Linear CEO Karri Saarinen on refusing shortcuts: 'Build a company I can be proud of'
soleio · x · 2026-11-09
The First of Kind podcast (S3E3, hosted by soleio) interviews Linear co-founder and CEO Karri Saarinen about winning as a designer-founder while ignoring VC playbook conventions.
- Core stance: "I want to build a company I can be proud of, not just that the company is successful" — resisting morally questionable shortcuts to win.
- Topics include: quality is directional, designing in code, owning the problem, going beyond the issue tracker, and the "car designer of software" analogy.
- Broader takes: school feels fake, "never build the MVP," clarity of scope, and whether UI still matters in the agentic age.
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