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Linear COO on Rebuilding the Product Development Lifecycle for Teams and Agents — From Issue Tracker to Shared Operating System | Cristina Cordova | E299
Episode 299
Published 3 weeks ago
Description
In this episode of The Product Podcast by Product School, Carlos González de Villaumbrosia sits down with Cristina Cordova, Chief Operating Officer at Linear, the product development system built for teams and agents. Linear raised $82 million in a Series C round in June 2025 at a $1.25 billion valuation. The company has been profitable since 2021, and serves over 20,000 paid business customers, from seed-stage startups to Fortune 100 enterprises, with a team of just 140 people. Before Linear, Cristina joined Stripe as one of its first employees, and led Platform and Partnerships at Notion.
What you'll learn:
- Why keeping headcount intentionally lean is a strategic advantage
- Replacing traditional interviews with paid two to five-day projects
- Why PMs are the fastest-growing power users of agentic tools
Key takeaways:
- A small team is not a small business. Revenue, customers, and growth rate matter more than headcount.
- If you fully delegate your AI thinking, you lose your native understanding of how these products actually work
- Agentic workflows are now the default, not a feature. The companies that treat them that way will pull ahead.
Credits:
Host: Carlos Gonzalez de Villaumbrosia
Guest: Cristina Cordova
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