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Linear

Project ManagementFounded 2019
Reviewed by Swet Parvadiya
Company data updated: October 2026

Leadership History

Linear: CEO History

2 leaders · 2019 to present

Who is the CEO of Linear?

Karri Saarinen is the CEO of Linear, in the role since 2019.

Current CEO
Karri Saarinen (since 2019)
Leaders documented
2
Founded
2019
NameRoleFromToYears in role
Karri SaarinenCo-founder & CEO2019Present7
Tuomas ArtmanCo-Founder201920245

Company Overview

Linear is a San Francisco-based, remote-first company whose product helps software teams plan and ship work: issues, cycles, projects, initiatives, roadmaps, triage and customer requests. Founded in 2019 as a cleaner alternative to Jira, it built a following among startups and has since moved into large enterprises and AI-native companies. In 2026 it reported more than $100 million in ARR, more than 40,000 paying companies and a $2.5 billion valuation. The company is headquartered in San Francisco, California.

Linear makes money from per-seat software subscriptions. A Free plan (2 teams, 250 issues) drives bottom-up adoption; paid plans are Basic at $10 per user per month and Business at $16 per user per month (billed yearly), with custom-priced Enterprise contracts that add SAML/SCIM, advanced security and account management. Business unlocks Linear Insights, Linear Asks, Triage Intelligence, Loops and Code Intelligence, so revenue grows as customers add seats and move up tiers. Linear reported 177% net revenue retention in 2026, meaning existing customers expanded spend substantially year over year.

Karri Saarinen

Co-founder & CEO

2019 – Present

7 years (current)

Key Decisions & Impact

Karri Saarinen co-founded Linear with Jori Lallo and Tuomas Artman after growing frustrated with slow, bloated enterprise issue trackers like Jira. Saarinen prioritized keyboard-first navigation, instant client-side synchronization, and minimalist aesthetic design. He deliberately kept Linear's team small and hyper-focused on craft, rejecting traditional enterprise software bloat. Linear rapidly became the beloved default issue tracking and project management tool for premier high-growth technology companies, including OpenAI, Cash App, Vercel, and Ramp.

Legacy

Saarinen was previously the first designer at Coinbase and Principal Designer at Airbnb, where he created Airbnb's influential Design Language System (DLS). His craft-first philosophy transformed modern developer tools.

Source →

Tuomas Artman

Co-Founder

2019 – 2024

5 years

Key Decisions & Impact

Artman architected the incredibly complex, highly proprietary local-first sync engine that completely distinguishes Linear from competitors, ensuring the app reacts to user clicks in milliseconds.

Legacy

As Co-Founder and chief technical architect, he ensures the platform maintains absolute performance superiority over Jira, directly appealing to highly impatient, elite software engineers.

Source →

Challenges & Strategic Context

Linear competes with Atlassian Jira, GitHub Projects, GitLab, Asana, ClickUp, Monday.com and Notion, and increasingly with AI-native development tools that could absorb planning workflows. Moving upmarket into large enterprises such as Salesforce brings demands for permissions, reporting and compliance features that can clash with its minimalist design. The company also has to grow headcount, which it says now has more than 30 open roles, without losing the small-team culture it credits for product quality.

Linear CEO and Leadership FAQ

Who is Karri Saarinen and what is his leadership background?

Karri Saarinen is the Chief Executive Officer and co-founder of Linear. A native of Finland, Saarinen is one of the most influential designers in modern tech, having served as Principal Designer at Airbnb (creating the Airbnb Design System), Founding Designer at Coinbase, and co-founder of Kippt.

Who are co-founders Jori Lallo and Tuomas Artman?

Jori Lallo (former engineering lead at Coinbase and co-founder of Kippt) leads product engineering and infrastructure; Tuomas Artman (former Principal Engineer at Uber, who built Uber's core mobile app architecture) serves as Chief Technology Officer, engineering Linear's local-first sync engine.

What leadership philosophy guides Karri Saarinen at Linear?

Karri Saarinen leads with an uncompromising focus on craft, speed, and simplicity. Saarinen believes that small, highly talented teams of empowered builders can outperform bloated organizations, maintaining a company of under 60 employees while serving millions of users.

How has leadership structured Linear as a remote-first organization?

From day one in 2019, Linear was designed as a fully remote-first global company, hiring the best engineers and designers across North America and Europe, minimizing meetings in favor of asynchronous written documentation on Linear.

What is Karri Saarinen's philosophy on 'Craft and Quality' in software?

Saarinen advocates that B2B enterprise software should feel as fast, delightful, and beautifully crafted as the world's best consumer apps, rejecting the legacy assumption that workplace software must be clunky, ugly, and slow.

How does executive leadership manage product roadmaps internally at Linear?

Linear practices what it preaches: running all corporate roadmap planning, marketing campaigns, and hiring pipelines directly inside Linear, using no external project management tools and zero traditional status meetings.

What industry recognitions has Karri Saarinen and Linear received?

Linear won Product Hunt's Golden Kitty Award for Product of the Year, is consistently named one of Fast Company's Most Innovative Companies in Enterprise, and Saarinen is recognized globally as a thought leader in modern design and product engineering.

What is leadership's long-term vision for Linear?

Leadership's long-term vision is to build the standard operating system for modern software creation, empowering the next generation of builders and technology innovators to plan, build, and ship world-changing products at the speed of thought.

Who is the CEO of Linear?

Karri Saarinen serves as CEO and co-founder. His background is highly unique for a B2B SaaS CEO: he was the Principal Designer at Airbnb and the Head of Design at Coinbase. Because he is a highly elite designer, he instilled an absolute, uncompromising obsession with aesthetics and user interface perfection into Linear's DNA, completely revolutionizing how "boring" enterprise software should look and feel.

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Content is for informational purposes only. Not financial advice. Data sourced from SEC filings, annual reports, and public records. See our full disclaimer and methodology.