Being a generalist is so in right now.
“This was happening before AI, but it’s happening even more with AI,” Figma’s CEO Dylan Field said at a talk with Y Combinator published on Saturday. “There’s something about AI that empowers generalist behavior.”
Field said that areas that were seen as distinct phases in the product development process are now merging.
“Product is also blurring with design and development and potentially even parts of research,” he said. “All this is becoming less distinct, and it’s all kind of coming together more.”
In what was seen as the hottest listing of the year, Figma went public on July 31 at a $19.3 billion valuation, three years after Adobe was set to acquire the design software startup for almost the same amount. By market close that day, Figma’s stock had more than tripled its initial public offering price, valuing the company at nearly $68 billion, giving its Silicon Valley investors a big payday. It brought to an end a three-year tech IPO dry spell, and the company threw a massive block party in front of the New York Stock Exchange.
The company’s valuation has since slid to $38 billion.
At the YC talk, Field also said designers would become more important with AI.
“In this age of AI, if you really believe that development gets easier and it’s more simple to create software, it’s faster to create software. Then what is your differentiator?” he said. “It’s design, it’s craft, it’s attention to detail.”
Field added that designers will have more leverage in the future and more will step into founder and leadership roles.
“There will be a lot of curation involved and a lot of leadership will be needed from designers,” he said. “So they have to step up.”
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Figma did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
Field is far from the first tech leader to extoll the value of generalists. Silicon Valley leaders have been recommending that more people become generalists instead of specialists as AI changes the nature and need for certain careers.
Earlier this month, the billionaire venture capitalist Vinod Khosla said he suggests young people don’t plan their career around any one job.
“You have to optimize your career for flexibility, not a single profession,” he said on a podcast. “That’s the most important advice because you don’t know what will be around.”
Andreessen Horowitz founder Marc Andreessen said he advised people outside domains like biotech and AI Foundation models to go broader instead of deeper.
“I think for most fields, though, now with these new tools, I would probably bet more on basically people who are able to be broad,” he said on a May podcast.
“Which is to say basically knowing something about a lot of different aspects of life and how the world works.”
