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Great design can make or break your

product. So to learn more about how to

prioritize high quality design in the

earliest stages of your startup, we're

sitting down with Kari Sarnin, the

co-founder and CEO of Linear. Kari

worked at Coinbase, Airbnb, and built

one of the best issue tracking tools on

the market in linear. And today he's

going to share some of his advice for

how you can design a product that truly

stands out. Welcome to another episode

of Design Review.

[Music]

[Music]

Ki, thank you so much for joining us.

>> Well, it's awesome to be here.

>> Maybe just to kind of um give people a

sense of where Linear is at today, maybe

you can just kind of give us a high

level of any interesting stats or facts

and maybe a quick description of what

Linear is.

>> The idea with Lener is that we want to

be this purpose-built platform for

building products and or planning and

building products. It's not a suite of

tools, but it's more like an integrated

workflows. It's a tool that engineers

might use every day. So, I think it's

design is especially important and speed

is very important because if if any kind

of paper cut or bad experience, it will

multiply a lot of times. Where we are

now, like fast forward today, we we have

about 15,000 companies as customers. And

then we have growth companies like

Mercury, Ramp, Bretool, um, Pre and and

like lot of like growth companies and as

well as like larger companies like

OpenAI and uh, Block which is a which is

a financial company. We wanted to build

focus on the quality and keep the focus

really tight to build the best product

we can for these customers. So that's

why we we done some some of the things

differently. You're also a YC founder

and I'm curious kind of at all the stops

of your career from, you know, founding

your first company, going to Coinbase as

the first designer there, lead designer

at Airbnb, and then starting your own

company again at Linear. What's one

lesson that you took away from each of

those stops that's kind of made Linear

what it is today? I think linear is very

much built with the advice we got from

YC and just make something people want

and like talk to the users and

simplifying the startup building process

or clarifying it that like not a lot of

these things matter that that you see

out there and a lot of things can wait.

What really matters is like you find

those someone someone you can build

something for and you can build it in a

good way. So I think like YC really

helped me to understand that building

companies it doesn't have to be

especially in the beginning has doesn't

have to be that complicated. You almost

just need the singular focus of making

progress building something for the

customers and then all the other stuff

can kind of come automatically or later

or or something it can wait. I think the

OIC also helped me with the with the

ambition that you could see like hey you

can make a lot of progress in a very

fast time and also like eventually that

progress will lead to like a massive

companies or massive growth. So I think

it was really important for me. Coinbase

was actually in the same patch that I

was in which was um 2012 summer. Maybe

what I learned there was that you you

kind of have to really clarify with the

company but also like especially I think

as a designer what is the one or couple

problems we're truly trying to solve

with the design or with the company

itself and for me that at Coinbase

thinking about back crypto back in 2014

it was a very different time like

there's a very little trust in the

market and also just because it's a new

thing you don't have that trust built in

so like what I saw that my job as a

designer is like I have to change this

company to look like more trustworthy

and more professional because they want

to go mainstream but we also need to

simplify this. We have to we have to

make the design really simple so and

explain it in a simple way. So we can

break out of this like crypto niche

group. I kind of looked around the

website the product the brand and I

basically just made a list of like these

things needs to be fixed. So, it's like

the logo was this stack of coins like a

little bit like kind of like, you know,

like Donald Duck or Uncle Scrooge kind

of. Yeah. It's like the coins on the

table. One of them is like tipping over.

It's like why is it tipping over? It's

like that's not that doesn't feel good.

It it should feel like staple or

something.

>> I did have some trouble convincing them

to like pick up a new locom mark

>> and it eventually, yeah, we didn't do it

until the IPO. They finally picked one

which is like a kind of like a circle

that looks like a C. There's like a

thing going into it so it looks like a

C.

>> And then I on the website like what it

looked like was um so Brian and the team

had had that basically built it over the

past two years. I think they had like

quite a lot of users already. They had a

lot of money in the background like in

the in the platform but everything was

built with Twitter Bootstrap.

>> I think that the product itself worked

quite nicely. It was quite simple. The

problem was that that the the visuals

using this kind of standard library made

it look like a hack project.

>> So like someone coming to a website

thinking, oh should I buy some Bitcoin

and like should I store my money in this

Bitcoin bank?

>> It's kind of like makes it a little bit

uneasy. It's like can I trust this

people? Like is this a real company? Is

this some like side project? Is this a

hack project? So the second thing is

like well we need to fix the website

like we need to make some kind of

visuals to it. And then the third thing

is that the the product itself that it

also looked like that it used a bit

Twitter bootstrap like I didn't change

the layout the the kind of structure of

the product but I just changed the

visuals and then that way like fairly

quickly we could get got to a state that

it like from the outside this company

looks more trustworthy and more real or

like more like a real company. And then

the third thing like later on in the

brand I was using a lot of photos

because I think the photos of people

photos of

the earth like mountains forest

something I found out like crypto and

the space is so abstract and ambiguous

that like it doesn't feel like crowning

you're like what is this like there's

this magic internet money it doesn't

exist you know like kind of like it's

weird. So I think like some those kind

of things like those kind of touches I

don't know how much it actually impacted

anyone like I don't know if anyone like

picked on it

>> but that was the thinking in the back

end and then lastly I think with Airbnb

>> uh I joined there like much later they

were already a huge company uh they

weren't public yet but they were se

couple thousand people at least what I

learned from Priesky there was that the

brand and I think Silicon Valley still a

lot of startups don't quite understand

brand or design.

>> Mhm.

>> There's I think they logically try to

understand it that yeah okay design is

important. We see that it makes sense

and brand is important makes sense but

what what is it like they don't have a

maybe the language or the experience to

to think about it or maybe they just

don't want to think about it. It was

interesting to see with Airbnb is like

how much the CEO is actually focused on

the brand

>> and seeing that certain kind of

advantage which turns out it is an

advantage. Brand is really like the

story you tell like what is this company

about like what do we care about both

internally and externally and then you

try to follow those values or those

action like those that thinking as much

as you can and not not kind of like

sacrifice on it. So that from the

external I could see like Airbnb is f

like this is the Airbnb like brand and

their their actions are following that

and then over time I can trust them that

they're like predictable. They're not

one day it's like Airbnb is great and

they're doing everything right. The next

year everything is bad and like I I I

don't trust that kind of there's too

much volatility in it. So I think that

that was interesting to see like how

much he he cared about it.

>> Yeah, that's really interesting. So, it

sounds like at those stops, Coinbase and

Airbnb, I think a brand is always

helpful for building trust, but it seems

like the design and the brand,

especially for those two businesses

where, you know, somebody's going to

come stay in your home or you're going

to stay in somebody else's home, it

seems like that was incredibly

important. And now at Linear, it seems

like your brand, um, at least as an

outsider, it seems a lot is about craft

and quality and just like a high quality

professional product. And I'm curious,

what are the things that you do on a

daily basis to try to create that brand

and how intentional is it for you?

>> It was something that we worked in these

companies and we're working in this

industry a while. So sometimes you you

kind of get tired of the things that

exist and you kind of try to think like

would would there be some other way of

doing this thing or other way of

thinking about it and that's like a good

starting point like you start thinking

like what do you personally really care

about as a founder

>> and then you start going into that like

well what should the company then care

about those things should be aligned

like otherwise like why you work why do

you found this company

>> from there we saw that there's a lot of

competition um it's it's not super easy

to differentiate with the features I

think because I think like people just

look at oh it's does project project

management whatever like these other

tools do it too but like what we see

that that none of these companies in

this market actually had any kind of

brand you couldn't really say what

they're about like you could know that

they exist but you don't can't really

tell what they're about so for us it was

really that can we be really authentic

and kind of direct or honest and also

like show that we have this like care or

values for certain things and quality

being one them like we we are helping

companies to build software and for us

personally we find it annoying when

things don't work that well and we don't

want that to have like our customers to

have that feeling. So we try to like

tell everyone internally and and and

when we do this work that like we need

to strive for the quality. Quality

doesn't mean perfection that you can't

have anything rough or anything uh you

need to polish everything to like for

years. It's it just means that like you

have this direction or idea in the mind

that we are about quality. We want the

user to like the customers to have a

great experience and that's like the

most important thing. And yeah,

sometimes you you might have to launch

something to get feedback and that's

okay. But like you should then like

remember to come back and say find like

ways to like improve it or fix it if

it's rough. In some ways you are

building this culture around something

internally. So that's part of my job

that sales is part of the experience of

linear. I want it to be a quality

experience. What we really want to like

find people that can do like a quality

experience and like what I think in this

kind of market it is that these buyers

are quite sophisticated and they they

already have maybe a product they use.

So they do want to understand like how

can they how can linear do it better or

differently. And so those people have

like the sales people we hire, they have

to be they don't have to be engineers or

like super technical people, but they

have to have at least the capacity or

curiosity to understand the the product

really well and the the the customers

well and I think it's it's been working

and we've been able to hire hire people

but I think founders or startups they

just decide well we hire a sales team

and then or someone like the investor

sells like you need to hire sales then

like okay we'll go hire sales

>> but they don't ask you questions like

what kind of sales like

>> it feels interchangeable, right? All

sales parts are you swap them in now,

>> but like companies are very different.

So yeah, you might be an enterprise

company, you need someone who can do

that like navigate that market really

like kind of it's a complicated process.

So you need someone to navigate that or

or something like maybe if you're like

medical product maybe you need to have

someone who has worked in the medical

field. So there's like attributes that

you you can think like how in even in

sales that could be how could you like

really signal your what your company is

about like what you do well it

>> it's interesting to me I think a lot of

times founders think about um brand as

like the logo the colors I put on the

website you know like those types of

things but it sounds like the argument

you're trying to make is that actually

the brand is like every touch point and

it's interesting that you're like down

to the sales people like they're the

first contact with a lot of your

potential customers and making sure that

that is the brand experience that you

want them to have with your company is

incredibly important and would often be

overlooked by a lot of people I think.

>> Yeah. And I think like I like to think

it's all kind of follows from the same

tree that you have this some kind of

brand thinking or it's more like the

company values like what are we about

and then you try to visualize that or

make it happen in different aspects. So

visualizing means that you make a make

your logo and you make the website and

you are signaling like we are very like

professional or we are trustworthy or

something with that design. I would say

like the brand is often like what does

the person feel the experiences. I think

a lot of times people think about you

know craft and high quality and the

things that you talk about and like you

said they think of perfection and

waiting a really long time to ship

something. Um, but talk about how you

operate to achieve that high level of

quality while still, you know, shipping

very frequently and and getting things

in the hands of real users before

they're like fully baked in your own

head.

>> Yeah. One of the lessons I learned in

some of these other companies with that

like having more people working on

things doesn't necessarily make it

better. It's often can make it worse.

you start to lose the thread of like

what is this feature even about because

everyone has a little bit different

opinions and you start into this bike

shedding or like a design by committee

that we try to like kind of get

everything in there but then it's now

the feature is not really for anything

because it's too broad or it's like

doesn't really quite work for anything.

From the beginning we wanted that the

people work in small teams and like

there's often like two three people uh

it's like engineer maybe a couple

engineers one designer and we for a long

time we didn't have any product managers

and today we have about two and they are

more like the product manager job in in

Elina is more that like they're looking

across things not like necessarily

specific product project all the time or

a specific feature all the time

>> and they're kind of like trying to keep

the overall threat going like well what

is happening and like who is saying what

and like where are we at things and then

then like the we want the engineers and

the designers to actually run the

project it's hard to spec quality or the

right solution like you can maybe spec

the solution to some degree but you

can't really spec the quality execution

of it and I think that's where I think

if someone is driving the project and

building it they have a lot of

opportunities to like tweak it to make

it better like what I think I what I saw

sometimes happening other companies is

that we had this like nice design or or

or some or some kind of spec and then

someone starts building it and then they

realize that oh this design doesn't

quite work in practice but now no one

wants to go back to change it because

the design was already greenlighted in

this meeting like with the CEO a long

time ago so now we have would have to go

all the way back and then like change

the design and we have to like approve

it again which will add timeline and

then now no one's happy because

timelines got out of whack. People are

just not taking enough ownership and or

cannot use their own agency to to fix

things. And so with the features we try

to have like the engineer and designer

to drive it like this is like scoping it

trying to figure out whether the first

version talking to customers, talking to

users, looking at the user research. How

we manage the quality and speed is that

we generally just you can do whatever

like we use feature flags a lot. So you

can put anything in the app in the

internal use like the once you have the

idea almost like you can put it in the

app and we can try it out like it

doesn't have to be good or it doesn't

have to be like that polished or

anything. So internally we're very okay

like iterating to stuff and then we also

have beta programs where we invite

specific companies like hey do you want

to try this out? It's a little rough but

like you can try it out and see if it's

like useful. But then once we get to the

final like general availability release,

we try to like look through the

executions like is the all the

animations correct? Like are the things

like are the details correct? Like does

it feel good? Are we missing something?

So there's like a last check but we

don't try to polish it all the time but

we're trying to push the team like okay

make progress as fast as you can but at

the very last step we should just make a

look check that everything is like kind

of reasonably in a good shape because we

want people to lead these projects. We

also need to hire people who can do

that. So we can't hire engineers that

only want to code and like never think

about anything else. I just want to look

at the editor and like press the buttons

or something. But we we are always

looking for people who have opinions or

they have like some kind of product

sensibilities or they have some kind of

product taste or they they just like

explicit some kind of curiosity. It's

like I think there's a good way of doing

things and there's a bad way of doing

things. This feature doesn't feel good.

This feature does feel good. So we're

just looking for those people that are

can think and use their own judgment.

>> I'm sure a lot of people are out there

wondering what should I be looking for

if I'm trying to hire somebody like that

model sounds great. I need the right

people. How do I find the right people

and what questions should I be asking to

figure out if they're going to be good

at that?

>> Yeah. Yeah. I think from the resume

experience level it it or like

experience you should be looking for

something or has this person built

anything on their own or like had they

built anything large like like a

complete product like they were like

maybe like a first engineer somewhere or

they

>> they built their own open source project

or a side hobby or something because I

think like that forces you to think

about this things like should I do it

this way or that way? But I would say

like a flag is someone who's worked at

Google for 10 years and I I can like see

like well they're probably fairly like

boxed in in the specific area and they

probably didn't have to like think about

other things. And when I interview them

I I like to ask them about the projects

they working on like or something like

they're really proud of like what is a

project they're proud of and then I just

keep asking questions like why why are

you proud of it like why why did you do

it this way? And sometimes they say,

"Well, someone told me to do it." Well,

so like, well, did you agree that way or

did you have a different opinion about

it? And like you're just trying to see

like did they pay attention? Like did

they feel something like this is right

or is this is wrong in their opinion?

Maybe their opinion is wrong anyway. But

I think what what we're really assessing

is like do they even want to think about

this thing or do they naturally think

about these things? I don't think

there's like a super surefire way to to

evaluate that, but I think it's more

the more questions you ask about the

projects they worked on and the more

specific they can be in it is usually

like a good sign if they just say well

it's like I just did this and I work on

the tech and like whatever but if they

start going like yeah like I did build

this thing but the hard part was this

customers were saying this and like

whatever so you can see that like they

were paying attention to the business

problems too and the user problems not

just the technical problems

>> I am passionate about encouraging more

designers to become founders ers and I

think you were just, you know, one of

the top examples of somebody that was a

designer and, you know, I guess you were

a founder and then designer and then

founder again. I'm curious like what

skills or like superpowers or unfair

advantages do you think you have as a

founder based on your design background,

design thinking, maybe even the way you

grew up?

>> I like to think like design is is

finding things that fit and kind of feel

good. And I think that in a way when

you're building products or companies

that's kind of like what you're doing

ideally like yeah some sometimes

companies get built or products get

built really like randomly but I like to

find that like what is the com kind of

like common ideas or threats like what

are we trying to communicate or what are

we trying to solve and I think as a

designer it's not always easy to

articulate that but I can somehow like

sense or feel it that this is the way to

do it. I can see that this will work and

with designs or or other things I can

visualize how they will look or how they

will work or like or maybe like even

like how the users might react to it and

then I I can try to think like what are

the inputs to that output like what is

what kind of people we need or what kind

of what the brand should be like or what

the product should look like. So I would

say like as a design founder I think

that the superpower could be that you

are more maybe you have like a broader

view of things. I know exactly what how

like technical founders think about it

but I think they they are very like tech

focused and it's like everything is

outside of that it's kind of like maybe

not in their focus whereas I think like

a designer can maybe be a little bit

more broader. What advice would you have

for designers that are thinking about

making the leap and starting a company

or maybe they're nervous about it? Um

I'm curious what you would tell them.

>> You should try to like broaden your

horizons as much as you can. So what I

mean by it that is often I I've seen in

companies design like designers working

in companies they get quite narrow focus

on the design problems like I was given

this task or this project. So now I'm

going to do it. I'm going to design it.

I'm going to open Figma and then I'm

going to design it. And then like when

they go to reviews even about those

features like maybe the CEO is reviewing

it, maybe someone else is reviewing and

you get this feedback and like people

are not always happy with the results.

You kind of get into this small like oh

I'm not a good designer like I'm doing

something wrong. But the problem is

really like you're maybe not you're kind

of overlooking what the other people are

looking for like what is their problems

like usually internally the CEO or the

other people in in the organization they

have their goals or like strategies or

initiatives or or some something they

want from this. When you get design

feedback it's not always about the

design it's about the that this is

actually not like kind of solving their

problem then it's not solving the

business problem. And sometimes it's

just like they don't even know what the

pro like maybe people maybe the CEO and

some like product manager there maybe

like even have a different problem in

mind like the problem isn't clear to

people it's not people don't are not

aligned on it even if you don't become a

design founder I think it's useful to

start to like expand your mindset like

your job is not to sit there and like

put some stuff in Figma but your job is

to kind of solve the company's problems

>> often that means that you are solving

them through sign, but if you don't

understand what the problems are, like

you're not going to like be able to

solve them. So, the more you can like

kind of learn from the people around

you. So, if you work in a B2B company

like well talk to the sales people like

they they talk to customers all the

time. They're a good resource for

understanding like the customers and and

then as well like a company leadership

try to ask them like what they looking

for like try to understand their

problems. And when you do that, you

start learning like, oh, this is how

businesses operate or this is this is

how people think. This is what the

different roles do. This is maybe the

purpose of this function.

>> I'm curious like why do you think

founders should care about design? And

especially from the earliest days of

their company, what differences have you

seen between companies that do care

about it versus ones that don't?

>> So, you have to think like what is

actually the the value of the design

that brings to your specific company in

this specific market. And then I think

that a lot of times people just don't

think through that. So they either copy

what other companies are doing or they

just don't do it at all. Like they just

like well we don't know how to do design

so we'll just not even think about it.

But I do think like the best companies

do care about design. You can grow to a

big company being without too much

design. I think it's possible if you

just have like a very good technology.

But I do do think like it's it can the

design can accelerate the the company

and the the how people think about to

like it can even help with investors.

Investors are people too. So if they

think something is cool or there's a

there's a strong brand, they're more

likely to to pay more like they they

want it more than

>> it's emotional, right?

>> Yeah. So, so I think that kind of maybe

the design is is partly it's making

things easier for users, but I think

it's partly it's also like touching this

like emotional

>> needs of people and then I think it can

amplify everything you do. So that's why

I always think like even a very early

stage companies maybe you have like five

people or something or three people

maybe you should hire a designer even if

it's not that needed right now but I

think they can have at that point they

can have like very big leverage because

the the work if everything is a little

bit nicer everything is a little bit

better it will compound over time and

like the users will see it and and you

don't have to do this big redesign like

years down the line because you kind of

ended updated this like horrible place

and now you have to like hire more

people and like fix everything and then

the customers are complaining because

things are changing. So

>> yeah,

>> I think it's just like a smart thing to

do.

>> You wrote um a a really uh incredible uh

post around 10 tips for creating

products that stand out. I'm curious

like what are the two or three that you

think are most important that you know

you think all founders should be aware

of or think about or consider as they're

building their products? I think the

whole definition of being differentiated

or being an outlier company or a

breakout company is like you really need

to show you're better at something like

much more than anyone else. Like you

have to be known for it.

>> So then I think that that's starts with

that like you have to decide that maybe

the one thing you want to be really

known of or the best like it can't be

the same thing everyone else is doing

because then like you're you're not

differentiated. So I would start with

that like figuring out that like

differentiator or like what you really

want to be known of. I think my second

thing is like it's it's maybe weird but

I would say like the people you hire is

probably especially in the product

organization if you're trying to build

like really good product the people you

hire has the most impact on the product.

I feel like we operate quite casually.

We don't have a lot of processes. We

have yeah we have this feature flags and

some kind of testing but but we don't

have like a lot of rules or processes

>> because we want to hire people we can

trust their judgment and and taste.

Early on I think we with the founders we

kind of played this mind game of like

well if we just disappear would would

this people know what to do kind of like

I think like we done our job well and

hired the right people if we think like

well they they would survive and they

would like actually make progress. The

second thing is like I think you need to

give them some space to do it. Like if

you're like constantly hounding them,

it's like where is it? Like

>> do it now. Then obviously they don't

have the space to do their work well. So

there's some like balance there. It's

like that you can't be like constantly

like micromanaging them or hounding

them.

>> Yeah. How do you balance that? I mean I

know it's important to you to like give

space for people to work and in a

perfect world I think everybody would

want that and then that's balanced with

trying to ship quickly. We try to set

some kind of timeline pressure that we

would like to see something at this time

and this date and we think that's

reasonable and then I think like what it

what it what we hope the team will do is

that they will think about that timeline

and then they start scoping down the

project

>> and they start thinking well what can we

actually achieve and maybe we we need to

really prioritize the things we do which

I think in the end is even useful

because

>> then you start focusing on the right

things anyway so there's this like

little bit of timeline measure then we

keep track track of the progress like if

the progress are good and like things

are moving I'm not like I'm not going to

get sad if the like the timeline is not

hit exactly I might ask well what is the

new timeline or like what is where do

you think is now and like how far is

from something so there's a little bit

of pressure it's like where is it or

like how far it far along it is but it's

not like daily so there's some some

level of pressure but it's it's like

we're not like super timeline

>> date driven

>> shifting gears to AI a little bit it

seems like Now it's easier than ever to

um get design work created by AI or to

ship product that AI generates. Is that

a good thing? And what are the

considerations that people should be

thinking about in a world where it's so

easy to just generate new designs and

ship new product and new features that

maybe people aren't thinking about yet.

>> Yeah. Yeah, I often think with

technology, I don't think you should

necessarily think is it a good thing or

a bad thing because usually technology

will happen regardless like you can't I

think like we can't go back

>> not having AI anymore. It's it's not

going to disappear from the world. So

now their next question is well what

what should I think about it or like how

should I use it or how should people use

it? And I think it will lower the the

the the floor on things like design for

example. companies that maybe before

couldn't hire designers or they didn't

have time for it or something. I think

they can kind of like help prop them a

little bit that they can now do like

decently good design. Designers

themselves like if they might always not

have skills for everything and sometimes

they run out of ideas. I think AI can

help help with that too. I do think that

the the top the the ceiling it will just

keep getting higher. And so if you

really want to be the best design

company or the best company, you have to

still keep pushing the boundaries and

you can't just expect that the AI will

solve it for you. Like basically AI you

can get to the average level maybe but

like going beyond that you still need

all the work you've done in the past.

You should understand the danger is that

when something is easy to do, you stop

paying attention to it. So if it's easy

to generate designs and ship them, you

maybe didn't think about it this feature

at all. Like I think some sometimes when

something is really hard, you're

constantly thinking about it like is

this worth it? Do I still want to do

this? Like should we just stop doing

this? Like I don't this is so hard. Um

so I think that the the the kind of like

the suffering helps to maybe clarify the

design. Maybe sometimes it tells you

that it's not the right thing. Maybe it

shouldn't be that hard. maybe you're

approaching it wrong. So I think you

should just understand that the danger

is that when you outsource

the the output too much, you might stop

losing control or even like

understanding of the your company or

what the product does.

>> Are you worried that AI is going to make

designers obsolete?

>> I don't think so. Similar with engineers

or or designers, I think the campaign

shifts happening like even today like I

think it's easy to generate websites. So

maybe the market for website designers

will go down. Like I do think people

will still have some designers working

on websites. And I think like in my mind

like the real problem with websites is

not the design, it's like the actual the

narrative or the storytelling or the

>> the the explanation of things.

>> Yeah.

>> And I don't think the AI can like really

solve that for you. Like you really have

to understand that. I mean the AI can

help with that too, but I think you

still really have to understand that

what do you what is this website for?

Like who is it for? they can have maybe

the AI agents or something can kind of

do work for them um on the kind of in

the background and you your role might

be shifts more like towards like being a

more like an IC lead or like a manager a

little bit that

>> you are not only

doing your own output like an as a

individual contributor but you're also

responsible for some kind of AI's output

and I think like your shop should be

still like is this good is this fitting

is does this work and that kind of

things. We don't know what's going to

happen. But my feeling is also that if

if AI makes for example like building

software really easy and and cheap. I

think we will just build more software.

I think the industry will grow and you

will need more designers like you can't

just have AI at this point. We don't

have a companies that are purely run by

AI.

>> Yeah.

>> And so yeah. So, so I think until that

happens, I think we'll still live in a

world where you might have a quite a lot

of people in a company, humans doing

things and then you have AI also doing

things and I think like because the AI

can make things more cost effective, I

think you the companies will just decide

to do more. That's my I think at least

optimistic take that what will happen

with the with the AI.

>> And then you kind of have a front row

seat to this with a lot of the best

product teams using linear. Where do you

think things are going in terms of how

product and design teams will operate in

the future?

>> Yeah. So like with with linear it's it's

very focused on the execution or or

tracking work or like solving problems

and what we have for example been

working on now is like building the

agents platform that you could bring

agents into linear and they could work

for you. You could delegate work for

them. So there's a bug report comes in

into the triage, the agent can like take

a look at it and say, "Hey, I'm pretty

sure I can like solve this for you." And

then you just like, "Okay." And then it

goes to work and then you review the

code. So I think there's a lot of things

I think we can able to streamline and

what we see in from the from the

customers and market there's a lot of

interest for this and all the all the

CTOs basically are saying that AI is

their kind of like number one priority

and the CEOs are writing this memos

about AI and I think like it's clear

that on the leadership level they

understand that AI is is useful. I find

that the whole industry so there's this

big launches of very broad AI tools like

there's the the AI every company very

big company they have the chat bot and

they have all the all the different like

tool AI kind of set of tools that can do

anything for anyone but I think like

what is missing there is like the people

who are building it from like more like

a crowns up like well what is the

problem someone has today like

>> for example like triaging issues like a

company, they don't always know where

the issue should go. Where should this

bug go? So, you could have like a manual

process, someone looking at it. You

could have some kind of automation or

you could have an AI to look at it like,

hey, like with the AI could go look at

your workspace and code base and like

understand like it looks like you have

this kind of product areas. It looks

like these kind of teams or you like

people are working on those product

areas and it looks like generally when

these kind of issues come in that this

these go into these kind of teams or

this kind of person. So like our

approach with linear is like we're now

like thinking more as like what are the

specific problems we could directly

solve with the AI and it it could be

like a better like more quicker value uh

to the customer than having this like

very broad spectrum like ask anything or

create anything or something that kind

of like approach. So that's like what we

are excited about.

>> Well Kyrie, thank you so much for

joining. uh so much great in uh advice

and insight here for uh everybody who's

watching at home. So really appreciate

you taking the time and and sharing all

of your lessons and uh unique things,

counterintuitive things that that you

all do at linear and hopefully a lot of

those can propagate out through other

startups as well. So really appreciate

you joining.

>> Yeah, thanks for having me and great to

be back at the at the YC office.

>> Awesome. That does it for this episode

of Design Review and uh we'll see you on

the next one.

Key Vocabulary

Vocabulary	Meanings
design /dɪˈzaɪn/ B1	noun - a plan or drawing produced to show the look and function or workings of a building, garment, or other object before it is made verb - decide upon the look and functioning of (a building, garment, or other object), typically by making a detailed drawing of it
product /ˈprɒdʌkt/ A2	noun - an article or substance that is manufactured or refined for sale
quality /ˈkwɒlɪti/ B1	noun - the standard of something as measured against other things of a similar kind; the degree of excellence of something adjective - of good quality; excellent
startup /ˈstɑːtʌp/ B2	noun - a newly established business
work /wɜːrk/ A1	noun - activity involving mental or physical effort done in order to achieve a purpose or result verb - be engaged in physical or mental activity in order to achieve a result; do work
build /bɪld/ A2	verb - construct (something) by putting parts or material together
people /ˈpiːpəl/ A1	noun - human beings in general or considered collectively
feature /ˈfiːtʃər/ B1	noun - a distinctive attribute or aspect of something
company /ˈkʌmpəni/ A2	noun - a commercial business
team /tiːm/ A2	noun - a group of players forming one side in a competitive game or sport
problem /ˈprɒbləm/ A2	noun - a matter or situation regarded as unwelcome or harmful and needing to be dealt with
experience /ɪkˈspɪəriəns/ B1	noun - practical contact with and observation of facts or events
user /ˈjuːzər/ B1	noun - a person who uses or operates something
brand /brænd/ B2	noun - a type of product manufactured by a particular company under a particular name
hire /ˈhaɪər/ B1	verb - employ (someone) for wages or salary
important /ɪmˈpɔːtənt/ A2	adjective - of great significance or value
good /ɡʊd/ A1	adjective - to be desired or approved of
focus /ˈfəʊkəs/ B1	noun - the center of interest or activity verb - pay particular attention to