It's like now that I'm a generalist.
“This was happening before AI, but more is happening with AI,” Figma CEO Dylan Field said in a talk with Y Combinator released Saturday. “There's something about AI that reinforces generalist behavior.”
Field said the area that was considered different stages in the product development process is fused.
“The product is also blurred in design and development, and even part of the research,” he said. “This is all getting clearer and it's a gathering of more of all kinds of varieties.”
What was considered the hottest list of the year, Figma was published on July 31 at a $19.3 billion valuation, in which Adobe is expected to get launches of its design software for roughly the same amount. With the market closure that day, Figma's shares more than tripled its initial public offering price, valued nearly $68 billion in the company, and gave Silicon Valley investors a big payday. It ended the three-year technical IPO Dry Spell, and the company Large block party In front of the New York Stock Exchange.
The company's valuation has since slid to $38 billion.
In YC Talk, Field said designers will become more important in AI.
“In this age of AI, if you really believe that development is easier and it's easier to write software, then writing software is faster. Next, what are the differentiators?” he said. “It's design, it's craft, it's attention to detail.”
Field added that designers will have more leverage in the future and more people will step into founder and leadership roles.
“There's a lot of curation involved and there's going to be a lot of leadership from the designer,” he said. “So they have to step up.”
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Figma did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
Field is far from the first high-tech leader to praise the value of generalists. Silicon Valley leaders recommend that as AI changes the nature and needs of a particular career, more people become generalists instead of experts.
Earlier this month, a billionaire venture capitalist Vinod Khosla He said it suggests that young people don't plan their careers at any job.
“You need to optimize your career for flexibility, not just for a single occupation,” he said on the podcast. “That's the most important advice, as you don't know what's around.”
Marc Andreessen, founder of Andreessen Horowitz, said he advises people outside the domain, such as Biotech and the AI Foundation model, to be broader rather than deeper.
“But in most areas, we'll probably bet more on people who can use these new tools and can probably be broader,” he said on a podcast in May.
“It's basically knowing something about many different aspects of life and how the world works.”
