An inside look at how Figma builds product | Yuhki Yamashita (CPO of Figma)

There's something controversial about this idea that, you know, everyone can see what you're doing, right? Or that, you know, multiple designers can be in the file at the same time. Like, we like to say that one of the first responses we saw when we launched Figma was, "If this is the future of design, I'm quitting," right? "I'm changing careers." And there's that kind of, like, tension, of that narrative tension, but like that is signal that you're kind of part of this revolution, and you're trying to change something. And when you can equip, you know, your customers or user base with that, then I think that's something they can really get behind and champion. So it's not just that they're championing for a tool, they're also championing for like a new way of working. Obviously, that's a tall order (laughs) for someone to kind of, uh, come up with that. But hopefully, you know, if you're a founder and you're working on something, your vision is so big that, like you- you have those kind of ideas. And it's like, how do you actually equip your c- customers to want to talk about that?

(instrumental music) Welcome to Lenny's Podcast. I'm Lenny, and my goal here is to help you get better at the craft of building and growing products, interview world-class product leaders and growth experts to learn from their hard-won experiences building and scaling today's most successful companies. Today, my guest is Yuki Yamashita. Yuki is chief product officer at Figma, where he's been for almost four years. Prior to Figma, he was at Uber, both as a product leader, and also interestingly, as head of design for one of their bigger product teams. Before Uber, Yuki spent time at Google and Microsoft, even taught an introductory computer science course at Harvard. In our conversation, we explore Figma's product development philosophy, how they build such consistently great products, how they hire, what habit Yuki has found to be the most instrumental in his success in his career, and also what Yuki and his product team have learned by building a product-led growth business. This episode builds on a newsletter post where I interview Yuki about how Figma builds product. So if you enjoy this episode, or even while you're listening to it, I highly recommend you check it out. It's currently my fourth most popular newsletter post of all time. You can find it at lennysnewsletter.com. With that, I bring you Yuki Yamashita after a short word from our wonderful sponsors. This episode is brought to you by Notion. If you haven't heard of Notion, where have you been? I use Notion to coordinate this very podcast, including my content calendar, my sponsors, and prepping guests for launch of each episode. Notion is an all-in-one team collaboration tool that combines note-taking, document sharing, wikis, project management, and much more, into one space that's simple, powerful, and beautifully designed. And not only does it allow you to be more efficient in your work life, but you can easily transition to using it in your personal life, which is another feature that truly sets Notion apart. The other day, I started a home project and immediately opened up Notion to help me organize it all. Learn more and get started for free at notion.com/lennyspod. Take the first step towards an organized, happy team today, again at notion.com/lennyspod. This episode is brought to you by Vanta, helping you streamline your security compliance to accelerate growth. If your business stores any data in the cloud, then you've likely been asked, or you're gonna be asked, about your SOC 2 compliance. SOC 2 is a way to prove your company's taking proper security measures to protect customer data, and builds trust with customers and partners, especially those with serious security requirements. Also, if you wanna sell to the enterprise, proving security is essential. SOC 2 can either open the door for bigger and better deals, or it can put your business on hold. If you don't have a SOC 2, there's a good chance you won't even get a seat at the table. But getting a SOC 2 report can be a huge burden, especially for startups. It's time-consuming, tedious, and expensive. Enter Vanta. Over 3,000 fast-growing companies use Vanta to automate up to 90% of the work involved with SOC 2. Vanta can get you ready for security audits in weeks instead of months, less than a third of the time that it usually takes. For a limited time, Lenny's Podcast listeners get $1,000 off Vanta. Just go to vanta.com/lenny. That's V-A-N-T-A dot com slash Lenny to learn more, and to claim your discount. Get started today. Yuki, welcome to the podcast.