The SaaS Apocalypse Is a Goldmine With Figma’s Matt Colyer

The "SaaSpocalypse"—the panic that AI will make software-as-a-service obsolete—hasn't rattled Figma’s Matt Colyer. As the company’s director of product management for developers, he's been building his own agents for two years and is buying more software services than ever. In addition to making the case that AI is a “goldmine” for SaaS companies, Colyer talked with Dan Shipper for AI & I about why great design requires a diamond-shaped process: First you diverge, generating as many ideas as possible, then you converge around the best ones. Chat is linear, which makes it good for iterating on one design but bad at generating lots of options. Figma's new on-canvas agent is a first attempt at fixing that. They also get into why AI design tools need to break free of the text box, how Figma's MCP server is closing the loop between code and design, and why "review" has become the biggest bottleneck in AI-assisted product work. If you found this episode interesting, please like, subscribe, comment, and share! To hear more from Dan Shipper: Subscribe to Every: https://every.to/subscribe Follow him on X: https://twitter.com/danshipper Timestamps: 1:03 - Introduction 2:15 - Why the SaaSpocalypse narrative has it backwards 5:27 - Matt’s email agent origin story 13:21 - Divergent vs. convergent design thinking 17:39 - Figma’s MCP server 19:45 - Why design agents need personalization 22:09 - Every problem is a context problem 25:12 - Apple and Google as the reigning kings of context 28:18 - Why review is the new bottleneck Links to resources mentioned in the episode: Matt Colyer on X: https://x.com/mcolyer Figma: https://figma.com Figma MCP server: https://www.figma.com/blog/introducing-figma-mcp-server/

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  The SaaS 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 SaaS businesses are too. Because like I've worked in developer tools for a long time. And maybe five, 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 goldmine, right?

• 0:47Dan Shipper?

  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 the 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.

• 1:00Speaker 00

  Thanks for having me, Dan.

• 1:02Dan Shipper?

  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 should probably say, I bought a bunch of Figma, like probably like two months ago, something like that, because there's this whole SaaS apocalypse narrative. And what I want to get in detail or 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'd love to, I'd love to start with, what is going to happen to SaaS tools in AI? And I think Figma is a really interesting example where

• 1:44Dan Shipper?

  there are all these people who are like, oh, I don't have to use Figma anymore. There are, you know, you guys just launched an agent like in your product. You also have Figma MCP. So if you're transitioning from

• 1:57Dan Shipper?

  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 scaled 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.

• 2:14Speaker 00

  Yeah, I'd love to talk about that today. I think for me, it comes from a couple of different angles. I think the first thing is like the SaaS apocalypse or like, you know, the next era of software, if you will, maybe is more of positive framing on that.

• 2:28Speaker 00

  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 five, 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. 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 SaaS apocalypse and like, what does that mean for companies that have an established product?

• 3:10Speaker 00

  Is like, if you're in that space, like it, it means it's a goldmine, right? That, that there's all this opportunity out there. And that I'm really excited about it. And I think, you know, Figma and a lot of other SaaS businesses are too. And so I think the other part, you know, kind of some 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 became the larger narrative. Like I've been doing this stuff for like probably 18 months or two years. So like, I was already like, yeah, let's go build everything. 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.

• 3:56Speaker 00

  To build the initial version of it, right? And like, I actually built one of my own agents two 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 I was like, okay, but like. And like the larger narrative here is like. Software companies build more than just like code, right? Like, uh, there's a reason that I. Pay for Gmail to like operate my email. It's like, it turns out it kind of stinks when you're like. The SMTP version needs upgraded. 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.

• 4:38Speaker 00

  I'll be honest, I'm buying more software these days than I ever did before because I'm like, you know what? That that's what seems cool. Like, I'm just gonna pay somebody else to run my agent for me.

• 4:46Dan Shipper?

  I totally agree. As someone who has vibe coded my fair share of tools. A, yes, the personal maintenance, but B. I've vibe coded tools that we've released into production and let me tell you, uh, it's not, it's not as simple as saying like fix this bug.

• 5:04Dan Shipper?

  Um, and I do think that that's, I do think that's saying that that is, that is really missed in.

• 5:10Dan Shipper?

  In the quote unquote SaaS apocalypse discourse. I gotta 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.

• 5:26Speaker 00

  Yeah, I don't, yeah, I can tell a little bit more about the story. So like the problem that started two years ago is, um, I was using chatbots at work because 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 mist, like 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.

• 6:09Speaker 00

  Fifteen emails a day, like you, you think we produce a lot of email in corporate America. Wait till you get to the PTO emails you get at school. 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? And, you know, one of the major, 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 I know you like to talk a lot about prompts and like my favorite prompts 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.

• 6:49Dan Shipper?

  That is, yeah, I remember those days, like the wiring up and the copy and pasting and I feel like that's so far away, but it's only like a year or two ago.

• 7:00Speaker 00

  Yeah. Well, and then like, you know, to your point about agents, so then I've added a memory system, right? Cause like to your point of like, haven't fully admitted and like, not sure that I trusted 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 an 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 at the same time every day, but like, I think where agents are going, it's like much more proactive. And then like, you know, thinking about like, do I need to reach out and contact?

• 7:44Speaker 00

  My owner and let them know what's going on.

• 7:46Dan Shipper?

  So if that was the like where you were a couple of 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?

• 8:05Speaker 00

  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 doesn't. And then like, it's actually like a really hard problem. Cause like, there's a lot of stuff that you read and that the first batch, like, oh, that doesn't matter. And then it will matter like three days later. And it's like, how do you describe like which things matter and which things don't?

• 8:34Dan Shipper?

  It also feels like the agents are a little bit like, you know, one of the things that I will have it do is go through all my meetings. And like all the meetings in the company, we recorded 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 because 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 overcorrects 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.

• 9:10Speaker 00

  Yeah, I was curious to see where you're at on that because 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, and I guess you mentioned like with the email and 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?

• 9:28Dan Shipper?

  I have to approve every reply, but basically what I have, what I do is in Codex, I have a little app that, like I open in the Codex in-app browser that an app runs locally. And basically every day it just sweeps through all my emails. And then gives me a list of here's, uh, here, every email like 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, it can like go and search and like, be like, here's basically what I think I should say.

• 10:05Dan Shipper?

  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 fuck is going on here?

• 10:27Speaker 00

  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?

• 10:42Dan Shipper?

  It's only audio right now.

• 10:44Speaker 00

  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, actually use Loom a lot. Because it feels less weird to pretend like I'm screen sharing to somebody and it allows me to like actually talk through the problem.

• 11:03Dan Shipper?

  That's so funny. Huh. Like in the office?

• 11:07Speaker 00

  Yeah, like I feel, well, I guess I do it from home mostly. So 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.

• 11:15Dan Shipper?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's always, there was 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.

• 11:25Speaker 00

  What a world we live in. What a world.

• 11:29Dan Shipper?

  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? Are 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 want you to like do this little thing. And you're like, okay, I know what's going on here.

• 11:48Speaker 00

  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.

• 11:53Dan Shipper?

  And like I've got, you know, carpal tunnel and shit. So it, it doesn't aggravate my hands as much. It's much more ergonomic. So yeah, I huge, huge unlock to 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 piece of SaaS software that works all the time is a gigantic effort that only some, some people want to do and other people just want to pay for.

• 12:30Dan Shipper?

  But then let's like dive more more distinctly down into Figma land. So,

• 12:37Dan Shipper?

  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 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 first pass, but like to actually get the details right, I need to be able to like, move stuff around. So in in the design world, like, how does that change? How do you think that changes the product strategy when the

• 13:15Dan Shipper?

  the the possibilities for how you might design something have changed so radically?

• 13:19Speaker 00

  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. 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. 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. 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 L O M and M L land of like, we've reinvented evals. It's like, OK, well, we had you in a test before. And it's like, well, we've reinvented like prompting, and we like we had user input before. And it's like, OK.

• 14:06Speaker 00

  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 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 oftentimes, like, we get stuck in our own life stories and like lived experience and like we approach a problem from a certain angle. And like, this is what's so valuable about having teammates, right? It's like you go to talk to your teammate and they have a totally different starting point. And it's like, the answer to this problem is different.

• 14:52Speaker 00

  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? If we get outside of the text boxes, because 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 deferent thinking that it's like, hey, 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. You're like, well, let me try Cepa. And then it's like, oh, the Cepa thing is cool, but like the type is wrong. And it's like, oh, let me try that.

• 15:29Speaker 00

  Now it's like the accessibility is 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 like, I think, like, and you can ask it for its opinion. You're like, pretend you're like a customer clicking through it. It's like, which one makes the most sense, right?

• 16:14Speaker 00

  And so I don't think we've really tapped all of that stuff yet. And so like, I think, like, 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.

• 16:29Dan Shipper?

  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. Get me the, get 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, which is more convergent and a little bit less divergent.

• 17:03Dan Shipper?

  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 does, how do you think that works?

• 17:21Speaker 00

  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. 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 standardized 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 signup page, but like, it doesn't support GDPR, right? Like, most people are not going to be like, you know what I should do?

• 18:03Speaker 00

  I'm going to start with a greenfield page and reimagine what our signup should be to add GDPR. Most people are trying to get their job, but 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, you're 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 faithfully, but it turns out they can. And now you have just removed all that drudgery, right? Then, and you've got it into like a medium where you can actually interact with it.

• 18:45Speaker 00

  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 Kit 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 on the PR. And then like, your job is like, kind of like what you're talking about your workflow earlier with email. It's like,

• 19:27Speaker 00

  you don't merge it, but you're like, okay, well, I've got a good starting spot, right? And then it's like, you can come in there and then riff.

• 19:34Dan Shipper?

  What do you, what have you learned about what makes for a good internal agent experience internal to a product that you may not have known before, before Figma agent?

• 19:44Speaker 00

  I don't know. Like, that's like a interesting question. What would make it a good product?

• 19:51Speaker 00

  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.

• 20:30Dan Shipper?

  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 I'm curious, to the extent you have those plans and those experiments, how that's working. Obviously, like we've talked about that being kind of hard to get right.

• 20:49Speaker 00

  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. I will say we've got a lot of things cooking internally. I don't know, I can't talk about specifics too much. I definitely think this is an area we want to head, right? And so like, I think I can talk about the problems that we see today. It's like, if the amount of software is 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, and 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?

• 21:34Dan Shipper?

  What has been the transition like internally in Figma in terms of your own workflows in the engineering org, in the product org, in the design org, from a pre-AI world to now?

• 21:49Speaker 00

  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.

• 22:01Speaker 00

  And 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 I'll give you an example on the product org. So like we had an offsite and I think you might have actually come by.

• 22:15Speaker 00

  Rarely enough, it was like small world. I think one of my favorite memories of that offsite is that we have a product operations team and they had put together what we call PMOS.

• 22:27Speaker 00

  And to like 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 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 the sequel light table and put it in the file system. And then it's like, okay, why don't we create like a connector to a sauna and then we'll connect Slack and then we'll connect, you know, GitHub 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,

• 23:10Speaker 00

  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 gotta like create a customized 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 I 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 sauna board and finds all the projects. And so like,

• 23:55Speaker 00

  it comes back and you're like, oh, this is like uncannily good. It's like, yeah, this is a pretty good starting spot.

• 24:00Dan Shipper?

  That's one of the things that I think it's weirdly, the it's weirdly, I think the thing that made Claude Code so good and is is the thing that makes Codex so good right now is everyone tried to start with agents that like live in the cloud are always on, but then you have to like manually connect them to everything. And Claude Code is just, yeah, no, it's just an agent on your computer has access to everything that 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 Codex, like I can just ask a random question to Codex. 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. It just found like,

• 24:45Dan Shipper?

  like five people that I probably would have forgotten about, but that I should have sent it to, and I did. And 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's in the right harness and form factor and it can do it a little bit more independently than it was able to before.

• 25:11Speaker 00

  Yeah, I'm gonna, I'm gonna put a plea out there. Like, I remember WWDC, was it like 24? I can't remember when it was like Apple Intelligence, whenever the headline WWDC.

• 25:21Dan Shipper?

  I think that was more recent. I think it was 25.

• 25:24Speaker 00

  Was it 25? Gosh, again, AI time. Who knows what year it is? I upgraded my phone. I was like all in. I upgraded my iPad. I was like, I'm gonna get, because like I had just upgraded the last cycle and then they're like, well, you need a new processor to you. I was like, okay. Up to all my stuff. Solid WWDC. I was like, this is great. Because 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 gonna be it. And then like, I will say, like, I'm really hoping WWDC this year is actually it. Because like, you know, this past year and whatever has not been it, right? Because 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 always on Siri that runs in the background and is actually smart rather than the one that's like,

• 26:09Speaker 00

  what was that? I didn't understand you, Matt. One day.

• 26:11Dan Shipper?

  Do you think they're gonna, do you think they're gonna be able to get that right? And if they don't, do you think it matters?

• 26:19Speaker 00

  I think it still matters because I think even them being late to the game, they are still the king of context, right? And I think that's what's been interesting to watch about like Google I O two 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 are now starting to marry their AI products. Um, if you can keep all the names straight, like I like I saw this great tweet that was like, is it Bard or Gemini Pro or Spark or like, like

• 26:48Speaker 00

  whatever the thing is, but there's some, I think a 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 gets inbox zero.

• 27:00Dan Shipper?

  Yeah, I think I I just have this feeling about Apple that, you know, like when OpenClaw 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.

• 27:34Speaker 00

  Yeah. Well, and I think their strategy is very smart, right? 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.

• 27:48Dan Shipper?

  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. Um, and then maybe correspondingly like how software works and how we build software and all that kind of stuff.

• 28:05Dan Shipper?

  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?

• 28:17Speaker 00

  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 it's 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 this new thing that we're creating is actually like,

• 28:58Speaker 00

  and then feel confident and have enough trust in it that it's like, it can go to some degree in like, automotive, if you will.

• 29:05Dan Shipper?

  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?

• 29:16Speaker 00

  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 walkthrough that's recorded, right? Or is it like screenshots? Or is it like another agent that's like, with a different prompt that reviews the work? And then like, you trust this agent so much that you approve its decisions.

• 29:43Speaker 00

  I don't know. It's hard to predict the future, especially at this time.

• 29:46Dan Shipper?

  Yeah. One, one last question for you. So I know, I feel like there's been a lot of back and forth over the last year or two about,

• 29:57Dan Shipper?

  is there a future for PMs? Is there a future for designers? 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. 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?

• 30:21Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's an interesting one.

• 30:24Speaker 00

  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.

• 30:56Speaker 00

  And so like, I think that the like, the foundations 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 one-on-one CS class, right? Because 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 forty-two 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 an assembly and then explain it line by line to me and like, explain like what a register is and like, what is L one cache and L two cache and like the rest of it. And like, I think being a curious person, I guess, yeah, maybe this is the answer. I I think the most important thing is to be a curious person, right?

• 31:40Speaker 00

  Because like, I think with these new tools,

• 31:44Speaker 00

  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 is this thing put together? And like, how does this actually work? And like, help me understand the next level, right?

• 32:11Dan Shipper?

  I agree. And it's it's so much more fun to live that way.

• 32:14Speaker 00

  Totally. I mean, it's like catnip for me. It's like, I remember it's like, because it's like, kind of like, if I don't know if you're a hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy person, but like, I feel like L L M's are the book, like, like, it is literally the manifestation of it. It's like, and you can even have them on, like, I have this when I like go on airplanes. I don't run a lot of local L L M's, but like, I'll download an AP model and run it on an airplane. It's like literally that. It's like the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy. Or 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 you know, they're not perfect. And some of them are a little weird, especially with the AP 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.

• 32:58Dan Shipper?

  I totally agree. Matt, it was a pleasure.

• 33:01Speaker 00

  Thanks.

• 33:10Speaker 02

  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 ChatGPT. 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. 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.