Linear models user needs internally rather than building direct feature requests
Karri Saarinen · Inside Linear: Why craft and focus still win in product building | Karri Saarinen (Co-founder & CEO) · Jun 5, 2025 · at 37:49
Karri Saarinen, co-founder and CEO of Linear, explains why Linear relies on product vision and underlying problem discovery over user feature requests.
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“It's never been, even in the beginning or later stages, it's never that like we Listen to these users and then we build what they want or what they say. We went there, like, it's more like we have that model in our heads. And then if something doesn't quite fit into it, then we try to like ask them more questions about it. Like why, why would they want to do it this way and not this way? Or like why just generally why they want to do it and then try to understand the why and see if you could, if your solution could still solve their need. It's just like, it's not the solution that they were looking for.”
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