In this interview, Figma CPO Yuhki Yamashita reflects on his journey as a PM and what he has learned trying to build products that people love.

Peter Yang interviewed Yuhki Yamashita about building FigJam AI, creating a culture where PMs and designers love their craft, making design accessible to everyone, and balancing new and power user needs. Most of Yuhki’s advice in this interview is for PMs, but it still applies to any product designer. (The interview is paywalled, but there is a lot of good stuff in the preview.)

Love this story about FigJam’s early days: ​“We had a meeting with our board two months before we were going to launch FigJam. The board asked us what our differentiator was since there were many other whiteboard tools. And Dylan said, ​“Well, it’s fun!” But then we realized that the product wasn’t fun enough. So the FigJam team ran a sprint called ​“FunJam” to come up with all the playful features that you see today like cursor chat, emotes, and more. So you’re absolutely right – fun was a core principle. Most workplace tools are a little boring and confine you in a box. We want to give you an inviting canvas with many lightweight ways to express yourself.”

Figma collaborated with Adobe on a video exploring some of the ideas for the post-acquisition future — Firefly in FigJam and Figma, linked assets between Figma and Creative Suit, multiplayer in Adobe apps, Figma prototypes + After Effects, shared design systems, and more. For more ideas, see threads from Noah Levin, Tom Lowry, Sho Kuwamoto, and Luis.

I’m a generalist and occasionally do different kinds of design work, so having a tighter integration between Figma and Adobe apps would be pretty neat. Adobe Fonts would be my #1, but I wish I could reuse a color palette and assets from Figma while working on my book layout in InDesign. While designing a photo-heavy website, I went back and forth between Figma and Lightroom experimenting with post-processing. The new Photoshop on the web also makes so much sense as a native integration. Count me in as a Figma × Adobe optimist.

Yuhki Yamashita’s talk from WebSummit 2022. I shared slides and an article based on this talk last November. In it, Yuhki explores how design is changing and how we need to change with it. He also offers practical advice on navigating our new always-in-progress world and Figma’s approach to developing collaboration features designed with that in mind.

Lenny Rachitsky talks to Yuhki Yamashita, CPO (Chief Product Officer) at Figma. ​“In today’s episode, we talk about operationalizing quality, the case against OKRs, and how Figma isn’t just known for product-led growth, but also for building a community of empowered users. Yuhki also shares why he thinks storytelling is key to being a great product manager, owning the ​“why,” and the potential impact of Adobe’s acquisition of Figma.”

In Issue 89, I shared slides for Yuhki Yamashita’s talk ​“Confessions of modern design” on how design is changing, and how we need to change with it. This article summarizes his advice on navigating our new always-in-progress world and Figma’s approach to developing collaboration features designed with that in mind.

Lenny Rachitsky kicked off a new series on building products by interviewing Figma’s CPO Yuhki Yamashita. Learn about their planning process, how they use OKRs, their design review meetings process, org structure, lessons learned, and more in this Twitter thread, or in an excerpt from his subscriber-only newsletter.

Slides from Figma’s Chief Product Officer Yuhki Yamashita talk at Web Summit on ​“how design is changing, and how we need to change with it”. Hope the video will become available one day, as it’s a really interesting take on the modern design and development process.

Yuhki Yamashita is the Chief Product Officer at Figma and leads the product and design teams. In this interview with the Merit Office Hours, they talk about the value of process, adapting to asynchronous work, and the importance of mentorship.

Figma’s VP of Product, Yuhki Yamashita, shares what it was like to build FigJam and how things have changed since then. In this post, he reflects on the evolving role of design and product management, what it means to welcome ​“non-designers” into the process, and the future of FigJam.

“You have a product that is loved, and your customers are bombarding you with feature requests. How should you prioritize? Drawing from his experiences at Uber, YouTube, and Figma, Yuhki shares some helpful ideas for how you might approach this phase.”

A good conversation on his career, the PM’s role, what other projects he finds interesting, and more.

A keynote presentation by Yuhki Yamashita, VP of Product at Figma, on nine best practices for building trust, providing feedback, and creating unique value in the PM-designer relationship.

Figma’s VP of Product Yuhki Yamashita and special guests recap recent releases and give a few sneak peeks for what’s coming soon.

Yuhki Yamashita, VP of Product at Figma, gives an inside look at how they designed the fastest way to keep an entire company up-to-date on the roadmap using a Coda doc.