1
00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:05,600
Disclaimer, all these thoughts and opinions are our own and our guests and do not belong to any entities we're involved in.

2
00:00:05,600 --> 00:00:11,800
Also keep in mind we are active college students so any of this does not reflect active investment advice or counsel.

3
00:00:11,800 --> 00:00:16,300
Welcome back everyone to the Uninvested Podcast. I'm Crockett Callaway.

4
00:00:16,300 --> 00:00:17,800
I'm Sahil Seth.

5
00:00:17,800 --> 00:00:27,600
And if you've been sticking around for a while, you'll probably remember episode 1 part 1 where we discussed Adobe's recent acquisition of famed UIUX startup Figma for $20 billion.

6
00:00:27,600 --> 00:00:32,600
Tons of investors supported Figma along the way and we're thrilled at the exit.

7
00:00:32,600 --> 00:00:39,300
One of them being Kinder Perkins. Kinder Perkins is a legacy Silicon Valley VC fund with tons of notable investments.

8
00:00:39,300 --> 00:00:42,600
Robinhood, Plaid, Cameo, Twitter, the list is literally endless.

9
00:00:42,600 --> 00:00:44,000
It goes on.

10
00:00:44,000 --> 00:00:54,100
They also just raised an additional $1.8 billion for two new funds, KP20 and Select2 in January, which is their 50th year round.

11
00:00:54,100 --> 00:00:58,100
And today we're super grateful and super excited to have Sean Manion today.

12
00:00:58,100 --> 00:01:02,600
Sean is an investor at Kleiner Perkins, but formerly comes from Bay and Capital in Susquehanna.

13
00:01:02,600 --> 00:01:09,700
He spent years on both sides of the entrepreneurial process, first as a student founder at NU Northwestern, Gil Katz, and now on the buy side.

14
00:01:09,700 --> 00:01:14,900
From cybersecurity to infrastructure tech, Sean has seen a ton and we're thrilled to learn from him.

15
00:01:14,900 --> 00:01:20,000
And since this is an ongoing deal, we should mention that there are some limitations to some of the areas Sean can speak about.

16
00:01:20,000 --> 00:01:21,500
Thanks for coming, Sean.

17
00:01:21,500 --> 00:01:23,900
Yeah, thank you guys for having me.

18
00:01:23,900 --> 00:01:25,900
Dom, how's your day going so far?

19
00:01:25,900 --> 00:01:27,300
It's been good. It's been good.

20
00:01:27,300 --> 00:01:29,200
It's a busy Tuesday.

21
00:01:29,200 --> 00:01:31,500
Met with a couple of founders, worked on a couple of things.

22
00:01:31,500 --> 00:01:34,000
It's business as usual here.

23
00:01:34,000 --> 00:01:38,900
Have you guys been at the office a lot or kind of just kind of virtual hybrid in that aspect?

24
00:01:38,900 --> 00:01:40,900
Yeah, so we're hybrid.

25
00:01:40,900 --> 00:01:44,500
I come in about three days a week, but we go down.

26
00:01:44,500 --> 00:01:50,500
So we have an office on Sand Hill Road down in Menlo Park and we all go down there once a week for like all team kind of investment meeting,

27
00:01:50,500 --> 00:01:55,900
you know, a bunch of one-on-ones and then we also have an office up in San Francisco, which is where I'm at today.

28
00:01:55,900 --> 00:02:02,400
And is that the kind of in the new remote hybrid world we're living in, is that the balance you kind of like or are you trying to go in more?

29
00:02:02,400 --> 00:02:03,600
What does that look like?

30
00:02:03,600 --> 00:02:05,800
Yeah, I actually like coming into the office.

31
00:02:05,800 --> 00:02:09,500
Honestly, like it's mostly because I just get a free lunch out of it and like I don't have to worry about that.

32
00:02:09,500 --> 00:02:11,300
But it's nice.

33
00:02:11,300 --> 00:02:14,800
Like, you know, in-person meetings are definitely different from Zoom meetings, in my opinion.

34
00:02:14,800 --> 00:02:20,000
Like you get you actually get to connect with the person you're talking to, whether that's like a founder or another investor.

35
00:02:20,000 --> 00:02:26,500
I just feel like the in-person meetings actually like I tend to value them a lot more having gone through like two years of Zoom classes and stuff.

36
00:02:26,500 --> 00:02:29,200
And so, yeah, it's been good.

37
00:02:29,200 --> 00:02:31,600
I try to come in as much as I can.

38
00:02:31,600 --> 00:02:32,800
I think every partner is different.

39
00:02:32,800 --> 00:02:34,800
Like some partners never come in.

40
00:02:34,800 --> 00:02:36,000
Some partners are always here.

41
00:02:36,000 --> 00:02:37,200
And it's also nice.

42
00:02:37,200 --> 00:02:40,000
You kind of get a lot of face time with them if you're in the office more.

43
00:02:40,000 --> 00:02:47,200
Well, hopefully when you become a recurring guest, we can have you in person in the studio and not over the Zoom.

44
00:02:47,200 --> 00:02:48,200
I would love that.

45
00:02:48,200 --> 00:02:53,800
I know personally, I need to be in person unless I find myself, you know, laying on my bed when we have Zoom classes.

46
00:02:53,800 --> 00:02:56,500
So it's not really as productive, we'd say.

47
00:02:56,500 --> 00:02:58,900
But why don't we just jump into our first question?

48
00:02:58,900 --> 00:03:02,000
So we did see that KPMorale must be high with the Figma deal.

49
00:03:02,000 --> 00:03:05,000
We saw the whole website dedicated to Figma congratulating them.

50
00:03:05,000 --> 00:03:09,400
So really, when was the first time you heard about Figma and what really stood out to you?

51
00:03:09,400 --> 00:03:12,900
Yeah, so obviously heard a bunch about Figma after I joined Kleiner.

52
00:03:12,900 --> 00:03:14,500
I joined Kleiner about six months ago.

53
00:03:14,500 --> 00:03:16,200
So I'm relatively new to the investment team.

54
00:03:16,200 --> 00:03:20,300
But the first time I heard about Figma was actually at Northwestern.

55
00:03:20,300 --> 00:03:28,400
And all I really knew it as at the time was like there's this like interesting like design prototyping tool that actually one of...

56
00:03:28,400 --> 00:03:30,400
So I was working on a startup at Northwestern.

57
00:03:30,400 --> 00:03:37,900
One of my designers was using Figma to build like, you know, like our design template and like some UI stuff for us.

58
00:03:37,900 --> 00:03:40,600
And that was the first time like I played around with it.

59
00:03:40,600 --> 00:03:44,200
I had seen kind of the, you know, the actual product and it was super cool.

60
00:03:44,200 --> 00:03:48,100
Like, you know, my designers could collaborate on what they were working on.

61
00:03:48,100 --> 00:03:50,900
You know, we could build a design template from scratch.

62
00:03:50,900 --> 00:03:59,100
It was a really easy way for me as like someone kind of managing product to like see what was going on and like visualize the product that we were building.

63
00:03:59,100 --> 00:04:01,800
And that's the first time I kind of came across it.

64
00:04:01,800 --> 00:04:07,700
But then, you know, when I became an investor, you know, thought about it from completely a different angle, which is also pretty cool.

65
00:04:07,700 --> 00:04:10,400
So I'm curious about that angle that you mentioned.

66
00:04:10,400 --> 00:04:13,100
So let's first start. So you're at Northwestern.

67
00:04:13,100 --> 00:04:16,400
You're a student founder. I heard you kind of like you slip that in there a little bit.

68
00:04:16,400 --> 00:04:22,000
Are you looking at Figma back then from more of like an entrepreneurial founder perspective, thinking like, oh, what makes this work?

69
00:04:22,000 --> 00:04:24,500
What makes it doesn't? What does that look like when you're actually a student?

70
00:04:24,500 --> 00:04:27,500
Yeah, yeah, exactly. I'm you know, they have it's actually pretty cool.

71
00:04:27,500 --> 00:04:29,100
Figma has like this free education tier.

72
00:04:29,100 --> 00:04:35,100
So like with your Northwestern address, like we had access to pretty much the entire suite of tool that Figma had to offer.

73
00:04:35,100 --> 00:04:40,700
And so as a student founder, it's really, really helpful, right, because you get this like enterprise grade tool, but you're paying nothing for it.

74
00:04:40,700 --> 00:04:48,100
And so for me, it's like, OK, like I have two designers and like one kind of front end engineer who like live and die with Figma.

75
00:04:48,100 --> 00:04:55,200
Right. So for me, it's really cool because I can jump in at any time, see what they're working on, have a really good idea of like what the product should look like.

76
00:04:55,200 --> 00:04:58,800
You can really play around with the entire flow of what the product should go from top to bottom.

77
00:04:58,800 --> 00:05:05,200
Right. So like as a designer, when you're putting it in front of a customer, you can walk them through a wireframe, like step by step, see how it resonates.

78
00:05:05,200 --> 00:05:16,200
Like it's pretty cool. And you can start to visualize how like an enterprise would use this tool and why it's such a critical component of every design team out there.

79
00:05:16,200 --> 00:05:19,500
For sure. And so I'm curious about that angle switch a little bit more.

80
00:05:19,500 --> 00:05:25,900
So KP, if I recall first, kind of started interacting 2017 with Figma.

81
00:05:25,900 --> 00:05:35,100
So obviously longer than the six months that you've been at KP, but I assume that once you got there, morale was still high, as Taho was mentioning before.

82
00:05:35,100 --> 00:05:40,400
What are the kind of like murmurs about Figma look like then when you actually arrived at KP?

83
00:05:40,400 --> 00:05:44,000
Yes, when I came to KP, Figma was a KP.

84
00:05:44,000 --> 00:05:48,000
I forget which fund it was in, but it was like an early deal for us.

85
00:05:48,000 --> 00:05:52,600
I think it was one of the first deals that Mamoon, one of the partners here did.

86
00:05:52,600 --> 00:05:56,100
And all I knew about Figma was that it was one of our big winners.

87
00:05:56,100 --> 00:05:58,500
Right. It was a company that everybody knew.

88
00:05:58,500 --> 00:06:04,000
Everybody spoke very, very highly of Dylan, the founder and CEO of Figma.

89
00:06:04,000 --> 00:06:08,900
And funnily enough, Dylan's history with KP goes back to before his Figma days.

90
00:06:08,900 --> 00:06:17,300
So Dylan was actually a Kleiner Perkins fellow, which is like this fellowship that we have for college students to get placed within our portfolio companies.

91
00:06:17,300 --> 00:06:19,900
And so he was a Kleiner Perkins fellow back in 2012.

92
00:06:19,900 --> 00:06:23,800
And so that was his first interaction with Kleiner Perkins. And so he had known the Kleiner Perkins team for a while.

93
00:06:23,800 --> 00:06:29,700
There's a lot of people at Kleiner who had been there for like the last 10, 15 years who had known of Dylan.

94
00:06:29,700 --> 00:06:35,100
And then obviously we made the big investment in 2017 and then the company just has been on a rocket ship ever since.

95
00:06:35,100 --> 00:06:40,500
So it's like a really cool success story of like a really inspiring founder who comes out of the Kleiner Perkins fellowship.

96
00:06:40,500 --> 00:06:43,100
But two, it's like one of the big winners in our portfolio.

97
00:06:43,100 --> 00:06:49,300
So that's the context under which I had kind of met them or I'd known them after I joined Kleiner.

98
00:06:49,300 --> 00:06:54,000
So when you hear about Figma, do you really think like, wow, this company is going to change just UI, UX field?

99
00:06:54,000 --> 00:06:59,700
Or do you think this idea of the collaboration thesis could be applied to so many other industries?

100
00:06:59,700 --> 00:07:01,500
What's really the main focus here?

101
00:07:01,500 --> 00:07:05,900
Yeah, I think the collaboration thesis has and will continue to apply in many different industries.

102
00:07:05,900 --> 00:07:08,600
Right. Like both Ilya and Mamoon were on the board of Slack.

103
00:07:08,600 --> 00:07:11,700
And obviously, like the core thesis of Slack was also built around collaboration.

104
00:07:11,700 --> 00:07:20,900
Right. And so I think like collaboration and like workflow tooling has always been a big part of what we've invested in at Kleiner.

105
00:07:20,900 --> 00:07:25,600
So, right, you go there, you go to Kleiner, excuse me, and you know, it's one of their big winners.

106
00:07:25,600 --> 00:07:28,300
You're still hearing murmurs about them.

107
00:07:28,300 --> 00:07:32,500
And then obviously, this amazing deal comes around, which has now been a huge win.

108
00:07:32,500 --> 00:07:40,500
The deal, if you remember for our viewers who are now talking to kind of whoever you are viewers, Adobe purchased Figma for about 20 billion dollars.

109
00:07:40,500 --> 00:07:44,300
And they've kind of formed this partnership that is super famed.

110
00:07:44,300 --> 00:07:46,400
There's articles about it all over.

111
00:07:46,400 --> 00:07:47,800
What do you make of the partnership?

112
00:07:47,800 --> 00:07:49,300
Why do you think it's a great one?

113
00:07:49,300 --> 00:07:51,700
What do you think kind of the benefits look like here?

114
00:07:51,700 --> 00:07:53,300
Yeah, for sure.

115
00:07:53,300 --> 00:08:01,700
I think it's probably no secret that the acquisition is like Adobe buying one of the most exciting and like fast growing competitors to their core business.

116
00:08:01,700 --> 00:08:06,200
Right. So like to me, I read it the same way probably you read the news.

117
00:08:06,200 --> 00:08:10,000
Right. Like the markets reacted very differently than I think internal sentiment was for us.

118
00:08:10,000 --> 00:08:15,300
Like we were very, very excited because I think like this unlocks like a new chapter for Figma in the sense of like,

119
00:08:15,300 --> 00:08:20,300
I think Figma, you know, for the first couple of years of its journey was selling to a lot of tech forward companies like many other startups.

120
00:08:20,300 --> 00:08:24,100
Right. And then now they're at the point in their journey where they're selling to a lot of enterprises.

121
00:08:24,100 --> 00:08:28,200
But what the Adobe acquisition basically allows them to do is like to access this new distribution channel.

122
00:08:28,200 --> 00:08:33,200
Right. Like Adobe is in basically every single enterprise in some capacity whatsoever, in some capacity.

123
00:08:33,200 --> 00:08:41,500
And so like the opportunity to kind of like join forces with them and say, hey, like let's market Adobe plus Figma together to all these enterprises that we're not in yet.

124
00:08:41,500 --> 00:08:44,700
Because I think like it's going to cause another kind of inflection in their journey.

125
00:08:44,700 --> 00:08:52,200
So I think we're going to look back at this acquisition like 10 years from now and say it was like a Facebook buying Instagram type acquisition.

126
00:08:52,200 --> 00:08:58,500
I think like the value creation of like the one plus one in this is going to be far greater than two, three or four.

127
00:08:58,500 --> 00:09:05,500
You know, like I think there's there's an order of magnitude here that like Figma is going to unlock in terms of customers,

128
00:09:05,500 --> 00:09:10,000
in terms of like the size of the deals that they're going to be closing now.

129
00:09:10,000 --> 00:09:12,400
And so I think I'm very, very bullish on it.

130
00:09:12,400 --> 00:09:23,900
I will say, though, I think this is very unlike a lot of other acquisitions in the sense of like Dylan is a very special founder who like believes in running Figma as a separate entity.

131
00:09:23,900 --> 00:09:28,100
And I think he's not someone to kind of like I'm not going to I don't speak for Dylan.

132
00:09:28,100 --> 00:09:33,100
I don't speak for Kleiner. But like, you know, my sentiment and like from what I understand what he's told publicly,

133
00:09:33,100 --> 00:09:37,800
like he's not someone who's just going to get bogged down in the bureaucracy of being inside of Adobe.

134
00:09:37,800 --> 00:09:42,500
I think like he is someone who's hyper, hyper focused on like, hey, like this is not the end of my journey.

135
00:09:42,500 --> 00:09:44,500
Like this is like the beginning of phase two.

136
00:09:44,500 --> 00:09:49,200
And like I'm here to prove like every single person who shorted the Adobe stock the day of the acquisition.

137
00:09:49,200 --> 00:09:50,900
I'm here to prove them wrong.

138
00:09:50,900 --> 00:09:54,700
I mean, yeah, I find that exactly like so much like Instagram being bought by Facebook.

139
00:09:54,700 --> 00:09:58,300
It's a very separate entity. But I find the Adobe deal even more amazing.

140
00:09:58,300 --> 00:10:04,600
You know, you can see the markets are in this recessionary environment and still putting a 50x multiple on any company regardless of,

141
00:10:04,600 --> 00:10:08,800
you know, how much revenue doubling from 200, 400 million. It's still a crazy.

142
00:10:08,800 --> 00:10:13,400
It's still going to cause news, you know, definitely going to cause a little bit of panic when it's like, how are they justifying it?

143
00:10:13,400 --> 00:10:17,300
But I think you justified it perfectly looking forward for both companies.

144
00:10:17,300 --> 00:10:19,600
It's just perfect synergies that they have.

145
00:10:19,600 --> 00:10:27,400
Yeah. Yeah. And I think like Adobe, you know, is at this point, like I think they want to have access to the demographic that Figma does.

146
00:10:27,400 --> 00:10:30,500
Right. Figma has done a wonderful job like getting in front of students.

147
00:10:30,500 --> 00:10:34,200
Right. I think Adobe still is kind of working through a lot of that.

148
00:10:34,200 --> 00:10:40,000
Figma has done a really great job like figuring out like how to build this really amazing, like intuitive product.

149
00:10:40,000 --> 00:10:47,400
And I think Adobe has a lot to learn from that. So like the synergy is not just like Figma getting a lot of benefits from like Adobe's distribution in a lot of their enterprise customers.

150
00:10:47,400 --> 00:10:49,900
I think it goes both ways.

151
00:10:49,900 --> 00:10:55,200
And I think we've we've seen that already. They just Adobe just had their their annual like Max conference.

152
00:10:55,200 --> 00:11:01,400
They were introducing a ton of new features like flavoring, like new collaboration features for Photoshop and Illustrator.

153
00:11:01,400 --> 00:11:04,900
And so I think you're exactly right. Like they're they're super synergistic here.

154
00:11:04,900 --> 00:11:06,800
And I think they have so much to learn from.

155
00:11:06,800 --> 00:11:13,200
Yeah. Yeah. And I think like having Dylan as a part of that executive team will take them take them to the next step.

156
00:11:13,200 --> 00:11:14,800
Like I think he is he's very special.

157
00:11:14,800 --> 00:11:23,600
Like I think in many different ways, not just as a founder, but like the product, the company is really an avalanche.

158
00:11:23,600 --> 00:11:25,600
Like there's nothing else really like it out there.

159
00:11:25,600 --> 00:11:28,400
And like I think Adobe saw the same thing.

160
00:11:28,400 --> 00:11:31,300
And that's the reason they were willing to pay the price they were willing to pay.

161
00:11:31,300 --> 00:11:32,300
Yeah, that makes sense.

162
00:11:32,300 --> 00:11:35,600
It's very interesting, you know, having this big legacy firm by this hot startup.

163
00:11:35,600 --> 00:11:40,300
But we talked a little bit about in the previous episode, you know, you mentioned about Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp.

164
00:11:40,300 --> 00:11:47,900
Do you think there's a difference in innovation speed when you have these giant legacy firms buying these, you know, very, very hot startups like Bigma?

165
00:11:47,900 --> 00:11:50,000
First, you know, you have no competition.

166
00:11:50,000 --> 00:11:56,400
Yeah, I think there can be right. There's plenty of counter examples where like buying a technology like I can think of a ton.

167
00:11:56,400 --> 00:11:58,700
But like a good example of like it's like Twitter buying Vine.

168
00:11:58,700 --> 00:12:02,800
Right. Like you've done a lot with that. And instead they like sunset it.

169
00:12:02,800 --> 00:12:05,400
And now like they're trying to restart this code base from like 10 years ago.

170
00:12:05,400 --> 00:12:07,300
Right. Like it's ridiculous.

171
00:12:07,300 --> 00:12:11,900
And but at the same time, like you can also do it very right.

172
00:12:11,900 --> 00:12:14,200
And like Instagram is a good example of doing it right.

173
00:12:14,200 --> 00:12:20,000
Right. And like I think, you know, Mark Zuckerberg is someone who knows how to run separate entities.

174
00:12:20,000 --> 00:12:21,600
Like he's grown WhatsApp. Right.

175
00:12:21,600 --> 00:12:28,600
Like he knows like how to give, I think, autonomy to like the people and the companies that he buys.

176
00:12:28,600 --> 00:12:33,000
And I think like Adobe, if they do it right, will do the exact same thing.

177
00:12:33,000 --> 00:12:35,900
Like I think I think they'll you know, I get I don't speak for Adobe.

178
00:12:35,900 --> 00:12:43,300
I don't speak for Sigma. Like but my hope would be that like they kind of give the company the autonomy to kind of continue growing by itself.

179
00:12:43,300 --> 00:12:46,100
But I totally agree. Like I think done not right.

180
00:12:46,100 --> 00:12:50,700
Like you can totally be slowed down by the bureaucracy of a large organization.

181
00:12:50,700 --> 00:12:53,700
I'm curious about that idea of doing not right.

182
00:12:53,700 --> 00:13:00,300
We've talked a lot about Dylan and kind of what makes him an amazing founder and his vision of really keeping Sigma running independently.

183
00:13:00,300 --> 00:13:06,300
Right now, Adobe CEO Shantanu has come under like a lot of praise.

184
00:13:06,300 --> 00:13:13,000
He's been there for a little bit. There's also talks of David Wanwani, who like might potentially succeed him at some point in the future.

185
00:13:13,000 --> 00:13:17,400
Just like Dylan is doing a great job keeping them independent and being super innovative.

186
00:13:17,400 --> 00:13:20,200
What do you think has to happen on Shantanu's end?

187
00:13:20,200 --> 00:13:25,300
Like how does kind of he live up that end of being like a legacy leader and not really a founder?

188
00:13:25,300 --> 00:13:27,200
Or how does that partnership interact?

189
00:13:27,200 --> 00:13:32,500
Yeah, I think it's just an understanding that like like understanding of each other's relative position in the market.

190
00:13:32,500 --> 00:13:35,700
Right. Like it's just being like, OK, like I understand my lane.

191
00:13:35,700 --> 00:13:40,200
I understand your lane. I bought you because I understand your lane and I'm going to make sure that you keep that lane.

192
00:13:40,200 --> 00:13:42,800
Right. Like I'm not going to try to like get into your lane.

193
00:13:42,800 --> 00:13:47,900
I'm not going to try to like go downstream and like try to like release a bunch of these things that are competitive with Sigma.

194
00:13:47,900 --> 00:13:53,900
You're not going to come into my lane. Like I'm not going to force you to sell a bunch of these like legacy products to people that are Sigma customers today.

195
00:13:53,900 --> 00:13:56,600
Right. Like I think that's what they should do.

196
00:13:56,600 --> 00:13:59,000
Again, this is all my personal opinion.

197
00:13:59,000 --> 00:14:03,600
I think just like an understanding and like a very clear expectation of like, hey, like this is what you're selling.

198
00:14:03,600 --> 00:14:07,400
This is what we're selling. Here is kind of like the exact points at which we're going to collaborate.

199
00:14:07,400 --> 00:14:10,000
And this is like the one plus one equals three part of it.

200
00:14:10,000 --> 00:14:15,700
But like we're going to make sure that like we're not stepping on each other's toes and like being very clear about what those boundaries are.

201
00:14:15,700 --> 00:14:18,100
I think is important. Yeah.

202
00:14:18,100 --> 00:14:19,600
You know, I do wonder about that.

203
00:14:19,600 --> 00:14:24,900
Just like keeping separate. But it's like when you have you own the company, you see like the best facets, like the collaboration elements.

204
00:14:24,900 --> 00:14:26,900
Like it must be so hard to restrain yourself.

205
00:14:26,900 --> 00:14:31,900
Like Adobe, it's like, oh, we now know how to like make Adobe Cloud like a fully collaborative platform.

206
00:14:31,900 --> 00:14:37,500
But it's like, you know, you kind of want to take some assets, you know, Facebook takes some assets from like Instagram and the entities that they buy.

207
00:14:37,500 --> 00:14:41,100
But keeping it separate is definitely probably the hardest part, I'd say.

208
00:14:41,100 --> 00:14:44,600
Yeah, no. And like with adding Facebook, the beautiful job with Instagram, right?

209
00:14:44,600 --> 00:14:47,500
Like they taught Instagram how to monetize.

210
00:14:47,500 --> 00:14:53,900
It's like, all right, we figured out this advertising engine will help you figure out the right parts of the advertising engine because we know how to do that well.

211
00:14:53,900 --> 00:14:58,900
And like that's ultimately what makes Instagram like a standalone, like whatever, 100 billion dollar entity.

212
00:14:58,900 --> 00:15:04,200
Right. And I think like that's that's kind of they need to find that common point.

213
00:15:04,200 --> 00:15:11,400
And again, my personal opinion, I think like that common point, Figma has already cracked, I think, like getting into the enterprise.

214
00:15:11,400 --> 00:15:14,600
I think what Adobe has a large distribution base already.

215
00:15:14,600 --> 00:15:19,100
And so like, hey, like we have this customer base that we can tell you how to get in front of.

216
00:15:19,100 --> 00:15:24,500
Right. Like I think that's the synergy. And for Adobe, it's like, hey, like what can we learn from what Figma has done well?

217
00:15:24,500 --> 00:15:29,400
Right. Like just having access to people, not necessarily like, hey, like let's move some features here and there.

218
00:15:29,400 --> 00:15:34,000
But like, hey, like we have access to these people who have built this really amazing collaborative product.

219
00:15:34,000 --> 00:15:39,000
Like, let's learn from them. And I think that's kind of the learning that goes both ways.

220
00:15:39,000 --> 00:15:47,100
I'm curious about we talk a lot about people both on the people who are building Figma than people who they're catering to this kind of beautiful,

221
00:15:47,100 --> 00:15:54,600
like whole like family of designers who love to rally around products and they love to like push things forward all the time.

222
00:15:54,600 --> 00:16:02,700
What do you think? Obviously, Figma is hugely popular with the designer base and a lot of designers have expressed their opinions on the deal.

223
00:16:02,700 --> 00:16:09,400
What do you think they need to be doing now that this deal has gone through in the future to really make sure they're still catering to this like designer environment?

224
00:16:09,400 --> 00:16:13,200
Yeah, yeah, no, for sure. I think it starts with Dylan's vision. Right.

225
00:16:13,200 --> 00:16:19,000
Like I think he needs to be like, and he is right. Like you can hear everything he talks about is like, I am not done.

226
00:16:19,000 --> 00:16:24,000
I'm not retiring. I'm like, what, 31 years old. Like this is not this is this is my act.

227
00:16:24,000 --> 00:16:29,100
You know, like I'm here to prove every single naysayer wrong. So like I think he understands it really well.

228
00:16:29,100 --> 00:16:34,600
But like just like they've done such a good job of like being like, we are friendly to the designers.

229
00:16:34,600 --> 00:16:39,800
Like we're going to offer a free education here forever. We're not going to get we're not going to get rid of that.

230
00:16:39,800 --> 00:16:43,100
Like he was very clear from that from day one. Right.

231
00:16:43,100 --> 00:16:47,200
We were going to be like design first, design forward. Right.

232
00:16:47,200 --> 00:16:49,300
Like we're not going to stop releasing new features.

233
00:16:49,300 --> 00:16:51,800
But the cadence I wish we had released products is going to continue.

234
00:16:51,800 --> 00:16:56,600
And like even after the announcement came out, like there's still a Figma product release like on Twitter every two days.

235
00:16:56,600 --> 00:17:03,100
Right. And so like I think just just sticking to everything that they've done well in the past.

236
00:17:03,100 --> 00:17:10,500
Right. Like just being very vocal, being like super friendly, just being known as a really humble and really friendly people

237
00:17:10,500 --> 00:17:13,700
that build really good products and build and iterate fast.

238
00:17:13,700 --> 00:17:16,100
I think like that's that's what he can needs to continue to do.

239
00:17:16,100 --> 00:17:21,500
Like as much as he can say stuff like I think just doing what they've done well is the biggest thing.

240
00:17:21,500 --> 00:17:27,400
That's just going to show any naysayer that, hey, like being bought by Adobe didn't change anything.

241
00:17:27,400 --> 00:17:32,900
Yeah. So so we've talked a lot about Adobe and Figma, like 70 percent of the market, really.

242
00:17:32,900 --> 00:17:35,600
Like these two huge energies in the UI space.

243
00:17:35,600 --> 00:17:39,700
But where do you really see the UI space going in the future here?

244
00:17:39,700 --> 00:17:46,700
Yeah. Yeah. So I guess to take it back to 2017, like the fundamental thesis that Kleiner had was like,

245
00:17:46,700 --> 00:17:51,800
hey, like design is going to be an important part of like the product development lifecycle.

246
00:17:51,800 --> 00:17:57,200
Right. And I think like that was kind of the initial starting point.

247
00:17:57,200 --> 00:17:59,600
Right. Like in super, super like my dumb terms.

248
00:17:59,600 --> 00:18:04,300
Right. Like it's like these designers are becoming an important part of the product development lifecycle.

249
00:18:04,300 --> 00:18:07,700
They need purpose built. They're like collaborative by nature.

250
00:18:07,700 --> 00:18:10,400
Right. They need a purpose built browser based collaborative tool.

251
00:18:10,400 --> 00:18:13,800
And so that's like the thesis behind Figma. Right.

252
00:18:13,800 --> 00:18:18,300
And I think like. I guess like I think it's grown a lot from there.

253
00:18:18,300 --> 00:18:23,200
Right. I think like now it's like a lot of product managers use Figma.

254
00:18:23,200 --> 00:18:25,800
Right. A lot of like front end engineers use Figma.

255
00:18:25,800 --> 00:18:30,700
Like anybody who's like non-technical or technical has used or touched Figma.

256
00:18:30,700 --> 00:18:34,100
Right. Within a product development organization.

257
00:18:34,100 --> 00:18:38,200
And so like I think the future is just following that trend.

258
00:18:38,200 --> 00:18:41,100
Right. Like I think they've already cemented their role within designers.

259
00:18:41,100 --> 00:18:46,900
Like I think they're moving on to the kind of the next like the secondary functions that are going to be using Figma and spending a lot of their time in day and Figma.

260
00:18:46,900 --> 00:18:51,700
Right. From just designers, I think they'll move into like front end engineers.

261
00:18:51,700 --> 00:18:57,900
I think like my hope is that they kind of come to a point where like you can create a wireframe in Figma connected to a database.

262
00:18:57,900 --> 00:19:00,000
You know, basically a fully functioning app. Right.

263
00:19:00,000 --> 00:19:01,900
Oh, yeah. I think that is that is. Yeah.

264
00:19:01,900 --> 00:19:05,200
I think that's that's kind of the future that I would hope they'd be driving towards.

265
00:19:05,200 --> 00:19:07,700
And like you see a lot of that already. Right.

266
00:19:07,700 --> 00:19:12,100
Like on top of a lot of the productivity stuff and a lot of the collaboration stuff that they're continually working on,

267
00:19:12,100 --> 00:19:16,700
they're working on making these wireframes and these prototypes a lot more interactive and a lot more functional.

268
00:19:16,700 --> 00:19:25,200
Right. And so I think the future for three to five years from now, Figma is like, hey, like, let's build a fully functioning app just on Figma.

269
00:19:25,200 --> 00:19:29,400
I don't you know, this is not my not any insider information.

270
00:19:29,400 --> 00:19:34,100
It's just my, you know, hand wavy hypothesis.

271
00:19:34,100 --> 00:19:38,300
So I'm kind of running towards those that low code, no code space in a way.

272
00:19:38,300 --> 00:19:40,800
Yeah, I think in a way I think.

273
00:19:40,800 --> 00:19:45,100
But the thing that they're doing kind of differently is like it's a fully functional design tool.

274
00:19:45,100 --> 00:19:49,500
Right. Yeah. Like I think it'll always be first and foremost a design tool.

275
00:19:49,500 --> 00:19:59,900
So like making the design as complete as possible and not like dragging and dropping like a search bar, you know, a no code tool allows you to do.

276
00:19:59,900 --> 00:20:05,400
And yeah, I guess like I think the future of like the design market is Figma.

277
00:20:05,400 --> 00:20:08,200
Right. Like I think it's such an end of one company.

278
00:20:08,200 --> 00:20:11,300
I'm a Dylan fanboy, a Figma fanboy.

279
00:20:11,300 --> 00:20:22,500
Like I think it's such an end of one company that like I think it's hard to delineate between like how the role of design within companies influence Figma and how like Figma influence the role of designers.

280
00:20:22,500 --> 00:20:26,900
Right. I think like both of those are kind of intertwined.

281
00:20:26,900 --> 00:20:31,300
And when you can't distinguish between like how one affected the other, that's what I know.

282
00:20:31,300 --> 00:20:33,800
I think you have a generational company.

283
00:20:33,800 --> 00:20:41,900
Right. And so that's a really long winded way of saying I think the future of design is just Figma.

284
00:20:41,900 --> 00:20:45,200
Exactly. Love it. Love the opinion.

285
00:20:45,200 --> 00:20:49,400
We have one last question for you, Sean, and I think it's perhaps our most important questions.

286
00:20:49,400 --> 00:20:54,900
We love to ask our interviewees and the guests that we have on a question.

287
00:20:54,900 --> 00:21:01,100
Our question for you today is like what is one routine or staple you follow throughout the years?

288
00:21:01,100 --> 00:21:05,400
You know, it could be something really simple, maybe something super complex, really anything.

289
00:21:05,400 --> 00:21:10,200
Yeah, I feel like it's kind of changed over the years.

290
00:21:10,200 --> 00:21:16,000
Like in high school, I was like super into like I like read the news every day.

291
00:21:16,000 --> 00:21:17,300
Like I was a debater in high school.

292
00:21:17,300 --> 00:21:19,600
So like I used to love like reading the news every morning.

293
00:21:19,600 --> 00:21:25,300
So like, you know, like ninth grade to like freshman year of college, I just kind of did that religiously every morning.

294
00:21:25,300 --> 00:21:28,900
And since college, I feel like I never really had a routine to my day.

295
00:21:28,900 --> 00:21:30,100
Like every day was different.

296
00:21:30,100 --> 00:21:34,200
And that was I don't know if that was like a good thing.

297
00:21:34,200 --> 00:21:35,800
Never really had like a staple.

298
00:21:35,800 --> 00:21:40,000
Now, I try to meditate for 30 minutes in the morning.

299
00:21:40,000 --> 00:21:42,000
That's my post college thing.

300
00:21:42,000 --> 00:21:46,800
Love it. That might be the most meta response we could have hoped for,

301
00:21:46,800 --> 00:21:49,500
which is that your stable routine is you like to switch up your routine.

302
00:21:49,500 --> 00:21:51,900
So I love it.

303
00:21:51,900 --> 00:21:53,300
All right. Well, thank you so much, Sean.

304
00:21:53,300 --> 00:21:55,100
It's been great to have you. Of course.

305
00:21:55,100 --> 00:21:57,600
Yeah. Thank you guys again for having me.

306
00:21:57,600 --> 00:22:02,500
I don't know much about this world, but I appreciate you guys giving me a place to speak about it.

307
00:22:02,500 --> 00:22:03,600
Yeah. Thank you, Sean.

308
00:22:03,600 --> 00:22:06,900
As always, I'm Crocket Callaway. I'm Sahil Seth.

309
00:22:06,900 --> 00:22:10,100
This is Shyam Mani and this is Uninvested.

310
00:22:10,100 --> 00:22:17,100
Thank you.