Every young person (and plenty of non-young people), trying to strike gold and solve problems, is architecting themselves after a dominant personality of our field.

These archetypes equally modeled themselves off of someone else that inspired them. Steve was obsessed with Edwin Land, the founder of Polaroid. He would even take the “intersection of t... See more

His gift was communicating this vision with infectious enthusiasm while maintaining craft in every detail. He spent hours equally on factory floors and at sales shows—examining the technical through to the tactile. This isn’t just perfectionism that AI could replicate; it was a distinctly human integration of engineering pragmatism, market understa... See more

Linear’s founders want to do more than support better software creation. They want to bring back a sense of dignity to software creation, a job that today, Saarinen observes, can feel disconnected from a larger purpose. They want software engineers to feel satisfaction with and control over their work, something overreliance on project managers ha

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Our “small giants” approach optimized for mojo over growth. We wanted a small, talent-dense team with a focus on craft, autonomy, and quality of life for all team members. We banished the term “founder” in favor of “partner” and tried to be transparent with all business matters across the team.

We took some capital from investors in order to invest ... See more