Inside Linear: Why craft and focus still win in product building | Karri Saarinen (Co-founder and CEO)

In Depth

Karri Saarinen is the co-founder and CEO of Linear, the project management tool built for high-performance software teams. Since its founding in 2019, Linear has achieved a valuation of $1.25B as of 10th June 2025 and now counts companies like OpenAI, Ramp and Vercel as customers. Before founding Linear, Karri led design at Airbnb and Coinbase, and previously co-founded Kippt, a bookmarking tool acquired by Coinbase.

In today’s episode, we discuss

• Karri’s childhood love for computers that shaped his career
• The lessons he learned from a failed first startup
• Linear’s founding principles
• The early validation strategies used to shape the product
• Why Karri believes in small teams
• And much more…

Referenced

• Airbnb
• Brian Armstrong
• Brian Chesky
• Coinbase
• Jori Lallo
• Linear
• Tuomas Artman
• Y Combinator

Where to find Karri

• LinkedIn
• Twitter/X

Where to find Brett

• LinkedIn
• Twitter/X

Where to find First Round Capital

• Website
• First Round Review
• Twitter/X
• YouTube

Timestamps

(1:37) Childhood roots in computers and design

(6:54) Founding Kippt and lessons from a failed bookmarking startup

(13:14) Lessons from a serial entrepreneur

(19:32) Why teams shouldn’t grow too quickly

(25: 03) Linear’s early beginnings

(36:55) The unexpected power of intuition

(42:41) Linear’s unusual approach to user growth

(47:29) What shaped Linear’s early product roadmap

(52:02) Startups shouldn’t try to boil the ocean

(57:30) The power of extreme focus

(59:18) Design “something for someone”

(1:04:29) Flexibility vs. simplicity

(1:17:27) Lead your team with strong principles

(1:24:45) Design founders vs. engineering founders