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
Learn more about Accel’s relationship with Linear:
- Accel & Linear
- Building for Quality: Our Investment in Linear
- Control Your Growth, Control Your Future
Explore more episodes from this season:
- S2E1 | Klaviyo’s Andrew Bialecki on proving a tech startup can be built anywhere
- S2E2 | Webflow’s Vlad Magdalin on the biggest lessons learned from bootstrapping and raising capital
- S2E3 | Syrup’s James Theuerkauf on building an AI-powered product that cuts through the noise
- S2E4 | Sysdig’s Suresh Vasudevan on embracing a “challenger mindset”
- S2E5 | CrowdStrike’s George Kurtz on building a generational company
- S2E6 | Accel’s Amit Kumar and Ivan Zhou on being an effective startup partner when things don’t go according to plan
- S2E7 | Remote’s Marcelo Lebre on the future of the global workforce
- S2E8 | Gamma’s Jon Noronha on how early-stage startups can challenge industry incumbents
- S2E9 | Monte Carlo’s Barr Moses on creating a playbook for a product that’s never been built before
- S2E10 | ConductorOne’s Alex Bovee on the critical ingredients of a high-growth startup
- S2E11 | Netskope’s Sanjay Beri on building an iconic company through controlled innovation
- S2E12 | Chainalysis’ Jackie Burns Koven on building trust in new technologies
- S2E13 | Wonder’s Marc Lore on blending vision and execution
- S2E14 | 1Password’s CEO Jeff Shiner on on balancing B2B and B2C customers in a rapidly evolving tech landscape
