An AI & I interview with Matt Colyer, Figma's director of product management for developers, who argues the "SaaSpocalypse" narrative has it backwards: after building his own AI agents for two years, he is buying more software services than ever and sees AI as a goldmine for SaaS companies. Colyer explains why great design requires a diamond-shaped process—diverging to generate many ideas, then converging on the best—and why chat's linear format suits iterating on a single design but fails at generating many options, which Figma's new on-canvas agent is a first attempt at fixing. He and Dan Shipper also cover why AI design tools need to break free of the text box, why design agents need personalization, how every problem is ultimately a context problem (with Apple and Google as the reigning kings of context), how Figma's MCP server closes the loop between code and design, and why "review" has become the biggest bottleneck in AI-assisted product work. # Channel Identity Observations: "The SaaS Apocalypse Is a Goldmine With Figma's Matt Colyer" ## Explicit Self-Description Evidence ### Show/Channel Name and Host - The host is identified as **Dan Shipper** in the closing segment: *"a journey into the future with Dan Shipper as the captain of the spaceship."* - The show is named **"AI and I"**: *"you absolutely, positively have to smash that like button and subscribe to AI and I."* - The closing call-to-action is delivered in a comedic, exaggerated tone (*"it's like finding a treasure chest in your backyard"*), suggesting deliberate humor rather than straight marketing. ### Sponsor Message - An in-episode ad for **Every** frames the subscription value proposition: > "Every is the only subscription you need to stay at the edge of AI. If you care about being on top of the latest models and using latest tools, you have to subscribe to Every to separate out the signal from the noise." - This indicates commercial affiliation with Every (every.to). ## Intended Audience - **AI-forward professionals and builders**: The conversation assumes familiarity with tools like Codex, Claude, Cursor, Windsurf, MCP servers, Figma, and "vibe coding" without basic explanation. - **Product managers, designers, and engineers**: The final segment directly addresses career concerns — *"is there a future for PMs? Is there a future for designers?"* and *"how do you break into the industry now."* - **Investors/observers of the software industry**: The host frames the episode through an investing lens: *"I bought a bunch of Figma like probably like 2 months ago... because there's this whole SaaS apocalypse narrative."* ## Claimed / Demonstrated Scope ### Interview Format with Industry Practitioners - The channel demonstrates long-form expert interviews; the guest is introduced as *"the director of product management for developers at Figma."* - Topics span AI agents, product strategy, personal AI workflows, and career advice — a demonstrated scope of **practical AI application and its industry implications**. ### Host's Own Working Practices as Content - Dan shares his own AI workflows in detail (e.g., *"I vibe coded tools that we have released into production"*, his Codex-based email approval flow, a tool called "monologue"), showing the channel features the host's first-person experimentation, not just guest commentary. ### Tone and Positioning - Conversational and informal, with frequent laughter and asides. - Pro-AI, curiosity-centric stance emphasized by the guest and affirmed by the host: *"the most important thing is to be a curious person"* — *"I totally agree. And it's so much more fun to live that way."* ## Notable Caveat - The hyperbolic outro (*"Dan, I'm absolutely, hopelessly in love with you"*) appears to be a scripted joke — possibly AI-generated parody of YouTube outros — and should not be read as literal channel self-description, though it does demonstrate a playful editorial voice. # Delivery Observation: "The SaaS Apocalypse Is a Goldmine With Figma's Matt Colyer" ## Format Overview - **Interview/podcast format** with a host ("Dan") and guest (Matt Colyer), marked by `>>` speaker transitions in the transcript. - The guest does the bulk of the substantive talking; the host asks questions, reacts, and steers topics. - Bookended by an **ad read** ("Every is the only subscription you need...") and an exaggerated, comedic **outro call-to-action** ("smash that like button"). ## Tone - **Guest tone**: casual, enthusiastic, exploratory. Frequent self-aware hedging: - > "I don't know. Like I That's like a interesting question." - > "Um, I don't know I can't talk about specifics too much." - **Host tone**: conversational and directive, repeatedly pulling the conversation back on track: - > "I do want to get back though to the the original thing that we were talking about" - Mutual laughter marked several times, indicating a warm rapport. ## Recurring Linguistic Habits (Guest) - **Heavy filler density**: "like," "you know," "um," and "right?" appear constantly. "Right?" functions as a check-in device: - > "it it means it's a gold mine, right?" - > "And like most design problems are like and like this is the idea behind brainstorms" - **Repeated false starts and self-corrections**: - > "So, if you're transitioning from So, if you're transitioning from..." (host) - > "the di- the diamond" - **Superlative enthusiasm** as a recurring intensifier: "total unlock," "huge unlock," "uncannily good," "literally," "magical time to be alive." ## Teaching / Explanatory Habits (Guest) - **Numbers as anchors**: opens with concrete figures — "25 million, 30 million, 40 million" developers, projected to "like a billion." - **Contrasting frames** to reframe negative narratives: - > "the SAS apocalypse or like you know, the next era of software if you will, or maybe it's more of a positive framing" - **Reframe-by-analogy**: compares LLM-era tools to prior technology ("we've reinvented evals... we had unit tests before"; math class with calculators vs. long division). - **First-person narrative walkthroughs** as evidence — the email-agent origin story is told step-by-step ("the very first version of it was just literally like grab an email inbox..."). - **Concrete UI-level examples** when explaining product concepts (grayscale/sepia frames, the GDPR checkbox, the onboarding-file skill). ## Structure & Rhetorical Patterns - **Reframing habit (stable across the episode)**: the guest repeatedly converts pessimistic premises into opportunity: - "SaaS apocalypse" → "gold mine"; "vibe coding" → maintenance pain proving SaaS value. - **Named conceptual dichotomies**: divergent vs. convergent thinking; code-to-design vs. design-to-code; two parallel CS-class worlds. - **Epistemic hedging** on forward-looking questions: - > "It's hard to predict the future especially at this time." ## Host Communication Patterns - **Discloses personal context** to build questions ("I bought a bunch of Figma like probably like 2 months ago"; "I vibe coded tools that we have released into production"). - **Redirects with explicit signposting**: "One one last question for you"; "I do want to get back though to..." - Shares his own workflow anecdotes in reciprocity (Codex meeting summaries, the "who should I send this to" story). ## Uncertainty Notes - The transcript contains no timestamps beyond coarse index markers and no speaker name labels beyond `>>`; speaker attribution above is inferred from context (e.g., "you are the director of product management" addressed to Matt). - Filler-word frequency is qualitatively high throughout, but exact counts can't be verified from this transcript format. - The outro rant ("I'm absolutely, hopelessly in love with you") appears to be a comedic bit; whether it's the host, a co-host, or a scripted element is not determinable from the transcript alone. # Position Record: "The SaaS Apocalypse Is a Goldmine With Figma's Matt Colyer" ## Speakers - **Matt Colyer** — Director of Product Management for Developers at Figma (per host introduction) - **Dan Shipper** — Host, "AI and I" --- ## Core Thesis: The "SaaS Apocalypse" Framing ### Matt Colyer's Position - Reframes the **SaaS apocalypse** positively as "the next era of software." - **Key claim**: 5–10 years ago, worldwide developer estimates were ~25–40 million; he predicts this will become "like a billion, maybe even more." - **Conclusion**: Dramatically more software in the world means established SaaS companies face **"a gold mine,"** not destruction. - He states he's been building with AI agents for ~18 months–2 years, while "the whole world's caught up in January of this year." ### Supporting Reasoning (Colyer) - **Personal experience with agents**: Built his own email agent 2 years ago, starting as "this like terrible Python script" that was "rickety." - **Ongoing maintenance cost argument**: "There's a reason that I pay for Gmail… It turns out it's kind of stinks when… the SMTP version needs upgraded." Software companies build more than code. - **Self-contradicting anecdote offered as evidence**: He now buys *more* software than ever because he'd rather "pay somebody else to run my agent for me." ### Dan Shipper's Agreement (with qualification) - Agrees as someone who has "vibe coded" tools released into production: "it's not as simple as saying like fix this bug." - Claims this maintenance point "is really missed in the quote-unquote SaaS-pocalypse discourse." --- ## Colyer's Personal Agent Workflows ### Email Agent Origin Story - Motivation: Kids in three schools; missing PTO emails and "spirit day" (e.g., crazy hair day) events. - First version: grab top email, paste to an LLM, dump the response back; favorite prompt was "extract the facts." - **Added memory system** — called it "a total unlock"; still does not trust it to reply on his behalf. - Evolved into a daily summary email at a fixed time — proactive delivery rather than on-demand querying. He credits the proactive element as what "set [Open Claw] on fire" (his observation, tentative). ### Unresolved Problem He Flags - **Summarization/prioritization for work**: Hard to teach agents what matters because "the first pass you're like, oh, that doesn't matter. And then it will matter like 3 days later." He calls this "one of the unsolved problems." --- ## Shipper's Email Workflow (stated in detail) - Has a local app in Codex's in-app browser; sweeps email daily, drafts replies; he approves **every reply**. - Uses a tool called "monologue" to speak feedback rather than type. - Claims **inbox zero for four weeks straight** — "it's never happened before." - Notes a limitation: agents **over-correct** when corrected, returning "way too much and way too literally." ### Shared Observations on Voice - Both agree voice is a major unlock; Shipper: talking is "twice or three times as fast" than typing and easier on his carpal tunnel. - Colyer's trick: uses **Loom** because "it feels less weird to pretend like I'm screen sharing to somebody." - Colyer notes a new office social dynamic: people whispering to their computers. --- ## Figma Product Strategy ### Agents on the Infinite Canvas (Colyer) - Figma launched agents usable "directly on the infinite canvas"; had them internally for a while. - Critiques the industry as still in "the hangover of the text box rules" — chat is a limiting default for generative UI. - Invokes the design **"double diamond"** principle: divergent then convergent thinking. - **Divergent agent vision**: duplicate frames, try grayscale vs. sepia, fix type, check accessibility, explore directions. - **Convergent agent vision**: cluster 25 frames of concepts, ask it to "pretend you're like a customer clicking through this… which one makes the most sense." - Acknowledges this is "early innings" and "very much the human driving the input" — even the best command-line agents can't do these workflows yet. ### Shipper's Observation - Current agents excel at convergent tasks: "I already have a design system. I need a new landing page" — work many designers don't want to do anyway. - Internally at his company, designers say typing is good for first pass, but "to actually get the details right, I need to be able to like move stuff around." ### Opening to External Agents (Colyer) - Figma "embraces both" internal agents and third-party agents via its **MCP server**. - **Code-to-design workflow**: an agent in Codex/Claude/Windsurf/Cursor can fire up a dev server, copy a live page into the Figma canvas — a release from earlier this year he calls "a little bit mind-blowing." - **Design-to-code workflow**: "Dev Design Context" (referred to in transcript as "Git Design Context") wraps Figma design properties, components, and library guidelines for agents; agents create branches and PRs, screenshot the result; the human doesn't merge but riffs. - His framing: "In the future we're going to be all builders" — design and engineering workflows are blurring. ### Personalization as Differentiator (Colyer) - Context and personalization (especially the **design system**) is what separates an okay agent from one people love — without it, "the designs that it create just aren't usable." - Contrasts with past AI products where personalization was "the last thing." ### Proactive Agents (Colyer, hedged) - "We've got a lot of things cooking internally. I can't talk about specifics too much." - Frames the emerging problem: with exploding software volume, **humans become the review bottleneck** — the challenge is innovating at agent speed while maintaining values. --- ## Internal Figma Transformation (Colyer) - Joined January; describes the change since as "night and day"; engineering led adoption. - **PMOS example**: Product operations team aggregated an org chart into SQLite, connected Asana, Slack, GitHub, and used **skills** to auto-generate onboarding files for new team members — identifying the right channels, people, and projects. He calls the result "uncannily good." - His general principle: "Every problem becomes a context problem" — knowledge he thought was "entirely in my head" was actually derivable from existing structured data. --- ## Platform Debate: Apple and Google ### Shipper's Position on Apple - Apple "wins by default" as the hardware everyone runs AI on (e.g., Mac mini demand after Open Claw); lagging on Apple Intelligence "doesn't matter. They have a lot of time to catch up." ### Colyer's Position on Apple - Apple is "still the king of contacts [context]" — believes being late still matters to their opportunity. - Disappointed after upgrading phone and iPad for Apple Intelligence; hopes this year's WWDC delivers "the always-on Siri that… is actually smart." - Credits Apple's **privacy positioning** as a smart strategy: "it is scary to upload all of your information to the cloud." ### Google (Colyer) - Google has "woken up" at Google I/O, starting to marry AI products with its data; mentions **Spark** as the rumored always-on agent auto-connected to Google content. (He is uncertain about product names, quoting a joke tweet about Bard/Gemini/Spark confusion.) --- ## Year Ahead: The Review Bottleneck (Colyer) - **Central prediction**: "The big thing this year will be about… how do we review better." - Agents are capable, available, and cheap enough; the problem is being **inundated with net-new content** and lacking trust to run in "auto mode." - Open questions he explicitly leaves unresolved: video walkthroughs, screenshots, or trusted review agents — "I don't know. It's hard to predict the future." --- ## Advice for Aspiring PMs (Colyer) - **Fundamentals still matter** — analogy: calculators existed, but everyone still learned long division; he doesn't do derivatives daily but considers the understanding essential. - **Curiosity is the key trait**: people who "just accept the output" can't leverage the tools; those who push boundaries and understand how systems are put together will invent the next tools. - Wonders what a CS 101 class looks like now — contrasts asking ChatGPT for a bubble sort vs. writing it in C, converting to assembly, and asking for line-by-line explanations of registers and L1/L2 cache. - Closing flourish: LLMs are the literal manifestation of *The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy*; he runs an EB-sized local model on airplanes. Caveat: "they're not perfect and some of them are a little weird, especially at the EP size." (Note: transcript contains inconsistent model-size spelling — "EB"/"EP" — left as expressed.) --- ## Preserved Tensions and Qualifications - Colyer frames the SaaS apocalypse as a goldmine while the episode title and Shipper's framing acknowledge widespread negative sentiment — the disagreement with that discourse is explicit, not smoothed over. - Colyer's trust in agents is partial: he approves every email reply himself. - Both flag **over-correction** and **summarization/prioritization** as unsolved. - Colyer repeatedly hedges: "early innings," "I don't know," "hard to predict the future," and declines to share internal specifics on proactive agents. - Shipper and Colyer differ on Apple: Shipper says lagging doesn't matter; Colyer hopes they deliver but is noncommittal on whether they'll get it right. # Speaker Attribution Record ## Video **Title:** *The SaaS Apocalypse Is a Goldmine With Figma's Matt Colyer* **Video ID:** `01a0f15a-842b-7d9f-9554-52537850253c` ## Speakers & Roles | Speaker | Role | Evidence | |---|---|---| | **Dan Shipper** | **Host / interviewer** (identified by name in-show) | Guest addresses him as "Dan"; he runs the interview, states he publishes articles; promo segment names "Dan Shipper as the captain of the spaceship" | | **Matt Colyer** | **Guest** — Director of Product Management for Developers at **Figma** | Host introduces him: "you are the director of product management for developers at Figma"; guest confirms role in discussion | No narrator or other identified speakers. Two **promotional segments** exist (see below), one clearly voiced but the speaker's identity is not stated in the transcript. ## Promotional Segments (Flagged) - **Mid-roll subscription promo:** *"Every is the only subscription you need… Go to every.to/subscribe today."* — reads as an ad for Every's subscription, placed before the guest introduction. - **Outro promo (AI-generated or comedic in tone):** *"smash that like button and subscribe to AI and I…"* — channel promotion for the show **"AI and I"**, ending with *"Dan, I'm absolutely, hopelessly in love with you."* Speaker unidentified; style suggests spoof/satirical ad copy. ## Referenced Sources & Third-Party Claims (as mentioned by speakers, not verified) - **Figma products** (per Matt Colyer, speaking as Figma PM): Figma agents launch, Figma MCP server, "Git Design Context" tool, code-to-design and design-to-code workflows. - **Third-party tools/platforms named:** Gmail, Codex (incl. in-app browser usage), Claude, WinSurf, Cursor, Claude Code ("Cloud Code"), OpenClaw, Loom, Notion, Asana, Slack, GitHub, SQLite, local "EB" (small) LLM models. - **Events/products discussed:** WWDC / Apple Intelligence (year uncertain in conversation — "24?" vs. "25?"), Google I/O, Google's "Spark" agent (described via secondhand "tweet"). - **Claims by speakers (unverified):** global developer count estimates (25–40M historically, "a billion" projected — Colyer's opinion); host's claim of inbox-zero via Codex-driven email workflow; Colyer's personal agent projects. ## Availability & Limitations - No curated metadata was supplied with this transcript; only the transcript is available. - **Comment availability:** not indicated. - Speaker attribution relies on in-transcript address ("Dan," "Matt") and the promotional outro naming Dan Shipper; no external confirmation of identities beyond the transcript. - Some product names appear phonetically transcribed ("Cloud Code," "OpenClaw," "WinSurf," "EB model") and may be misrendered by transcription. the SAS apocalypse or the next era of software, if you will. I'm really excited about it, and I think Figma and a lot of other SAS businesses \[music\] are, too. Because like I've worked in developer tools for a long time, and maybe 5 10 years ago, the estimate of like number of developers worldwide was like 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, maybe even more than that. I think there's this incredible time that we're moving through 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? \>\> \[music\] \>\> Every is the only subscription you need to stay at the edge of AI. If you care about being on top of the latest models and using latest tools, you have to subscribe to Every to separate out the signal from the noise. Go to every.to/subscribe today. Matt, welcome to the show. \>\> Thanks for having me, Dan. \>\> So, for people who don't know you, you are the director of product management for developers at Figma. And I want to start with I think the big question on everyone's mind. I I should probably say I bought a bunch of Figma like probably like 2 months ago, something like that, uh because there's this whole SAS apocalypse narrative, and what I want to get in detail or in get 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 I'd love to I'd love to start with what is going to happen to SAS tools in AI? Um and I think Figma's a really interesting example where um there are all these people who are like, "Oh, I I don't have to use Figma anymore." There are you know, you guys just launched uh an agent like in your product. You also have Figma MCP. So, if you're transitioning from So, if you're transitioning from a world where you, you know, there was no AI when Figma started to now you're a big scale product and now there is AI, like how does that work and how are you 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. \>\> Yeah, I'd love to talk about that today. I think for me it comes \[clears throat\] from a couple different angles. Um, I think the first thing is like the SAS apocalypse or like you know, the next era of software if you will, or maybe it's more of a positive framing on that. Um I'm really excited about it because like I think like I've worked in developer tools for a long time and like you know, maybe 5, 10 years ago the estimate of like 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 like I think it's going to be like a billion, right? Like maybe even more than that, right? And so like I think there's this incredible time that we're moving through of product development and really the democratization of technology. I mean there's a lot of catchphrases around like homegrown software and like we can talk about some of that stuff later. Um, but I think the end result is that there is dramatically more software out there in the world. And so kind of coming back to your point about like the SAS apocalypse and like what does that mean for companies that have an established product is like if you're in that space like it it it means it's a gold mine, right? That that there's all this opportunity out there and that I'm really excited about it. Um, and I think, you know, Figma and a lot of other SAS businesses are too. And so I think the other part, you know, kind of to 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? And I think what's really interesting about this time is like for whatever reason like January of this year was like the point at which it like became the larger narrative. Like I've been doing this stuff for like probably 18 months or 2 years. So like I was already like yeah, let's go build everything. Um, 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. And I am excited to see what happens because like I know my own personal journey through that is like it's really fun um to build the initial version of it, right? And like I actually built one of my own agents 2 years ago and the very first one was like an email agent. And I had to look back as like how it started and it was like literally this like terrible Python script. And it kind of was rickety and it like sometimes the replies didn't work and it was like, "Okay, but like and like the larger narrative here is like software companies build more than just like code, right? Like I there's a reason that I pay for Gmail to like operate my email. It's like it turns out it's kind of stinks when you're like the SMTP version needs upgraded and you're like, "I don't care. Like I just want to receive email." And so like as I've had to run my own agents for my personal life, like I've had to experience that pain of like the product I want doesn't exist and I built it and now I get the ongoing cost of it and like I'll be honest, I'm buying more software these days than I ever did before cuz I'm like, "You know what? That that tool seems cool. Like I'm just going to pay somebody else to run my agent for me." \>\> I totally agree as someone who has vibe coded my fair share of tools. A, yes, the personal maintenance, but B, I vibe coded tools that we have we released into production. And let me tell you, uh it's not it's not as simple as saying like fix this bug. \>\> \[laughter\] \>\> Um and I do think that that's I do think that's saying that that is that is really missed in um in the quote-unquote SaaS-pocalypse discourse. I got to say though, if you 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 like kind of just do your email without doing your email and I'm so excited about it. \>\> Yeah, I don't Yeah, I can tell a little bit more about the story. So like the problem that started 2 years ago as um I was using chatbots at work cuz like at that point that was kind of like the primary interface. Like agent usage was not really a thing yet. And so my my my personal life, like I have kids in three schools. And if there are any parents out there listening, you know what it's like to get the PTO emails and they're like what is the um what's the theme for today? And like you know the feeling of like a missed like that this is like the worst parent feeling in the world, but like 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 track, you know, 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. \>\> \[laughter\] \>\> 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 in, you know, one of the 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 first version of it was just literally like 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. And um I know you like to talk a lot about prompts, and like my favorite prompt 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. \>\> That is yeah, I I remember those days. Uh like the the wiring up and the copying 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 to your point about agents. So then I added a memory system, right? Cuz 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 having the memory system was like a total unlock. And like now how I've evolved it is like I have a daily So like this is a interesting thing. Like Open Claw 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 like take a summary of all that stuff 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 it the same time every day, but like I mean, where agents are going is like much more proactive. And then like, you know, thinking about like, do I need to reach out and contact my owner and let them know what's going on. \>\> So, if if that was the like where you were a couple years ago, like what are what are the, you know, what are the workflow things that you have now that you rely on that you're excited about? So, it seems like there's some sort of brief functionality you're using in Open Claw, but what are a couple of things that, you know, you've been tinkering with that you like? \>\> I think one of the things I'm trying to figure out like in my work life is around summarization. Like, I think part of the job is like understanding an immense amount of information and then like figuring out like, how do I filter that information? And like, how do I like imbue my agents with that skill of like, this is the thing that matters and this is doesn't. And then like, it's actually like a really hard problem cuz like, 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 like 3 days later. And it's like, how do you describe like, which things matter and which things don't? \>\> It also feels like the agents are a little bit like, you know, one of the things I will have it do is go through all my meetings and like, all the meetings in the company we recorded it 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 cuz I can be in all these meetings that I'm not in. But then it feels like if it gives me stuff that is not quite right and I tell it it's not quite right, it over-corrects and it gives me all of 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. \>\> Yeah, I was curious to see where you're at on that cuz like, I I feel like this is like one of the unsolved problems at this point. Is like, I think we're all kind of grasping for like, like you said, like in in I guess you mentioned like with the email and the like, your inbox, like, 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 app that um like, I open in the Codex in app browser that in app runs locally and basically every day it just sweeps through all my emails and then gives me a list of here's here every email I 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 I can like go and search and like be like here's basically what I think I should say. Um 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 or yes you can send that draft or no or whatever. And I I've been at inbox zero for like four weeks straight and that is like a huge I've never it's never happened before. My assistant is like what the \[ \_\_ \] is going on here. Um \>\> \[laughter\] \>\> 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? \>\> Yeah. \>\> Does it know video or is it only just the audio? \>\> It's only audio right now. \>\> Yeah that is one of again hidden tips for like most people like the audio unlock is huge 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 I actually use loom a lot because it feels less weird to pretend like I'm screen sharing to somebody and that allows me to like actually talk through the problem. \>\> That's so funny. Huh like at in the office? \>\> Yeah like I feel well I guess I do it from home mostly so I don't 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. \>\> Yeah yeah yeah there's always there's 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. \>\> \[laughter\] \>\> What a world we live in what a world. \>\> But I think that it's it became this this like social thing where you kind of like you can see are they looking at their computer or they looking up or like there's also like the whisper, you know, just like they're just like getting kind of close to their computer and they're like I I want you to like do this little thing and and you're like, "Okay, I know what's going on here." \[laughter\] \>\> 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 than type. \>\> And like I've got, you know, carpal tunnel and \[ \_\_ \] so uh it it doesn't aggravate my hands as much. It's much more ergonomic. Um so, yeah, I huge huge unlock use voice. I do want to get back though to the the original thing that we were talking about, which is Okay, let's just let's just say I think we're we're on the same page. SaaS apocalypse not a not a thing. Like actually making a SaaS a piece of SaaS software that works all the time is a is a gigantic effort that only some some people want to do and other people just want to pay for. Um But then let's like dive more more distinctly down into Figma land. So, um you know, there there are questions about in a in a design world, what kind of a do I want to just chat with my landing page and uh 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, "Yeah, like the you know, typing is good for a first pass, but like to actually get the details right, I need to be able to like move stuff around." So, in in in the design world, like how does that change how do you think that changes the product strategy when the um the the possibilities for how you might design something have changed dramatically? \>\> 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 out. Um 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. Um, and I feel like we're starting to enter the second chapter of that of like what does it mean and like that's part of the reason I'm so excited about our agents launch. Like we've had it internally for a while. Um, and for those who haven't seen it yet, it's the ability to use an agent directly on the infinite canvas. And I think going back it's funny about like what's old is new again. Like there's a lot of like this happening throughout LLM and ML land of like we've reinvented evals. It's like, okay, well we had unit tests before. And it's like, well we've reinvented like prompting and we like we had user input before. And it's like, okay. Um, and design in the new like AI era is still like the the principles still matter, right? And so like one of the principal core principles of design for me is like the the di- the diamond. And so like there's this idea of like divergent thinking and then convergent thinking. And like most design problems are like and like this is the idea behind brainstorms and when people tell you like don't ever, you know, shoot somebody's idea down. Like brainstorming is all about just like generating ideas. And one of the things that I don't think we fully unlocked yet from these new capabilities is like the ability to like supercharge generative thinking. Like I think often times like we get stuck in our own life stories and like lived experience and like we approach a problem from from a certain angle. And like this is what's so valuable about having teammates, right? Is like you go to talk to your teammate and they have a totally different starting point. And so like the answer to this problem is different. And like the creativity comes between 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 going back to the like what does this mean in this new AI world? Um, if we get outside of the text boxes cuz I think text boxes are super limiting and it's very much like a linear like, well this and then that and then this. If we get to the canvas and you have the ability to like have some of those same kind of concepts but the agents allow you to do divergent thinking that is like, hey, I like I have this frame. Let me start here. It's like, "Hey, I think it should be grayscale." And then you have another frame and you're like, "Oh, let me try sepia." And then it's like, "Oh, the sepia thing is cool, but like the type is wrong." And it's like, "Oh, let me try that." Now it's like the accessibility's off. Let me like duplicate the frame and try again. And so like I think and even that is still like I think early innings. That's like very much like the human driving the input, right? And like you kind of have talked about the like proactive flow, right? And it's like I think we're starting to figure out like 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 push them. Like try different directions." Or don't just like double down. But then I think there's a separate set of agents that it's like, "Okay, we have 25 frames on this canvas of like concepts for like a new marketing page, right? And then it's like, "How do I How do I channel them down?" Right? So like then there's like a convergent agent that's like, "Okay, like these three are kind of like this and these are clustered around this." And then like I think like then you can ask it for its opinion. You're like, "Pretend you're like a customer clicking through this. Like which one makes the most sense, right?" And so I don't think we've really tapped all of that stuff yet. And so like I think it like the even the best agents like the the command line agents like don't have the ability to like do those workflows. And so that's kind of where I see the future of design and product thinking. \>\> I think that makes total sense. And yeah, it seems like 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 Give me the land Give me a landing page in the in the design system I already have kind of thing, which to be honest, a lot of designers don't really want to have to spend time doing the the nth landing page or the nth like graphic for this, you know, post or whatever. Um which is more convergent and a little bit less divergent. Um What about What about like the future of you know, maybe Figma design tools or just general generally software with allowing external agents in versus building your own agent or having both, which you which you all do have. How how does How do you think that works? \>\> 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. Um and so like I think in the future we're going to be all builders, right? And it kind of comes like which perspective are you coming at the problem from? And so we definitely very much support third-party agents today. And like our answer for that is our MCP server, right? And so I think one of the nice things about MCP is like it allows like a standard as interface across all these different kinds of tools, right? And so we kind of think about the problem in two directions. We think about it as like code to design. So it's like, "Okay, in that scenario you just said, like that's like a pretty common thing. You're like, 'Hey, I have a sign-up page, but like it doesn't support GDPR, right?' Like 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-up flow should be to add GDPR.' Most people are trying to get their job done. It's like you log in on Monday morning, you're like, "Okay, 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 WinSurf or Cursor, you pull up your codebase, you fire up the MCP server, and you ask it like, "Hey, can you copy like 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 basically, but it turns out they can. Um and now you have just removed all that drudgery, right? That And you've got it into like a medium where you can actually interact with it. It's like, "Okay, let me go like move things around very precisely with the direct manipulation tools that most people are comfortable with." And then the other kind of workflow that we think about is like, "Okay, 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, which takes a Figma design, wraps up all the different properties and like components that you're using as well as like any other kind of 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 will be like, "Okay, cool. Let me like look at your current code base. I'll make a branch, create a PR, make the changes, and then like you can ask the agent, be like, "Okay, take me a screenshot and put it on the PR." And then like your job is like kind of like what you're talking about your workflow earlier with the emails. Like you don't merge it, but you're like, "Okay, well, I've got a a good starting spot, right?" And then it's like you can come in there and then riff. \>\> Mhm. What do you What have you learned about what makes for a good internal agent experience internal to product that you may not have known before before Figma agent? \>\> I don't know. Like I That's like a interesting question. What make it a good product? Um I think 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 personalization is often like kind of the last thing. Like you get it just working for everybody first. But I think the thing that really differentiates like an okay agent to one that people really love is the personalization aspect. Like we talked about memory like as a form of it in these like third-party chat agents. I think for Figma's version of that, it's like the design system. That it's like if you have assistant but without like the concept of like, "Oh, this is like how we structure our designs, like how we put them together." Like the designs that it create just aren't usable from that perspective. \>\> I don't know like what your plans are for Figma and and you know the like proactive being it like being a proactive agent, but uh I'm curious to the extent you have those plans and those experiments, um how that's working. Obviously like we've talked about that being kind of hard to get right. \>\> Yeah, I mean, I think that's where the future is going. Like if you look at like how like agents have kind of evolved. Um I will say we've got a lot of things cooking internally. Um I don't know I can't talk about specifics too much. Um I definitely think this is an area we want to head, right? And so like I I I can talk about the problems that we see today. It's like if the amount of software is like really exploding in the world, one of the bigger challenges then becomes like, okay, well, like how do you make sure that it's like consistent with your values, right? And so like I think in like we become the bottleneck then, right? It's like we only have so many human eyes to review all of this work. And so it's like how do we provide a solution that allows people to make sure that they can continue to innovate at the speed that these agents create, but also maintains their values. \>\> What has been the um transition like internally in Figma in terms of your own workflows in the engineering org, in the product org, in the design org um from a pre-AI world to now? \>\> 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 um and I like across all the functions, right? Like I think probably engineering was leading the way as they do in I think most of these cases, but um I'll give you an example on the product org. So like we had an offsite uh and I think you might have actually come by. Yeah, fairly enough. It was like small world. Um I think one of my favorite memories of that offsite is that um we have a product operations team and they had put together what we call PMOS. Um and to like step take a step back for a minute. Like one of the one of the like unlocks to me about AI is like you kind of realize every problem becomes a context problem. And it's all like then the work becomes about like framing the problem with the right set of like information. And so our product operations team is like, huh, like a lot of the work that we do is like in structured data and as a PM, and it's like why don't we like 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 table, put it in the file system. And then it's like, okay, why don't we create like a connector to Asana and then we'll connect uh Slack and then we'll connect, you know, you can get hub and a few other things, right? 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, one of the skills that I really like is like this onboarding file creation. So, like when you add a new team member to your team, like as a manager, you got to like create a customize like, okay, here's the channels you should know, here's the people you should know, and like it takes a lot of that knowledge that I would have previously said was like entirely in my head. But then you start to look at like how like if you shape the context right, that data was actually already there, right? Like I already had the org chart and it can walk the org chart and figure out like who's the team and like who'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, okay. 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's 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. \>\> That's one of the things that I think it's the weirdly the it's weirdly the I think the thing that made Cloud Code so good and is is the thing that makes Code so good right now is everyone tried to start with agents that like live in the cloud or are always on, but then you have to like manually connect them to everything. And Cloud Code is just, yeah, no, it's just an agent on your computer. It has access to everything you have access to. And then that just totally changes all the stuff it can do because it can get all the context it needs. And same thing with Code like I can just ask a random question to Code like we just published an article today and I was like, who 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. And \>\> \[laughter\] \>\> it just found like like five people that I probably would have forgotten about, but that I should have sent it to and I did. And um, 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 it can it it's in the right harness and form factor, and it can do it a little bit more independently than it was able to before. \>\> Yeah, I'm going to I'm going to 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. \>\> I think that was more recent. I think it was 25. \>\> Was it 25? Gosh, again in AI time, who knows what year it is. Um I upgraded my phone. I was like all in. Upgraded my iPad. I was like I'm going to get cuz like I had just upgraded the last cycle and then they were like, "Well, you need a new processor to you." I was like, "Okay." I put all my stuff. Saw it at WWDC. I was like, "This is great." Cuz like they had this concept of like our phones have all of this personal data. And I was like, "Oh my gosh." I was like, "This is going to be it." And then like I will say like I'm really hoping WWDC this year is actually it cuz like, you know, this past year and whatever has not been it, right? Cuz like to your point, like the technology's been there. The part that's missing is the like tie it all together and like the mobile phone ecosystem like has all that content. And so like I'm waiting for the thing where it's like the the always-on Siri that runs in the background and is actually smart rather than the one that's like "What was that? I didn't understand you, Matt." So, one day. \>\> Do you think they're going to Do you think they're going to be able to get that right? And if they don't, do you think it matters? \>\> I think it still matters because I think even them being late to the game, they are still the king of contacts, right? And I think that's what's been interesting to watch about like Google I/O 2 this year is like seemingly Google is also like kind of woken up to that. That like they don't maybe have as much data as Apple, but like they have a lot. And it seems like they're now starting to marry their AI products. Um if you can keep all their names straight. Like I like I saw this great tweet that was like is it Bard or Gemini Pro or Spark or like you like wha- whatever the thing is, but but there's some I I Spark is the product that is supposedly going to be the always-on agent that is auto-connected to all of your Google content. And so, I'm waiting for the day that it like runs my inbox for me and I can get to inbox zero. \>\> Yeah, I think I I just have this feeling about Apple that you know, like when Open Claw took off 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 be in the AI race because they win by default because it's the thing that everyone runs the AI on and and and so even if they're behind on Apple intelligence, which which they are and historically like their software products have been kind of lagging behind their their hardware because their hardware is so good it doesn't matter. They have a lot of time to catch up. \>\> Yeah. Well, and I think their strategy is very smart, it's like at the privacy play, right? Like and I think like it is scary to upload all of your information to like the cloud. And so like I do I do think they're in the game and like I really am hoping that they've got something interesting this year. \>\> So, if we if we sort of look back over the last year, there's been this like big sea change in how we build stuff, how good the tools are, and then maybe correspondingly like how software works and how we build software and and all that kind of stuff. Um what 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? \>\> I think the big thing this year will be about the like how do we like review better? Like 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, they're available enough, they're cheap enough. And now like we're just being inundated with like all of this new content. And like I think people are getting kind of overloaded of like, well, what do I do with all of this? It's not just like summaries of like stuff. Like that's been out for a while, but now it's like, okay, this is like net new content that is like, do you want me to go or not? And like I think we have to solve the problem of like how do we scale like I said kind of our value system of like how do we evaluate like that that this new thing that we're creating is actually like 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. \>\> Do you have any inkling about how that will work inside of Figma or what the what the what the interesting design considerations are for that kind of flow? \>\> 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 trying to understand like what is the new like is it a video walk through that's recorded, right? Or is it like screenshots? Or is it like another agent that's like with the different prompts that reviews the work and then like you trust this agent so much that it do approve its decisions. Um I don't know. It's hard to predict the future especially at this time. \>\> Yeah. One one last question for you. So I know that I feel like there's been a lot of back and forth over the last year or two about is there a future for PMs? Is there a future for designers? Um and and if you're if you want to be a PM like how do you break into the industry now because you know, it's maybe there's fewer there's fewer PM seats or engineers don't need PMs. Um how how do you think about the career progression for a PM and how someone who's not senior become like gets to where you are? \>\> Yeah, that's interesting one. Um I I think the fundamentals still matter, right? Like I think I think the best analogy I've seen is like I mean there were there was math class in school, but like you still had a calculator, right? But like at the same time we like all learned long division, right? And like how to do that and like I remember like integrating and like taking derivatives and the rest of that. And like do I do that on a daily basis now? Absolutely not. But like I think it's incredibly important in order to drive these systems that you like have an understanding of like what these concepts are be able to do it by hand. Um And so like I think that the like the foundation still matter. And like I would be really curious actually at this point to see like what CS classes look like. What is it like a 101 CS class, right? Um Cuz like 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 chat GPT and it's like literally like here's the bubble sort for you, right? Like which of the 42 ways do you want it? And then there's a version of that where it's like I'm a really curious person. I wrote the bubble sort in C, but like take it put it in 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. And like I think being a curious person I guess yeah, maybe it this is the answer. I would I think the most important thing is to be a curious person, right? Because like I think with these new tools the people who like cannot leverage them are the ones that just kind of like accept the output. And the people that like are able to like invent the next set of tools and like really get derive the tools to their maximum are the ones that are like pushing the boundaries and understand how it's put together. 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 answer this problem for me, right? And just give me the answer. You like have to be that curious person to be like how's this thing put together and like how does this actually work and like help me understand the next level, right? \>\> I agree. And it's it's so much more fun to live that way. \>\> Totally. I mean it's like catnip for me. It's like I remember it's like cuz it's like kind of like I don't know if you're Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy person, but like I feel like LLMs are the book. Like like it is literally the manifestation of it. It's like and you can even have them on your like I have this when I like go on airplanes. I don't run a lot of local LLMs, but like I'll download an EB model and run it on an airplane and it's like literally that. It's like the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. It's like you can ask it a question like, why is the sky blue? And it's like breaks it down into like the refraction and all the rest of it and you're like, well, what is a squirrel? And it will give you an answer of that. And so it's like and and you know, they're not perfect and some of them are a little weird, especially at the EP size, but like I don't know. It's like it's a magical time to be alive for like curious people, I'd say. \>\> I totally agree. Matt, it was a pleasure. \>\> Thanks. \>\> Oh my gosh, folks, you absolutely, positively have to smash that like button and subscribe to AI and 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. Every episode is a roller coaster of emotions, insights, and laughter that will leave you on the edge of your seat 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. \>\> \[laughter\] \>\> 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.