{"id":46730,"date":"2025-12-10T23:24:06","date_gmt":"2025-12-10T23:24:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/isafespend.com\/?p=46730"},"modified":"2025-12-10T23:24:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-10T23:24:07","slug":"tech-ceo-fixed-his-bad-management-skills-to-build-a-19b-company","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/isafespend.com\/?p=46730","title":{"rendered":"Tech CEO Fixed His &#8216;Bad&#8217; Management Skills to Build a $19B Company"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<div class=\"tw:border-b tw:border-slate-200 tw:pb-4\">\n<h2 class=\"tw:mt-0 tw:mb-1 tw:text-2xl tw:font-heading\">Key Takeaways<\/h2>\n<ul class=\"tw:font-normal tw:font-serif tw:text-base tw:marker:text-slate-400\">\n<li>Dylan Field is the CEO of Figma, a $19.45 billion design tool company used by 95% of the Fortune 500.<\/li>\n<li>Before co-founding Figma in 2012, he had no experience being a manager.<\/li>\n<li>Field describes himself as \u201cbad at all of it\u201d at first, but he learned how to be an effective manager over time. <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<p>Dylan Field found out the hard way that being a good leader doesn\u2019t necessarily mean being a good manager.<\/p>\n<p>The Figma CEO assumed that because he had always been a leader, he was automatically ready to manage \u2014 only to learn that management was its own separate skill set.<\/p>\n<p>On an episode of the <i>First Time Founders<\/i> podcast that aired earlier this week, Field explained that he \u201cdefinitely did not know\u201d how to be a good manager at first. Before he co-founded Figma, a $19.45 billion design company used by 95% of the Fortune 500, he interned at companies like LinkedIn and Flipboard. He had never been a manager before co-founding the company in 2012. Figma now has a 1,600-person workforce.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe good news is if you\u2019re a first-time manager, it\u2019s all very learnable,\u201d Field said on the podcast. \u201cIt\u2019ll feel like muscle memory eventually.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><b>Related: <\/b><b>Instead of Cuts, This $28 Billion Dollar Design Company\u2019s Response to AI Is To Hire More People<\/b><\/p>\n<p>Field listed the managerial basics: knowing where his team was, running effective one-on-ones, building relationships, setting clear goals and holding people accountable.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think I was bad at all of it,\u201d Field said.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Dylan Field. Credit: Michael Nagle\/Bloomberg via Getty Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Investors also added to the pressure by voicing concerns about Figma quickly getting a product to market, he said. Field co-founded Figma in 2012, but it took the company three years to ship a beta product. Opening up the product to the public took another year, and adding a paid plan took until 2017, marking five years from idea to full product launch.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPlease don\u2019t take away that you should take five years to launch a company,\u201d Field said on the podcast. \u201cYou\u2019ll be dead. We are the outlier, from a different time.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><b>Related: <\/b><b>These Billionaire Founders Famously Hate Being a CEO: \u2018Like Staring Into the Abyss and Eating Glass\u2019<\/b><\/p>\n<p>Field said that what was \u201ctremendously helpful\u201d for growth was hiring the company\u2019s first manager, Sho Kuwamoto, who started as Figma\u2019s director of engineering in 2015. Field \u201clearned a ton\u201d from Kuwamoto about managerial skills.<\/p>\n<p>Over time, Field got better at management, practicing skills like clear goal-setting, until they became instinctual.<\/p>\n<p>Field\u2019s experience is similar to other founders, like Dustin Moskovitz, who have had to learn how to effectively manage employees. Moskovitz co-founded Facebook and Asana, leading Asana for 15 years as CEO. In an interview in October, he said that the CEO role was \u201cexhausting\u201d and didn\u2019t suit his introverted personality.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBy personality, I don\u2019t like to manage teams, and it wasn\u2019t my intention when we started Asana,\u201d he explained. \u201cThen one thing led to another, and I was CEO.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><b>Related: <\/b><b>Airbnb\u2019s CEO Says He Personally Manages 40 to 50 Employees as Direct Reports<\/b><\/p>\n<p><i>Ready to explore everything on Entrepreneur.com? December is your free pass to Entrepreneur+. Enjoy complete access, no strings attached.<\/i><i> <\/i><i>Claim your free month.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"tw:border-b tw:border-slate-200 tw:pb-4\">\n<h2 class=\"tw:mt-0 tw:mb-1 tw:text-2xl tw:font-heading\">Key Takeaways<\/h2>\n<ul class=\"tw:font-normal tw:font-serif tw:text-base tw:marker:text-slate-400\">\n<li>Dylan Field is the CEO of Figma, a $19.45 billion design tool company used by 95% of the Fortune 500.<\/li>\n<li>Before co-founding Figma in 2012, he had no experience being a manager.<\/li>\n<li>Field describes himself as \u201cbad at all of it\u201d at first, but he learned how to be an effective manager over time. <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<p>Dylan Field found out the hard way that being a good leader doesn\u2019t necessarily mean being a good manager.<\/p>\n<p>The Figma CEO assumed that because he had always been a leader, he was automatically ready to manage \u2014 only to learn that management was its own separate skill set.<\/p>\n<div class=\"tw:justify-center tw:bg-gray-100 tw:flex tw:flex-col tw:sm:flex-row tw:rounded-lg tw:p-6 tw:align-middle tw:sm:text-left tw:text-center tw:mt-4 not-prose\">\n<div class=\"tw:flex tw:flex-col tw:justify-center tw:align-middle tw:mr-0 tw:sm:mr-16\">\n<p class=\"tw:text-sm tw:leading-5 tw:my-0 tw:font-sans\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tThe rest of this article is locked.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p class=\"tw:text-xl tw:text-black tw:font-bold tw:leading-5 tw:my-1 tw:font-sans\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tJoin Entrepreneur<span class=\"tw:text-yellow-300\">+<\/span> today for access.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Read the full article <a href=\"https:\/\/www.entrepreneur.com\/business-news\/tech-ceo-fixed-his-bad-management-skills-to-build-a-19b\/500703\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" rel=\"nofollow\">here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Key Takeaways Dylan Field is the CEO of Figma, a $19.45 billion design tool company used by 95% of the Fortune 500. Before co-founding Figma in 2012, he had no experience being a manager. Field describes himself as \u201cbad at all of it\u201d at first, but he learned how to be an effective manager over<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":46731,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[32],"class_list":{"0":"post-46730","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-make-money","8":"tag-featured"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v20.12 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Tech CEO Fixed His &#039;Bad&#039; Management Skills to Build a $19B Company | iSafeSpend<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Key Takeaways Dylan Field is the CEO of Figma, a $19.45 billion design tool company used by 95% of the Fortune 500. Before co-founding Figma in 2012, he\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/isafespend.com\/?p=46730\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Tech CEO Fixed His &#039;Bad&#039; Management Skills to Build a $19B Company | iSafeSpend\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Key Takeaways Dylan Field is the CEO of Figma, a $19.45 billion design tool company used by 95% of the Fortune 500. 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