Notion’s Ivan Zhao: The Refounder

Key ideas

Zhao describes refounding Notion twice and argues AI changes how products get built, who gets hired and how a company is organized, while some things should stay conventional.

From a machine transcript of the audio. Quotes link to the moment they are said.

1. 1

   Build with models like brewing, not bridges

   Zhao compares classic software to engineering a bridge, where a sound design can usually be built, and building on language models to brewing beer, where you cannot dictate the result, which he says is still somewhat true even as models have improved. He says this makes development technology-first rather than customer-first, and that it broke the usual handoff by putting designers, engineers and product people in one group.

2. 2

   Refounding starts with the founder's hands

   Zhao describes two refoundings: laying off everyone to rebuild with his co-founder in Kyoto, and committing Notion to AI after using GPT-4, which was followed by about a year and a half of agent work that did not work. His advice to larger companies is to start with the product and have the founder use the models directly. He says he does not know whether companies without a founder can do it, and expects it to be tough.

3. 3

   Hire for taste and agency

   Zhao frames talent as capability times taste times agency, and argues language models are evening out capability, so Notion selects for the other two. In engineering he describes a barbell of very junior and very senior people, with seniors supplying direction. He says sales interviews now start by asking candidates to build something rather than reading a resume.

4. 4

   Run a jazz band, stay somewhat hierarchical

   After conventional delegation following COVID, Zhao says he realized that approach did not suit him, and the company adopted a jazz band mantra in which he moves between top-down and bottom-up. He says organizations can get flatter, as Notion is doing, but not flat, because he sees hierarchy as human nature. He answers calcification with intentional acquisitions and points to the 50 to 60 former founders at Notion.

5. 5

   Spend innovation in only a few places

   Zhao calls his attempt to design a new go-to-market motion from first principles a mistake and says a classic sales team should have started earlier. He argues each company should save its invention for a few places, and that people want a human when buying something expensive. He says enterprise sales began to work once a system-minded CRO was paired with a rah-rah head of sales.

In Ivan’s words

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