Notion's CEO wants you to demand better from your tools
This is Casey Newton, founder and editor of Platformer and cohost of the Hard Fork podcast. This is the second episode of my productivity-focused Decoder series I’m doing while Nilay is out on parental leave.
Today, I’m talking with Notion cofounder and CEO Ivan Zhao. I’ve followed Notion for quite some time now — I’m a big fan, and I use Notion as part of my workflow with Platformer. So I was very excited to get Ivan on the show to discuss his philosophy on productivity, how he’s grown his company over the last decade, and where he sees the space going in the future.
Read the full interview transcript on The Verge.
Links:
Introducing Notion AI for Work | Notion
Notion Mail is a minimalist but powerful take on email | Verge
Notion’s new Q&A feature lets you ask an AI about your notes | Verge
Notion takes on AI notetakers with its own transcription feature | TechCrunch
The impossible dream of good workplace software | Decoder
When AI has better taste than you | Julie Zhuo / The Looking Glass
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. This episode was editor by Xander Adams.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
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How Notion Reimagined Productivity Tools | Ivan Zhao
Ivan Zhao joins Joubin Mirzadegan on Grit to break down how the company’s minimalist design became a strategic edge in a world overwhelmed by bloated software.
He shares why the AI agent still hasn’t arrived, and how Notion’s modular approach might be the closest thing to making it real.
Guest: Ivan Zhao, co-founder and CEO of Notion
Mentioned in this episode: Fuzzy Khosrowshahi, Airbnb, Sequoia Capital, Linear, Figma, Apple, Things, Microsoft, BMW, Lumiere, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton, Rippling, Matt MacInnis, Inkling, Steve Jobs, Douglas Engelbart, Alan Kay, Bill Gates, OpenAI ChatGPT, Y Combinator, Andrej Karpathy, Toby Schachman, Simon Last, Spotify, Slack
Connect with Ivan Zhao
X
LinkedIn
Connect with Joubin
X
LinkedIn
Email: grit@kleinerperkins.com
Learn more about Kleiner Perkins
Notion’s lost years, its near collapse during Covid, staying small to move fast, the joy and suffering of building horizontal, more | Ivan Zhao (CEO and co-founder)
Ivan Zhao is the co-founder and CEO of Notion. Ivan shares the untold story of Notion, from nearly running out of database space during Covid to finding product-market fit after several “lost years,” and the hard-won lessons along the way.
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What you’ll learn:
1. Why you sometimes need to “hide your vision” behind something people actually want—what Ivan calls “sugar-coating the broccoli”
2. How Ivan and his co-founder persevered through multiple product resets and complete code rewrites
3. Why Notion prioritized systems over headcount, keeping the team small and focused even at scale
4. Why Ivan believes in craft and values as the foundation for product development, balancing technical excellence with aesthetic sensibility
5. The surprising story of how Notion nearly collapsed during Covid when their single database almost ran out of space with only weeks to spare
6. Community-led growth tactics
7. Ivan’s unique journey from a small town in China
8. Much more
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Brought to you by:
• Eppo—Run reliable, impactful experiments
• Airtable ProductCentral—Launch to new heights with a unified system for product development
• Sinch—Build messaging, email, and calling into your product
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Find the transcript at: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/inside-notion-ivan-zhao
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Where to find Ivan Zhao:
• X: https://x.com/ivanhzhao
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ivanhzhao/
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Where to find Lenny:
• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com
• X: https://twitter.com/lennysan
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/
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In this episode, we cover:
(00:00) Introduction to Ivan Zhao
(04:41) Ivan’s early life and education
(07:46) Discovering the vision for Notion
(10:49) The lost years of Notion
(13:56) Rebuilding and perseverance
(17:14) Layoffs and company morale
(18:53) Advice for startup founders
(25:08) Product-market fit
(29:56) Staying lean and efficient
(34:27) Creating a unique office culture
(37:20) Craft and values: the foundation of Notion’s philosophy
(38:44) Navigating tradeoffs in product and business building
(41:24) Leadership and personal growth
(49:11) Challenges and crises: lessons from Notion’s journey
(51:08) Building horizontal software: joys and pains
(01:02:40) Philosophy of tools and human potential
(01:06:17) Lightning round and final thoughts
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Referenced:
• Ürümqi: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%9Cr%C3%BCmqi
• Notion: https://www.notion.com/
• SpongeBob SquarePants: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpongeBob_SquarePants
• Augmenting Human Intellect: https://web.stanford.edu/class/history34q/readings/Engelbart/Engelbart_AugmentIntellect.html
• Alan Kay: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Kay
• Ted Nelson: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Nelson
• Steve Jobs on Why Computers Are Like a Bicycle for the Mind (1990): https://www.themarginalian.org/2011/12/21/steve-jobs-bicycle-for-the-mind-1990/
• Xerox Alto: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xerox_Alto
• React: https://react.dev/
• Simon Last on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/simon-last-41404140/
• Magna-Tiles: https://www.magnatiles.com/
• Design on a deadline: How Notion pulled itself back from the brink of failure: https://www.figma.com/blog/design-on-a-deadline-how-notion-pulled-itself-back-from-the-brink-of-failure/
• Bryan Johnson on X: https://x.com/bryan_johnson
• Tobi Lütke’s leadership playbook: Playing infinite games, operating from first principles, and maximizing human potential (founder and CEO of Shopify): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/tobi-lutkes-leadership-playbook
• Smalltalk: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smalltalk#:
• Lisp: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisp_(programming_language)
• DeepSeek: https://www.deepseek.com/
• Shana Fisher: https://www.crunchbase.com/person/shana-fisher
• LAMY 2000 fountain pens: https://www.jetpens.com/LAMY-2000-Fountain-Pens/
• Macintosh 128K: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_128K
• Toshiba rice cooker: https://www.toshiba-lifestyle.com/us/cooking-appliances/rice-cooker
• Transistor radio: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transistor_radio
• Jira: https://www.atlassian.com/software/jira
• Salesforce: https://www.salesforce.com/
• HubSpot: https://www.hubspot.com/
• Zendesk: https://www.zendesk.com/
• Misattributed McLuhan quote: https://mcluhangalaxy.wordpress.com/2013/04/01/we-shape-our-tools-and-thereafter-our-tools-shape-us/
• Phin Barnes on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/phineasbarnes/
• Hacker News: https://news.ycombinator.com/
• Pablo Picasso quote: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/629531-good-artists-copy-great-artists-steal#:~
• Connections with James Burke on Prime Video: https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/amzn1.dv.gti.484e32c5-60bd-4493-a800-e44fd0940312
• The Enneagram Institute: https://www.enneagraminstitute.com/
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Recommended book:
• The Romance of the Three Kingdoms: https://www.amazon.com/Romance-Three-Kingdoms-Luo-Guanzhong/dp/024133277X
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Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com.
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Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed.
This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.lennysnewsletter.com/subscribe
RAG is the key for smarter productivity tools with Notion CEO Ivan Zhao
Notion is a productivity app that has invested heavily in AI to create products that enable workers to access information instantly without having to search through their own countless notes. Today on No Priors, Sarah and Elad are joined by Ivan Zhao, the co-founder and CEO of Notion, to talk about Notions Q&A interface and calendar applications. They also get into how using RAG models means better retrieval, longer memory, and the user can be less organized and how Notion is leading the charge in this era of SaaS bundling products.
Sign up for new podcasts every week. Email feedback to show@no-priors.com
Follow us on Twitter: @NoPriorsPod | @Saranormous | @EladGil | @ivanhzhao
Show Notes:
(0:00) Introduction
(2:09) AI and Computing literacy
(5:39) Building the Notion AI team
(8:43) Notion as an application company
(12:09) Prioritizing AI investment
(14:53) The rapid evolution cycle of AI development
(17:46) Notion Q&A
(20:00) Workflow and AI for calendars
(22:43) Moving past the need for organization
(24:36) History of SaaS doesn’t repeat, it rhymes
(30:14) Design at Notion
(34:26) Notion office design
(36:52) How RAG will change the future
(38:30) Building our the software in the Notionscape
SaaStr 449: Notion CEO Ivan Zhao on Winning at Enterprise through Community Building
Two years ago, Notion was just 10 people building a product that had a few dozen diehard fans. In conversation with Hustle Crew's Abadesi Osunsade, Ivan will share how he thinks about community as one of Notion's unfair advantages, and why this has been a game-changer for the business.
Video + blog post: https://www.saastr.com/notion-saas-community-building/