Nan Yu
Head of Product at Linear
Nan Yu is Head of Product at Linear, one of the most beloved and fastest-growing B2B SaaS products, known for its exceptional design quality and craft-focused product development.
Dimension Profile
Key Themes
Episode Summary
Nan Yu reveals how Linear builds one of the most loved B2B products by rejecting the tradeoff between speed and quality, arguing that true craft mastery means both move together. He shares his system for creative problem-solving, how to discover the emotions customers want to avoid, and practical advice on landing dream PM roles.
Leadership Principles
- → Speed and quality are not a tradeoff — competence is what enables both simultaneously
- → At the pinnacle of craft, you can tell output quality by how fast someone is going
- → Talk to customers to discover the emotion they want to avoid, then solve for that
Notable Quotes
"People talk about speed and quality as a tradeoff because they over-index on rushing or being sloppy. What they should index on is being really competent."
— Challenging the common assumption that fast means low quality
"If you look at people at the pinnacle of their craft, you can basically tell how good the output is going to be by how fast they're going."
— On why speed is actually a signal of quality, not its opposite
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