Karri Saarinen, CEO and Co-founder of Linear, leads a project management suite loved by top AI companies and Y Combinator graduates. He discusses how his team prioritizes quality over hyper-growth, taking a deliberate approach to scaling and culture. Karri emphasizes the need for innovative hiring practices and balancing speed with thoughtful product development. He also shares insights on raising capital when profitable and the importance of building a high-functioning team instead of merely increasing headcount.
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insights INSIGHT
The Importance of Issue Tracking
Issue tracking and project management tools are essential for software development, like walls in a building.
They are important but often unexciting, so Linear aims to make them better and more engaging for engineers.
insights INSIGHT
Data Accuracy in Project Management
Some project management tools prioritize management views over engineer needs, leading to inaccurate data.
Linear prioritizes engineer engagement, ensuring data accuracy and a stronger foundation for management insights.
volunteer_activism ADVICE
Controlled Growth
Avoid excessively rapid team growth, as it can dilute team quality and culture.
Linear's strategy involves doubling team size annually to maintain quality and cohesion.
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Most Y Combinator graduates and Forbes’ Top 50 AI companies use Linear’s project management suite to build their software. It's no accident that this purpose-built tool is beloved by engineers for its quality and ease of use. But, the company’s path to success hasn’t followed the same hyper-growth playbook its founders experienced in their previous roles at Airbnb, Uber, and Coinbase—and that’s entirely by design.
In this bonus episode of Spotlight On Season 2, Karri Saarinen, CEO and Co-founder of Linear, joins host Miles Clements to share the unique principles that have fueled the company's rise. Karri shares why prioritizing quality doesn’t mean perfectionism, how to raise funding when you don’t need cash, how Linear disrupted an existing category and continues to grow through a relentless focus on end-user needs, what most product teams get wrong about intuition, why he thinks scaling should be about building the highest functioning team instead of the biggest organization—and how his hiring strategy reflects that belief.
Whether you’re a first-time founder, an established executive, or just care about building great products, we’re sure you’ll find some inspiration from our conversation with Karri.
Conversation Highlights:
00:00 – Introduction to Linear's vision and purpose
01:17 – The importance of simple strategies executed well
03:00 – Most project management tools are built for the wrong end user
05:20 – Why achieving profitability and fundraising are both a part of Linear’s strategy
09:50 – The 'Linear way' and what product teams get wrong about intuition
19:04 – To achieve both speed and quality, abandon perfectionism
22:37 – Allowing customer feedback to guide product design roadmaps
28:15 – The role of taste in hiring practices and team culture
31:27 – Three practices for hiring only high-performers
37: 30 – Thinking about scale as a function of performance instead of size
42:37 – What’s next for Linear
Featured: Karri Saarinen, CEO and Co-founder of Linear; Miles Clements, Host
Spotlight On 