Design Startup Figma’s CEO Is Now A Billionaire

Forbes

Update: After this video was published, Forbes has updated the figures to reflect that Figma’s stock closed at $115.50 per share Thursday, or more than triple the $33 per share IPO listing price. That pushed Field’s fortune up to an estimated $6.4 billion and made his cofounder Evan Wallace a billionaire, worth an estimated $3.1 billion.  Antitrust pressure killed Adobe’s $20 billion takeover for design startup Figma. The company, which went public on the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday, is now worth nearly $70 billion on a fully diluted basis.  Read the full story on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/iainmartin/2025/07/31/thwarted-by-regulators-dylan-field-vindicated-by-wall-street-design-startup-figmas-ceo-is-now-a-billionaire/  Subscribe to FORBES: https://www.youtube.com/user/Forbes?sub_confirmation=1  Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:  https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript  Stay Connected Forbes newsletters: https://newsletters.editorial.forbes.com Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes More From Forbes:  http://forbes.com  Forbes covers the intersection of entrepreneurship, wealth, technology, business and lifestyle with a focus on people and success.

Transcript

00:00Today on Forbes, thwarted by regulators, vindicated by Wall Street,

00:05Design Startup Figma's CEO is now a billionaire.

00:10When staff at San Francisco-based Design Startup Figma returned from the Christmas holiday in

00:16January 2024, they were met with sobering news. A $20 billion takeover by Adobe,

00:22which had been stuck in 15 months of regulatory purgatory, had fallen apart amid antitrust

00:28concerns. In the wake of that news, co-founder and CEO Dylan Field pushed the reset button for

00:35the startup that aims to be the Google Docs for Design. Figma slashed its internal valuation to

00:41just $10 billion and offered employees a voluntary exit package of three-month severance. Only around

00:484% of the company's 1,300 employees took the buyout. The move, insiders and investors say,

00:55was meant to anchor the company and prepare it for the long-term future as an independent startup.

01:01Figma investor Mamoun Hamid, a partner at venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins, says,

01:06quote, the net effect was that you had a lot of extremely motivated folks

01:10who have been working relentlessly to deliver new products.

01:14Nearly 18 months later, Field's gamble paid off. Figma and its investors were set to raise $1.2

01:22billion yesterday, Thursday, by selling shares to the public at a more than $19 billion valuation

01:28on a fully diluted basis, including options and other equity awards outstanding.

01:33The tech IPO is among the five biggest in its sector this year.

01:38One of the biggest winners of that listing is Field himself.

01:42At Thursday's IPO price, he is now worth an estimated $1.8 billion,

01:46but that may only be the first chapter of his payout. Over the next 10 years,

01:52the 33-year-old could unlock additional stock currently worth $1.3 billion at the IPO price

01:58before taxes between the compensation plans awarded to him in 2021 and 2025 if he remains

02:05with Figma and the company's stock price quadruples to $130 per share.

02:10Adobe had offered him a similarly historic retention package.

02:13The structure reflects a trend of aggressive long-term incentive plans akin to Elon Musk's

02:19$56 billion Tesla Moonshot grant, which a Delaware court voided in January 2024

02:25after ruling that the process underlying the award was not fair due to Musk's control over the board.

02:31Musk has appealed the ruling.

02:34Field might have taken Figma public, but he still exercises a huge amount of control

02:38over the startup he co-founded in 2013.

02:42The terms of the initial public offering give Field the right to vote his co-founder

02:45Evan Wallace's shares, worth nearly $900 million at the IPO price.

02:51Field and Wallace will own 99% of Figma's Class B shares,

02:54which carry 15 times as many votes as the Class A shares held by other investors.

03:00All told, that gives Field, a Forbes 30 Under 30 alum,

03:04control of around 74% of the company's voting rights,

03:08including nearly 26% tied to his former Brown University classmate Wallace's shares.

03:14Wallace would already be worth an estimated $1.3 billion himself,

03:18based on the IPO price, had he not donated a third of his shares in June

03:22to the non-profit Marin Community Foundation,

03:25which works to fight homelessness, according to Axios.

03:29Wallace, who previously served as Figma's chief technology officer,

03:32left the company in 2021.

03:35Field, Wallace, and Figma declined to comment.

03:39The listing marks a remarkable comeback for Figma

03:42from the collapse of its $20 billion takeover by Adobe in 2023.

03:47At the time, Adobe's CEO, Shantanu Narayan,

03:51branded the deal as, quote,

03:52transformational for the publisher of Photoshop, Premiere Pro, and InDesign.

03:57Adobe investors, however, balked at paying a sum

04:00that valued Figma at twice its last valuation

04:02and at around 50 times the startup's $400 million of revenue.

04:07The deal was also met with concern by antitrust regulators in the United States,

04:11the United Kingdom, and Europe,

04:13not to mention Figma fans,

04:15many of whom had bailed on Adobe's own costly tools.

04:18The acquisition, which was first announced in September 2022,

04:23was ultimately called off in late December 2023

04:25after the British antitrust watchdog

04:28warned that the deal could reduce competition for design software.

04:33For full coverage, check out Ian Martin's piece on Forbes.com.

04:39This is Kieran Meadows from Forbes.

04:41Thanks for tuning in.

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