Figma: Incredible Ride to $10 Billion Moat

When Dylan Field and Evan Wallace met in the quiet corridors of Brown University, they knew that they were at the crossroads.

Although most students were deep in study, pushing through a series of predictable steps towards graduation, for Dylan and Evan, a different call was whispering, the one that spoke of risk, innovation, and the unknown.

In one of his interviews, Dylan said:

Evan Wallace was the most brilliant person I knew… I felt like it was super obvious that I could learn more from Evan than any other context. And even if the company was, like, a complete failure, I thought it would be successful for me because I would learn from Evan.

Armed with a strong bond forged in late-night coding sessions, they applied to Thiel Fellowship in 2012, which is a US$100,000 grant awarded to young entrepreneurs by investor Peter Thiel on the condition that they drop out of college for at least two years.

As enthusiastic as they were, in their application to Thiel Fellowship, they knew that “navigating the challenges of starting a company is a messy, complex, and often existential process”.

The start of a long journey

Dylan and Evan won the grant and they were initially captivated by the potential of drones.