The Last Twenty Percent: Georgia Rust on Craft, AI, and Why Design Has Never Mattered More

Georgia Rust is the Creation Engine Product Lead at Figma, where she leads the team behind generative AI plugins, shaders, design systems, and the core canvas capabilities that over ten thousand designers flew to Config 2026 to see unveiled.

In this episode, Georgia shares what it means to build at the intersection of design and AI, why the creative community's fear of being automated away gets the story exactly backwards, and what she learned presenting Figma's most ambitious launches yet to a sold-out crowd just weeks ago. She brings a perspective forged across a deliberately non-linear career: solutions engineering at GitHub, founding PM at a five-person startup, senior PM at Abstract, and nearly four years building at Figma.

The conversation goes deep on what separates operators who thrive inside high-growth companies from those who struggle, how Figma's designer community became one of its most powerful competitive advantages, and why Georgia believes the AI era is ushering in a specialist era, not a generalist one.

We cover:

• Georgia's path from solutions engineering at GitHub to founding PM to Creation Engine Lead at Figma

• What it actually means to be the first PM at a five-person startup, including a second-place Product Hunt launch

• How Figma scaled from two products to a platform and the edge cases that came with it

• Config 2026: generative plugins, shaders, and code as a core primitive on the design canvas

• The "Is Design Dead?" debate and why the last 20% of craft is becoming more valuable, not less

• How the Figma AI agent writes shader code so designers never have to, and what that changes about who gets to make visual effects

• What it takes to thrive as an operator inside a high-growth company: grit, resilience to rejection, and creativity when the answer is no

• How Figma's internal PM team uses Claude MCP and custom AI skills, including one Georgia built herself to track unanswered Slack threads

• The power of Config as "camp for creatives" and why Figma's community is one of its most durable competitive advantages

• Deep House Wines: how Georgia is scaling from home winemaking to buying three tons of grapes and launching a label in Anderson Valley

If there is one thread running through this episode, it is that knowing what to ask for is becoming the most important skill in the age of AI.

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Transcript

Introduction to the Future of Design and AI

SPEAKER_01 0:04

Welcome to First Builders, the podcast for those shaping companies from the ground up. I'm Amber Illig, general partner at the Council Capital, where we invest in early teams solving critical problems in essential industries. And I'm Rachel Choi, partner at the Council.

SPEAKER_02 0:16

Every week we sit down with builders who are doing hard things in hard places, and today we're diving in with a guest who is thinking deeply about the future of design in the world of AI.

SPEAKER_01 0:25

We're joined by Georgia Rust, creation engine product lead at Figma, where she leads the team building the canvas capabilities that power everything from generative AI plugins to design systems to the very way files load on your screen. Her career has spanned from starting as a solutions engineer at GitHub and then moving to abstract all before landing at Figma.

SPEAKER_02 0:43

And along the way, she's been a founding PM. She's shipped infrastructure improvements that made Figma files load 75% faster. And just this month, she took the main stage at Config 2026 to debut generative plugins, tools that you can now describe in plain language and have Figma build for you. No code required.

SPEAKER_01 1:01

Georgia, we're so excited to have you here. Welcome to First Builders.

SPEAKER_02 1:04

Thanks, friends. Yeah, I'm excited to chat with you all. Yeah, absolutely. Um, so we'd love to just like dive a little bit into your background and kind of what led you over into Figma. So would be curious, just like, you know, how did you get your start into just even getting on kind of like the engineering design, you know, side of things?

SPEAKER_00 1:23

Yeah, yeah. So I my first job like in tech was sort of more of like a hybrid role. It was a solutions engineer role where I was, you know, still kind of in the sales org, but like also working to like implement products. And I just like would see what our product and design team were working on. And back in the day, like I used sketch and I like loved kind of drawing to do like mock-ups and stuff. And they were bad. They were like me taking screenshots of things and then kind of like piecing them together. But I just always sort of loved that world of making things like how you want them or making presentations and talking to people. And so then I was like, oh, maybe I want to be in product, or maybe I want to be in product design. I wasn't sure. And then over the years, I joined different companies, kind of had different roles. Um, I did a developer boot camp to learn how to code, and then eventually kind of made my way to being a product manager at a small startup. And then from there was kind of interested in more like tooling. I loved GitHub, like developer tooling, and I loved chatting with like builders. But I wanted to try something more in design, just more creative. And it was perfect because then I joined Abstract, which was like, you know, version control for designers. So it was like the perfect blend of what I was doing at GitHub, but more for a designer

Georgia Rust's Journey to Figma

SPEAKER_00 2:40

audience. And then from there found my way to Figma and have been here now, coming up on four years, just doing like all sorts of random things for designers. And yeah, it's just been super fun. But it wasn't like the most traditional way to get to being a product manager. But yeah, I feel like I found sort of like the right, you know, icky guy for like what the world needs, what I like to do, and everything like that. So yeah, it's been an interesting journey.

SPEAKER_01 3:05

Yeah. I imagine it's extremely valuable to, you know, have the background of like you know how to code, even pre-AI, like you went to coding school and understand that side of things, but also the interest in design. Cause often PMs are pulling together these different teams and trying to sequence things and figure out what's most important for the organization to build. So I could see that being sort of a superpower. But I know, you know, as part of your PM journey, you were a founding product manager at one point. What was that role like? This was at a serious business. Most people don't talk about like what that feels like to be like the first one of a of a certain role that joins a company. So what was that like and how did it sort of develop over time?

SPEAKER_00 3:40

Yeah, I think like even when I was at companies before then, I definitely like learning things and doing things that then sort of made people question like, is this in the scope of your role? And like, should you be doing this? And so then I was like, well, can it be? I don't know, like what is my role? And so when I joined a serious business, there were just like three of us. They ended up being five after I joined. And it was kind of like, yes, I was the product manager, so I was like writing briefs and talking about like what we should be doing and working with the designer, but I was also like product marketing and a little bit of like operations and you know, a little bit of everything, which was really what I wanted. I don't like to be sort of put in this box, and so I loved that. We did like a a launch on product hunt and like really like tried to growth hack our way to getting to the top. We got we got number two, which was cool, and was just fun, you know. And I had never done anything like that, but when I was a solutions engineer, I was like demoing a lot and you know, talking with customers. So I think like that was something I didn't want to have to stop either. And so it was just fun, like to get to kind of do whatever is like useful to the business, but also like is your way of expressing yourself was fun. And then from there I just kind of try to do that in my jobs following being at a five-person startup and like make videos of like the product we're working on, whether it's like a hype video to like get more internal excitement or you know, something like that. Or like, yeah, trying to build a prototype because like I'm good enough to like get to that point and then can bring in the team who can like really make it amazing. But yeah, I just don't like ha feeling confined to like some role or specific scope. I think that's sort of where the world's going too. So it's it's finally nice that people are embracing that.

SPEAKER_02 5:24

Yeah.

The Role of a Founding Product Manager

SPEAKER_02 5:25

It sounds like exactly what you're saying is very much in line with like our first builder thesis of just operators who again join these companies so early that the role yes, you have like your main role, like you were saying, but there's also so many things that are needed. And so you take on such a bigger and bigger scope and having that ownership mindset to really, you know, own that. And you know, I can imagine that has probably served you well as you gone on even beyond that and then into your current role at Figma today as well.

SPEAKER_00 5:54

Yeah, it's been fun. I mean, like I think that's I like to dabble in a lot of things like outside of work. I have a lot of hobbies, and I had a lot of people in my family who started their own business, like my sister and a lot of my aunts have their own business, my dad has his own business. And so I always loved kind of just feeling like you can do whatever. And like luckily I found a company that I really like what we do, and I get to kind of be in that mindset of like entrepreneur within the context of the company and still have like the safety and some of the like comfort that a big company has. I so yeah, it's been nice for me, but I my family was always like very entrepreneurial, and we like did 4-H and had to present our projects, you know, and get ribbons and stuff. And so kind of that like pitching your ideas has been there for me.

SPEAKER_01 6:41

I love that. And can you talk a little bit? So almost four years at Figma is a long time, and there's been a lot happening at Figma during that time. And that's one of the ex reasons we wanted to have you on the podcast is you know, we really believe in these people that are high slope operators, like they can be inside of organizations as they're growing and changing with these changing needs, and they are entrepreneurial. So, what did you sort of walk in thinking that you were gonna be doing? And then what did you actually end up doing?

SPEAKER_00 7:04

Yeah, so when I joined Figma, they had just launched, launched Fig Jam. So they were just the two project uh products, and you know, they launched Fig Jam probably the core like Figma design code base. And so it was like the first time they were sort of extending it to support another use case. And with that, they just became like the company was flooded with like feedback and things we wanted to do, but every time we wanted to make an improvement, it was harder because we had to think about like, well, how is it going to impact Fig Jam? Do we want the same thing to work across both products? And so when I joined Figma, I kind of joined honestly to answer and solve a lot of what I would call like the problems at the edges of Figma. You know, like people were using Figma in these like really tricky ways. There are like some customers who built like 20,000 variables because they wanted to do something that like nobody should be doing, or like they were just really stress testing the product. Or like we are getting feedback that people want to use Figma when they're in these like closed environments. Maybe they're like at a customer's office and they're not gonna let them join the Wi-Fi. And we started to like have this backlog of like feedback where it was like, okay, it doesn't make sense to like it's not build me a new product, like that I don't need a new product like Fig Jam when we built that, but it was like I'm having a hard time bringing this with me and having it with me in all the ways that I want. So I joined the like project that was pitched to me in my interview

Figma's Evolution and Challenges

SPEAKER_00 8:27

was to build offline offline editing support for Figma and like make sure that like when you're in those environments, whether it's like on a plane or at a coffee shop or a customer office or at a conference or something like that, that it's like reliable and can work for you. And then really to like help Figma scale and extend into like more use cases and not not not necessarily like zero to one in the sense of building a new product, but zero to one in the sense of like, oh, you can now use Figma in this situation. And so yeah, when I joined, I worked on a bunch of things like the offline support. Um, but I also worked on, you know, making sure that our files were opening for you really quickly. If you're about to go on stage at a conference and your prototype is taking a minute below, yeah, like you just want to refresh to get like that one update, but you can't, you know, that's really, really stressful. And then that was like feedback we were hearing on like social media or in our forums. And so it was like that kind of thing. So I was talking to people who had been using Figma for a while and it was they were sort of pushing it further. Um, I mentioned a little bit on the design system side, but it was that to like people who are using design systems to the furthest extent that were possible. And you know, that's we we designed all these amazing design systems features, but we didn't quite think people would like use them to that level. And so, how can we help them architect their design system structure so that it like is performant and scales well across their org? So a bunch of stuff like that is what I basically did for like the first, I would say like two years at Figma. And then yeah, it's kind of shifted into other things, but yeah, that was that was the focus at the beginning.

SPEAKER_01 10:01

That's awesome. And you just had config. Um, you know, this is a huge, huge conference that Figma puts on every single year for designers um and you know, design enthusiasts, I would, I would imagine. So what's one of the things you're most excited about that you recently unveiled?

SPEAKER_00 10:15

Yeah, I mean, I I'm I can be selfish and share the things that like I worked on, but I'd say like the big I'd say the big thing to take away from a config this year in particular was you know, there's so many people. There's like 10,000 attendees in person, hundreds of thousands online, and then we like take it on the road after SF. So it's like it's a machine. And it's it's so cool that it's like a conference. When you think conference, you're like stereotypical, like that. Sounds stodgy, right? Yeah. Business cards. Yeah, yeah, exactly. But this was like for creatives, and I honestly it felt like a bunch of people just like going on a trip with their friends and kind of like meeting up and doing a bunch of activities together. It was like all these creative people who love Fig who use Figma, yes, but like and love Figma, but they are creatives and it's really like about them and their artistry and craft. And so it was just like a week of like people hanging out and having a good

Exciting Announcements from Config 2026

SPEAKER_00 11:05

time. I was excited about a number of the things that we launched, and we talked about like a lot of these at the keynote. One, which my friend Nico talked about was we launched code as a core primitive on the design canvas. And this is really something like people were waiting to hear from us. And now we have this ability for you to bring your code base to Figma, to expand it out like design layers, and to work collaborative collaboratively with people. And that was like the elephant in the room. And so I love that we started with that. And then my my friend Raji and I presented generative plugins and shaders. And this was a project that we were we were working on as one project internally, um, but it actually led to two launches. And this one was like my favorite thing I've worked at Figma on by far. Uh, we came up with this idea like two months ago and yeah, revealed this to the world last week. And it's just it's a very like visual, craft focused launch, a lot of wins for the existing plug-in community, and also creatives who want these like really intense and amazing visual effects in Figma can now build them them themselves. And so yeah, it's just like it's the best feeling. Like it's out there for everyone. Like we're seeing people make things now, and this is like the moment we've been waiting for.

SPEAKER_02 12:19

Yeah, it's it's super exciting to hear about kind of how you talk about this too, because I'm sure like there are probably a lot of different creatives and designers that have different levels of even technical fluency. Um so you know, having I think this spread can be really incredible for them. But yeah, I'm curious about how you think about this too, especially in like the day in age that we are in today with AI, like, you know, what is that technical fluency that's needed? And how do you think about like designers and creatives now, like with that barrier or maybe lack of barrier as well?

SPEAKER_00 12:51

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we thought a lot about this during the project. We came up with like different names of what we should call these things. We even worried that calling it shaders for that project would be too technical. Shaders is like the the code that's underneath the effects that you like apply to your your filters and stuff. But that is what it's called. Like it is that code that is powering that output. And so we kind of wanted to like use this as a little bit of a education moment too. If you aren't someone who's written shaders, we kind of want to like debunk that shaders are not for everybody. You know, you don't have to be like a math person to be able to make a shader. And so I think in this world, like the sort of uh familiarity with AI is like more about like, do you know what you want? Less so like, do you know how to ask for it? And so one thing we cared a lot about was making sure that you could bring references from things you see online or

AI's Impact on Design and Technical Fluency

SPEAKER_00 13:45

a photo you took or something you just loved into Figma and use that as context for the agent to say, like, oh yeah, I understand what's happening in this image. I think you want a shader effect that does this type of thing. And that was really important to me because I've never written a shader before. Don't tell my team, but like everybody else on the team has written shaders before. And I was like, oh, I sound scared. But now I can just bring in like something I see online that I love and I can recreate it so then I can use it in my work. And with plugins, we already had like a huge plugin community and they're incredible. But we wanted to reach people who haven't been able to build plugins before. Um, so it's similar, but luckily, like there are also a lot of people who have built plugins. And so we wanted to make sure it reached it was reaching both audiences, like existing plugin creators and people who've always wanted to do one, but they're not familiar with local host and the manifest and developer docs and things like that. So that one was more of a blend. But yeah, both were about like empowering people who maybe don't know how to write code or just do, but like don't know how to ask for code to give them this specific thing. Um and we'll give we'll give you the code eventually so that you can then edit it and take it further. But to start, the agent is just fully generating all of that code for you.

SPEAKER_01 15:03

That's awesome. Yeah, and just kind of related to config and and everything we're talking about right now with what AI is capable of and what agents on Figma are capable of. So there's been this phrase going around that design is dead. And I actually have the hat here that I think Figma launched. So my husband is a designer, and so he ordered it, and I saw it last week and I was like, Oh, I'm definitely bringing that on the podcast. But yeah, so A, I mean, I've I barely have been keeping up. I've just been seeing like the headlines from you know afar. But there's been this, you know, thought going around that design is dead, and this is happening to functions everywhere, all over the place with AI right now. It's like, oh, you no longer need product management, you no longer need engineers, you no longer need lawyers, you no no longer need designers, ass is dead, everything is dead. And so we're hearing these headlines just sort of like blasted in front of us 24-7.

SPEAKER_00 15:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:53

And depending who you're talking to, like some people are extremely positive and they're so excited for what AI is enabling them to do right now. And then you talk to other people and they're like super down because they might be out looking for a job and they're talking to companies that are like, oh, we don't need these things anymore, because we read that online last week. And so can you talk a little bit about this moment for designers, what your sort of take on this moment is? And then I want to talk about how I think this was really genius that Figma launched these hats to just kind of just like be like, hey, let's talk about the elephant in the room. Like it's not dead, and we're gonna take a stance and we're gonna just make fun of it in this moment while everybody's coming together for this big huge community event. So yeah, I'd love to hear your your take first and then, you know, sort of the community aspect there.

SPEAKER_00 16:33

Yeah. Also, I'm jealous you got one of those hats. Like, I haven't been able to get my hands on them.

SPEAKER_01 16:37

They're like, Wow, okay, I'll have to tell Brian.

SPEAKER_00 16:39

It's

The Debate: Is Design Dead?

SPEAKER_00 16:40

what we're on eBay.

SPEAKER_01 16:44

But Well, and here my toddler has been just like wearing this thing around the house. I had no idea.

SPEAKER_00 16:49

It's yeah, it's I love that we did that. I think like the last six months have been really interesting because it's like every week this sort of cycle of like, we're so dead, and then the next week it's like we're so back. We're so not. Yeah, it's like it's really exhausting to be in that cycle. And I think like we just haven't seen in anything at Figma that like people aren't using Figma. It's still valuable as part of their process. The ability to like bring a bunch of people in and go really broad with your ideas and have like a a way to, you know, really brainstorm like as a group and then like visually tweak at like the pixel level is still important. And I think it's just hard because I I think there's like all these efficiencies with AI and writing code is fairly cheap now, and like it's not necessarily good code, but like you can get somewhere fast. And so I think then like the last 20% of like really dialing in on the craft and also bringing something unique, not just having like whatever AI generated as your final design of your website or whatever it is, is becoming more and more important. And so, yeah, I definitely like don't think design is dead. Um I think that it's like more alive than ever. And with this craziness of you know, everything and like hype of AI and generation, I think being someone who has like taste as much as that word word is now loaded too. Um, but like has context and has like depth in specific things, whether it's like art or um certain types of visual mediums or music or whatever, to know what to ask for is super valuable. And AI is just a tool to get you to where you want to go faster. Um and I feel like we heard that a lot from our community this week that config in itself felt like a celebration of like artisanal craft. And I think that's so important. Like the humans should be in this process, we should be driving this process. And so yeah, I I'm hoping I hope that answered your question, but like it's definitely not dead. And I think that if anything, like it's becoming more important uh now that it's so easy to create, it needs to be really differentiated and special. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:56

And I think there's been sort of this like resounding statement that like AI lowers the the floor to start something, but humans are gonna be the ones that are sort of raising the ceiling and and making things possible and like pushing the I guess just like pushing the community forward and the pushing culture forward in some ways and sort of you know thinking from context outside, not just like what you're giving it every day when you're talking to ChatGPT or something.

The Importance of Human Touch in Design

SPEAKER_00 19:18

So the whole the whole goal of building technology, at least for me, is I think you're supposed to try to build something that is so natural when you use it that it felt like designed or made just for you. And hopefully it's you know very you know intuitive and it's exactly where that button was, it it was there and what it felt like to click it, it almost felt as good as like clicking one of those old buttons from keyboards in the 90s. Like we want your experience of interacting with software to feel similar to an interac interaction in the real world, or at least like as good as it can be. And so I just don't think like AI, it AI doesn't know what it's like to push that keyboard button, right? Like it hasn't, I mean it might soon with robots, but like that human experience of those things that almost like are so satisfying and nostalgic. That's what we're trying to recreate with Figma. And it's it's the next level because it's like we're trying to recreate the tool for you to create those experiences for your customer.

SPEAKER_02 20:15

So it's very, very meta, very inception-y, but um it is right when you're talking and describing that. I was like, you know, thinking about like the multiple layers, right? Because like these designers are now creating using Figma to create experience, probably for other technology apps, uh, you know, businesses out there. And um they do need to be differentiated in how they are able to kind of even go out there. But yeah, I love like when you're talking about like that human experience specifically in the in the tool itself. So yeah. Yeah, exactly. Okay, and then one of the things that I'd love to just like hear a little bit more about, I know you kind of highlighted it a little bit, but tell us a little bit more about kind of like the the the config talk that you gave and a little bit about you know creation of that. And um, I think you gave that talk again with like a couple of like your friends and coworkers.

SPEAKER_00 21:08

Yeah, yeah. So we did the keynote and that was amazing and very stressful. And my cortisol levels will come down at some point. Um but it was it was really fun to do that. But what was honestly the moment that was more fulfilling was to get to like present with the team on how we built this. And so we had two groups. Um, I got to present with the folks who talked about generative plugins, and then Raji presented with the folks who talked about shaders, and it's just so fun because we have been like nonstop as a group, like the six of us who are on stage and a few others. We even have like a group text where the morning of config, we wanted to make sure everyone like woke up and didn't sleep through their alarm. So we had like a proof of life text group, like that's a fair concern with such a big presentation.

SPEAKER_01 21:53

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_00 21:53

Yeah, we want to make sure we're all there and we're all no one wants to be waking up 20 minutes before they're about to go on stage and be super stressed. So we got really close as like a team and that was amazing.

Deep Dive into Config Keynote and Shaders

SPEAKER_00 22:03

And it was also great because the while the keynote is exciting, it's super short, you know, and so you you really need like that half hour or sixty minutes to get into here's how you use it, here's how it's gonna be valuable to you, here's all the details. And so we wanted to really like go deeper into that. And then the folks that I got to present with, one of them was the lead engineer on generative plugins and just like a really amazing person. And then the other person was the lead designer. And so it's kind of like the the core team was getting to share our work. And then we had like our whole team, you know, like the 30 to 40 people who helped build it sat in the front row and they are screaming and cheering us on. So it was awesome. But it was also important for us to like hit on some key points, like this part is launched today, this part is coming soon. And also, like, how how does this uh consume credits as you use these things? Because now these days, people are not like token maxing anymore. They are getting more thoughtful about how many credits is this thing gonna consume. And we really were nervous that the community would have questions about this. Um, and so we wanted to address them. And luckily, like for us, it's like a good thing to say where like it does cost money to create plugins and shaders, like because you're working with an agent, you're asking for things back and forth. That makes sense. Um, but once they exist, it does not cost any credits to run them and use them over and over and over again. And that was really important to us because that's how plugins are today. And the audience like clapped way louder than I thought they would for them, like they don't cost money to keep running. So I feel like they're happy with how we decided on that.

unknown 23:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:39

And quick follow-up question, because we've talked about it a couple times. How would you describe shaders to a normie listening to the podcast that's not a designer? I've been seeing it pop up. My husband's talking about shaders, I'm seeing other designers talk about shaders. It's definitely popular right now, so I'd love to hear more. What is that?

SPEAKER_00 23:54

Yes, as a fellow normie, I feel like I can do an okay job translating this. Okay, so when you see, you know, something visually stunning online, whether it's like, you know, some sort of image where you can kind of make out the image, but there's some sort of effect on it, or like you've, you know, been in a photo editing app and you've applied a filter, or like you've been in Figma and you've used an effect that we have, like drop shadow or glass

Understanding Shader Code and Visual Effects

SPEAKER_00 24:16

or something like that. Those things are are visual effects that are like rendered on top of what's on the browser. And the way you write those effects is you write this thing called shader code. And shader code is very math forward. Like you reference pi and you ref reference like all sorts of different things to create this. And so maybe an example is like um, you know, if you're creating an effect that changes the color composition of an image and maybe like the pixel size. So it's slightly like blurry and different color. The way that you actually like reach into the browser and grab that pixel and say, okay, now I want you to be blue and I want you to be this size is a math equation, basically. And so when you write shader code, you're basically writing a really long math equation to take in something, whether it's image or a Figma layer, and manipulate it to now look different without changing the underlying value. So you can always get back to your source image or whatever. And so that's what shaders are, is they're just the code that powers effects. And they're really hard to write, but now you don't have to write them. You just give the image that looks cool, and fit the Figma agent will write you that shader for you. It's awesome. So that does that help?

SPEAKER_01 25:30

That was an incredible, yeah, incredible explanation. Thank you. Love it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:35

So well, would love to hear too. So, you know, you spend your entire career like building tools for designers, developers. What does your own process kind of look like? Um, you know, when you're like working at Figma. Are you using Figma a lot yourself? Are you using other tools as well in terms of like making kind of like, you know, again, your product design

The Evolving Design Process with AI Tools

SPEAKER_02 25:57

product?

SPEAKER_00 25:57

Yeah, I mean, it's changed a lot too in like the last year, especially with so many new AI tools. So I would say the current process is I do spend a very significant amount of my life in Fig Jam, you know, working on Gants, working on brainstorms and jams with people on the team. Fig jam is kind of like the default thing when we're in a meeting and we're like starting to talk about something. And I'm like, okay, let's just get into a fig jam and everyone can drop their ideas so we get everything captured here. Um and what's cool is I'd say in the last sort of six months or so, a lot of the way I've worked with Fig Jam has changed where if I'm prepping for like an executive review or I'm prepping for roadmap planning and I want to create a fig jam. I used to go and I would spend hours like creating the structure and you know format so it's easy to read and flow through. Now you can do all of that with the Figma MCP. And like I'm not just plugging this because it's like part of Figma, it's actually so great. It has saved me hours where I can go into Claude and I can say, like, hey, I want to create a Fig Jam for this brainstorming session. Here's what I'm trying to accomplish. Go make me a fig jam to outline this. It will go and create a first pass fig jam. And honestly, it does like a way better job than I do by myself trying to make something like have a good aesthetic and be easy to understand. And then I go and I like tweak it with the right content and all of that. So that's my new kind of workflow for like PM general process. But the other thing that we did at Figma was, you know, we have a PRD or a brief culture where when you're working on a project, you write a brief for it. Um and one thing that we've built, you know, since AI has exploded is there's a couple of my coworkers uh they're there who have built this sort of like PMOS for internal uh product managers at Figma. And so these guys, Janen, Lawrence, and Ezra, they created this process where we now have a set of different skills in Claude that are all like product PM skills at Figma. Um I think they did a talk on this at config and it was awesome. I was unfortunately backstage because I was hosting all day, but I didn't go watch it. But we've been using it for like probably the last four months on our PM team. And so now there's like a brief skill. There's like a a skill to see what a the executive team would say to your proposal or what would their reactions be that's like generally trained on who they are. Um and it has so many other things, and you can also write your own skills and push to like have them add to this PMOS. So one of the ones I made, which is like, I don't think they're gonna approve it, is it's called Where Was I? And it you just give it a channel and you're like, Where was I? or all of Slack and it will go and scan all of your Slack messages to see where you like fell off a thread. Like, oh yeah, you were gonna respond to Bridger, but you left him hanging. Might want to do that one. And it'll order it by like how long they've been left. And so that's that's I've been using it weekly because I just don't want to like I don't mean to, but occasionally you get distracted.

SPEAKER_01 28:50

Well, and now everybody's building faster than ever before. So I feel like it's resulting in like more conversations, more action items, more emails, more slacks. It's just yeah, so you need something, but you also need help just keeping on top of all this.

SPEAKER_00 29:02

Keeping on top of everything. Yeah, and this this other person on my team, she's our head of um like enterprise and scale. And you know, a lot of times we build features and then we kind of have to go through this audit of like, how will it impact our enterprise customers? So she wrote a skill for it. So you write your brief, you send it through her skill, and then you get feedback on like, oh, you should think about admins, we'll kind of want to give feedback on this or that. And so just helping us create a better sort of like first proposal for things. Yeah, and then at Figma, it's just very slack, fig jam, and now like MCP heavy. But yeah, it's it works. Our little mess sometimes works. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:38

I and switching gears a little bit, uh, being a senior operator inside of a high growth company like Figma is its own sort of form of building. And because the company has gone through so many like external events like the IPO and everything happening with AI, it takes a certain type of person to be able to like, you know, keep growing and thriving in a growing company. So what do you think are sort

Key Attributes for Thriving in High-Growth Environments

SPEAKER_01 29:59

of the top attributes for someone uh as you're looking at like even hiring at Figma? Like, what are some of the people that you think really thrive in those environments versus struggle?

SPEAKER_00 30:08

Yeah, I mean, I think attention to detail and grit are like two that just are like table stakes. And, you know, I think being having the personality of I'm going to fail a lot and I'm not gonna like get set back, I'm gonna keep coming back with new ideas is something that is important. Like as product managers, we're constantly like pitching and trying to exert our will on our company and the world. Yes. And like 90% of the time it's a no, right? Like 90% of the time it's either not the right time for this thing to come into the world or we have other priorities or something else. And so I think just like taking that in stride and being like, okay, not not the one is important rather than being like, no, this is the most amazing thing, or if it is the most amazing thing, getting creative about how you bring it to the table. Uh whether that's like having a prototype ready for people to react to so that it's more real or just something so it'll kind of depend on the thing. But yeah, I think you just have had to shift a little bit with how we're building. And yeah, sorry, I feel like I went a little sidetracked and I hope that answers the question. Yeah, definitely.

SPEAKER_02 31:13

Yeah. No, absolutely. And then, you know, you do so much, obviously, like on the product and design side of things, but what are some of the things that you like to do just personally to help you stay grounded? You know, I'm sure after config probably like decompressing a little bit, like you were saying

Maintaining Balance: Personal Practices for Well-Being

SPEAKER_02 31:29

as well.

SPEAKER_00 31:29

Yeah, I think like I I do think I'm slightly addicted to the high velocity thing. And I think a lot of founders are as well. Like, I love being busy and having, you know, things that are coming. The the to-do list is a little long, like it could be shorter, but like if the to-do list has nothing on it, like we have a problem. And so I think just generally, like, that's my operation. But I do think there are like small things to try to like keep yourself high functioning and not burnt out and and in a good headspace. And so for me, it's like a big thing is like being outside. I have two dogs, and so like my partner and I will take them to the beach and we try to do that at least every day, whether it's like morning or night. And it's like 10 minutes. It's not like it's not like we're there for an hour or anything, but just like having the fresh air and that perspective. And then, you know, sitting and having a beer with my partner, he's a PM as well, which is a whole other conversation. But you know, we have a lot of shared experiences at our work, and so sharing notes and sharing ideas and jamming on things, like uh, that's huge for me. And you know, it's setting that's like casual. We're like, you know, having a beer and debriefing from the day. It's not like I need to prepare for a review. But yeah, I think just like kind of popping out and also remembering that even though these things are really important and it's a lot of pressure, like I I love the movie Everything Everywhere All at Once. I don't know if you guys we are just like little things on a rock in this in space. Like our problems are not that big. And so if you can kind of just remember that like the world is like moving around you and you don't have to be super stressed about this thing all of the time, it's okay to take 10 minutes to like gather yourself and then you can go back to it. That actually helps me a lot is just to kind of like pop out a bit and feel a little existential about my role in the world. Yeah, totally.

SPEAKER_01 33:16

Um, and speaking of sort of like keeping yourself grounded outside of work, our research showed that you also make wine under your own label. Is that right?

Exploring the Journey of Wine Making

SPEAKER_00 33:24

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 33:25

That's yeah, that's super cool. What has that been like in school? Yeah, what has that sort of taught you?

SPEAKER_00 33:29

Yeah, so this started a couple of years ago. Um, just like wanted a new goal for the year of something to learn. And so I went and did like a Somalier course. And you know, it was cool, but it wasn't I I didn't really want to be a Somalier. It was educational. But then my partner and I kind of started getting into it together. And so we found a way to get some grapes and we made wine at home for the last two years, and it was super fun, just an experiment. We watched YouTube videos, like you know, if you have like a craft or something that you want to like try, this was this was that for us. But this year we're scaling up and we're like launching a label, we're buying grapes, we're gonna buy three tons of grapes. Oh my gosh. Wow. Yeah. So we're going from like made at home in you know, slightly unsanitary way, which is also a questionable, we have wine, to like legit. We are we're working with a a different winemaker who has all the equipment. So we'll see how it goes. We're it's kind of a new hobby this year, scaling up in this way. Um can you tell us what the label is? Yeah, we're gonna keep an eye out for it. Our label is called Deep House Wines. Cool. And it's kind of uh we both love house music. Uh, my partner more than me, but we call our house the deep house because we live in like the deep end of Anderson Valley. And that's like we're that's what this wine region is called. And so it's kind of like a double play on words, but I love that. Yeah, yeah, I'll drop it.

SPEAKER_02 34:52

Yes, yeah, let us know. We'll add it in the show notes, people can like take a look as well. So amazing. Yeah, cool.

SPEAKER_01 34:58

We'll have to have your wine at a council event soon too. Yeah, definitely.

SPEAKER_00 35:03

I would love that. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_02 35:06

Cool. Well, would love to kind of transition us over into our rapid pot um fire playbook. We're just gonna have like really quick questions and you can just say the first thing that pops to mind. Um it could be one word or just a couple of words, but you know, whatever pops to mind first. And Amber is going to kick us off.

Rapid Fire Insights on Design and Product Management

SPEAKER_01 35:24

Awesome. So, what's the most underrated skill for someone building at the intersection of AI and design?

SPEAKER_00 35:29

I think like going, like it'd be great if you could go to art school or like just have depth on different types of creations. I think we talked a little bit about this, but it's like it's so easy now to get what you ask for that knowing what to ask for is the main thing to focus on. So I would say like go read a book or like I don't know, take a class or you know, learn a trade that's like maybe feels kind of tangential to what you do because it'll help you create something that you didn't know how to ask for before.

SPEAKER_02 35:58

And then what's one habit? Um, I might, you know, I might have answered this earlier, but what's one habit that keeps you grounded during high velocity product cycles?

SPEAKER_00 36:05

Yeah, I think like like we said, sort of just like popping out, going to the beach, hanging out with my partner, um, making sure you're taking time that for things that are not on a screen and are in the real world and physical, I think is the right thing. Yeah, and just taking care of your yourself and your mind. Those are like the two biggest things for me. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:22

And then what's a book, person or or idea that most shaped how you think about product?

SPEAKER_00 36:27

Well, yeah. I mean, I I used to be a bigger reader, but so I can't say there's like one book in particular, but I would say like people-wise, I've had some really incredible managers at Figma and before who cared a lot about me as a person and also like my career goals and my personal interests. So that has really shaped how I thought about what I want to do and who I want to be. I've also had amazing folks who give really intense feedback, uh, which has, you know, been hard to receive at times, but I respect them and they're really amazing builders. And so getting the feedback from them is like a little, a little gift for then me to get better. And so those people, and like I would say my family, my my mom is a very entrepreneurial person, and she gave me feedback on how I did at config, which I I appreciate. Nice. And you know, just like people who want you to like keep growing and keep pushing, but who are also there to like meet you when you're not the best version of yourself. So those would be the things for me of how it has shaped me. And then yeah, I've just always been kind of a I was a precocious child. So leaning into that childlike play and just like creating a bunch of things and seeing what sticks, I think that's helped me in my career and product too.

SPEAKER_02 37:39

Nice. And then what's uh one controversial belief you hold where design tools are going in the next three to five years?

SPEAKER_00 37:46

I mean, I think I don't think it's that controversial the week after config, but I feel like people think so you know that design's dead or whatever, and like that it's gonna all be front end and forward and code first. And I think that code is like a material that you're gonna use in your work, and sometimes it's the final state, and sometimes it's where you're starting from, and it needs to then be a design and artisanally managed pixel by pixel to get it to that right place. And so I I don't I don't personally think that's controversial, but like I feel like others hold different beliefs. But yeah, I think that the people who refine their craft and design craft are gonna be the folks who are shaping the products that we have in the future. So yeah, I'm excited about that.

SPEAKER_01 38:29

And what belief about building have you changed your mind on in the last two years?

SPEAKER_00 38:32

Yeah, I mean, I think when I started my career at least, I thought it was a it was a good time to be a generalist. And it was like if you were a dr generalist, like you could kind of do anything. And I definitely see myself as being a generalist, but I do think that being a specialist is like very important. And I I think like being a specialist who has depth in an area like art or whatever it is will help you. Um, like for example, my sister is a as a photographer. I'm like, oh, you should try Figma. You could make the coolest shaders because you know all about lighting and all about how to get the perfect shot. And if you could translate that into an effect, that would be so cool. I mean, so I think like specialists are here and if they can use the new tools we have, like AI and things, what they make is going to be super, super cool. So I think we're going into like a specialist era, which I'm excited about.

SPEAKER_02 39:21

Yeah, I mean it's definitely something that we think about here a lot at the council as well. So awesome. Well, thank you so much for uh for joining us. Where can people follow you and your work and where can they find you?

SPEAKER_00 39:31

Yeah, I'm I'm chronically online. So if you are on Twitter, you can find me there, I'd say like for work things and yeah, LinkedIn too. And then I will share the Deep House Wines website when I make it. Amazing. We'll link it below. Now I have all these like fun shaders to play with. So I wanted to wait till I had that.

SPEAKER_01 39:50

Yeah, it'll be an awesome label. I can't wait to see it. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 39:53

Yeah, it'll be cool.

unknown 39:55

Awesome.

SPEAKER_00 39:55

Well, thank you so much for joining us. Yeah, thank you for having me. It was so fun to get to hang out, and I'm excited to keep doing stuff with the council and meet some of the founders. And yeah, it's just been so awesome to be part of this community.

SPEAKER_01 40:07

Yeah, likewise. We're so lucky to have you a part of it. Yes. Thank you for it.

SPEAKER_00 40:10

Thanks, Georgia.

SPEAKER_02 40:12

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 40:12

Thank you.

The Power of Community in Design

SPEAKER_02 40:13

That was such a great conversation with Georgia. Love her first builder background. Um, but yeah, would love to hear kind of what stood out to you from our conversation with her.

SPEAKER_01 40:21

Yeah, agreed. I feel, you know, happy that we were able to have her on our podcast, but also that she's a member of our angel community. And yeah, I think the thing that stuck out for me like right away was just, you know, we've admired Figma from afar, like having invested in multiple companies that have sort of created a community and space for a power user. Because I think people talk about, you know, how Figma created collaboration and was kind of one of the first SaaS tools to really nail collaboration, other than the obvious like Google Suite and stuff. But I think they don't get as much attention for the community aspect where you have this role designer that, you know, historically has just been like a member of the team and then but they didn't have a place to connect and feel like, hey, I could just be myself with other designers and be super proud of being dis a designer together. And so as she was talking about config and how it sort of felt like camp and like everybody's kind of getting together from all over the place, and also it's in this weird moment where they're all just hearing like design is dead, you don't matter, and like all these negative things, just coming to be together and being like, there's power in that, and this is how we see the future, and like that's what we should be talking about. And, you know, we're gonna lead the charge our way. It just reminded me of how powerful that is as a go-to-market playbook. I mean, we've seen that in some of the companies we've invested in. I know GCAI is doing their GCAI summit where they bring together like general counsels from all over the world and definitely all over the United States to come and be proud of being an in-house general counsel. And, you know, there's all these things that, you know, companies do sometimes that feel transactional. But then the companies that do it really well and sort of create a space for their champions to come together and know exactly who their champions are do really well. You know, we're seeing that in Joyful Health with people who own their own medical practices just across the board. Um, it's a really powerful community lever and those that it can really create the brand in the space and go the extra mile versus just like throwing it together and be that place for years and decades is huge. So I thought that was just like really cool to sort of see from the inside, you know, how they're thinking about it.

SPEAKER_02 42:19

Yeah. And I think it's also kind of like meeting this. I mean, we've seen this trend like increase, like especially in the last couple of years post-COVID, where people are really starving for that in real life experience as well and that community experience. And so it's just, I think like everyone's kind of like leaning really into that, which is great to see. Um and then the other thing for me um was just the fact that like how much she resonates with our first builder thesis as like when she talked about her founding PM

Entrepreneurial Mindsets in Non-Founders

SPEAKER_02 42:47

experience and how, you know, she was like the first five employees that were there. Yes, she wanted to be a PM and she wanted to take on that traditional role of a PM. Um, but she also wanted to take on more like the marketing, the operations. And it just shows you that, you know, not every single operator is necessarily a first builder archetype, but it is a certain type of person that truly is wanting to do that. Um, that, you know, be able is is able to like really survive and thrive in those environments. Um, and then can take it on from, you know, early stage small startups all the way to growth stage, like like you know, like Figma as well.

SPEAKER_01 43:26

Yeah, agreed. I think a lot of people take for granted that they might be in an entrepreneurial role right now, even though they don't have the title of entrepreneur, they don't have the title of business owner or founder. Um, but they're getting a lot of those same puzzle pieces in that experience that they have right now. So, and you know, people who they're just naturally driven toward it. Like she didn't want to do a role where she can only do one thing. She wanted to be in a role like that. And I thought it was also no surprise that she grew up around entrepreneurial people too. It sounds like a lot of her family members were, you know, running their own businesses at some point. And I think being tech, we live in a bubble where it's like, oh, everything has to be venture scale business. But like honestly, if you are raised by farmers, you were raised by entrepreneurs. If you're raised by small business restaurant owners, you were raised by entrepreneurs. And a lot of these people, um, you know, they're sitting in these roles at big companies and they have that entrepreneur hat on because they grew up that way. And they're just they're thriving in those roles, and maybe someday they'll spin on and found companies of their own that are in the venture scale space. So I'm super bullish on on operating.

SPEAKER_02 44:26

Absolutely. And that's one of the questions I wish that we had asked her if she was ever interested in founding her own company. You know, obviously besides her wine company as well.

SPEAKER_01 44:34

So yeah, she's already she's already taking little steps. So yeah.

SPEAKER_02 44:37

Uh we'll have to keep an eye out for sure.

SPEAKER_01 44:39

Definitely. All right. Well, if you enjoyed this episode, leave us a review, share it with a friend, and subscribe to First Builders wherever you get your podcasts.

SPEAKER_02 44:49

Awesome. And don't forget to subscribe to the Council newsletter for more founder stories and frameworks you can apply to your own company. Awesome. Next time. See ya. Bye.