Dylan Field

Dylan Field (born 1992) is an American technology executive and co-founder of Figma, a web-based vector graphics editing software company.

Field founded Figma in 2012 with Evan Wallace, who he had met while the two were computer science students at Brown University.

In 2012, Field received a Thiel Fellowship—a $100,000 grant conditioned on his leaving school to begin working full-time on the company.

[5] His father worked as a respiratory therapist at Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital and his mother as a resource specialist teacher at Thomas Page Elementary School.

[5] Field's father told a Santa Rosa area newspaper in 2012 that Dylan found middle school so boring that "he mostly hung out with a janitor, who was kind of a math savant.

[2] He also participated in the arts as a child, acting with credits in TV ads for eToys.com and for Windows XP, and taking an interest in design starting in middle school.

[8] He also worked with social media researcher Danah Boyd, who ultimately wrote one of Field's letters of recommendation for college.

[7] Afterward, Field began to doubt his plan to major in computer science and math, so he took spring semester off during his junior year to pursue a six-month internship at Flipboard in Palo Alto, this time as a technical product manager.

[2][7] Around that time, Field met Evan Wallace, another computer science undergraduate studying at Brown; the two decided they wanted to start a company together.

[6] One year ahead of Field at Brown, Wallace studied graphics, and was a teaching assistant in the computer science department.

Field said in that interview that he intended to go back to Brown one day, noting the school allowed leaves of absence for up to five years.

[8] The company was described in a 2012 article by The Brown Daily Herald more vaguely as "a technology startup that will allow users to creatively express themselves online.

[7] A 2021 article reported that the situation had grown dire enough that the senior members of his team eventually "staged a sort of managerial intervention."

[7] Field recalled that he experienced a "wake up call" when investor John Lilly turned down the chance to invest in Figma's seed round and said, "I don't think you know what you're doing yet.

"[7][8] Field sought out further advice and improved the company's pitch; Lilly ultimately led Figma's US$14 million funding round in December 2015, its largest up until that point.

Field told the Business Insider reporter that the long availability as a free product helped it acquire its first customers.