Tech CEO Fixed His ‘Bad’ Management Skills to Build a $19B Company | Income Tips & Side Hustles
Key Takeaways
Dylan Field is the CEO of Figma, a $19.45 billion design tool company utilized by 95% of the Fortune 500.
Before co-founding Figma in 2012, he had no experience being a supervisor.
Field describes himself as “bad at all of it” at first, however he realized how to be an efficient supervisor over time.
Dylan Field discovered out the exhausting method that being a good chief doesn’t essentially imply being a good supervisor.
The Figma CEO assumed that because he had always been a chief, he was routinely able to handle — only to be taught that management was its own separate skill set.
On an episode of the First Time Founders podcast that aired earlier this week, Field explained that he “definitely did not know” how to be a good supervisor at first. Before he co-founded Figma, a $19.45 billion design company utilized by 95% of the Fortune 500, he interned at firms like LinkedIn and Flipboard. He had never been a supervisor before co-founding the company in 2012. Figma now has a 1,600-person workforce.
“The good news is if you’re a first-time manager, it’s all very learnable,” Field said on the podcast. “It’ll feel like muscle memory eventually.”
Related: Instead of Cuts, This $28 Billion Dollar Design Company’s Response to AI Is To Hire More People
Field listed the managerial fundamentals: figuring out the place his team was, operating efficient one-on-ones, building relationships, setting clear targets and holding people accountable.
“I think I was bad at all of it,” Field said.
Dylan Field. Credit: Michael Nagle/Bloomberg by way of Getty Images
Investors also added to the strain by voicing considerations about Figma shortly getting a product to market, he said. Field co-founded Figma in 2012, however it took the company three years to ship a beta product. Opening up the product to the public took another 12 months, and including a paid plan took until 2017, marking 5 years from concept to full product launch.
“Please don’t take away that you should take five years to launch a company,” Field said on the podcast. “You’ll be dead. We are the outlier, from a different time.”
Related: These Billionaire Founders Famously Hate Being a CEO: ‘Like Staring Into the Abyss and Eating Glass’
Field said that what was “tremendously helpful” for growth was hiring the company’s first supervisor, Sho Kuwamoto, who began as Figma’s director of engineering in 2015. Field “learned a ton” from Kuwamoto about managerial abilities.
Over time, Field obtained better at management, training abilities like clear goal-setting, until they turned instinctual.
Field’s experience is just like other founders, like Dustin Moskovitz, who’ve needed to be taught how to successfully handle staff. Moskovitz co-founded Facebook and Asana, main Asana for 15 years as CEO. In an interview in October, he said that the CEO function was “exhausting” and didn’t swimsuit his introverted character.
“By personality, I don’t like to manage teams, and it wasn’t my intention when we started Asana,” he explained. “Then one thing led to another, and I was CEO.”
Related: Airbnb’s CEO Says He Personally Manages 40 to 50 Employees as Direct Reports
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Key Takeaways
Dylan Field is the CEO of Figma, a $19.45 billion design tool company utilized by 95% of the Fortune 500.
Before co-founding Figma in 2012, he had no experience being a supervisor.
Field describes himself as “bad at all of it” at first, however he realized how to be an efficient supervisor over time.
Dylan Field discovered out the exhausting method that being a good chief doesn’t essentially imply being a good supervisor.
The Figma CEO assumed that because he had always been a chief, he was routinely able to handle — only to be taught that management was its own separate skill set.
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