Figma CEO Dylan Field delivered a clear message to his team before and even the day of his company’s Wall Street debut: Focus on what you can control, not the market’s whims.
In his first podcast interview since the design software company went public, the 33-year-old billionaire CEO told the hosts of Vox Media’s Access podcast, Alex Heath and Ellis Hamburger, that he reminded his team to stay grounded amid the excitement of Figma’s initial public offering in July.
“I told the team before, even during—literally on the day of IPO—[and] after, you know, it’s like, number goes up, number goes down. And we don’t control that number, we control the inputs. And we have to educate the market,” Field said. “The market doesn’t come out of the gate understanding Figma, so it’s our job to make sure that they understand our business, and that’s going to take time.”
Field’s philosophy proved prescient given Figma’s volatile stock performance. The company priced its IPO at $33 per share but saw shares soar to $115.50 on the first day of trading—a 250% jump that valued the company at nearly $68 billion. Since then, however, the stock has experienced significant turbulence, falling more than 50% from its peak following the company’s first earnings report in September.
