Notion, de 0 à 100 MILLIONS d'utilisateurs en 10 ans

What the [ __ ] is notion?

>> How would you describe it?

>> It's hard. At the same time, it's

everything and at the same time, it's

nothing.

>> Notion is like the Lego for software.

Computing should almost be like reading

and writing. You ask me, should you

teach your kids how to program? Is as if

you ask me, should I teach my kids how

to read and write French? You don't ask

me that question.

>> Yeah.

>> Right.

>> How much [music] did you raise total?

>> Hundreds of [clears throat] million.

This the most all the money still in the

bank cash flow positive for several

years now. We're not AI labs. We're AI

application company, but we spend a lot

of time building the infrastructure to

unlock the best in the models. The

better [music] part is because now you

don't have to use five six tools, you

save time and even better, you have one

place to deploy AI to help you do all

the work. Most Japanese people don't

speak English. We're just eat work, eat,

work. Very productive.

>> But does Simon today do he's

>> Simon is still coding.

>> Yeah. Okay.

>> Man, that guy's lucky he

>> Are you jealous?

>> I'm jealous. Oh, I I like what I do too,

but coding give you a different flow

state.

>> Welcome on board. Uh, are you okay? Are

you still jetlagged?

>> I'm pretty jetlagged, but the tea will

help. I hope. [laughter]

>> Well, we we are both jetlagged like at

some point because you're coming from

the US from like 9 hours away, but we're

coming from what, seven hours away, but

on the other side. So, you were in the

you're in the middle of the night and

I'm in in the middle of the afternoon

right now. It's it's fun. Welcome,

Angela. Don't do it yourself. I'm so

happy to to have you here. Um, and the

team was really happy actually because

you're you you don't know that, but uh,

notion and what you've done in the past

10 years is like the backbone of all of

our work. like like it's very exciting

to to to understand how did it start and

uh what are your views what is going to

be the future

>> um it's going to be a lot of fun may I

ask you to in introduce yourself

>> I'm Ivan I'm the co-founder and CEO of

notion

>> and uh I've been working and like you

talk about we have been working on this

for more than a decade to me uh it's a

product it's a business it's a company

it's um it's a project. It's our piece.

It's my life. Happy to talk about it

today.

>> So, what did you do for for notion now?

What does that mean being a CEO? Do you

still uh think about the project? Are

you still on the product a lot?

>> Yeah, I'm like

I spend most my time on product. Mhm.

>> Um like this morning I was sending out

an internal message talk about we have a

customer dinner last night and uh what

are the top three four requests from the

customer and and and

especially the top request is about

database is about permissions. How do we

improve in the permission of notion

databases and I explain to the team why

is this important give some context and

meaning to it and uh propose some uh

solution. All right. Are the other are

the demands um from the customers

different in France or are they all the

same more or less? They're very

>> um

consumer enterprise are very different.

Um I would say for business enterprise

customers are actually kind of similar

um

across different regions. Um France I

would I noticed we have somewhat sizable

of a government. were just like

infrastructure

energy company using notion.

>> All right.

>> And those company tend to hire some

office worker but even more non-off

workers and those people have a

different behavior of using notion than

office workers. So this is some pattern

I pick up this

>> people on the field a lot

>> people on the field like they want to

read their notion page and projects and

they might not want to edit but they

want to be able to access on their phone

and offline and all other kind of

requirement that's uh not a typical from

know worker with a laptop or computer.

While we were preparing this episode, I

was like wondering uh what the [ __ ] is

notion at the end of the day, you

[laughter] know? You're like, you're

like,

>> well, how would you describe it?

>> It's hard because it's, you know, at the

same time it's everything and at the

same time it's nothing. You know what

I'm saying? It's like it's not replacing

um spreadsheet. If you're like a

hardcore Excel user, you're like, "What

the [ __ ] is notion? What can I do with

that?" If you're a hardcore PowerPoint

or whatever. So these are the original

uses of um of software in a company

right

>> we had like probably three pillars which

were Microsoft uh street uh so office uh

so I would say docs I mean word excel

and powerpoint and we we've been

completely I don't know brainwashed or I

don't know you know how do you say um

>> blind side

>> yeah yeah exactly so we would use those

three

>> and that's it.

>> And then came some CRM.

>> So you would add some Salesforce or Pipe

Drive or whatever. And then you would

add some things but each one had a very

specific use, right? And when you go uh

and you start with notion, you're like,

"Okay, yeah, it's fun. I like the the

feeling. I like the the the design. It's

a it's but what am I going to do with

it? And and I I'd go even further. I

believe like if you go to your CFO with

notion, you would like you already have

Slack, you already have this and that

and this and you it must be pretty hard

to to implement it in some companies. I

guess

>> depends if the company is techsavvy.

Yeah,

>> it's a lot easier.

>> You should start with it. Yeah, it's a

startup like have no problem running on

notion and the we call notion hard to

describe but we call notion notion is

like the Lego for software.

>> I love it. It's exactly

>> Lego is kind of hard to [clears throat]

describe. What is this kind of toy? It

can be any toy. Uh but that feeling is

what we want to give people in terms

>> the Lego for software.

>> Yeah. They can create their tools. The

tools is theirs. It's just beautiful.

It's fun. It's just like you can make

most any other toys out of Legos. So you

can make most other any kind of

productivity software or collaboration

software out of notion Legos.

>> Plus it's very easy to to start with.

It's not like you don't have to be

trained.

>> You don't need to be trained. You don't

need to be a programmer and you almost

have the programmer power and that's why

we start a company. What inspired me to

start notion like a decade ago because

software is pretty rigid. If you think

about um the first generation of

software you describe right which is uh

document spreadsheets um maybe email and

presentation they're pretty general

purpose

>> right then that's until the 90s

until the two 2005 15 years ago 20 years

ago

>> then SAS happened

>> y

>> point solution happened starting with

the moving from spreadsheet to CRM and

to any kind of point problem solution

project management tools and there's so

many SAS proliferation in the past 20

years become too fragmented too rigid

and that's the problem we feels like oh

we can do something different here we

can give people instead of many rigid

tools they have to piece together we

just give them Legos and Lego could be

their document tools could be their

project tracker could be lightweight CRM

it could be most things you need for

your back. Interesting. I I I want to go

much deeper into that. But

>> before that, if you if you're okay, I'd

love to understand your uh

entrepreneurial uh journey, right? Uh

because um as I said earlier, we got

back from China. I it was my first time

in China and I Wow.

>> It's your first time too,

>> Clemens. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

>> Yeah. Most of us uh well actually were

five. Three of us were the first time.

Axel lived in China for a while and uh

and Christopher had been there a few

times already, but it was Yeah, it was

Sorry.

>> Yeah. Well, we kind of fell in love with

China.

>> What's your [clears throat] favorite

things? What are your favorite things?

>> Um the what? Shanghai. Yeah, Shanghai is

amazing. But

>> because the the Yeah. Which part of

Shanghai?

>> Actually, the French area is amazing.

Yeah. Yeah. It's it looks very

>> kind of a little bit like

>> and and it's I think Shanghai is more um

not European, but most of the the other

cities we've seen, they're so modern.

>> It misses it lacks a soul. I know what

you're talking about.

>> Yeah. Like you go to Senza and you're

like, "Wow." It blows your mind.

Literally, you get drones everywhere.

You get like um uh self-driving cars.

You get like And the streets are clean.

Well, people are [snorts] really uh uh

riding their scooters on on the on the

sideways, so it's kind of weird at the

beginning. No noise at all. Like no

noise,

>> electric everything.

>> Yeah. Everywhere. So, it's it's it's

really I mean, wow. Different. You We've

seen Brazil, we've seen Africa, we've

seen and this is like the future

>> literally. But this is not China at the

end. We've seen also uh the back office

of China, right? [laughter]

But uh and it was it was fun too. Uh but

the speed also blew us. The speed of the

country, the speed of the people, the

the business mind, the business spirit.

Uh I don't know. I was kind of uh

>> Yeah. People work hard, people hustle.

>> Yeah.

>> People are smart

>> and they love it. I mean

uh a lot of Chinese put it that way for

like a maybe in in Europe a bit in the

US but in Europe we like also to not to

chill but to enjoy life right

[clears throat]

>> uh for some of Chinese people enjoying

life is working hard it's it's like you

know what I'm saying

>> yeah it's like who said this

America is uh uh live to work Europe

it's uh work to live China probably is a

work to work.

>> Yeah. Somehow. So it's hard to

understand because uh sometimes from

here we we believe it's like inequal or

they work too much and they make people

work too much and but it's not. I mean

it's the way of life. Some people say if

you get workers you tell them to work 40

hours. They'll go work into another

factory for 25 hours if they can because

to get more money and and that's their

choice. But uh yeah um so we love that.

What I was about to say is that How long

did you live in China for?

>> Until I was 16, 17.

>> Oh, wow.

>> Pretty late. Yeah.

>> Yeah. I thought it was 12 or Wow.

>> No. Okay.

>> I went to uh Yeah. Stay until middle

school.

>> Okay. So, you're Chinese or

>> I'm Chinese.

>> Okay. Still Chinese. And you uh you you

work and live in the US but with green

card.

>> Oh, no. I'm Canadian passport. So, I

moved to Canada when I was uh

>> I remember in Vancouver. Yeah.

>> Vancouver.

>> And but you you live in the US. I live

in San Francisco.

>> Okay, I'll switch to French for a brief

moment to thank my sponsor.

administrative

certific The capital

episode.

So when you have Canadian passport,

>> you can have a Canadian passport with no

Canadian nationality. You're not

citizenship.

>> I'm citizenship Canadian.

>> So you're not Chinese anymore?

>> Not Chinese anymore. I lost my passport.

>> Okay. Was it a big deal?

>> A big deal losing it.

>> Yeah, I mean not being changing n

national.

>> Well, you have to in ch for China you

have you can only be one.

>> Yeah, that's so

>> but internally for you was it a big

deal?

>> I was so young. I wasn't thinking too

much about just following my mom.

>> Okay. Just your mom. Okay.

>> What for? like just for work for

>> um better education uh to um no be away

further away from my dad.

>> All right.

>> And uh yeah, just to change scenery a

little bit.

>> Okay.

>> Yeah. So she took me went to Vancouver,

Canada when I was 16, 17. Couple years

high school there.

>> Can you tell me a bit about that? How

did it go for you? What what is it for?

Where were you in China? Oh, I was born

in um and uh raised in this northwest

part of China called Shinjang province.

>> All right. That's very

>> That's in the desert. Yeah. Where the

weaker Muslim region part of China is.

>> Northwest. So it's up north. Uh North

Korea.

>> Uh up north but west. North Korea is the

northeast.

>> Oh, sorry. Sorry. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Like Afghanistan touching Russia

and Kazakhstan all the stance countries.

And you were raised in a big city or

>> it's a it's the biggest city of that

region with a small city in China.

>> It's a small town of 8 million people.

>> It's a small city of four million

people. [laughter]

>> I see. So it's bigger than Paris but

yeah. Okay.

>> Yeah.

>> Okay. Um and so what is it coming to

Vancouver from uh there?

>> Well, no I and then I went to different

part of China. So I grew up in many

different parts of China. um stay in

that Shinjang province until I was in uh

8 years old.

>> Mhm.

>> Then um traveled to Hainan Province

which is um south the big island. Um for

a little bit then to um Chinda province,

Chinda, the city where the beer come

from.

>> All right. Chint. Okay. Yeah.

>> Then a little bit other places

eventually settled in Beijing.

>> All right.

>> Did you guys go to Beijing this trip?

No, not this time. We had to choose.

>> We chose We chose You're going to think

these guys are [ __ ] up, but we are. We

are. Well, Chongqin was the

>> But did you go to um Chandu?

>> No, we've been So, it was Shenzhen, Hong

Kong, Chongqin going through uh the

countryside and then Shanghai. And in

Shanghai, we went to uh Hongu and

Mingros. Yeah. Hrosk

>> to meet with Unitry. Maybe you've heard

of the human humanoid robots.

>> Okay. We've seen dark dark factories.

It's going to be soon on my YouTube

channel. It's going to be very

>> cool. Very cool. Um,

>> Shanghai has history. Yeah,

>> Chongqing has history.

>> Yeah.

>> Uh, Hanjo definitely has a lot of

history. The you bike around the lake or

something, right?

>> Uh, yeah. Well, no, because we've been

there for like uh just half a day or

just And how did you speak English when

you arrived in Vancouver? Not much.

>> Not much.

>> Like Chinese school exam, written

English. [laughter]

>> Well, we see what is the Chinese school

English. It's not It's not very And And

what were you good at? Were you were you

like a very good student or

>> I was a quite good student. Yeah. Yeah.

Um

>> top 10 but not top five. All right.

>> In my class in Vancouver or in China?

>> In China.

>> Yeah. So that means top one in

Vancouver. [laughter]

>> That's the IG. Yeah.

>> Yeah. Uh but I played a lot of sports. I

played a lot of video games. Uh it got

me into uh some special school for

because I win some programming

competitions.

>> All right. Okay. You were already in in

programming.

>> I got started programming when I was

grade four.

>> Grade four.

>> Yeah.

>> What age is that? It's a

>> eight n

>> maybe 11.

>> 11. Okay.

>> 10 11. Would you reckon it's still a

good thing to put my my uh 10 years old

son into programming right now? Is it a

good idea or it's useless?

>> I haven't thought about much. Yeah, I

think so. Is you don't the language

speaking in language and machine

probably a little bit unnecessary but

think uh structurally about a system

like how roughly understand how the

machine works. um

>> Python would

>> that doesn't matter. Okay. Yeah. Um

because AI can write all the codes most

the simple codes now. So

>> your son doesn't need to learn how to

actually write the syntax but by making

something he has to think through

himself um helping have empathy towards

the machine.

>> Yeah. Empathy towards the machine.

That's Yeah. Um

>> yeah. So,

>> what else is he learning?

>> Is he learning? Yeah, he's learning a

lot of uh uh [laughter]

what do you say? Roblox.

>> Yeah.

>> Which is interesting still, but and no,

a lot of um yeah, tennis. Uh uh what's

martial arts into is not judo but um

>> jiu-jitsu.

>> Jiu-jitsu. Yeah. Yeah. And uh yeah,

>> is tennis big in Paris?

>> Yeah, it's pretty big. It came back in

France recently. Uh tennis it was kind

of old school. But uh

>> why did it came back?

>> I'm not sure because we we don't even

have real champions. It's been like like

the last uh time a French champion. On

on the women's side, the girls are

pretty good, but on the guys side the

last time we won a um not atple, it was

like in 18.

>> Yeah, I'm learning tennis.

>> It's a lot of fun.

>> It's a lot of fun. But the the the thing

here is paddle here. You've

>> changed. Yeah. I played the first time.

I played twice so far. It's pretty fun.

>> It's growing. Yeah. Yeah.

>> More respectable than pickle ball.

>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. More respectable

definitely.

And so when you you you got there, I'm

just trying to to understand how because

at 17 16 17 is it's probably pretty

hard. You're already your mind your

>> Yeah.

>> The French Yeah.

>> trying to pick up language,

>> trying to pick up culture.

>> And like first impression is like, oh,

where's everybody? There's so few people

in Vancouver compared to China, right?

You've been to China. It's so packed

with people and energy. Um I would think

the largest culture shock is actually

the uh how to gain the context about

American culture like it's less about

language more about like the context

behind the language to understand jokes

for example

>> it was hard

>> yeah I find that uh uh I forced myself

to watch not forced but I I watched a

lot of Simpsons and Spongebob like to

understand oh

>> Spongebob

>> why is it funny. Oh, because this is

funny. You know, uh I helped a lot. I

played a lot of um

I try to make friends because Vancouver

has so many Chinese people. You you

could you could just get by without

speaking a word English if you want to,

>> but I forced myself to um uh hang out

with non-Chinese kids and the um

just pick up language faster, pick up

culture faster.

>> That's the thing. the what you just said

about the humor is that because we're a

lot about

second degree you say second degree

humor you understand what I'm saying in

huh

>> sarcasm and in France it's a lot of you

know you you you make a joke that first

appears as not a joke so you're like

what the [ __ ] is he saying and then you

understand it's a joke and people said

don't do that in China [laughter]

like a lot and it's very French typical

French

>> I never thought about this Yeah, I would

say Chinese humor it's

a bit less than west. It was Chinese

people as is more straightforward.

>> Yeah. Okay.

>> Right. Um you guys did not go to

Beijing. That's actually I my one of my

favorite city because people have more

humor in that sense.

>> All right.

>> North has more humor than the south.

South is like straightforward do the

work hardworking straight just like get

to get stuff done energy.

>> It's interesting. I would say it's the

opposite in France, [laughter]

but the north is more about working and

and south about jokes and and

>> Oh, but it's it's the same then because

you say south is more about joke in

Yeah. France.

>> In France. Yeah.

>> Oh, interesting. Because usually the

warmer climate.

>> So in south in China it's slightly

warmer, more port cities, right?

>> Yeah.

>> Okay.

And so um what happened with a

programming and how did you get into uh

entrepreneurship? Uh did you before that

actually I had one question is um

>> were you raised in that very competition

uh way of raising kids in in China?

>> Um not really. No,

>> because my mom was uh she doesn't I was

always pretty good at school, so she did

not pay too much attention to my school.

Um she did not force me to learn like

usually kids learning piano or violin

when they were young. I she did not

force anything to me which I kind of

appreciate. Uh um

I I got into programming through

competition because I was born and

raised in that far west region of China.

in order to get to a good school, I need

to win some competition.

>> Oh wow.

>> So that pushed me to like get better at

something and the the thing I want to

get better at is computers which

programming because I can play video

games on the side of it. Uh so I got

good at that. Um I always play sports

growing up. So the sports is sense of

competition, right?

>> But it's more self motivated I guess

than from your parents. Um

[clears throat] yeah, she didn't force

much.

>> Okay. It was inside you probably somehow

in

>> probably inside me, but I I never want

to I want to be the top, but I don't

want to I know that if I be number one,

number two in the class, I will be lose

a lot of my I'll be like a nerd.

>> I wouldn't be able to play sports as

much. I wouldn't be able to like chase

girls. I wouldn't be able to play video

games. So, I'm So, I'm happy with top 10

in my class rather than top one.

>> Yeah, I get this. I can see that with my

older daughter actually. She's she's

probably exactly that. She doesn't want

to be the nerd. Top one, top two, right?

Yeah. Yeah, I get that. You kind of get

excluded when you're even if you don't

want to when you're the number one. No.

>> Uh you kind of get what?

>> Excluded by the rest of the class, you

know. No,

>> I guess so. Yeah, I was quite popular.

Is in China like I don't know. Um, you

notice on the there is like the there's

a each class has their uh leader, a

master.

>> So they have they wear badges. It's kind

of like a communist vibe.

>> So I didn't know that. Okay.

>> Yeah. You probably noticed people wear

the kids wear their red uh necktie,

right? Because the necktie symbolize a

corner of the flag and uh uh each class

has the class leader master usually wear

uh two bars here.

>> Okay. And uh and each row have their

role leader master which is one bar, one

red bar here. So I was um uh elected to

be my classm when I was really young.

>> But it's not that communist if you're

elected though.

>> Uh guess I was popular. [laughter]

>> Well popular teacher picked me also. So

um so I always wear this and even though

I moved to different cities and uh I try

to be like I often time end up as a

classm um and um yeah so it's like

popular with school friends play a lot

of sports you need to also be good at

school to be uh respected in your class

so need to be in top 10 top five but you

don't need to be top one

>> and um when when was that you came into

Vancouver

>> uh 198

when I was 17.

>> Okay. But when was that? What year? I

mean uh

>> 2003 2004.

>> Yeah.

>> So it [clears throat] was prior to uh um

all of the cameras in China and all of

the tracking systems you have everywhere

now.

>> Um I think the beginning of that.

>> Yeah.

>> So

>> yeah, a bit earlier.

>> Yeah. Because this this is kind of weird

when you go there now. It's it's

something big, right? The kind of

>> the surveillance system,

>> the big broader way of life.

>> I guess you surren to it. It's

convenience also, right? Um

>> like even when I go back to China,

>> uh I don't have a Chinese ID, so it's

hard for me to like register a lot of

apps.

>> Yeah. Yeah. Right. You can't pay with

your face or

>> Yeah. So, so like I have to use cash,

but less people using cash.

>> Don't you use Alipe and uh

>> Yeah, I do. planning to set it up with

certain its and

>> well we did actually quite easily now.

Yeah, maybe it's quite recent, but uh

when you know what the fun fact is

actually when I came back to Paris on

Sunday, I went out for shopping with my

wife and and daughter and I went to this

place called Leget, which is quite

famous and I said I I was buying Lego,

actually Lego for my my sons and

>> and I said, "Can I pay with Alipe?" She

said, "Sure." And and I did pay with

Alipe [laughter] in Paris and I was

like, "What the fuck?"

>> Just to prank them.

>> Yeah.

>> That's so funny.

>> Yeah. Yeah, it was quite funny.

>> Um, so yeah. Okay. Um, and so explain to

me how how did you go from uh yeah those

first years in Vancouver to to notion.

What happened in between?

>> Uh to college I went to UBC University

of British Columbia in Vancouver

>> and I study um uh cognitive science,

cognitive systems.

>> So I I was thinking should I do computer

science, cognitive science, cognitive

systems? I I think cognitive system is

more fitted for me back then because I

already know how to code. C

>> can you explain what it is?

>> It's um it's a combination of

neuroscience

um linguistics, philosophy and computer

science AI stuff.

>> That would be great.

>> Yeah, it's like a that's why it's called

cognitive systems. So combination of all

different disciplines.

>> Wow.

>> I like it because it touched so many

different things. Right.

>> So that's in Vancouver the university.

>> Yeah. university.

>> Okay. And that was like for the whole

thing was for 5 years or

>> uh four or five years.

>> Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

>> So I did that. Um initially I wanted

actually I got into photography the

first year first couple years. I was

like uh uh I got a camera uh the summer

that I graduated high school. So start

taking photos.

>> What camera was it?

Oh, it's a Nikon uh Rebel XT like one of

the earlier digital

>> fullframe.

>> No, this is SLR like some earlier

generation SLRs. I full expensive. I

couldn't afford it with my

>> I was working at a busing table in

restaurant China and then but bought a

camera for myself, right? Uh and um so I

did a lot of photography then.

>> I'm listening to you. I'm going to show

you something.

>> Oh, go for it.

uh got a camera for myself. Then the uh

um so the first couple years in college

feels like uh wow I'm good with I take a

lot of photo I'm good with cameras good

with photography is a Leica

>> yeah you like this you know that

>> I'm not a Leica person just feels like a

too analytical

>> this one sorry

>> I'm more like a Carl Z uh context do you

know that brand context it's like Japan

>> uh body German lens brand I'm more of a

context guy. Most of my film camera are

context car like is like too engineer,

too precise, too

um yeah, not I respect it, but uh not my

style. I

>> it wasn't my style for a long time. I

was really into like Canon or uh

actually most recently all of the Sony

things, easy but with good lenses. But

what I've discovered with this one, it's

a so it's a Q2 monochrome. Mhm.

>> So it's a fixed lens you say. Yeah.

>> And black and white only.

>> Black and white only. Wow. Okay.

>> And so it's a lot of uh constraints like

lot of uh you can do much like it's a

lot of but the black and white is much

much better than what you do with a

color photography

um SLR. And uh yeah, it's it's pretty

>> Let me let me show you my camera.

[laughter]

>> So we got a camera competition here. It

wasn't expected. Um, camera nerds, when

you like this, I I was, just so you

know, I was into

raised into photography with my parents

also. And it was before it was before

digital. So, we were a lot uh I was

shooting and developing in the in the

lab with my father uh actually in the

house.

>> Yeah.

>> Okay.

>> It's a GR one of the GR3 or something.

>> Rico. Okay.

>> It's a pocket camera and uh it's um lens

you cannot change it.

>> Yeah.

>> So you have to move with your feet

>> and

>> so you cannot zoom or Okay.

>> zoom. [clears throat]

>> Okay.

>> I think that's the it's better that way.

>> And how how I mean you could ask the

same question with the Leica, but I

think it's it's bigger. And how much

better is it than a phone camera?

>> Uh quite [snorts] a bit better because

the lens is good. And this like I think

it's a fullframe. Uh

>> All right. Okay. Uh more important is

the lens sensors I think is most camera

I don't know too much about modern

camera they all kind of good but there's

this one there's the Fuji makes some um

interesting cameras.

>> Yeah very interesting Panasonic.

>> Yeah but I'm never um

l prime prime lenses like the fixed

lenses good to go. Thank you. Shall we

take a photo of you too?

>> So we're shooting uh each other right

now.

>> Okay.

>> And um

>> Oh yeah. So go back to our main thread.

>> What what what all of these um so

cognitive science uh um and and camera

do do you have you ever thought about

what it gave you more if you hadn't been

through that? Would you lack of

something uh for notion? I think I

[clears throat] will lack uh yes the

answer is yes because the art part

the first couple years of college doing

a lot of art um just sort of help you

understand the cure your taste you know

uh help you understand the art world a

little bit like do a lot of party

>> and uh

>> uh I was working in a bookstore at that

time like usually when it's not busy I

just flip art books and try oh this is

that painter pattern recognizing the

painter. So um they help you improve

your taste,

understand humanity at large. uh the art

world help you understand like oh how

the social dynamic behind every scene

right music scene art scene is a group

of people and there's there's status

there's like connection there's

relationships and [snorts] um and that's

the only also the reason why I did not

end up doing want to do art because it's

too much about relationship not enough

about the thing you're making enough of

meritocracy

>> right uh

>> yeah I get that I didn't see it that way

though before. It's interesting.

>> It's too man-made. It's too like um

>> man-made.

>> It's too artificial.

>> Not in the bad way. It's just like too

less objective.

>> Yeah, it's true. You have to be you have

to get some I don't say chapron or some

people like spotting you or

>> And it's about who um which party do you

go to? You know, which DJ are you

friends with?

>> Yeah. Like I think like the art I'm more

probably more of a nerd than the than a

social person.

>> I would say though that the internet at

large changed that a bit. You can get

very famous maybe in movies or in music

or [snorts] maybe in photography just

going with your camera and your website

and your stuff and your community and

your Instagram. Then before you used to

have to know this uh movie director,

this uh screenplay I don't know whatever

and you had to get that you know if you

were the

>> I think that's true like it's like allow

you good stuff to be discovered right

through the internet. Um

I think that's generally true.

>> Um

okay. How how uh how did you go actually

for for that? How did you get into that

into photography into all of these art

things? Was it your mother or was it

>> I'm not sure cuz when I was young I've

been um doing Chinese watercolor

painting uh when I was really young.

It's like then I did some um Chinese um

stamp carving

>> in elementary school you know you carve

the stem you can

>> boy [laughter]

did you guess? that I did my first stamp

carving uh on Sunday uh back in France

because I bought some stamps and I

bought the knife to carve

>> the Chinese ones.

>> Yeah, sure.

>> Here.

>> Yeah, here in France in my in my

>> teach you this not easy that

>> No, no, but it was it was [ __ ] What I

did was just [ __ ] But I have to learn

on YouTube. But this is insane.

>> Why do you want to learn this?

>> I don't know. We went to that shop in in

in Shanghai and the guy convinced me and

said you look you do that. You go on

YouTube, you learned how to do that. And

and

I came back. I was deck lagged. I was in

my my

>> So you got the stone too? Oh yeah, I got

the stone and I started my [laughter]

Yeah. Yeah. I I want you to teach me.

That's more of a Oh, I had that. My my

craft was like elementary school level,

but um uh it's very it's a type of art

form that not too many people do cuz

usually rank as like calligraphy

probably number one,

watercolor painting number two, then

bunch other thing then it's the stone

car. [laughter]

>> That's very niche. Yeah,

>> very niche. Yeah. Uh so I did that. um

play a lot of video games, but I guess

doesn't relate too much to art. I think

photography was easy because it's like

the lazy man's art, right? You can just

click click click and you can just

frame, use your foot and eyes to frame

things.

>> It's kind of like notion what I'm say I

was saying earlier on. It's like it's

easy to access. But then if you want to

become a notion master or photography

master, there's a lot of work. I mean a

lot of uh things to understand. haven't

taught that way. Yeah, it's easy and

it's help you get into good parties, you

know, and uh with girls. No, it's like

uh it's it's a the art form at least I

pick up fairly quickly. I my photo was

got exhibit in New York photo festival

one year. So, holy [ __ ] I'm good at

this.

>> When was that? Like

>> 2007,

2008.

>> So, you sold photos?

>> I sold photos. Yeah. Uh the first time I

went to New York because my photo was

exhibit in the some gallery there and uh

that's was know early college and oh I

want to do art and uh but it's got tired

from the party scenes. So oh maybe I

should do something more meritocracy

based. So

>> is there a place where we can see those

photos?

>> Uh yeah you go to my um

you go to my Twitter there's a link to

the website. I think it's Ivanja

das notion site.

>> Okay.

>> And there are some photos there. So one

story about uh China because I spent a

summer two summer with my dad traveling

road trips inside China where the places

you guys went to.

>> All right.

>> Uh take a lot of photos.

>> All right. So you got back with your dad

at some point. You you didn't Okay.

>> During college I went back to uh visit

my dad during summers. Then we road trip

many part of China. and I took a lot of

photos.

>> So he still lives over there?

>> He still lives in Shanghai?

>> In Shanghai. Okay.

>> Yeah.

>> Is it It must be kind of weird now. You

You got like a very separate maybe way

of life thinking or uh

>> Yeah. It feels like I'm kind of stuck in

the uh either side, right? like my uh

my my taste in food and

poetry and language is a lot of Chinese

my understanding of business

all the new thing I learn philosophy

every history is more in English and the

culturally I'm my wife is Iranian so

like it's all different cultures mixed

together

>> interesting

>> yeah I like that it's like a very I

prefer to be different than to be the

same.

>> Man, you you have kids?

>> Uh, no.

>> Okay,

>> thinking about it.

>> Yeah, they're going to be [laughter]

half Iranian, Chinese,

North American. My god, it's going to be

a mess.

>> It will be a good mess. Yeah. [laughter]

>> Um, do you still shoot?

>> Not as much as before.

>> Okay.

>> Yeah. [clears throat] Um,

>> no exhibition anymore. It's just for you

or

>> my Instagram. I haven't updated for a

few years but before I oh maybe I update

my Instagram every time we go for a trip

right um

um yeah running company like you have to

think about your business all the time

so but to be a good photographer you

have to like really focus on observing

the world it's it's zero sum in that

regard

>> I believe all of this makes me

understand how um

I think the the notion UI.

>> I don't know. You you explain me how did

it start? Maybe we'll go briefly into

>> this period in between the the the

exhibits and and the start of notion.

But um it makes me understand how

different was the design of notion

because it was very different than

>> everything and it was kind of very it's

always been very simple like uh back to

basics at some point. Uh um was it

influenced by all of these things you

believe? Was it you or was it someone

else's influence?

>> It was me. Um

what's the influence?

We try to be

we try to be very orthodox.

>> It is. Yeah. We try to be um

not innovative

because um

there's different way you can push idea

into the push new design into the world

like if you push too much then people

can't absorb all of it.

>> So um the the the version of notion

that's running online right now it's

like we took us four or five years to

get there. Like in the earlier version

we tried a lot of innovation a lot of

differences different ideas it's too new

it's too different so as we keep

iterating on this we get better at okay

let's just make the core thing the core

UI very simple and very familiar very

unorthodox very orthodox so if you look

at notion today there's a left sidebar

just looks like um your Mac finders left

sidebar right and but that's but behind

the scene there's somewhat innovation

it's brings all your content, your data

in your company, your business one

place.

>> Yeah,

>> that's sort of the new invention back

then. Newish.

>> It was the idea the original

>> uh the idea.

>> Yeah. Is that the idea to put everything

from the company?

>> Uh that's one of the ideas. Well, the

idea is actually bigger than that. Um

the idea is about computing.

Uh going back so

um

maybe going jump back to the the so in

college start doing art did some science

and then last year my school at UBC at

college I uh uh started learning about

um the history of computing. So like the

the way I got into it is like we all

graduating college right? So I need to

make website for my own photos. So, I

need to make website for my uh then

ex-girlfriend's

she's a fashion designer. She need to

make portfolio websites. Her friend need

portfolio website. So, I start making

website for a lot of my friends. I'm the

only nerd in my friend circle.

>> Was that WordPress or

>> No, just cling HTML. Yeah. Um and uh

>> then the realization is like, oh, maybe

I need to make a tool so other people

can make websites because WordPress is

kind of limited. not limited. It's like

um we're more for blog. Then there's

like Weebi and Wix back then. It's like

um I think Wix is still around. Uh

>> it's kind of constrained. You cannot

make very free form websites, right? And

um

>> so I started looking to let me build a

tool for you all

>> kind of a Squarespace.

>> Kind of Squarespace but more free.

>> Okay.

>> Right. It's like a Figma meets

Squarespace. Okay, I want to build that.

And from building that realized, wait a

second, let me learn more about the

history of the web, right? And uh or

from learning the history of the web,

wait a second, let me learn about

history of computers.

>> Wow, that's a very deep way of thinking.

Yeah. Yeah. It's it's interesting,

>> right? So like um uh then realiz holy

[ __ ]

>> that's not a very American way of

thinking. I would say

>> it is not. I would say it's they would

more be more like a a problem solution,

you know, whatever. Not like what's the

history of the whole thing, you know?

>> Yeah. I'm kind of like history. I like

the Yeah. the looking history side of

things. But, uh, look into history of

computing, you realize those people back

in the 60s and 70s has the best

[clears throat] ideas, the best ideas

about what to do with that machine. Um

and somehow we messed it up in the 80s.

>> Okay.

>> Yeah. Um

>> what was those best ideas like?

>> It's the computing should almost be like

reading and writing should be like a

medium.

>> Mhm.

>> Right. Um like you ask me should you

teach your kids how to program? Right.

Um it's like it's ask me it's as if you

ask me like should I should I teach my

kids how to read and write French? M

>> uh you don't you don't ask me that

question.

>> Yeah. Okay.

>> Right.

>> So in the first generation computing

pioneers in the 60s uh and they thought

about making computing as if it's

writing it going to make us simpler and

simpler. So uh but you still require

learning still require people to anticip

participate but once you uh master the

medium you can do anything you want with

the computers.

>> Yeah. Um so that's why if you think

about notion if you understand the base

of notion a company a person a business

can use notion to make some of the most

powerful software for their business

>> right from notion

>> from notion it's inspired by those ideas

>> um and what inspired them that

generation is like if you think about

right trace back to time computers back

then was like roomsiz calculator in the

basement of like you put a punch card

in, go grab a sandwich, come back the

number

>> 3 plus two, four, but it took you like

>> three days

>> but you can do really fancy calculation

but only just numbers were calculation

counting things right um and this like

60s generation a lot of them the west

coast they like that they took acid

they're that hippie generation in San

Francisco right and they say oh wait

wait wait a second let's put a a display

a TV a radar display actually next to

this big machines. Now the computer can

talk back to you without you have to

wait for the printing card

>> and it could be real time and that's why

people invented the mouse.

>> Okay. Yeah.

>> And that ang that this gentleman Douglas

Angle Bar invented the mouse because now

you have a display you need to be able

to point the things on the display. He

tried so many different things. He tried

like um light pan. He tried like

different type of touching devices. The

mouse is the best because your blood

flow downwards. You can do this for

hours at a time. If you do a light pan,

you get tired.

>> There's a many other they do a lot of

real research to figure out what's the

good form factor HCI human computer

interaction. What's what are the good

way the human computer can interact to

um

uh to so become a very med medium like

back and forth. This bandwidth is high.

>> I get it. Yeah. uh and and they create

computing system in the back in the day

in the 60s7s. It's like everybody can

change the software they use

>> but it was not um very consumer I think

it was it was still a very niche right

it was just for I mean

>> it's actually the original one of some

of early idea design for kids

>> all right

>> yeah so um the other gentleman Alan K he

uh he wrote paper in the late 60s70 talk

about how do you create a medium allow

kids to learn while they're young. So

they become a a mind mind amplification

medium for them as they grow up.

>> Okay?

>> Just like you learn to read French or

English or Chinese when you are no grade

one grade two and once you learn it

become you can be a poet you can be a

businessman you can be anything you want

with the language

>> what is that with another medium like

that's called computing. Wow, you know

that it's amazing.

>> This idea very fundamental and quite

powerful, right? It's like it's not

natural that we go through school system

to learn sit down there for

>> five years, six, however long French

education system and to learn how to

write. It's not normal. It's it's very

unnatural.

>> Yeah. Yeah. Very unnatural.

>> But it's very powerful.

But what is that for another medium,

>> right? And that's the big idea of that

generation.

>> Coming back to what you said is when I

ask you this question is

>> did you say that to how to create

empathy with the machine? Was that what

you use? Uh

>> yeah.

>> But that's um

[snorts]

>> yeah that's that's less profound then.

[laughter]

>> Okay.

>> Yeah. But but that the big idea here is

like you that we had the opportunity to

create a medium that's in general

net good. You can say that reading and

writing in general it's um it's not good

for humanity. You can't say that right.

It's like has very disruptive. You

create a lot of different things but in

general it's something that make human

more full.

>> And computing could be something make

human more full.

>> Yeah.

>> And um and um so they create computing

system that's very easy to modify just

like reading and writing very easy to

modify.

early days there wasn't such a as a

strong a notion of applications

because we are so used to applications.

>> Yeah. Yeah. You're right.

>> Right. This is largely invention of the

80s

before the one of the first computing

system uh Xerox Alto um they they run

operating system called Small Talk. It's

a programming language operating system

slash application all in one and it's

network. It has all the almost most

things that modern computer has if not

more. And um there's a famous demo when

um you probably heard Steve Jobs went to

Xerox Park.

>> Yeah.

>> To learn about the first borrowed a lot

of ideas, right? So that's where the

autocomputer was. So when he went to

Xerox Park and he doesn't like the

scroll bars direction. So oh great this

graphic user interface is amazing but uh

I wish they scroll the other direction.

>> Right? So and while he was asking the

question

researcher at Alto just changed the

direction of scroll bar live.

>> All right.

>> Because everything is so malleable,

right? Software is really easy to

change. Right now if you want to change

something it's really really difficult.

>> Yeah.

>> Um so that's the big idea of the 70s. In

the 80s generation happened which is the

Bill Gates and Steve Jobs generation in

order to make computer mainstream. Um

the notion is like that what is it

Microsoft

uh mission was put a computer on every

desk in every home right um they have to

simplify a lot of things and through

that simplification a lot of good idea

lost so computing become more of

applicationdriven system that means in

order to use computer you use software

you have to um uh uh largely there's a

user of application and maker of

application maker application of

programmers user application are users

and user can only click the buttons

maker can do programming so there's a

separation the separation back to

reading and writing almost like there's

a priest there is the scribe they know

how to read and write French or English

and there's rest of people can only go

to Catholic church and listen right

>> wow

>> we're stuck in that world we're still in

that world

>> we're still in that world

>> it's it's it's

interesting how

I mean all of those reflections uh all

of your talk what you're talking about

right now you you were thinking about

that prior to creating notion that

>> that's what inspire me to create notion

>> right

>> because I want to um create the product

that brings back some of those original

ideas because they're so powerful and so

good um and there there should be some

kind of internetbased software that

brings some this kind of malleability

and creativity of computing back to as

many people as possible. Uh

>> this is so powerful. Uh even I I think

it's interesting because um

in France at least I'd say um

it's not 100% but most of the if you go

to an um engineering school like if you

go to at some point excellence poly

technique central and so on

>> those schools like would be um in the in

in the in the US what is it you get MIT

or stuff like this maybe uh

uh

you don't learn so much about art

philosophy and and probably you don't go

back too much into this history of

computing and what was it made for and

and you know and I think your background

>> probably from China probably from um I

mean

bicultural

u

origins uh photography and everything um

really gave birth to something like

quite new. But that was the idea, the

original idea. It's interesting. That's

>> the original idea. It's it's you you you

touched a good point like if you go to

study computer science.

>> Yeah.

>> Right. That most people don't know. If

you ask people who is Douglas Anglebar,

who is Alen K, who is John McCarthy,

they're like those pioneers,

they don't know. They don't teach as

much. They just briefly one slide in

their [clears throat] present like

computer 101 not even 2011 or something

like really one slide quickly jump over

they don't talk about their idea why is

it important where the field come from

so computer science is less of a science

it's it's more it's as if you go to

physics and you who's who is Isaiah

Newton they don't talk about Isaac

Newton at all they don't talk about

instant at all then you study physics

it's like oh of course you're not

studying physics you just learn how to

like follow formula and do

um problem solving but you're not

learning the why behind what why you

solve problem this way. It's true,

>> right? So, and and that's that's in some

sense translate not just to computer

science to the rest of tech industry

like the tech modern tech industry built

on top of computing but by and large

most people have no idea where computing

come from

>> and it got lost at some points. That's

what you're saying. I mean you you would

have some it was very efficient though

still. I mean you would have a lot of uh

apps. I mean it got lost in the 90. It

was even

more lost because you would have to be

trained on everything. Every time you

would try to to be on boarded on some

new uh maybe device or new uh app you

would have to be get five days of

training then it got better because

>> with UX and some application was easier

and easier but what you're saying is

that you would have one uses for this

one use for that and there was no more

creativity.

And

>> yeah, it's kind of like um

there's a path in history that computing

could go down become like reading and

writing.

>> Today computing is become more like

kitchen appliances.

>> Yeah. Okay.

>> Like each one does one thing, right? And

like you can't there's no much

creativity with your fridge. You can

only use your fridge or toaster in

certain way.

>> Well, if you start from there, I mean

Okay. Interesting. where I get the the

starting point and and probably the end

point and today you'll explain it

because I don't have the the big picture

of all of what you're doing, but the

path is insane because I mean starting

from there and saying I'm going to build

something that's going to be that's

going to solve that issue. It's like

[laughter]

where do you start? I mean

>> yeah that's why we like got locks for

like five years, right? Trying to like

what what is this? Um

actually funny a friend of mine asked me

uh I wrote um like a a

essay for myself or for a few people

when I right before I start notion and

talk about this idea we just talk about

and a friend of mine recently read it.

So, wow. It's It's not online. It's like

somewhere private. And uh it's like it's

interesting. It's like the idea is

pretty flushed out, right?

>> Would you would you give it to me or

>> Oh, I'll give it to you. It's on.

>> Can I publish it or?

>> Yeah, you can publish it as an internet

archive now. So, archive.org something.

Okay. We'll ask it. Yeah. Yeah.

>> Um

yeah, it's like there's the the idea

space is the entire computer industry,

right? Entire software computing

industry. Um

we tried many things and we tried um

making a developer tool really easy so

more people can make software so from

the software maker side to make it

really easy.

We tried making like web website

publishing make it very diverse so you

can start making web apps that didn't go

anywhere. Um eventually the realization

is let's start from a place that people

recognize, understand and use every day

which are the know the so-called

productivity software

>> like the tools that you mentioned like

the next generation of the spreadsheet

project management

document tools and make them better and

hide the computing ideas that secretly

inside of it. We call it like sugar

coded broccoli.

>> Sugar sugar

>> sugar coated broccoli.

>> Broccoli is those computing ideas that

they're take me like two minutes to

explain, right? Nobody cares in this

YouTube generation. People just people

don't pay attention.

>> But those idea are important and useful

if you want to get to it.

>> And we want to people to care about it

to take advantage of those ideas. But

the way to do it is to wrap in the

surface and utility that people care

every day which are how to get their job

done using those productivity software.

My my my mind is blowing because I'm I'm

like

how do you get to a VC with [laughter]

such an idea? Look mate, I'm going to

explain it has to be look this is a

problem. This is my solution. I'm going

to blow the world, right? Yeah. Okay.

I'll give you three millions. Well, we

did a [laughter] very good demo. So, uh

I built a prototype. Took me like a two

years, a year and a half, two years to

build a prototype and it's very

compelling.

>> Okay.

>> It's actually has a lot of like touches

on all the different things we talk

about. Um yeah, that raised the first

round of money.

>> So, it took you Yeah, almost two years

you said by by yourself. How many people

was

>> uh initially by myself? So, I was in

Canada, right? So like a Canada graduate

school and I I want to build something

around this idea. Doesn't have a name

yet. Um

>> did you work

>> at the same time? Did you work on that

or

>> uh I graduate school and I know I want

to move to San Francisco

>> to start this thing. But in order to

move to San Francisco, I need to be

figure out my visa

>> because I'm a Canadian. And u so I work

at a different company in the United

States in San Francisco for about a year

and a half. And I told the uh CEO of the

company um I'll be joining you, figure

out my visa and start my own company.

And he's very helpful. He's actually the

first investor into

>> Who's that?

>> Matt McInness. He's the um COO of uh

Ripling.

>> All right.

>> Yeah. He's a number two guy at Ripling.

>> Well, he probably made more money out of

Notion than everywhere else.

>> Probably. [laughter]

>> He was the best intern. Oh, no. You were

not intern. You were employee, but it

was the best employee. Yeah. But he's

like help you understand how the magic

of Silicon Valley, right? People support

you, help you,

>> you pay, you pay forward to this.

>> How much did he invest?

>> 50k, 100K. Not uh sizable. Yeah. But

he's the first check. Uh

>> interesting.

>> Yeah. But we're still friends. We're

very uh like we

uh he's actually speak perfect um

Chinese. He's the the guy who speak he's

from Canada too, but he's not Chinese.

He speak really good Chinese.

>> All right. Interesting.

>> It's good. Yeah. He's he's a Chinese

tutor every Sunday or something.

>> Fun.

>> Yeah.

>> And um so you you moved to the US.

You've been working in while you were

working in his company, you were working

on notion already

>> on the weekend. Yeah. trying to like

building a prototype that

[clears throat] took me about like I

said a year and a half

>> the prototype's ready

>> my visa I figured out uh that actually

took of all everything raising money

building prototype visa is actually

probably the hardest thing to figure it

out

>> so so it was a green is it a green card

>> no it's called a uh E2 visa it's kind of

like um

>> uh meant I believe it's meant for people

open corner store like small businesses

Great. [laughter]

So, uh I need to write a business plan.

It's like what is business? Like it's

like five-year plan, learn some basic

accounting. Uh um rent need to show the

proof of business. So, I need to rent I

rent a co-working space, took some

photos, then uh um uh hire some of my

friends as the first employees. I've

given them uh job offer letters and um

you know and buy stuff from Amazon. So

see oh we are buying things that were

this is a real business now and I spend

some money so prove like oh this is a

real business so we can get a visa

>> papers taples.

>> Yeah like um

>> yeah my mom has helped me with the first

uh uh chunk of money as well. So

>> okay

>> before we raise any money

>> does she have a shares? She's Chinese

mom. So she is she's your main your

number one shareholder. Okay. [laughter]

Absolutely.

Do it. All right. And how long did it

take to go from this these days to uh I

>> I understand you've been in in Japan in

between now.

>> Yeah. So those four five years is like

really long right it's like it's not

because the problem space is huge.

>> Yeah.

>> And towards the end of it we realize

okay we need to build the best way

forward is to build a productivity

software but hide those kind of broccoli

computing power inside of it.

>> You say competitive computing power.

Okayity software that

>> productivity software on the outside but

Lego of software Lego for computing on

the inside.

>> Okay.

>> Right. And uh uh so but we need to

rebuild the product again. This is

probably rebuild number three or number

four

>> from zero.

>> From zero. Yeah.

>> Why is that? Was that was it because

language or just just the the

>> language technology um um ideas are

different product ideas different and

the technology also evolved. You can use

a better technology for it. I've heard I

think it's Elon Musk saying somewhere uh

the hardest hardest part is to rebuild

from zero because I mean when you've

been working on on something for 6 8 9

10 months or even more uh saying I'm I'm

just trash it all.

>> I actually disagree. I think that's um

well I guess hard hard from you need to

manage your psyche your team psyche is

oh throw everything away but it's really

liberating it's like you if it's like

actually fun because you you take all

your lessons from the past you know how

to do it better

>> and faster

>> much faster it's like

>> to me it's usually worth it because the

curve if you build a really elegant

system you can catch up the old system

really quickly

>> do you believe at some point it's

impossible. Would you would it be doable

today on notion in like trashing

everything and do it all over again?

>> Not say no. I'm not saying no to that.

[laughter] It's like uh I think the art

of it is how do you keep the old notion

going remain the same but build it from

the inside and swapping out a new thing

right so it's doable too like especially

all the online businesses like required

to be online to support all the hundred

millions of people uh you have to do

that like Facebook did a complete

rewrite right so a lot of good product

does complete rewrite while still remain

fully online

>> there's this myth of legacy it right you

Some big companies they have their all

of their backbone is from the '9s

>> from the 50s from from 60 co running.

>> Cool. Yeah.

>> Yeah.

>> Okay. And so um so you rewrote and

rewrote did you find clients? Did did

you make money at some point or

>> at that point the Japan time we did not

have client? So

>> and why Japan?

>> Uh because um we laid off everybody to

do the rewrite.

>> All right. because like uh at the time

was like five people would be running

out of money if going with a team of

five. It's about a lot easier to stretch

our uh stretch our cash if just go back

to me and my co-founder Simon two

people. So we went back to two of us um

and say oh let's just go like of course

morale is low. Let's like let's just go

somewhere that's like we never been so

exciting. It's like brand new star.

>> All right.

>> And we never been to Japan. So it was

kind of intentional saying like

>> very quick we're just oh let's go to

Japan decided really quickly. Um

>> and

>> did you move in like together in the

same place and

>> yeah we did. So we actually um initially

we're trying to do Tokyo obvious reasons

right. So but you went on Airbnb and you

find [snorts] all the place in Tokyo

that are very small.

>> Yeah.

>> And because I I I love my co-founder

Simon but I don't want to squeeze into

small place with him for a month. So,

[laughter] so we look at uh Kyoto.

>> Kyoto.

>> It's a different city and but the house

is much nicer and bigger there and it's

cheaper. So, we actually make money by

renting out our place in San Francisco.

All right.

>> By living in Japan. So, it's a good

story. When cash flow positive, not from

software, from Airbnb [laughter]

>> at least. Yeah, that's not too bad. Uh

and then I guess when you're just kind

of stuck obviously a voluntary uh

um stuck. It's a good point for just

deep work, right?

>> It's very good for deep work. Yeah. Like

like I'm Chinese, so I can read kanji. I

can read the menu. I can read the sign

of street signs. Uh most Japanese people

don't speak English. Uh so we're just

eat, work, eat, work. Very productive.

Someone told me about Chinese that

they're obsessed by two things is eating

and working. And I [laughter] was like,

"Yeah, that's kind of true actually."

That's kind of true.

>> I didn't say it, but you just say, "Oh,

I never thought of that way." I think

that's kind of true. Yeah. People love

food. People love working. So, uh, yeah.

S is not He's not Chinese. He's from um

Maryland, Baltimore.

>> All right.

>> Uh, but we did this for

>> Do you like Did you like it? Do you do

you

>> I some of my best memories. It's like

because the flow stay.

>> Yeah. When you are building something,

you sort of know what you're trying to

build, right? But you're just like

making the system better because you

built it like two, three times before.

You just straight flow state music,

headphone, programming, and design.

>> Have you ever lost um faith

>> during that time?

>> Yeah,

>> not much. I think I would say almost

never.

uh

multiple reasons.

You know what you want to design can be

built because people built in the 70s.

So people built better system back then,

right? So if you study it, it's the

mountain exists. It's far there. It's on

the same continent. If you just all you

need to do is find a path to get to the

top of the mountain. So it's there. You

can see it. Um, I would say number two

is like Simon and I, our personality are

pretty, we're pretty optimistic. We're

very optimistic. You'll kill you if you

start company if you're not optimistic.

>> Uh, and uh, low is never that low. High

is never that high for us. So, and we

had a fun building this.

Yeah, we're pretty close to running out

of money a couple times, but uh yeah,

but we know we can build something. We

can get to the mountain. We know that

the mountain is valuable. We know that

the mountain, the new product we're

building, the sugar coat broccoli

product will be used by other people.

>> When when was the aha moment? When when

did you shift to when Yeah. All of the

things did you get like new customers

people understand your art [laughter] at

the end?

>> Um gradually I would say

>> so um we've been building in public

which is

uh release each versions online and you

see like people more and more people

coming and we launched 1.0 on this

online place called product hunt.

>> All right.

>> Right. So um um

>> Product Hunt is a is a very famous I

mean a lot of French even startup use

it. I'm just explaining for people

listening. It's just a

>> a website where you're releasing a

product and if you're like number one or

>> Yeah. It's it's like a form of like

what's new product in the world, right?

we launched there that becomes like a

jumping point and uh a lot of people

that we uh helped us like we I was doing

customer support at the time also so a

lot of people I did customer support

interacting with like came here support

us on product hunt and made us like the

product of the week of the month of the

year and uh it's very touching it feels

like oh you're building for the things

that you for other people you have

interaction with and they come even

though you never met them they come help

you to tell a story about you.

It's wonderful. It had to had this

story to to to get there because

you know while we're talking I was

thinking about like my daughter she's

she's using more and more her computer

and um

>> while organ organizing her life or her

uh I don't know bat mitzvah or something

like this she would she didn't use

notion but I believe it's the best tool

she should use and I didn't even think

about uh telling her that what I'm

saying here is that

it's not that easy to

make people

vote and sorry

>> shift and understand um how big it is.

You know what I'm saying? It's a

[clears throat] Lego. It's as as you

said, it's a Lego, so it's fun. You play

with it. But so to make it the best

product of the year on product hand, it

had to had this past you just described,

I believe. I don't know if it's clear.

Uh but um um

just to to give you the the use we have

of no on on the podcast. Um so I'm I'm

to be 100% honest. I'm not the the the

biggest user of of the team because I I

do record WhatsApp call meetings and so

on. So, uh but I love the way we use it

and and we're working a lot on it. So,

what we do is is mainly uh hold on, I'm

the in the in the application. So, we

get everything. It's a backbone of what

we're doing now. So, it starts with a

page or probably uh see we get this um

>> Oh, it's pretty.

>> Yeah, it's it's it's pretty notion.

Yeah. So here, where are you? Even Zhao.

So you you're you're booked. So you're

booked.

>> Okay.

>> You're not recorded yet. So you're going

to move from that

>> to that uh this morning. And um then

where are you? We're here. You're you're

you will be probably online on air on

December 28th.

>> Okay.

>> Uh and then when we move you here, then

a lot of things happen. [snorts]

Then you see we got different views the

calendar. So I can see. So this was rid

of mine number 500. I get all of this

thing Ming po this was like last Sunday

and then I can find you here.

>> Um

uh so it's going to be and you we have

all of the views and then when we get

there uh when we change you on on the

what you call that column um we'll get

all of those things. Hold on. I'll try

to get here.

>> Just uh click it.

>> Yeah.

>> Yeah. And then I get uh uh all of the

things, the YouTube that's going to be

released tonight, uh the drive, the

photos, uh the notes Clem made, the

notes I made, the books, you're talking

about the references. See, so you were

talking about the place where we can get

the your photos, for example. Let's do

that. Then it will go here and then it

will be automatically published in in

our on our website.

>> Uh we get the transcription here.

>> Are you using the med note transcription

from notion right now? No, actually

we're we're using Scricast, but we could

transcript already on on notion. I mean,

>> you can. Yeah, that's a new product we

launched uh five month, four month ago.

>> Okay, we should try that. And

>> you can click the um the meetings button

on the left.

>> Where's that?

>> Left far

>> left here. Okay. Meetings. And would you

be able to transcribe the whole podcast?

>> Oh, you can. Yeah, you can transcribe

the whole podcast.

>> Yeah. Yeah, it's a it's a pretty good

setup. like what you're showing that's

okay there's a document part there's a

project management there's a scheduling

calendar part usually those has to be

three different software right yeah

>> now here it's in one place because that

you can glue the legos together your

information can relate to each other and

this translate into

>> you you you use fewer tools less context

switching your information make sense

together always have context and in

today in AI this is quite powerful

because allow your AI to have all the

same context to work for you.

>> Yeah, that's interesting. That's a point

where I want to talk about. Uh but so

for people listening to to us, the main

idea is that what I show to even is that

uh we start with um an ID which is a

guest and we'll put even Zhao then

you'll be somewhere like in the

prospection list like the the people who

we want to to invite and then you get

from uh the people we want to invite to

the people we've booked. Then the people

we've recorded and from and then it goes

from an ID

>> to um dissim dissemination of everything

from uh you know the title we choose all

together to the description of the

episode to the LinkedIn post the

whatever post Instagram and everything

and it that's the constraint we set for

ourself in the when we designed the the

version of notion it's like you have to

capture from the smallest information

bit which is idea on piece of paper,

right? Just write down a one word, a

bullet list to all the way to a system

which is a database and interconnected

system of records, different your

accounts, your notions, your CRM, in

this case your your episodes, your

schedules, all those things have to

scale the whole thing.

>> That's the constraint because uh

computing is like English or French,

right? You can write a to-do list, a

laundry list for yourself. You can write

no proof. You can write no engineer

handbook all in French. French can

English can scale all the way. That's

the power of media. That's not the case

for

typical software application. You can

only do part of it.

>> Yeah. the problem or if I want to be and

well this this is what everybody tells

you every day I believe but is that uh

if I get there and I'll say this is not

as good as a CRM this is not as good as

Excel this is not as good as you know uh

uh so you'll tell me probably yes but

maybe um if I want to get like this

prospection list and get a um how do you

say an email um automation uh and so I

probably can do that on notion but it's

probably not as easy as if I start from

pipe drive or something. Is it?

>> Well, the goal is um it's as good as a

CRM,

>> right? CRM is not a category we're going

specifically after, but

>> CRM is just made from software building

blocks.

>> Yeah.

>> Right. So if we just design notion

building blocks as well designed as the

underlying software building block,

there's no reason it shouldn't be as

powerful as a typical CRM. We just

haven't put enough engineer system in to

unlock the power of it. Spreadsheet is a

little bit tricky. Specially is like 50

years of specific needs of baking. I we

don't want to go after that market too

specifically

>> now or never.

>> Um definitely not now. Like there's

already our finance team still runs on

Excel, right? You can't even Google

Sheets doesn't.

>> Yeah. Yeah. When you you talk to an

Excel nerd, they just

>> even after 15 years of Google sheet, he

would tell you that there's no way I'm

moving to this.

>> It's there's too specific and that's

largely for financial modeling. But the

part of the spreadsheet that we care

about is people create a list of uh

things to organize.

>> That part Notion does very well like

just a database of thing to organize.

You can filter by different like the

database of your episodes of your

accounts. We care about that use case.

>> So if you if you understood what I just

said and hopefully you did of how we use

it for gen yourself for the podcast.

What's amazing at at the end is that

it's literally our backbone. The regret

I have and we'll have to do that at some

point is that like probably if you take

you you're going to be like episode 510

or 15 something like this and we've

probably started that way uh like 100

episodes ago or something. So I have 400

episodes that are not exactly

in the database in the notion database.

>> I see. And and that would be if you're

talking about AI like getting the the

audio the transcripts so powerful

>> the the whole thing like we could I mean

it would be like

>> where are they stored today the old

episodes

>> they're they're on a probably Google

drive or Dropbox Dropbox

>> the audio transcription it's in

>> no some of them are not transcripted but

it would be easy to do that

>> well if you you can try to connect to

notion and notion AI can search Google

Drive and bunch other sources and

>> uh transcription you probably have to

figure something out and you can't get

transcription in or put them in Google

Drive.

>> Yeah, we would be able to do that.

>> Yeah, that's probably the one of the

more powerful thing for you cuz like

>> it's become your second brain for your

business, right? You can't ask for

anything that you

>> be the brain of my business literally.

>> I mean I'm not the brain of the

business. I'm I'm the the the servtor or

the you know the servant, right? Um I

mean we we're several brains. It's going

to be the central brain.

>> Central brain for your business.

>> Well at least the central data

the brain is going to come with AI

somehow or

>> well the brain we can talk about that

later but like the lot of agent product

we launch they can become mini brain to

do work repetitive work for you if the

data is in one place.

>> I have to call Shoubam. You know Shubam

you heard about Shubam Sharma?

No, no. He's he's a French like he's one

of your probably number one promoter in

France. Uh he's

>> maybe I have.

>> Yeah, this guy is completely insane

about notion. He's Oh

>> yeah, he's he's Yeah.

>> How do you spell the name?

>> Shubam is s h u b a m.

>> Do you have his

>> Yeah. picture.

>> I recognize faces better.

>> Hold on. Sham here. Um,

it's it's on the podcast actually.

>> Oh, I think he's part of the community.

>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, definitely.

>> It's part of

>> Yes.

>> And uh so yeah, I'm going to ask Shubam

to help us do that probably. He's he's

the one. Um

>> Okay. So, um and how how how did you

grow back then? Was it in the valley?

Was it in where did it start? Who was

your first customer? Do you remember

>> just online? Yeah,

>> I was in those people through product

hunt community and um we were two people

just me and Simon. So generating some

cash. Uh we stayed very small for very

long still fairly small. Um

but yeah those people from Prada

>> that means you were profitable early.

>> We're profitable pretty early.

>> Okay.

>> That's why like every time we raise

money we do not need to dilute too much

and pretty efficient. You're still

profitable?

>> Yeah. Cash flow positive for for several

years now. Even though company's much

larger today.

>> Oh, wow. How many people today?

>> Uh 900,000.

>> Wow.

>> Yeah.

>> Okay. What's What's the split between

Simon and you?

>> Uh different offices, you mean? Or

>> Well, no. How do you in the work? What

what does Simon today do? He's

>> Simon is still coding.

>> Yeah. Okay.

>> Man, that guy's lucky he

>> Are you jealous?

>> I'm jealous. Oh, I I like what I do,

too. But coding give you a different

flow state. It's some of the best flow

state, right? Um actually that's not

true. He's become more of managing

coding agents,

>> right? Uh so he still does engineer

work. Uh I do um product a lot of trying

to like work with different product team

get idea to be coherent looking at the

details doing visiting customer that's

why I'm in Paris right now. Um do did I

have a user conference had dinner with

customer last night

>> who's the biggest consumer in France

>> biggest customer

>> customer sorry yeah

>> uh quite like I would say a role model

customer probably the company quanto

>> okay quto

>> yeah I think they're they're not the

biggest by number of people but they use

notion quite well

>> yeah they're my major sponsor actually I

love them

>> uh

>> not just because they're my sponsor but

they're there yeah

>> yeah I think there are two three people

>> whole company runs on notion it's like

what you did for your studio but they do

the whole whole company so

>> everything they track everything

engineer team runs their buck issue

tracking marketing to-do list you know

all the documentation in the company uh

I visited their office last year I think

I'm going to visit tomorrow I believe so

I visit their office last year and they

have like yoga lessons how to sign up

for yoga lessons through notion forms

like everything is connect through

notion it's like wow that they really

get the best out of this kind of second

brain.

>> I don't know if I'm right, but it's

probably thanks to my one of my former

associate partners, German, Mishu, that

was like one of the earlier employee in

at KTO when he he was a complete notion

nerd actually. Yeah.

>> Yeah. Okay.

>> It's like people who grow up playing

Legos or have a really good time setting

up lotion. Is it hard to get to um you

said enterprises so Konto is not really

enterprise it's startup yeah

>> yeah um I mean could you get to I don't

know the Coca-Cola company like

everywhere in the world the

>> we're getting to there like in France uh

L'Oreal AOR those are the traditional

enterprise customer

>> okay they're signing up

>> they're signing up the notion customer

>> not for everyone

>> not for everyone this um in some other

um in the rest of Europe like the Volvo

of the world, Toyota in Japan, those are

thousands or tens of thousands people

running on notion.

>> And when you when they start with

notion, do they have to do you have to

get them uh how do you call that? Um

transition from previous software or is

it start from zero?

>> Depends. So they could come from um

replace their previous knowledge base or

project management tool, consolidate

them, right? Actually what we do a lot

for our customers to help them save

instead of using five different tools uh

they can consolidate them in together.

Uh one a good example we usually share

is like there's an the finance company

called ramp. It's one of the fastest

growing company in the US right now.

>> All right.

>> Right. So there are 3,000 people two

3,000 people in ramp. We came in to help

them save remove five six tools all

moving to notion and for those two

three,000 employees each person we save

50% cost of their tooling cost.

>> All right.

>> So that's one part. The better part is

because now you don't have to use five

six tools you save time and even better

you don't have you have one place to do

AI to deploy AI to help you do all the

work. So those three things act together

it's the benefit for a larger company.

>> All right. And it's not like

because a lot of time u you know getting

rid of some tools was a kind of a

financial uh decision but it was a

larger tool but that people were get a

lot of frustration it's inside. It's not

what what's happening with notion

getting deployed. You mean people are

happy we replaced larger tools or

>> Well, probably you you could be the kind

of, you know, look, I am Microsoft. I

get all of this [ __ ] you know, or

Google or, you know, they tried to do

that with the uh trying to replace Slack

and Workspace and whatever uh everything

and say, "You just sign with me. You get

the emails, you get the this, this,

that, this, that." But at the end you if

if you had to be honest as a user, you

would be like this is halfway good as

that. This is not as good as this. This

is not it's not the feeling people have

when you go and say you're just notion

and you'll have to forget about the

others.

>> Yeah, that's what we hope right people

[laughter] are happy to migrate towards

notion rather than uh oh I have to use

it.

>> That's my feeling. They get

>> it is it is true. uh we we don't compete

with Microsoft or Google Suite with

we're the and no nor Slack. where the

layer sitting on top of Microsoft Office

and uh Google's like we use Google suite

ourself like our

>> we use

>> they're trying to compete with you

though

>> um more toward like the space we're

occupying are the competing with the

point solutions the SAS fragmentation

the SAS point solution in the past no 15

years

>> am I wrong if I'm saying that Microsoft

has tried to to get its own notion right

>> yeah there the similar product called

Microsoft loop um shareepoint point

couple generation before um it's like

like a point solution on top of office

right like [clears throat] our advantage

is like we can consolidate those point

solution through our legos so you don't

have to use a lot of point solution you

still have to use email and calendar

from office or google gmails but the

rest of the company the core

collaboration productivity

workspace could just be on notion um

that can cover your project management

your simple CRM if your company is small

and bunch of other things because we

give you this kind of very flexible

database and database can keep track of

most things and and that's the Lego

power customer have

>> and why don't you go on um direct

messaging somehow uh that would be

interesting I think

>> it would be interesting yeah

[snorts and laughter]

>> you know why but because what I'm saying

is that so I still work on on um

>> oh we need to get you over here

Google Docs and and where is that

reason? Because I got all of the notes I

got about you uh and the work we've done

prior the episodes but then here

and so I I have everything on the same

screen but maybe it's too niche but

still uh so I get uh

>> so you can chat at the same time.

>> Yeah.

>> Interesting use case. Yeah.

>> I believe it's going to happen soon

probably in

>> Yeah. work like a Lego can be anything

right and so if you have the right

primitive you can go after many thing

you still have to tra still have to make

trade-off trade-off is like

>> one of my favorite word

>> but what I think is that it would be

very interesting for one reason because

we're going to get there I have a

question a couple of question before but

for AI and for the knowledge basis

because

>> if you can stock all of the discussions

we had uh decision we've made uh um

that would be very powerful.

>> You can do connect using notion connect

with other tools

>> like Slack

>> Slack Slack Microsoft team. So you can

your your Gmail, your emails, you can

get all the context in

>> so you can still using other tools uh

but the AI is connected and we do a lot

of very dedicated work to map the

permission make sure you the right

information get indexed then you can

find anything you ever said it's works

better than Slack search I like I I go

to notion to find the thing I I I

remember is I in my email is in my Slack

I just search notion

>> it's going to find anywhere where

>> anywhere. Yeah.

>> All right. So, let's get into that. I

I'll come back to No, I'll let's get

back. Right. The company almost died,

right?

>> At some point. Yeah. In Japan.

>> Japan time. Yeah.

>> Japan time.

>> So, right before you arrived or

>> Well, the reason why I go to Japan so we

can stretch out the money longer. So, um

then we did Japan. We travel actually

all over the places. That's like cheaper

than SF basically. uh like places like

uh Sicily right after Japan actually

highly recommend Sicily too.

>> Yeah, it's very nice.

>> Very nice. Like a uh cappuccino running

by the water, the swimming and computer.

>> Yeah.

>> Uh a good time. Um

>> life is sweet over there. Yeah.

>> Yes. Slower.

A lot of um the gelato is big.

[laughter]

A lot of pasta and gelades. Um but we

did we'd rebuild maybe like a year and a

half but eventually it's almost like oh

we'd be still we'll be running out of

money even just two of us. Um but then

my mom helped us bridge a little bit

longer. Uh then we launched notion on

Prada and then that has traction then

investor uh did another round with us.

>> So they already did a round before that.

Okay.

>> Yeah we stretched that round for a long

time.

>> All right.

How much did you raise total

>> today?

>> Yeah.

>> I I don't keep track of it.

>> It's like like hundreds of millions.

>> Hundreds [clears throat] of million.

It's the most all the money still in the

bank.

>> Okay.

>> Yeah. So,

>> don't you tell me if you don't know what

to do with it. I can I can have good

ideas if you want. [laughter]

>> Buy some Bitcoin.

>> I don't know if I do that now.

>> Oh, yeah. What would you do?

>> I don't know. Actually, I do. I do. No.

No. Uh uh. Yeah. We we we've raised a

lot of money last year for I have a a VC

firm so we raise 60 million and we're

we're investing a lot in deep tech and

we have a lot of very interesting places

to Yeah.

>> Yeah. Things are going to go so fast but

yeah

>> yeah probably I'll buy the next Q3

monochrome with the money you know that

would be a good investment.

Um so uh if I go jump back today um um

10 billion valuation is that right? Um

we're a lot about AI. So my question is

that um we have we don't use that much

yet uh uh notion AI um

on what uh AI is it based is it your own

technology or is it

your AI based on open AI or

>> yeah we use other models

>> okay

>> open AI entropic gemini

we're model agnostic if you open to the

AI uh menu

>> there's a picker Okay,

where is that?

>> So, we're going to Okay, notion AI and

then I can plug it.

>> All the models,

>> okay,

>> you can use but that's less important.

The more important is like at this point

is especially if you build an AI

application, the model capability is not

the largest bottleneck. The bottleneck

is actually the infrastructure around

it, the plumbing, the pipe around it to

get your data and context to be in one

place. So the model can think over the

context. You probably heard the term

context window.

>> Yeah.

>> It's like the model wants all the

context to be in the same window so it

can think over it and do things with it.

>> And that's um turns out to be as

hardware if not harder problem.

And the second brain idea of notion you

talk about actually kind of lucky to

solve this problem because we've been

consolidating the context uh uh in

before AI because we want all the place

to be in the same Lego box and it turns

out it's a very good position

architecture to be for

>> uh building AI application because all

the plumbing and the context already

there.

>> Interesting. So if I use um for example

I put GPT 5.1.1

uh

>> will it use my GPT my uh open AI

account?

>> No it used our enterprise version of GPT

um and but it will have all your

personal data your work notion data in

work if you connect with your Slack with

your Microsoft teams with Google Drive

all those data will be in the same

context. So you can ask question, you

can ask your AI to do work for you based

on those informations.

>> And can I connect still my my uh CHP

account? So it gets all of my context

out outside of the

>> That doesn't work yet.

>> Okay.

>> Interesting. What kind of context do you

want from your CHP site?

>> I don't know. My CHP knows everything

about me. Your chat history.

>> Yeah.

>> Yeah. like all of my uh

you know I don't know the way of

thinking somehow the way of writing

uh

and yeah actually I have a wrong use of

tragic that I've discovered probably

here because I I do share my account

which is not a good use

>> Oh wow with your family.

>> Yeah. Well, my my my daughter because I

want her she's young. I don't want her

to have her own GPT with which would be

a black box and I'm not uh very uh happy

with that and also because I've been

working a lot on it uh part of my team

here. So my chip is a big mess in its

head

>> very confused right like it's fun how it

understands who's talking to. So Louise,

my uh my daughter, she's 13 and she said

when I say cuckoo chat means say hi. Uh

then you have to understand it's Louis

and they always understand it's her

talking. So it makes yeah

several compartments I I would say but

yeah it would be interesting that um

some of the loanage the projects we're

working on on CH GPT maybe we should

start them on on notion and do it the

other way around but the the project

mode on GPT is just fantastic I don't

know if you use it but

>> so it would be interesting to to get

that content on notion probably at some

point

>> well another usage so

>> another feedback And and so do you have

your own AI models or AI?

>> No, no, no. We used um

>> Okay.

>> So you're not an AI company?

>> We're not AI labs.

>> All right.

>> Yeah. AI company. We're AI application

company. AI labs. There's only few labs

in the world, right? Like Entropic,

OpenAI, Gemini, XAI. Um we don't build

our labs because the we want to be

agnostic of all the models and we want

to use the what's best. Um but we spend

a lot of time building infrastructure

around our customers data and workflows

to unlock the best in the models.

>> And so when I use AI on on notion then

if it uses your um relation your

accounts or your then I have to pay

extra each time or is it a credit based

how does it work? Uh it's a flat fee at

the moment. Yeah. Um it's a you probably

already pay notion business plan. In

that case it has all the AI you need.

You don't need to pay extra. You

probably already

>> I thought we had to pay extra. That's

why they you don't know. Can you ask the

team?

>> Yeah that's what's they said. But

>> like right now there's no

>> limitation. There's notion does not make

less and less sense without AI at this

point. Like all our engineer team if not

most engineer team are building with

language models.

Um the two sorry the two things I had

about uh notion uh I still use you're

going to laugh at me but uh I still use

Evernote.

My god where is that? Uh I think it's

from the uh how would you say asynchron

like uh um I think it works very well

when you're out when you're not

connected.

>> Oh yeah. Offline mode.

>> Offline mode. Yeah. and and I've had uh

in the early days of notion a lot of

troubles in the offline mode. Is it

something you've

>> we fixed this year finally?

>> So one of it's it's our number one

request feature from customer from both

business customers and personal

customers. We launched it this year and

uh yeah

>> so yeah I should try I then I'll have to

send my whole uh back catalog to to

notion

>> try to import it. So uh if you have

trouble let me know I'll help you.

>> Cool. Cool. Uh and I'd say the other

reason I uh that was hard at the

beginning was that we had several

accounts because I was running several

companies

>> and going from one to another was pretty

hard. Is it easier now or is it

something you've heard about?

>> We're still working on it. Yeah, we

heard about it. Especially if you have a

lot of different studio, you've working

with many agencies. We made it better,

but there's still one or two level we

can make a a lot better.

>> Yeah, it's probably not high priority

because there are not so many people

working on so many companies or spaces

as I do. I don't know if it's okay. But

what's your mission now? Where are you

going? Where are you heading to? It

>> hasn't changed.

>> Okay. like how do we create beautiful

tools for people to do work right that's

always from the beginning like we call

the help people build beautiful tools

for their life's work

>> to my understanding what's going to

change is

the whole AI thing world that is coming

to us because when you talk to you know

I think you know Antonio Sika quite well

>> uh I mean if you've got all of these

things Uh

I'm trying to think what we could do

with all of the the back catalog we have

over that we could get like I want to

create a website with all over all of my

episode with the knowledge of all of

those guy from I don't know you know uh

photography or uh e-commerce or uh um I

mean the whole it will know everything

about the history of a company. So it it

will change a lot. It will change a lot

like fundamentally it's changed notion

like AI was um

we saw the potential of technology

three years ago now almost like me and

Simon like you we're living the San

Francisco neighborhood called mission so

a lot of AI researchers live in that

neighborhood some of our friends said

wow

>> this new technology called language

model can completely change

>> computing change knowledge work and it

works potentially work really well with

what we have at the Lego set we have.

So, we bet really early on to this. Uh,

we actually launched our first product

before Chhat GPD happened.

>> All right.

>> Yeah. Because like, wow, this is a great

technology for us, right?

>> Did you um Well, that must be deep

because when you do that, you you could

go back to Kyoto for a year. I mean,

thinking about

>> we actually [laughter]

the story was that we were in Cancun,

Mexico. were in a company retreat and uh

and we got early access to GPD4

>> so preview it wasn't released to the

world yet um then we [snorts] thought

everybody have access to this now we

need to rush really quickly to create a

early product with it so we were in the

company retreat me and Simon we lock

oursel in the hotel room for a week a

week and a half and uh uh just building

the first version of the

>> I wasn't wrong you did it again

>> we did it again yeah uh let's try Yeah,

actually is another version of Kyoto but

small in Mexico eating tacos this time.

Um,

>> eating and working all the time.

>> Eating, working. It's actually has some

photos.

>> Yeah, would be fun.

>> It's a It's like in uh cuz in Mexico.

Um,

>> what phone do you have? It's Google

Pixel. Is it?

>> No, it's the new iPhone.

>> Has a single camera.

>> Yeah, I don't recommend.

>> That's why you need this. [laughter] The

battery. The phone is bigger, but the

camera is not great. This is the um

this is the uh

at the end after our week and a half

hackathon, me and him, we finished it

without the water bottle cuz Mexico, you

cannot drink the water from the tab. So,

we just keep hacking with the two of us

with a lot of water bottle.

>> Look happy.

>> Yeah, [laughter] it's just fun though.

It's like it completely changed. It's

like got a new type of material for you

to build software with. It's a squishy.

It's like it's smart. It's a different

property.

>> I think it's an interesting um way of

working because

I think I'm thinking about Jeremy, a guy

from a company called Welcome to the

Jungle. They they do like they're in the

HR tech and uh he's rethinking the whole

company, but it's going to take them

like probably a year or two. And because

they they they understood that the whole

AI and NLM are going to change the HR

world forever and he needs to just

revamp the whole thing. And I'm thinking

sometimes we should stop every six

months now or maybe a year but and try

to rethink about the whole way we're

working because uh

because probably to do everything we're

doing right now without AI would I would

need probably five 10 people on top of

what we're doing. Can you imagine just

typing the speech to text listening to

the thing? I mean that's that's probably

done since a long time but it would be

very hard.

>> Yeah. It's like um

knowledge work will be very different

>> like you sort of can see this in some

categories right like it's using Simon

as example like he's still one of the

most productive programmers in the

company like in Silicon Valley people

call those people like 10x engineer.

>> Yeah 10x engineer he's like 10x engineer

and uh but he doesn't actually code

anymore.

like he hasn't coded for a month.

>> His agent codes for him.

>> His agent codes for him. So he become a

manager. He hates management by the way.

He does. He wants to go. But now he has

to manage bunch of agents. But he can

like oh I'm going for my lunch break and

then tell my agent like you do this, you

do that. When I get back get it ready

for me. Well before he go to sleep every

night he's like

>> did he show you? Yeah. Did of course.

Yeah. Yeah.

>> Does it work very well? Like is it

insane?

>> Work very well for him. So this is like

um that's why like another

characteristic is like the people who

really understand the nature of uh agent

and nature of programming can do very

very like they become much better.

They're not just become like 10 times

better. It's like 50x better or

something like

>> yeah and once you came from 10 to 50 you

can go to 50,000. I mean there's no

reason you I mean there's

>> 50,000 might be a high but like you

can't go to like it's not just linear

it's super linear right like you

understand the craft of the system the

architecture you understand the

limitation of the latest coding agent

you sort of figure out the sweet spot

that can amplify yourself all your

trade-off is like okay spend more time

to write the spec um maybe burn more

tokens but then you can really multiply

yourself

>> what part of notion is is is coded by AI

now

>> all the new AI stuff coded by AI now. So

the AI8 the most notion are most team

are building language model power

features but especially the new AI part

of notion it's

large percentage are code by agents

>> and uh it's not just like Bill get said

it's like probably six month a year

before he he said it was mainly the code

review it was mainly the like the 30%

Microsoft used I mean was coded by agent

was mainly yeah the review when and

>> it's okay. So the the Microsoft one

people were talking about it's like um

GitHub copilot right it's like a

[clears throat] IDE which meaning like

um programmer typing the tech box of the

codebase and the text can auto

>> complete automplete

>> um

>> that's still very much human in the loop

human in the driver se human have to say

yes and no every single step

>> it's slow it become much faster become

more agent like you have a class of

intern they can just do work. Start with

baby work, small work, but many of them.

You don't have to look at them. The goal

is not to say yes and no. The goal is

don't look at them at all.

>> You look at the result.

>> You look at the result. You look at the

uh do they passed your exam or not.

>> So, in some sense, programmer's job

becomes setting up the exams. So, if you

if you set up if you're really good at

setting up the exams, you will know that

when your exam pass, you get the thing

you want. You don't care how they are

made. How many programmers you have at

Notion?

>> 300 programmers.

>> And how many would you reckon you would

have if you didn't have AI?

>> If I don't have AI?

>> Yeah.

>> Well, if we do have AI,

>> well, if you wouldn't if like would you

need 3,000 or 30,000? I mean,

>> I think people can do a lot more. Yeah.

>> Like each of because our space is so

large, right? So each person can do much

more become more assignment like so we

can build many things in parallel.

>> Would you tell me the the most insane

things you've seen on notion? Uh some

example do you have some coming to your

mind like

>> what people use it for all different

kind of things like I was in Australia

uh last month last yeah that there's

like I was in customer meeting there's

customers running a chicken farm.

chicken farm. Okay.

>> Yeah. Um

that's a business use cases. Um personal

use case. I last night dinner again

someone told me, "Hey, I love notion at

work, but I love it even more because I

plan my wedding on it."

>> Right? So I plan my personal wedding on

it. That's the typical personal ones all

over the places that like Lego. You can

do all different kind of things with it.

>> But if you think chicken farm, you would

have like they would would the chicken

have like some chips or some stuff would

track each and every single chicken or

but the workflow the the point is

>> there's no software made for chicken

farmers right there's no software made

for very specific like personal wedding

planning software maybe but it's very

specific right and and because software

are made by other developers only the

popular category has applications

but um if we give our user Legos they

can make their own software

>> can you sell your Legos

>> you can sell I like

>> and I like my sell my my notion uh

wedding application.

>> You could. Yeah. If you get married

again, you can

>> Some people do sell stuff.

>> Oh, people make over a million dollar a

year selling their Lego templates or

selling their notion app template, doing

consulting with this things. Uh people

make real business on top of it.

>> And when you sell it, it's not rigid. I

can do my own Lego on the top of it.

>> It's like a Lego. It's almost like you

buy a Lego sack set. You see the box

when you open the box then the things

made for you but you can modify you can

piece together with your other sets

>> and you don't have to know how to code

and everything know how to code. Yeah.

But AI can do another amazing thing

about AI is you don't even know how to

you don't need to know how to use notion

Lego anymore.

>> You can just tell AI what to do. It can

do it for you. That's the magic part,

right? because we've been building this

information system for five years has

like all the many of important Lego

piece for knowledge work and what we did

in the past two and a half year with AI

is we teach AI how to use those Legos

now AI know how to use this Legos what

it means because notion can do so many

flavors of knowledge work that means AI

can do those so many different flavor

knowledge work for you in the notion

space and we also connect with your

Microsoft teams slack or other tools so

have all other context you can still use

other tools but notion become your

workbench with AI to do a lot of work

for you

>> amazing it's is it is it like even an an

and and Simon too optimistic your AI

like can it say no I can't do that I

>> hard for me to say it depends on the

personality of the model like that's the

fun fun thing or weird thing about

models like different model have

different personality of course we try

our best to make sure it says I cannot

do certain things it's getting quite

good at doesn't hallucinate anymore,

right? But it's still sometimes like um

you have to try different ask different

ways uh for it to do the right thing for

you. The better part is is you set up

those little agents. You should check

your notion afterwards like those agent

can do work autonomously. You can just

set up and they can work on the

background.

>> You showing you show it to me.

>> I'll show you afterwards. Yeah.

>> Um

okay. Okay. What's the most insane use

of uh notion you've ever made?

>> The agent part is quite interesting.

Like we have a thousand people um inside

notion. There's 700 agents running

inside notion on notion.

>> All right.

>> Right. So then they do all different

kind of things.

>> Can you explain one?

Um the basic one daily summary of all my

emails and what should I pay attention

to from my email and Slack just like the

daily brief this a lot of people use

that one

>> um all our um internal tickets like like

HR team receive a lot of tickets oh the

office too hot you know it's like where

should I get what's the password of this

all those are taken care by agent today

now

>> right

>> all the engineer design team they have a

lot of customer feedback the feedback

coming you have to manually organize

them agent organized for you. Um daily

brief, daily stand up like all the NG

teams or different teams say hey what do

we what is everybody working on this

week and you send out a memo to everyone

agent can write that as good as human.

So those are the basic use case apply to

almost every single team.

>> Do you have any competitors? many yeah

that [clears throat] our whole comp

competition is still largely compete

with the point solutions

>> right the it's not with one competitor

it's many different competitor from

different parts and we compete by

consolidate many of the use case into

one Lego box

>> you've bought companies

>> we have

>> yeah how many

>> more than five less than 10 somewhere

between there

>> did you like that part of business

>> buying companies yeah

>> it's pretty fun uh um

stressful um because there's so much

emotional know um um and then you need

to figure out it's it's a it's a good

match with the people is a good match

with technology sometimes both sometimes

one of them um and

yeah it's it's a craft it's a you can

see that's like a yeah different company

have this department called corp dev

right for this for that reason

>> no matter what the size of the company

it's a craft

>> it's a craft yeah Um yeah. Uh what

what's the the the most expensive

company you bought?

>> Uh we bought the uh the uh email company

is called Skiff then now become a notion

mail. That's a more expensive. It's a

team of uh

>> more than a dozen people.

>> What's the idea be behind the what what

is the price? Is it public?

>> Uh it's not public but it's

expensiveish. No

>> more than 100 million

>> something like that. Well I can't

remember. I can't remember the detail

here.

>> I like those details. Uh what's the idea

behind this? Do do I do I need to switch

from JML? It's it's based on GML if I

understand why.

>> It's based on Gmail. Um the idea behind

it is like we have notion can do most of

knowledge work, right? So we don't um

and but there's a two important part

surface area knowledge work we we care

about which is your time which is your

calendars and your email your

communication. And we want to have the

best apps in those categories so that

the context could be shared with your

rest of notion. So when I have a daily

brief uh I want the context from my

email go to my notions AI to figure out

what should I do based on my project in

notion based on what I my personal to-do

in notion based on what's my email and

slack information. Um when I start a

meeting notes with you, if I do a

recording, my notion calendar will know,

oh, who am I having meeting with, where

should the meeting note live and when I

finish the meeting, uh send out the

notes to the person or give me a brief

before, what should I prepare for? All

those contexts matter, right? So now

calendar, mail, those are two most

important contexts for the person.

That's why we we care about those two

categories.

>> I'm going to go all in on notion, I

think. Yeah,

>> sure. Let me know how it goes.

>> [laughter]

>> You convinced me. Um,

>> what are your frustrations even?

>> Traffic in Paris. It's a bit

>> I get that. [laughter]

>> That's a small one though.

>> Oh, I think it's actually quite

beautiful. Like I would uh you can stuck

in traffic in a ugly city where you

stuck traffic in a beautiful city. So, I

was thinking about it like the traffic I

give it zero out of 10, but the city is

beautiful. I gave it like plus three

points, plus four points.

>> Other frustration in your life.

>> Other frustration. Uh

I'm generally pretty content.

>> No, building company is not easy. But

you I treat it like a craft. It's like

you play sports, you get better at

tennis. Building company, you get better

at building companies. Building product,

you get better at know building the next

version of product. The fun of in the

journey of it. Are you very organized?

>> No.

>> No.

>> I'm okay organized, but consider I work

on notion, I was very surprisingly not

organized. Uh my my personal uh

organization has been just a page of

to-do list.

>> Okay.

>> And uh then what I remember with my head

with my emails.

>> Um Okay. And how um what's your um like

what time do you wake up?

Seven.

>> Seven.

>> Yeah. I wake up. Uh the first thing I do

is to make tea uh for my wife and I.

>> All right.

>> Yeah. Uh she said that's the only way I

say love you. I love you to her.

Then try to do some exercise and head to

work,

>> which is far away from home.

>> Not too far. 20 minutes Uber. Yeah, it's

pretty close. I go to work every day and

um

yeah, go home, dinner with my wife, back

online for bed.

>> You work again after dinner. Yeah.

>> I like to work. It's it's very lucky

that work to me it's uh it's play.

>> Yeah. Yeah.

>> Very lucky.

>> Same here. Yeah.

>> Yeah. And weekends, do you work still?

>> Yeah, we work on weekends. Um I try to

do some readings on weekends. I try to

read before I go to bed, but I try to

flip some p picture books on Saturday

morning, Sunday morning, try to play

tennis, get better at it. Uh,

yeah, I like routine. That's why I

sometimes travel different time zones

throw me off my routines.

>> Yeah. Yeah. I reckon I like But you

travel much more than I do. But I what I

don't like in travel is is going too

fast. Like my wife today is in Milan.

She left this morning and she's coming

back tonight. What? Why don't you stay

one night? You know,

>> Europe is so so compact.

>> You need to I mean, you need to enjoy

the place you stay. I think I need to

enjoy the places. I liked being in China

for two weeks.

>> Two weeks is great.

>> Yeah.

>> You get a feel of the city, right?

>> It's the only way you understand if you

want to go on a on a movie on a to

create that on on our YouTube channel.

It's the only way it's going to work.

You were talking about readings.

Do you have a book like what the the

book you would give tell me and say

>> the book I would say there's a class of

class type of books I like to read and

recommend other people to read. Um

there's a category called of um complex

systems.

>> Okay. Complex system.

>> Yeah. It's like a startup I would say in

the late 80s.

uh and the still popular I would say

maybe popularity wings a bit um and

central around like Santa Fe Institute

in the US um about

it's it's it's it

really hard to explain the modern world

like it's easier to explain when things

are few when things are really

a lot of them when things are few you

can use algebra you can count You can

know how the behavior on the bill

billboard table. You can figure out

everything with Newtonian physics. When

things are really large, you can use

statistics. But things in the middle,

it's really complex.

>> Things [clears throat] in the middle are

economics,

life, biology, building a company,

organizations

is there's no science for it. And um

complex system trying to solve this.

So that's there's a name for the that's

the name for the book complex system or

it's it's

>> just a category.

>> Okay. Okay.

>> There's a bunch of books.

>> Yeah. Introduction to the theory of

complex systems. Stefan Thunder Rolf

Man. I have a few.

>> That's um

>> complex intro.

>> Yeah. Okay.

>> It's um

it's interesting because like kind of

like similar what I study in college. It

touched on different domains.

um you're trying to look at the the edge

the connection of things not just at the

leaf the nodes of things and it's

through the connection you know the

value you know how to make tradeoffs how

nature makes trade-offs

>> um I I'm fascinated by those things

>> do you have um spiritual uh background

or um

>> um history no I'm like born and raised

in China so Communism kills everything

there. [laughter]

Um but uh uh

yeah the ways of lives my wife and I

especially her getting really into

philosophy in the past few years. So

look at different people's value systems

ways of lives.

Now like I just said I like the the

[snorts] I in the past few years I

realized I'm more of a journey person

than a destination person. M I enjoy the

journey like journeys give you meaning%

>> right it's like it's like um give you

meaning of the people around you the uh

uh make yourself a little bit better

rather than just focus on the number um

and that's kind of like it's like I

apply the same thing to exercise to

building a company building a product uh

yeah enjoying the moment a little bit

more

>> wow Oh, we leave everything on everybody

on this. I think it's a good way to end

that uh

discussion.

>> Yeah,

>> I want to say I love your sensitivity. I

I love that meeting that that talk. I

love your style also. That's the first

thing I had.

>> This is my

>> Yeah, I I like shoes and I think you're

very you can tell when when I saw you I

was like, "Oh, okay." I wasn't expecting

I don't know but but you know uh so uh

that was great and I understand I

understood a lot of things around notion

today and and it was very inspiring

thanks a million

>> yeah thank you for having me this is

very chill I enjoyed it

>> we'll follow you on LinkedIn is that the

best place or

>> I don't use LinkedIn um Twitter is

better

>> Twitter is better okay we'll go on X Ian

Zo how do you pronounce it

>> Ivanja so Twitter is Ian H JavaScript.

>> Okay, thanks a million. Yeah,

>> see you later.