#9/120 - Conquer optimistically adding up - why I want to live in a future where ClickUp decline but Linear strive
If you keep adding things to your life or product but still feel like it’s not going as expected, you might be stuck in an addictive system of thinking—and this essay is for you.
If you keep adding things to your life or product but still feel like it’s not going as expected, you might be stuck in an addictive system of thinking—and this essay is for you.
We strive for abundance in many ways. Productivity hackers get excited when they discover a new method. Fashion lovers try on every beautiful outfit they pass by. We eat far more than we need.
This tendency is inherited from our ancestors, who lived in extremely scarce environments. Finding honey or animal fat was the cause of a full day of celebration. And it wasn't just food—entertainment and sensory pleasures were rare too. As a result, our bodies evolved to overreact to sweet, fatty foods, joy, and sex. Our dopamine system is easily triggered but difficult to regulate.
In modern society, this tendency has only become stronger. Information floods our senses at unprecedented speeds. A few swipes on our phones reveal what hundreds of people are doing, creating a perfect breeding ground for envy.
When we see others doing well—especially in fields we care deeply about—it naturally stings. It's hard to admit that we are envious, but if you sit quietly with yourself, you can feel the pain simmering beneath.
This is especially common in two realms: consumerism and creation. In consumerism, the pattern is obvious, like the fashion industry using scarcity and superficial uniqueness to trigger competition. In creation, it’s subtler. We all have ideas, often similar ones. When someone executes an idea faster or better, you can immediately find the envy brewing in your mind and the bitterness it leaks.
These emotional drivers push us to add more to our lives. Another ancient instinct fuels this cycle: the fear of loss. Our ancestors couldn’t afford to lose anything, no matter how small. This fear remains today, making us resist letting go even of things that add stress or noise.
These conditions strengthen the addictive habit of adding more—and worse, they create a belief that doing so will fix everything. I once fell into the pitfall, and I can tell, it was very painful.
Tell me what you are struggling with
If I keep writing more and more, I will be recognized one day
"If I keep writing as much as possible, one day I will be recognized." This was the hope of my 7-year-old self. Later, in my writing career, I deeply held onto this belief and continued writing without reflection. I trapped myself in an echo chamber of false beliefs, aimlessly accumulating topics. Every time someone else succeeded, it stung, I envied, assuming they were simply luckier.
Looking back, I recognize this as a perfect example of what Professor Larry McEnerney called "optimistically adding up."
He argued that progress—whether scientific, creative, or intellectual—is not driven by simply piling on more ideas. That’s an illusion. It assumes knowledge and value are stable, additive systems, a well-defined equation. And If you just keep stacking bricks, you’ll eventually build something great. But true progress demands rethinking, questioning boundaries, and sometimes leaping into a new paradigm entirely.
To shift a paradigm, you can’t just add more to the old system. You must challenge the underlying assumptions, spot what others overlook, and dare to highlight it.
This idea might sound abstract, so let’s make it more concrete with an example from two SaaS products: Linear vs. ClickUp.
Linear and ClickUp
Project management tools like Linear and ClickUp help teams manage features, bugs, and workflows, ensuring progress and alignment.
Two crucial elements in such a system are a project (why and what we’re doing) and tickets (tasks needed for the project). Various methodologies expand on these, but all essentially tackle the well-defined question, “How can we help managers manage their teams better?”
To address this, Linear and ClickUp were created with radically different philosophies.
ClickUp dreams of being the "everything app for work." Naturally, when users request features, their first instinct is to add them. Mind maps? Add it. Time tracking? Add it. In-app email? Add it. ClickUp grows by stacking more and more functionality—assuming more is always better.
Linear, on the other hand, moves differently. Its vision is “bringing magic back to software, through deeply caring about the quality of our work.” This vision is less concrete than ClickUp’s, but we can examine it through one of Linear’s major product revamps: the “Project.”
In the very first version, a project in Linear was simply a group of tickets with labels, deadlines, and assignees. They posted a blog explaining that this approach didn’t reflect how people actually work on the same project.
What truly matters for a project is its idea, vision, requirements, and desired outcomes—these aspects form the project’s core, not the underlying tickets which simply represent tasks. So Linear revamped its entire Project's user experience, moving documents and goals front and center, prompting users to focus on why instead of what.
Rather than adding more features indiscriminately, Linear rethought the fundamentals. They identify the problematic aspects of our current approach and change them to push the boundaries forward.
These two completely different visions shape entirely different product landscapes. In my view, ClickUp has developed a product with bloated features that lack consistency and connection between them.
ClickUp did not push the boundary forward, but Linear did.
Each of Linear’s features, revamps, and additions stems from a carefully crafted idea, combined with observations about existing problems in the field, identifying what is wrong for the community. This triggers rethinking, thoughtful change, and ultimately paradigm shifts.
However, thinking like Linear is difficult. As mentioned before, we inherited the tendency to keep adding things into our lives from our ancestors, like ClickUp's approach. To change that tendency, we need a radical shift in our mindset.
Thinking in the multiplicative system
Optimistically adding up is addictive. Everything adds a slight, predictable value linearly. It's safe and straightforward but yields linear results.
But if you want to create intrinsic value, and foster paradigm shifts, we need to think in a multiplicative system because it can yield nonlinear results.
Let's take a simple calculation, for example, considering four factors, 0.01, 1, 1000, and 5, the output is 50, if you step in and optimize the 1000 by 1 then the output will be 50.05. But if you are insightful, and optimize the 0.01 by 1 the output becomes 5050. It might be an oversimplified version of the real world, but we can better grasp the underlined essence of the multiplicative system from it.
Optimistically adding things up will dilute things you need to optimize and even worse, it makes them ambiguous and stumble decision making. Founder and CEO of Square once said "Make every detail perfect, limit the number of details" This is the total embodiment of multiplicative system thinking. Do it right, it can yield uncommon results.
Let's have a short summary of the multiplicative system:
Some factors matter far more than others.
A single weak link, a notorious zero—can destroy all your progress.
All the factors perform a compounding effect making the end result exponentially better than the additive system if done right.
Multiplicative thinking offers great returns but is challenging because:
We're bad at predicting complex interactions. Multiplicative systems work effectively when we can connect seemingly unrelated dots in the system and make them work better together.
We naturally favor short-term gains. Multiplicative system shines when we prolong the scale and keep optimizing the system, at the same time we carefully pick items that can work great together, and it all takes time.
Initial progress often feels slow compared to additive systems. An additive system is simple and when you add more things into it, the system directly yields you more reward, but it's linear.
Although It’s difficult, multiplicative system thinking—playing the long game, planning carefully, and building systems where pieces strengthen each other—is how the greatest achievements are made.
Here’s how we can practice it:
Be careful with every step, feature, or method you add
Each new element can amplify or damage your existing system. Before adding, ask:
Will this strengthen the existing system, or introduce conflict, distraction, or dilution?
Identify elements in the system that resonate with and flourish from this addition. This is the baseline when we add things into the system.
Believe that things are connected, and actively seek out those connections
Connection is the foundation of multiplicative system thinking. You must first understand why things are connected to recognize their true potential. I use two methods to build connections: crystallization and journaling.
Crystallization means that whenever I have a good idea, I try my best to shape it into a readable essay. The key is to see if it links back to my inner knowledge and whether I can truly elaborate on it.
Journal. At the end of each day, I record three things: my top three gains, my rough schedule by the hour, and anything new I’ve learned. This helps me refresh my memory and strengthen those connections.
Be careful of the notorious zero
Every system suffers from diminishing returns. But some factors do worse than merely declining—they turn toxic.
Protect your system. Identify and eliminate potential zeros at all costs.
Be patient
Multiplicative system's growth starts slow. It feels fragile and small at first. Steven Bartlett spent three years building The Diary of a CEO before it became a breakout hit.
Robert Greene, in Mastery, reminds us: that early on, we are apprentices. Focus on depth, not recognition. Trust that your foundation will one day bear fruit.
In a noisy world addicted to "more," it's easy to slip into an optimistic addition. But thinking multiplicatively—seeking deep connections, protecting against zeros, and investing for the long term—is what separates meaningful success from shallow accumulation.
Crystallize your ideas. Journal your growth. Stay patient.
And remember: you are not building a pile—you are building a system.
This month’s connection: Dylan
I met Dylan in the community called Creative Threads, held together by Jad, Dylan, and other creatives. We’ve had many long-form text conversations within the community. To me, Dylan perfectly represents the essence of building in public—he always shares interesting discoveries from his 3D printing process and is eager to help anyone facing similar challenges.
If you’re interested in 3D printing and looking for a friend on Threads, I highly recommend following him.
Thanks
Thanks Jonathan, Jimmy, Lucy, Shaka for reading the draft of this article. I can not make this far without your help.