Ivan Zhao
Ivan Zhao is the co-founder and CEO of Notion. Born in Urumqi, China; moved to Beijing then Canada. Placed second in the Beijing Information Olympiad (programming contest). Built Notion from 2013; the first 3–4 years were “the lost years” of wrong form factors and a failed technical foundation. Led Notion to profitability without spending most of its raised capital; kept the team small throughout. Notion has 1.8B+ users of the tabbed inbox… — no, Notion is used for documents/notes/databases; the tabbed inbox is Gmail. Notion is the product. Notion reached a $10B+ valuation. Ivan rarely does podcasts.
Key ideas
- Sugar-coated broccoli: hide the real vision (software creation for everyone) inside a familiar form factor (productivity tools) people already understand.
- Lost years: Notion iterated for 3–4 years before finding the right form factor; twice rewrote the codebase. Conviction in the vision (not the product shape) is what sustained them.
- Talent density: revenue per employee as the primary scaling metric; systems > headcount.
- Lego bricks vs. boxes: horizontal builders must sell solutions (boxes) while preserving primitives (bricks); compromising the bricks causes “organ rejection.”
- Craft + values: building something authentic to your own aesthetics is a more durable energy source than optimising for market or revenue.
Appearances
| Source | Date | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Ivan Zhao on Notion and Building Horizontal Products | ~2024–25 | Lost years; sugar-coated broccoli; staying lean; Lego bricks vs. boxes; AI strategy; craft and values |