Gosh, again, AI time. Who knows what year it is. I upgraded my phone. I was like all in. I upgraded my iPad. I was like, I'm going to get it because I had just upgraded the last cycle. And then they're like, well, you need a new processor. I was like, okay, up to all my stuff. [25:37] saw WWDC, I was like, this is great because they had this concept of like, [25:41] our phones have all of this personal data and i was like oh my gosh i was like this is going to be it [25:46] And then I will say, I'm really hoping WWDC this year is actually it because this past year and whatever has not been hit. Right. Because like, [25:53] To your point, like the technology has been there. The part that's missing is the like tie it all together and like, [25:59] the mobile phone ecosystem has all that content. And so I'm waiting for the thing where it's like, [26:04] the always on siri that runs in the background and is actually smart rather than the one that's like [26:09] What was that? I didn't understand you, Matt. One day. Do you think they're going to be able to get that right? [26:15] And [26:15] If they don't, do you think it matters? [26:19] I think it still matters because I think even them being late to the game, they are still the king of... [26:24] context. And I think that's what's been interesting to watch about Google I/O too this year. It's like, [26:29] Seemingly, Google has also kind of woken up to that. [26:32] that like they don't maybe have as much data as Apple, but like they have a lot.

[26:36] And it seems like they are now starting to marry their AI products. [26:39] If you can keep all the names straight, like I saw this great tweet that was like, [26:43] Is it Bard or Gemini Pro or Spark or like, like, [26:47] whatever the thing is, there's some-- I think it's Spark is the product that is supposedly going to be the always-on agent that is auto-connected to all of your Google content. [26:56] And so I'm waiting for the day that it runs my inbox for me, and I get to inbox zero. [27:00] Yeah, I think I just have this feeling about Apple. [27:05] that [27:06] You know, like when Open Claw took off? [27:08] Everyone started buying Mac minis. And you're just like, that's such a good business. Like, they didn't have... They don't have to even... [27:15] be in the AI race because they win by default because it's the thing that everyone runs the AI on. And so even if they're behind on Apple intelligence, which they are, and historically, like their software products have been kind of lagging behind their hardware, because their hardware is so good, [27:31] It doesn't matter. They have a lot of time to catch up. [27:33] Yeah. Well, and I think their strategy is very smart, right? It's like at the privacy play, right? And I think... [27:40] Like it is scary to upload all of your information to like the cloud. And so like, I do think they're in the game and I like, I really am hoping that they've got something interesting this year. [27:48] So if we sort of look back... [27:52] Over the last year, there's been this big sea change in how we build stuff, [27:56] how good the tools are. Um, and then maybe correspondingly, like how software works and how we build software and all that kind of stuff. Um, [28:05] What? [28:06] do you expect or what what are you planning for over the next year as the capabilities increase, both in how you make stuff and what you make?

[28:17] I think... [28:19] The big thing this year will be about the like, [28:21] how do we like review better? [28:24] I think that's where the bottleneck is now, right? That it's like, I think we have agents that are capable of producing all this stuff. [28:29] They're available enough, they're cheap enough. [28:32] And now we're just being inundated with all of this new content. [28:36] And I think people are getting kind of overloaded of like, well, what do I do with all of this? It's not just like, [28:41] summaries of stuff like that's been out for a while. But now it's like, OK, this is like new content that it's like, do you want me to go or not? [28:48] And I think we have to solve the problem of how do we scale, like I said, our value system of like, [28:54] How do we evaluate that this new thing that we're creating is actually like, [28:58] and then feel confident and have enough trust in it that it's like it can go to some degree in like auto mode, if you will. [29:04] Do you have any inkling about how that [29:07] will work inside of Figma or what the interesting design considerations are for that kind of [29:14] Flow. [29:15] And I think that's like one of the problems that we're really focused on is like talking to customers, understanding. Like I think a lot of customers and us are figuring out at the same time, right? That it's like I think the industry is in general. [29:26] trying to understand like what is the new like [29:29] is it a video walkthrough that's recorded, right? Or is it like screenshots? Or is it like, [29:34] another agent that's like, [29:35] with the different prompts that reviews the work. And then you trust this agent so much that you approve its decisions. [29:43] I don't know. [29:44] It's hard to predict the future, especially at this time. Yeah.

[29:47] One last question for you. So I feel like there's been a lot of back and forth over the last year or two about [29:57] Is there a future for PMs? Is there a future for designers? And if you're if you want to be a PM, like, how do you break into the industry now? Because [30:05] Maybe there's fewer PM seats or engineers don't need PMs. [30:10] How do you think about the career progression for a PM and [30:15] how someone who's not senior [30:19] become like gets to where you are. [30:21] Yeah, that's an interesting one. [30:24] I think the fundamentals still matter. [30:26] Right. Like I think [30:28] I think the best analogy I've seen is like, I mean, there was math class in school, but like, [30:32] you still had a calculator, right? But like at the same time, we all learned long division, right? And like, [30:38] how to do that and like i remember like integrating and like taking derivatives and the rest of that [30:43] And like, do I do that on a daily basis now? Absolutely not. [30:46] But, [30:47] I think it's incredibly important in order to drive these systems that you have an understanding of what these concepts are and be able to do it by hand. [30:54] Um, [30:56] And so I think that the foundations still matter. And I would be really curious, actually, at this point, to see what CS classes look like. What is a 101 CS class? [31:04] um [31:05] Because I think there's like two parallel worlds. There's one where it's like, oh my gosh, you can just dump your answer or question into ChatGPT. And it's like literally like, here's the bubble sort for you, right? Like, which of the 42 ways do you want it? [31:16] And then there's a version of that where it's like, I'm a really curious person.

[31:21] I wrote the bubble sort in C, but like, [31:23] take it put it in an assembly and then explain it line by line to me and like explain like what a register is and like what is l1 cache and l2 cache and like the rest of it [31:32] And like, [31:33] I think being a curious person, I guess, yeah, maybe this is the answer. I think the most important thing is to be a curious person, right? Because I think with these new tools, [31:44] the people who cannot leverage them are the ones that just kind of accept the output. [31:48] And the people that are able to invent the next set of tools and really drive the tools to their maximum are the ones that are pushing the boundaries and understand how it's put together. [31:57] And in order to be able to do that, you have to be the curious person. Like you can't have been the one who's like, [32:02] answer this problem for me and just give me the answer. You have to be that curious person to be [32:06] how is this thing put together? And how does this actually work? And help you understand the next level. Right? [32:11] I agree. And it's it's so much more fun to live that way. [32:14] - Totally. I mean, [32:15] It's like catnip for me. It's like I remember it's like because it's like kind of like, [32:19] I don't know if you're a hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy person, but like, [32:23] I feel like LLMs are the book. Like, it is literally the manifestation of it. It's like, and you can even have them on, like I have this when I like go on airplanes, I don't run a lot of local LLMs, but like, [32:34] I'll download an 8B model and run it on an airplane. It's like literally that. It's like the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Or it's like you can ask it a question, like, why is the sky blue? And it's like breaks it down into like-- [32:43] the refraction and all the rest of it. And you're like, well, [32:46] what is a squirrel? And it will give you an answer of that. And so it's like, and you know, they're not perfect. And some of them are a little weird, especially at the 8B size. But like,

[32:54] I don't know. It's a magical time to be alive for curious people, I'd say. [32:58] I totally agree. Matt, it was a pleasure. [33:01] Thanks. [33:09] Oh my gosh, folks. You absolutely, positively have to smash that like button and subscribe to AI&I. Why? Because this show is the epitome of awesomeness. It's like finding a treasure chest in your backyard. But instead of gold, it's filled with pure, unadulterated knowledge bombs about chat GPT. [33:32] on the edge of your seat. [33:33] craving for more. It's not just a show. It's a journey into the future with Dan Shipper as the captain of the spaceship. So do yourself a favor. Hit like, smash subscribe, and strap in for the ride of your life. And now, without any further ado, let me just say, Dan, I'm absolutely hopelessly in love with you.