- Episode AI notes
- The speaker has a history of building various projects and experimenting with natural language processing
- The speaker started a company focused on the intersection of AI and design in Figma, inspired by the platform’s extensibility
Figma plugins offer limitless possibilities and can function as mini websites to facilitate various functionalities within Figma Time 0:00:00
Building on Experiments and Innovation Summary: The speaker has a history of building various projects like chat, HTTP, airport, and diagram. They have explored experiments and ideas related to natural language processing, particularly focusing on the computer’s ability to comprehend natural language. In the past, they worked on a project called Wonder, which allowed users to store memories using natural language input into a database.
Speaker 2
Yeah, like you said, you’re a builder. And I think from the outside, looking in, I definitely get that impression. I think other people do, they have this impression of you as a builder. You’ve built a lot of different things. I mean, chat, HTTP, airport, obviously, diagram, maybe I’d love to hear a little bit about some of these things that you build, maybe before diagram. Talk about some of these experiments, build your own ideas. What led to that? And maybe what are some of the experiments that you’re really proud of?
Speaker 1
I was tinkering with natural language as far back as, I think, 10 years ago, I was still in college and thinking about experiences where there was something always so fascinating to Me about the computer’s ability to understand, you know, natural language. And there was this moment in time in like the 2015 era of like invisible apps and chat bots. And it was very, it’s funny to see the evolution now, but it was very naive back then, which was, you know, you could understand the general maybe sentiment of a given natural language String and sort of parse certain parts out and create a basic chat experience. And so some of my earliest ideas that I was thinking about were, I worked on this project a while back called Wonder, for example, that let you in natural language sort of store these memories Into this database.Innovating with Figma Plugins and AI Summary: The speaker left Square with a backlog of ideas and decided to start a company focused on the intersection of AI and design in Figma. They were inspired by the extensibility of the Figma platform and the ability to build a business around Figma plugins. The speaker emphasized the potential of Figma plugins as mini websites that can facilitate various functionalities within Figma.
Speaker 1
And I actually left Square, I think in the summer of 2021, not knowing exactly what I was going to work on, but I, given my side projects, I had a sort of backlog of ideas that I wanted to go Deeper on. And something about that designer exploration that GPT and AI meets design and Figma just kept coming back to me and was staying top of mind. And that’s really when I decided to sort of go all in on that and start a company around it because I saw the wave of AI sort of continuing to grow and it felt like the future to me and I wanted To live at the forefront of what that looked like and decided to start a diagram.
Speaker 2
So talk to us about diagram. I mean, obviously, it was a number of really amazing Figma plugins evolving around AI. Maybe what were some of the really exciting learnings and what were the plugins that really, really resonated with the community?
Speaker 1
Yeah, you know, I think one thing that’s really amazing to look back on is just the fact that you can now build a business on top of Figma, I think really speaks to the extensibility of the Platform and this infinite canvas and their APIs. So it is quite amazing how a Figma plugin you can kind of think of as just a little mini website and you can do almost anything inside of Figma that you can imagine.Figma Plugins: Building a Business on Extensibility and Infinite Canvas Summary: The ability to create a business on Figma speaks to the platform’s extensibility and infinite canvas, allowing for the development of plugins like mini-websites with limitless possibilities. Initially starting with non AI plugins centered around design automation, the focus was on meeting designers and teams where they spent most of their time - inside Figma.
Speaker 2
So talk to us about diagram. I mean, obviously, it was a number of really amazing Figma plugins evolving around AI. Maybe what were some of the really exciting learnings and what were the plugins that really, really resonated with the community?
Speaker 1
Yeah, you know, I think one thing that’s really amazing to look back on is just the fact that you can now build a business on top of Figma, I think really speaks to the extensibility of the Platform and this infinite canvas and their APIs. So it is quite amazing how a Figma plugin you can kind of think of as just a little mini website and you can do almost anything inside of Figma that you can imagine. So that premise and that bet was really the idea that we wanted to meet designers and teams where they spent the majority of their time, which was inside of Figma. So we actually started with non AI plugins, ironically enough, kind of focusing around design automation.
