The CEO billionaire of Figma, 33, says that he tells his team to ignore the volatility of the equity prices: “We do not control this number, we control the entries”

In his first podcast interview since the design software company has become public, the 33 -year -old billionaire CEO told Podcast Access Hosts of Vox Media, organized by Alex Heath and Ellis Hamburger, whom he reminded his team to remain based on the excitement of their initial public offer in July.

“I have already said to the team, even during – literally the day of the IPO – (and) after, you know, it is as if the number increases decreases. And we do not control this number, we control the entries. And we have to educate the market,” said Field. “The market does not leave Figma’s understanding door, so it is our work to ensure that they understand our business and that will take time.”

The philosophy of Field has proven to be premonitory given the performance of Figma’s volatile stocks. The company estimated its IPO at $ 33 per share, but saw the shares rise to $ 115.50 on the first day of negotiation – an increase of 250% which estimated the company to nearly $ 68 billion. Since then, however, the action has experienced significant turbulence, down more than 50% of its peak following the first report on the company’s profits in September.

The public beginnings of Figma marked one of the most important technological stock market IPOs of the year, coming after prolonged drought in the technological lists that started at the beginning of 2022. The company, which makes collaborative design software used by the main customers, including Google, Microsoft and Netflix, said $ 749 million 48% year.

The focus put by Field on the “input control” rather than on the fluctuations in equity prices has become particularly relevant because Figma takes up the challenges of being a public enterprise while investing massively in artificial intelligence capacities. In the company’s recent call for profits, Field told investors to expect “important investments” in AI efforts, even if this approach does not immediately resonate with all shareholders.

The long -term perspective of the CEO seems to be anchored in the fundamental mission of Figma, which he described in the founding letter of the IPO of the company as helping the teams to “eliminate the gap between imagination and reality”.

From the child actor to billionaire technology

Like so many leaders of Silicon Valley, Field has made an unconventional trip – and, like Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates and Larry Ellison, he also left a prestigious university to launch what would prove to be a transformative company. Raised in Penngrove, California, Field learned to use his family computer at the age of three, and his father noticed that he had been able to solve algebra problems at the age of six. Field was also involved in the arts, appearing in television advertisements for Etoys and Microsoft Windows XP in the early 90s.

Field attended Brown University in 2009, studying computer science and organizing hackathons. His entrepreneurial training led him to continue prestigious courses in Microsoft, Linkedin and Flipboard rather than focusing only on courses.

The central time came in 2012 when Field asked the Peter Thiel Stock Exchange, a subsidy of $ 100,000 grants young entrepreneurs willing to abandon the university. Despite the initial reserves of his parents, Field was selected from 500 candidates.

“Here is this 19 -year -old, who had a lot of clarity on what he wanted to do – democratize the world of design and provide tools to everyone,” said Danny Rimer, a general partner of Ventures Indexes who later invested in Figma, Fortune In 2022. “He had this ambition to abandon from the university to continue this crazy idea, where it is clear that he will not be able to offer a product for more than two years.”

Field’s decision to leave Brown University has proven premonitory. Working alongside Evan Wallace, an teaching assistant he met in Brown, Field spent four years developing Figma before its public launch in 2016. Subsequent growth of the company made Field one of the youngest technology billionaires, with a net value estimated at around 2.9 billion dollars, according to in Forbes.

You can look at the Field interview with the access below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-meb_qs-v5q

For this story, Fortune Used a generative AI to help an initial project. An editor checked the accuracy of the information before the publication.

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