{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"Below the Surface","title":"How Linear Built a Winning Culture: Focus on Impact, not Hours","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":3411,"description":"How does Linear build a $1B+ business with under 200 people, without a culture of burnout? Cristina Cordova is COO of Linear, the product development system for teams and agents. Before Linear, Cristina was an early employee at Stripe, helping scale the company from under 30 employees to over 3,000, and later helped build partnerships at Notion.In this episode, Cristina joins host Joelle Emerson to discuss why Linear has explicitly rejected the 996 culture common in tech startups. She explains why Linear treats headcount as a deliberate choice rather than a byproduct of growth, why the company's hiring bar is about learning ability and risk-taking rather than resume checkboxes, and why focus, not raw output, is Linear's real competitive advantage.They also discuss Linear's paid work trials, how the company organizes engineering into project-based \"collapsible teams,\" and why investing in brand early pays off for years.If you're thinking about how to build a high-performing team without overhiring, or how to design a hiring process that actually predicts success, this conversation is for you.","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/ZWPxlL83QNcPYBZfSpwSIzT-ITDGYO9iwdPBKn4Ip-Q/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS9jMDMy/OGE3M2M0M2FlYTBk/MTk3YWViZDQ1NmU5/YzUzYi5wbmc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}