Karri Saarinen

Karri Saarinen is the co-founder and CEO of Linear, an issue tracking tool for software projects, sprints, tasks, and bug tracking.

Prior to Linear, Saarinen was the principal designer and creative director on the Airbnb design system and design guidelines in the UX Platform team. He lead and directly contributed to multiple projects at the company and set the design direction.

Before Airbnb, Saarinen was the founding designer and head of design for Coinbase.

In addition to co-founding Linear, Karri Saarinen also co-founded Kippt, a Y Combinator-backed startup, in 2012. Kippt is a collaborative bookmarking system for professional networks that lets employees teach and share with each other on a dedicated platform. When something is posted to Kippt, the page and the content will be searchable, organizable, readable on devices, and shareable with other people.

Saarinen is also responsible for co-founding Rails Girls, a non-profit dedicated to providing tools and a community for women to understand technology and to build their ideas.