LT

Linda Tong

Things Linda Says on Podcasts

“Teams are much, much smaller… it's more like two, maybe three engineers and a designer and a PM… like maybe one pizza. If you're on a GLP, like half a pizza.” — Linda Tong, The Growth Podcast “Companies that have that domain or that context gravity, I think they absolutely survive. I think companies that don't have that, where their entire value is a UI layer or an API layer that talks to other systems, that's where you start to run into potential risk… If you don't have any real domain context in there, the speed at which someone can migrate off of you is also really, really fast.” — Linda Tong, The Growth Podcast “Two decades ago, if you wanted to go from here to, let's say, the Moscone Center in San Francisco, you would print out a map on MapQuest and it would give you turn-by-turn directions. And if you missed it, it sucks for you. You're lost. Nowadays… you put in your address. And as you twist and turn, it constantly updates for you. And it's iterating and it's personalized to your journey. Software needs to take that exact same evolution… Right now, when you and I log into Salesforce, we're going to see the same thing. And that's ridiculous.” — Linda Tong, The Growth Podcast “Everyone's like, 'oh yeah, I could vibe code that in an afternoon.' And the answer is, if you vibe code that in an afternoon, software, just like everything else, it deteriorates over time. It's not like you build something and it's great and it keeps working. There's bugs, there's issues, more people come on it… We have a group internally. We call them our boomerangs… I've had a couple of CMOs call me with very colorful language, telling me, we went down this path and it's totally effed. I need to come back to Webflow.” — Linda Tong, The Growth Podcast

Where to Find Them

Linda Tong has been a guest on Product Growth , The Growth Podcast , NEW ECONOMIES and NEW ECONOMIES .

Recently: “How to Survive AI as a SaaS Company” on The Growth Podcast (November 2026); “How to Survive AI as a SaaS Company” on Product Growth (November 2026); “Webflow” on NEW ECONOMIES (September 2026); “Webflow” on NEW ECONOMIES (September 2026).

What They Said

“Teams are much, much smaller… it's more like two, maybe three engineers and a designer and a PM… like maybe one pizza. If you're on a GLP, like half a pizza.” — Linda Tong, The Growth Podcast

Aakash Gupta asked whether the traditional five-to-ten-engineer product team is still how Webflow funds a product area. She says no: small independent teams, with a separate architecture group overseeing how the pieces fit.

The Growth Podcast · 2026-11-10 Permalink → Listen →
The Growth Podcast Around 55:20 into the episode
Linda Tong

…so I had to self-learn. The idea of being able to be technically dangerous but not good enough to be an engineer is something that I think nowadays would be really perfect in that now I can actually start to build prototypes, and that would have been magical. Wow, I'm aging myself two decades ago.

Aakash Gupta

…areas, thinking about what the composition of that product area that you're funding is. Traditionally, it was something like five to ten engineers, a product manager, maybe a fractional or a full designer. Is that still how you're thinking about funding a product area? Has that changed? Not at all.

Linda Tong

…org is you need to break down what you need to do into independent pieces and then understand where those pieces come together. And you can have much smaller teams that can run independently in those spaces. And honestly, it's like more like two, maybe three engineers and a designer and a PM. And you have these like smaller, I mean, like legitimate when you say like a pizza team, like this is like maybe one pizza. If you're on a GLP, like half a pizza. But like, you know, you have a pizza team, but you have all these pizza teams that can now run independently. And then you have to have an architectural team. That can really have oversight and understand where these things come together and help you plan sort of what the independent pieces are. But it's smaller teams going faster than ever because if now your constraint, like a PM's constraint…

Aakash Gupta

Does the profile of who's on these teams specifically from a PM point of view change? Like we heard this title that was really big in 2025 and 2024 in the PM field, AIPM. Are you looking for AIPMs now?

Linda Tong

No. So I think we missed that hype cycle. I think it got really big and then I think everyone realized that every PM has to be an AI PM. The same way that in every job description in our company now, there are requirements around how AI pilled you are, right? How are you leveraging AI to do your…

Aakash Gupta

The one difference with typing is you just have to learn typing once. AI, it feels like a full-time job just to stay on top of, oh, Astra is now the best model. I guess I need to switch from cloud code to codex. It's exhausting. It's totally exhausting. So how do people manage that? If you're just…

Speaker names come from our own diarization. The position is estimated from where the line sits in the episode.
“Companies that have that domain or that context gravity, I think they absolutely survive. I think companies that don't have that, where their entire value is a UI layer or an API layer that talks to other systems, that's where you start to run into potential risk… If you don't have any real domain context in there, the speed at which someone can migrate off of you is also really, really fast.” — Linda Tong, The Growth Podcast

Asked whether a 'SaaS reckoning' is coming, Webflow's CEO splits SaaS into companies that hold deep domain context and data and thin wrappers over other systems. Her point is that the data people won't move is the moat, not the interface.

The Growth Podcast · 2026-11-10 Permalink → Listen →
The Growth Podcast Around 22:54 into the episode
Linda Tong

…Sometimes your best strategy is going and competing in that space. And I wouldn't want to be avoidant in that. But we just happen to be for us where we drew that box. It really put us down into a more specific and narrow domain that probably isn't the first priority of a frontier lab right now.

Aakash Gupta

…you just reflect on broader the SaaS landscape, is it going to be like a SaaS reckoning that we are seeing in the multiples? Like are certain companies not going to be able to draw that box? Are they going to be subsumed? How do you think about the broader SaaS landscape and whether it survives AI?

Linda Tong

…absolutely survive. I think companies that don't have that, where their entire value is a UI layer or an API layer that talks to other systems, I think that's where you start to run into potential risk of what is the right strategy for your business. What is the core value that someone gets out of your product? And is it something differentiated? And how easy is it to replicate and build? And if you don't have any real domain context in there, the speed at which someone can migrate off of you is also really, really fast. And so those are the considerations I would have. And so back to your question, yeah, I don't think anything, SaaS is such a broad category. I don't think everything survives, but I do think a mass majority where you're in domain-specific areas and you have deep context and there is Some meaningful amount of data or company knowledge that's stored there. I think you've got an interesting moat.…

Aakash Gupta

So I think we've figured out that something that's very domain specific, you can definitely create some defensibility, something that creates a system of record. You can create some defensibility. Are those the two main paths? Does everyone need to do that? Or how do we think about the rest of…

Linda Tong

The two other things I would consider are governance and control is probably the most boring thing. Governance, controls, roast permissions, compliance. If there's deep governance and controls in your system and they need to be there, Let me tell you how few people want to vibe code that and build…

Aakash Gupta

Right.

Speaker names come from our own diarization. The position is estimated from where the line sits in the episode.
“Two decades ago, if you wanted to go from here to, let's say, the Moscone Center in San Francisco, you would print out a map on MapQuest and it would give you turn-by-turn directions. And if you missed it, it sucks for you. You're lost. Nowadays… you put in your address. And as you twist and turn, it constantly updates for you. And it's iterating and it's personalized to your journey. Software needs to take that exact same evolution… Right now, when you and I log into Salesforce, we're going to see the same thing. And that's ridiculous.” — Linda Tong, The Growth Podcast

Asked whether Salesforce's move to a 'headless' model, opening its data to agents through MCP, is right, she said they nailed it. She argues today's dense, feature-heavy SaaS screens belong to the MapQuest era.

The Growth Podcast · 2026-11-10 Permalink → Listen →
The Growth Podcast Around 30:32 into the episode
Linda Tong

…can hold them steady and actually create operating profit and be able to turn them in the coming years. And so I think even those acquisitions are a sign that a market that is arguably one of the most prudent markets are now acquiring these companies because they see opportunity on the horizon.

Aakash Gupta

So let's take those two examples a little deeper, Salesforce and Adobe. What are they doing right that's starting to allow them to recover? For example, Salesforce kind of went for this like headless model on top of their system of record. Is that a good move for companies to take?

Linda Tong

…people about this, is think about maps. Two decades ago, if you wanted to go from here to, let's say, The Moscone Center in San Francisco, you would print out a map on MapQuest and it would give you turn-by-turn directions. And you'd follow those directions to a T. And if you missed it, it sucks for you. You're lost. Nowadays, you just get in a car, you use your phone or GPS or whatever, and you put in your address. And as you twist and turn, it constantly updates for you. And it's iterating and it's personalized to your journey. Software needs to take that exact same evolution. And I think what's been unlocked now with AI is This concept, people are talking about things like malleable software. I think of it as hyper-personalized software. And right now, when you and I log into Salesforce, we're going to see the same thing, or relatively the same thing. And the way we navigate is the same. We're going to have sort of the same headings. We're going to have the same…

Aakash Gupta

How do you avoid just becoming a database with rules? If people are just accessing you with MCP and Claude UI...

Linda Tong

It's the context. We actually just posted about this today. So internally, our team does a lot with how are we leveraging our own data to drive Decisions and both on like features we build, how to run the business, et cetera, et cetera, right? Like every team has been like, oh, I can use AI and…

Aakash Gupta

So you're the CEO, so I can ask you these tough questions. You guys are raised at a $4 billion valuation at that same time period. I know, we're in the peak. With the $17 billion Miro, the $11 billion Airtable. So- What has happened to your valuation since then, your growth? What can you tell us…

Speaker names come from our own diarization. The position is estimated from where the line sits in the episode.
“Everyone's like, 'oh yeah, I could vibe code that in an afternoon.' And the answer is, if you vibe code that in an afternoon, software, just like everything else, it deteriorates over time. It's not like you build something and it's great and it keeps working. There's bugs, there's issues, more people come on it… We have a group internally. We call them our boomerangs… I've had a couple of CMOs call me with very colorful language, telling me, we went down this path and it's totally effed. I need to come back to Webflow.” — Linda Tong, The Growth Podcast

Aakash Gupta asked whether horizontal SaaS is doomed by AI. Webflow's CEO answers that the real test is total cost of ownership, because vibe-coded replacements still need maintaining, and says some customers who built their own came back within about 90 days.

The Growth Podcast · 2026-11-10 Permalink → Listen →
The Growth Podcast Around 26:43 into the episode
Linda Tong

…I have to put into maintaining the software versus buying the software? And if the total cost of ownership doesn't add up, then like no one's going to vibe code it because it is so much more expensive to hire great talent and have that talent building something that's not critical to your business.

Aakash Gupta

Right.

Linda Tong

…analysis is finally happening because there's the joy of building anything and building everything on your own and then there's the realization of, Well, you can't just build it instead and forget it. You have to keep maintaining it. And the cost of doing that is so painful. And so you have to go do a TCO analysis. And I do think that that's, frankly, where people are starting to see change. We have a group internally. We call them our boomerangs. But it's folks who are like, oh, I'm going to vibe code my own website builder because I'm going to just go vibe my website and I'm going to do all this stuff. And I've had a couple of CMOs call me. With, you know, colorful language, very colorful language telling me, we went down this path and it's totally effed. I need to come back to Webflow. Please don't shut it off. We're back. And I've…

Aakash Gupta

Okay. So let's talk a little bit about whether this compression is justified. If we look at even those categories you just talked about, like payments, for instance, PayPal's multiple has collapsed. And that's one of the categories we're talking about. Well, that might actually make sense not to…

Linda Tong

I think it's partially justified. I mean, the way that people do the math, right, is if your growth is starting to slow, and let's say before you're growing like 50%, like you could get a 10x multiple because they're like, oh, to actually get that valuation, you only need like, you know, four or…

Aakash Gupta

So let's take those two examples a little deeper, Salesforce and Adobe. What are they doing right that's starting to allow them to recover? For example, Salesforce kind of went for this like headless model on top of their system of record. Is that a good move for companies to take?

Speaker names come from our own diarization. The position is estimated from where the line sits in the episode.

Collections They Appear In

Product & Design Startups & Venture Tech Strategy & Big Tech