figmaJul 20, 2025

Mike Krieger and Luis von Ahn join Figma’s Board of Directors | Figma Blog (opens in new tab)

Figma announced that Mike Krieger, Anthropic’s Chief Product Officer and Instagram co-founder, and Luis von Ahn, Duolingo’s co-founder and CEO, have joined its Board of Directors. Both bring experience scaling widely used products and championing strong design, product quality, and innovation. Figma expects their perspectives to support its evolution into an AI-powered platform for collaborative product development. ## Mike Krieger’s Product and Infrastructure Experience - Krieger oversees product engineering, management, and design at Anthropic. - As Instagram’s co-founder and CTO, he scaled its infrastructure from a few million users to more than 1 billion monthly active users. - He later co-founded Artifact, a personalized news app acquired by Yahoo. - Figma CEO Dylan Field praised Krieger’s combination of broad product vision and meticulous execution. - Krieger was also an early angel investor in Figma. ## Luis von Ahn’s Design and Growth Expertise - Von Ahn co-founded Duolingo in 2011 and has led its growth to more than 100 million monthly active users. - Duolingo provides language education in over 40 languages and is known for its approachable, engaging design. - Before Duolingo, von Ahn co-created CAPTCHA and reCAPTCHA, including a crowdsourced approach to internet security. - Field highlighted von Ahn’s close collaboration with Duolingo’s design team and his advocacy for design despite his computer science background. ## Figma’s Expanding Board - Krieger and von Ahn join existing directors including Dylan Field, Mamoon Hamid, Kelly Kramer, John Lilly, Bill McDermott, Andrew Reed, Danny Rimer, and Lynn Vojvodich Radakovich. - The appointments add expertise in AI, consumer products, education, infrastructure, enterprise software, and design-led growth. - Figma describes itself as an AI-powered platform supporting the full process from ideation and design through development and shipping. Figma’s board additions reinforce its focus on product craft, design, AI, and large-scale user growth as it expands beyond design tooling into a broader product-development platform.

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figmaFeb 12, 2024

The Anatomy of a Super Bowl Ad | Figma Blog (opens in new tab)

Duolingo’s five-second Super Bowl ad succeeded by turning a severe budget constraint into a creative advantage. Its deliberately absurd “unhinged Duo” gag, paired with a real lesson reminder, was designed to create a memorable WTF moment and generate conversation beyond the broadcast. The campaign depended on close coordination between marketing, engineering, and the brand studio. ## Aiming for Culture and Conversation - Duolingo saw the Super Bowl as a chance to reach the year’s largest live U.S. audience. - The goal was not merely exposure, but earned media, virality, and word-of-mouth. - Previous data showed that major broadcasts could drive language-learning activity: - Users completed lessons during Eurovision breaks. - A prior Super Bowl push notification produced the app’s highest engagement. - The team decided to make the ad itself function as a lesson reminder. ## Turning a Budget Constraint into a Format - A 30-second Super Bowl commercial cost about $7 million on average in 2023. - Rather than compete with longer, more expensive ads, Duolingo pursued a five-second spot. - The team looked to short ads such as Reddit’s 2021 commercial as examples of compact ideas that could expand through social media. - The intended result was tens of millions of social impressions generated by a highly shareable moment. ## Designing the “WTF Moment” - The ad featured Duo sitting in a white frame before turning around and revealing an exaggerated, balloon-like backside. - A second Duo emerged with a flatulent sound, followed by the message “Do your Duolingo.” - Simultaneously, users received a push notification reminding them to complete a lesson. - The crude humor built on Duo’s existing reputation as both wholesome and “unhinged,” matching the brand’s relationship with its online community. ## Cross-Functional Brainstorming - The first of three brainstorming sessions began in September after the ad slot was secured. - The brief asked: “How do we hack and own the Super Bowl conversation in 5 seconds?” - Marketing, engineering, and brand teams divided into breakout groups and developed concepts in FigJam. - Ideas were evaluated for whether they would: - Produce a strong reaction and social buzz - Fit Duolingo’s tone and strengthen the brand - Support additional campaign content - Demonstrate Duolingo’s product capabilities - Groups nominated their best ideas, and the wider team voted on them using FigJam stickers. ## Aligning on a Big Idea - One brainstorm was not enough to reach agreement. - The teams reconvened in another FigJam session to evaluate concepts through different strategic approaches, including ways to exploit the five-second television format. - The eventual campaign required several weeks of synchronized work across creative, marketing, engineering, and design. Duolingo’s approach demonstrates how a sharply defined constraint can produce stronger creative work. A short, distinctive concept—when aligned with existing brand behavior, product functionality, and coordinated distribution—can outperform a conventional expensive commercial.

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