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

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 $400 million 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