Karri Saarinen is the co-founder and CEO of Linear, the product and issue tracking platform built for high-performing software teams. A designer by training — with stints at Airbnb and Coinbase — Karri took a different path to founding than most Silicon Valley CEOs. Linear has become one of the most beloved tools in the startup ecosystem, known for its speed, design quality, and now its deep integration with AI agents.What you'll learn:How Linear evolved from issue tracking to a full product-building system with AI agentsWhy speed and quality — not features — were Linear's winning strategy in a crowded marketHow Karri thinks about AI's role in design and why average startup design is getting worseWhy designers rarely become founders and whether AI will change thatThe "Quality Wednesday" ritual Linear uses to keep polish standards high at 120 peopleHow Linear's feature roast process catches blind spots before anything shipsWhat Linear borrowed from Coinbase's hiring playbook — and how work trials outperform interviewsHow Linear built an open agent platform and why it now hosts more agents than any tool in its categoryKarri's take on whether designers should write code — and where design thinking matters mostWhy Linear intentionally pushed PM thinking to engineers and designers instead of hiring traditional PMsIn this episode, we cover: (00:00) Why designers rarely become founders (00:53) Introducing Karri Saarinen and Linear (01:27) How Immad and Karri met 15 years ago (02:00) What Linear actually is — and where it's going (03:13) Mercury running compliance workflows on Linear (05:12) Immad's regret: not investing in Linear early (06:17) How Linear broke through a crowded market (08:08) Speed and quality as a product moat (09:26) Why Mercury and Linear win the same way (14:23) Linear's AI agent strategy and open platform (17:40) Coinbase and Ramp building custom agents on Linear (19:27) Linear's upcoming coding agent and PR review interface (21:31) Karri's background as a designer-CEO (23:33) Why designers don't start more companies (27:15) How AI is blurring the lines between design and engineering (31:03) What AI can't replace in design thinking (34:05) Bleeding roles without losing specialization (36:47) The AI slop problem in product features (37:02) Maintaining quality culture at 120 people (39:31) Quality Wednesdays explained (41:16) The feature roast process (44:18) How Linear collects user feedback (46:33) What Linear borrowed from Coinbase's culture (47:21) Work trials: how they work and why they're better (53:32) Why work trials benefit candidates too