Notion’s Ivan Zhao: The Refounder

We start a mantra in the company. We

want to be a jazz band, not a marching band. I love that.

band. I love that.

It's like a self-reflecting value thing.

It's auto equilibrium with me. So, it's

like, okay, I'm a jazz band person. So,

we've been hiring more and more jazz band person. Also, AI happened in the

band person. Also, AI happened in the past two two and a half years. So, more

jazzband people can really shine during this moment.

Okay. So, we had manager mode, we have founder mode. There's this new mode.

founder mode. There's this new mode.

What should we call it?

Jasmo, maybe.

That's not bad actually.

Hey everybody. Today we have Ivan Jawan, the co-founder and CEO of Notion. I like

to think of him as the refounder. Uh he

started the company a long time ago and in 2015 he didn't have part of market fit. He and his co-founder moved to

fit. He and his co-founder moved to Kyoto of all places and kind of restarted the company and rebuilt it.

After that, they got product market fit and it really took off. He did the same thing in 2023 around generative AI in an offsite down in Cancun and literally restarted the

company and in my mind he's the canonical example of how a SAS company can move and become an AI company. So

that's super interesting. The second

thing that's interesting is just hearing how he builds the company. He's very AI native in the way he organizes the company, the way he compensates people, the way he builds today. And it rhymes a

lot with some other CEOs that have interviewed like Jack Dorsey a couple weeks ago. I hope you like it. What do

weeks ago. I hope you like it. What do

you think of my outfit, by the way?

I think your outfit it's uh your pants could be looser.

Looser. Okay. On the bottom or just in general?

In general. Uh I like your sneakers. I

don't know what they are. Okay. They're

Italian. Premiada.

That's cool.

You're known as a very fashionable fellow. Where where you shop these days

fellow. Where where you shop these days here in New York?

New York has a good store near here in like Soho Traca called Lakasan. Um not

like a designer designer, but more like a European, easy to wear. Um

I like the vibe.

Thank you.

Um I got up my game. Ivan,

just channel some nice.

Let's go shopping. You want to go shopping?

It's right around here. Afterwards, we

can go.

Okay. Hey, I want to talk about CEO stuff, not just fashion. I've been doing this sequoia thing for a couple years and a lot has changed in CEO. Like the

whole manager mode, founder mode thing happened and now it's founder mode and some new mode seems to be happening.

Let's just reflect back when Paul Graham's founder mode memo came out. My

my person When was that? Since 2022, right? 2021.

No, no, no. It's like it was later than that. It's like 2024.

that. It's like 2024.

My reaction, by the way, was relief because I was a quirky kind of founder mode type of person. Always being

everyone's trying to talk me out of doing that. What was your reaction?

doing that. What was your reaction?

I didn't have too much of a reaction to be honest. Yeah,

be honest. Yeah, nowadays, uh, you know, Jack Dorsey kind of redesigning his company to put AI in the middle and Brian Armstrong

doing the same thing. My sense is you're kind of heading this way as well. Um can

you talk about your journey there, your company's journey? What's new? How are

company's journey? What's new? How are

you thinking about the organization?

How's it changing?

Yeah, my journey actually I have a small detour off the founder mode um which is like try to delegate trying to grow your notion has very been small as a company

in the early days like we had product market fit 2019 early 2020 uh we're sub 10ish people 2019 and um company become profitable because we're

small right um did you raise venture in the early days or you bootstrapped it we raised venture you Okay, that must have been tough.

Um, was tough like first five years just seage money dragged us for five years.

Yeah, HubSpot was like that. Took us a long time to get the product market.

It's very tough. But

yeah, it's a different type of tough compared to now. It's back then there's no product market fit. It's despair. You

just black. You don't know where to go, right? Um so we have been very small

right? Um so we have been very small from the get-go and we sort of taste the sweet of it because it's you're small you're profitable easier to raise money you're default alive and um we've been

resisting growing team size and and during co a lot of companies really blew up remember that right I'm sure you did we relatively yeah blew up you got to product market fit at the right time

we grow to product market around the same time um there's a lot of eyes that you got to grow so we did grow um relative to other company still resistant to grow a lot uh in terms of

headcount. Um but that's the moment I

headcount. Um but that's the moment I sort of learned oh you need to delegate need to have introduced in professional manager management why who is telling you that it's a good question who te tell us some

investors you didn't tell me that I don't think so uh it was conventional wisdom amongst the investor class I would say there's a pro and con for that like we sort of eyes resist that

for a long time so we did not build a sales team in retrospect I should have started sales team earlier because I thought I can first principle the whole way like create new kind of PLG some

kind of brand new motion that's a mistake um the other part is product marketing engineer those functions sort of I wouldn't call mistake but we're upping the traditional way of building

it did you hire been there done that people in that phase we we did and do you have any of them still um many of them are still with us yeah

our CTO it's last three years before that there's another CTO during that phase. Um but I would say some part of

phase. Um but I would say some part of notion DNA are defined by the classic SAS executive. Now the thing changed in

SAS executive. Now the thing changed in the past three years since we're building with AI like we're one of the earlier

um adopter of language modeling or product and you start think things are breaking building with this new technology the classic boundary between rows doesn't quite work the analogy I

like to use back then it still is is like building classic software is like engineer bridge if you can design it you usually can build it fairly predictable

um like product manager talk to customers pass to designer pass to engineers right building with language model back then and somewhat still is it's like brewing beer

you can't truly predict the things the underlying thing good analogy you cannot tell the east hey hey guys go go go go go towards that flavor profile more you can't do that right you sort of have to

throw your best people in there see what the model see what technology gives you so it's not customer first it's more experiment with this technology first. Although the last year

technology first. Although the last year or so model gets so much better now but still the spirit is technology firstdriven development rather than customer-driven first development. Um

that really forced us to change the at least how we build product. Um designer

is the most productive thing are designer and engineer and product people all just sit in the same bucket then work with evals work with experiences and figure out inside your company has one of those

personas kind of dominated and the other ones falling aside or is there they all kind of do the same thing now we always started by like our DNA in the early days always blurry like we are one

of the first to hire designer who can code I'm a designer who can code right so we we build a company based um my image and my company my co-founder's image so those profile really shines

designer who can co- engineer have strong product sense um PMs don't not afraid to roll up sleeve and try things like one of our heaviest token

consumption person in the company is a pad for example those people really shines and we have quite a few of in the notion okay so you read the Dorsy stuff you

read the Armstrong stuff my summary of it is they Think of like a big triangle or chart. It's very inefficient flow of

or chart. It's very inefficient flow of information up and down and across it.

It's been around for thousands of years and it's time to rethink it. Basically

stick AI in the middle and start delegating more and more over time and letting the system make decisions and feeding it context in good ways. That's

kind of my highle summary of it. What's

your take on what those two are doing and are you doing basically the same thing? If some sense we're creating

thing? If some sense we're creating product for other company to do that but yourself the high premise is similar at least my interpretation of it it's so much

knowledge work is paper pushing in the past it's really hard require software to push information from one person another but so much of a knowledge work is fuzzy so human need to be in the

middle to pushing information from one to the other and turns out language model can do really good at two things one thing is to write the software to design the perfect pipes for your

company to pushing information and decisions. Second is like doing this

decisions. Second is like doing this kind of mini decision making in the stop between one decision point to another decision point. Right? So a lot of used

decision point. Right? So a lot of used to companies to a lot of people just in the middle to pushing information decision around to sustain a business at

scale that could be rethink.

Okay. The analogy I like to use, we've been using somewhat is like before steel buildings cannot be higher than five six floors and

New York City are largely six floor tall iron and stones and bricks after steel there's you information or way structure can go much higher since

sometime language model plus software is that it's the steel for organizations.

What does the organization look like now that we have the steel?

I think I know buildings got taller. What what

happens to or organizations?

Uh I think everybody's trying to figure out right like Dorsy's structure is like three layers or something or three type of people, right?

Yeah. Three types of people that sit around the AI system that mostly train it um extremely flat and I think Brian Armstrong said it's five layers and everyone's a player coach which I think is pretty interesting.

I think all the spirits are right. Yeah,

I don't think and I believe it should be a hierarchical like I think people tried in the in the past like flat organizational structure I don't think that's part of human nature human nature

are hierarchical and do you think that's changed now we have AI that it can be flatter or you're like that's BS oh definitely can be flatter like we are getting flatter and flatter okay how many direct reports you have

I have 7A um in generally what is it the companywise probably around 7 8 9 people per person.

A lot of people are going to 15 20 25.

Yeah. Many of our best people 15 20 something.

Got it. How have you changed your company? How you compensate people? How

company? How you compensate people? How

you build your org? How you hire people just in the last year as all this stuff has developed?

Yeah. Two years ago, we start to um hire different shape of engineers.

Okay. um no longer optimized for people's experience, optimized for people's um agency, energy, optimism, curiosity. A rough framework we're using

curiosity. A rough framework we're using like okay what is the talent in the company? A talent equal to this person's

company? A talent equal to this person's capability s experience times this person's um taste or value system times

this person's um agency will right um what language model change is like just like Google everybody can access information language model allow everybody to be a pretty good writer and

programmer so capability got normalized democratized and taste becomes still important like what's your value system what do you want to bring to the world which direction do you want to that you

cannot change as easily and you will how hard do you work this you cannot change so we optimize for the latter to today okay that means in engineer science we're hired for much younger people okay

internally we're call like IC early out of school IC this is the opposite of the way most of the CEOs I'm interviewing are going it's interesting I think more people are thrilled they say that like a junior engineer powered by the stuff's more productive

but if you got a senior engineer that understands the whole system been there a while and they're pled they're like a 100x.

Yes. That's so higher for super junior super senior.

Oh, interesting.

So the shape it's not it's more like the barbell barbell shape, right? Um because

the senior provide taste there's still a lot of auto distribution information in language model architecturing and language models. No

one very bad with that. So they need to provide a direction. It's almost like this a good engineer managing four to

six coding agent at once, right? Um but

a good really senior architectural engineer can managing two to three junior interns or engineer they each manage two or three then that's the number is higher right and they can

train the next generation. Uh I think that might be a more optimal shape than bunch of senior people manage coding agents.

Okay and you I assume you're still hiring designers and still hiring PMs. Is the ratio changing or are you just hiring people do the whole thing? The

definition of designer PM are different like we're intentionally hired designer who work as PM PM can usually the other way usually it's designer who can work as PM it's harder for PM to work as

designer because it's the the visual genetic thing it's more like a visual craft takes years to train right um but we're but designers want to talk to customers and get feedback

yeah rare but uh don't stereotype designer though they do exist so if I look at your website you're hiring engineer junior senior are you hiring PMS and designers or do you have some

P I don't know how to combine those two words together we hire PM designer by the way we interview them we evaluate them like we're in talk with two to three design

leaders they're kind of we value them as PMs basically are you how in can you drive things yourself it's not just come up good ideas um how much are you

interfacing with customers besides you're good with craft design craft Some of this stuff is like the fashions change. Like for the longest time it was

change. Like for the longest time it was experience. Then the word everyone used

experience. Then the word everyone used was slope. We hire for slope and now

was slope. We hire for slope and now it's kind of taste and curiosity and agency.

That's kind of slope though. That's like

the slopeish.

How is it different?

Slope to me is just horsepower smart.

Well, intelligence is first intelligence multiple dimensions like GPU speed like how'd you do on your freaking SAT?

But there's a plenty smart people are lazy. That's for sure.

lazy. That's for sure.

Do you call that high slope or low slope?

I don't know. I just always bucket it in to hire the the the the the people who learn who learn fast and are very smart and I think it's changed to the word taste comes up a lot and you're you've

been talking about taste for a long time. The industry talks. Why is that

time. The industry talks. Why is that all of a sudden a thing? Why is that word everywhere now?

Because taste is now in language models.

Yeah. taste is in in if you zoom out a long long time maybe is but right now it's not. Yeah.

it's not. Yeah.

And it taste is more rooted based on your value system. Are you drinking sparking water or still water? Are you

drinking diet coke or iced tea?

Yeah.

It's to each of their own. There's no

right answers.

Um the rest of you, you've got more than just engineering. Uh you've got a bunch

just engineering. Uh you've got a bunch of HubSpot people here which is great.

Uh but let's just take marketing. Is the

criteria change there too? We actually

changed our marketing department. We no

longer have a CMO organization. This is

this year. Last year, this year. Yeah.

We break up our CMO organization into storytelling.

Yep.

Which is closer to product, closer to because the product is changing so fast.

It's like you just classic marketing can't keep up. We haven't shipped this fast before, right? So let's just have that sit next to product directly connect to social where people are

discussion are happening and then the other part is like serving the sales go to market function like demand genen lead genen just like um we really really

focus on that so rather than information round trip to a CMO then figure out how to serve both the product side and the go market no more just like let both side okay figure it out themsel okay not themsel but

more decentralized and are there any other of classic marketing functions in there. It's sort

of those are the two.

Those are the two. Um the designers there are also designer and creative part on the storytelling side like community.

Yeah, community is in there. It's a

community where as part of a community ecosystem uh or organization which is startup where is one of our most important communities um notion fans

around the world and figure out how does this to move our market through those people right um that's the bucket of people and has the criteria changed sales

marketing all the different other functions have you changed the way you think about the hire like most companies have a form when you interview someone has that form change we're actually in the middle of I

just described engineer one right engineer designer it's the we changed two years ago yes um go to markets marketing would change no six monthsish ago sales were changing right now

and when you hire a sales rep they have to be AI pil yes there we're actually changed our first interview no longer look at your resume build something for us send a

notion link send something that you built we look at what you built How about compensation? Is that changing? My

about compensation? Is that changing? My

sense is we we had an environment where at least in HubSpot we people are much more productive than the average person.

Now it's even more so. Have you

rethought?

We are changing that as well. Okay. So

they need to be extremely lot more meritocracy. You can peanut butter

meritocracy. You can peanut butter things. Um I think the SAS era is kind

things. Um I think the SAS era is kind of like playbook peanut butter everybody. It's like um pretty peaceful

everybody. It's like um pretty peaceful era. Um and right now it's a wartime

era. Um and right now it's a wartime totally actually make the SAS feel like what are we doing back then for well nothing changed for the longest time like

nothing right like notion we had that's the reason I left HubSpot it's like okay we're building this platform we need to build build more apps we need to keep opening the platform we need to hire more reps and just like keep going until a couple years ago now it's

completely changed or you can't well come back to become operator if you like that's why I joined Skoya I'm like wow there's so much exciting things going on when we hit product marketing CO happened. It's more like um world

happened. It's more like um world changing but not like a people building things and technology changing.

Do you prefer wartime or peace time?

Oh, wartime is way more fun. It's like

what's the difference? What do you do differently?

You feel more alive.

Okay. But what methods do you use that are different?

I need to take care of my body. I need

to exercise every day.

I didn't think you were going to say that, but okay.

Yeah. It's like it's uh um more fluid.

Are you more top down versus bottoms up?

I think the company has a good spot.

notion right now is a good spot with me in a sense that I can dance around really smoothly either direction.

There's enough people I trust really well. They can bottom up and it's

well. They can bottom up and it's constant surprise me like we're a company a thousand people we have about 50 60 founders in the company exfounders. It's like they really can

exfounders. It's like they really can lead things right. um and and they're welcome me to top down into jump into any part I can work on, I'm interested

in where I can provide you new value and they don't feel territorial. This is in a good place that people who didn't feel that way either no longer at notion or let them go. Um so the company I me in a

pretty interesting equilibrium at the moment. I interviewed Parker Conrad from

moment. I interviewed Parker Conrad from Ripling and he's similar has a lot of founders and the way it kind of strikes me is like the bigger HubSpot got almost all the important things cut

across all those organizations and it was just very hard to find someone who could really drive something across the org as opposed in their org. So we did

not do that. I I regret not doing more of that. That's my real remember I say

of that. That's my real remember I say right after co we scale and then we try to scale more traditionally I realized that's not us right at that point this is was three years

ago we start a mantra in the company we want to be a jazz band not a marching band I love that I I do the orchestra versus a jazz band I like the marching band yeah like I realized I cannot be a marching band person that's just not me

I will feels like if everybody I delegate everything everybody do thing what do I do I feels like I I can't do that. Um, so it's like a self-reflecting

that. Um, so it's like a self-reflecting value thing. It's auto equilibrium with

value thing. It's auto equilibrium with me. So it's like, okay, I'm a jazzband

me. So it's like, okay, I'm a jazzband person. So we've been hiring more and

person. So we've been hiring more and more jazz band person also AI happened in the past two two and a half years. So

more jazzband people can really shine during this moment.

Okay. So we had manager mode, we have founder mode. There's this new mode.

founder mode. There's this new mode.

What should we call it?

Jazz mode. Maybe

that's not bad actually because Jasmo has some structure, right?

Yeah, you don't want to be like you want other people to contribute. You don't want you want people to have fun, not just you having fun or dictating everything.

Okay, let's give that a go. Let's push

that out on on X and see if it sticks. I

mean, pretty good. Yeah, because I I put a survey out the other day like, what mode is this? And I was like, is it Dorsy mode? Is it native mode? And I

Dorsy mode? Is it native mode? And I

said, is it other mode? And somebody put in there, it's dep mode.

Dep mode. I think that's a good idea. One

mode. I think that's a good idea. One

other question on this new world. Um, I

work with all these startup founders.

The planning's tricky and I I sat through your pitch at Sequoia and you had a plan and you had a P&L like what is it actually like internally planning wise?

Well, group has our plan which most company at this point if it works if group has your plan, right? So um I would say the financial planning is still at least I find useful to give you

a like you know you're on a treadmill you know how fast you're running right that's like a financial plan in my mind it's like oh am I running seven eight one nine what number that is but product

strategy it's oh there's no freaking plan no plan uh because what changes the market the technology is so fast it's not in the six month it's not three

months It's week by week. So this you have to jazz this thing. Financial

things march that right. Um then at least we try to be conservative mid to conservative with financial things and

ex take risk and there's a buffer like cost becomes another dimension like if you're just building software don't think about cost.

No now you have to like at least I have to really think about cost.

Can I ask you about that? Like a lot of these startups gross margins are awful.

And like I companies like HubSpot were like 86% gross margins. That's sort of SAS normal. What are happening to your

SAS normal. What are happening to your cost and your gross margins? And where

do you think it settles out for companies like Gurus?

I don't have an answer for you.

I'm assuming your gross margins have gotten worse, but maybe you didn't hire as much headcount, so maybe operating margins are better. And how willing are you to be like gross margins to get

radically worse?

Oh, you have to.

You're you're down for that. you like

what are you doing then you're not in the war mode right I think notion is for knowledge work which might have a different curve than coding products coding product you run frontier models

usually the more the smarter the better um and knowledge work you you can we already start to see this you sort of can settle with the the second year the

Chinese models the open way ones they're not super smart like a lot of this kind of paper pushing information in your company oh I spill coffee on the carpet

can HR team come someone to tidy this up next week that doesn't require opus to file tickets right so that's a lot of problem we are best at solving at notion

so that will have a different growth margin profile than yes the biggest product market fit today which is a coding agent yes okay you're kind of in my mind the king of

refoundings you've done it I think twice at least Claude thinks you've done it twice.

Uh, your first one, you and your co-founder moved to Kyoto, locked yourself in a very small room and rebuilt.

It's not that small, but yeah.

Okay. You know, more recently, obviously, you you this everybody knows the story. You went to Mexico and you

the story. You went to Mexico and you had early access to the models and you turned into an AI company. Talk about

the different refoundings and what was your mindset at the time. There's lots

of early stage founders who need to refound and there's a lot of bigger SAS companies that definitely need to reound.

Yeah, I like as an idea as a the best artists reinvent themselves. Um Miles

Davis has three at least three face, right? Picasso two to three faces. Uh

right? Picasso two to three faces. Uh

Michael Jordan the second one probably not as good. No, but the the best one truly Steve Jobs the king of refunding.

Uh the first version of notion is like we took us four five years to find product market fit. In the middle of that we sort of find the shape of the product we want to build but we'll be

running out of money building it. So my

co-ounder se and I said let's just lay off everybody just go by the two of us.

That's the Japan story. Uh we rebuilt notion from Japan. Um

how hard was that the laying off everyone? It's not easy, but sometimes

everyone? It's not easy, but sometimes your body just tells you you have to do it. Like you know you're dead if you

it. Like you know you're dead if you don't do it. Uh you know just there's like a panda energy just like why the hell did you go to Kyoto of all places?

Well actually we never been to Japan cuz when you just say goodbye to your friends all those people you work with notion by all means not big five peopleish. Um it's morale so low right.

peopleish. Um it's morale so low right.

So S and I was saying like let's go somewhere that we just changed the mood a little bit and we never been to Japan.

So initially I picked Tokyo on Airbnb realize the the house are so small. I

don't I love Simon but I don't want to cram into a small apartment with him.

And Kyoto the apartment much bigger because they didn't get burned on the World War II.

They weren't bombed.

They weren't bombed. They spared that city. too much treasures and the house

city. too much treasures and the house is much bigger so and cheaper so we that's why we picked Kyoto and we ran our place in SF uh and our office in SF

we actually become cash flow positive doing that um that's the first time but once you land you start coding just those kind of rep coding eating coding

eating um it's actually really liberating I lived in Japan for a couple years was there something about Japan that was inspirational in your refounding or the way you built

the product. There's a certain aesthetic

the product. There's a certain aesthetic there that sort of rhymes with notion.

Or could you have been in anywhere?

Could you have been in Thailand?

Well, the usually we like summer warm. Simon likes warm climate.

summer warm. Simon likes warm climate.

Ideally, he can swim. Um, Japan just happened to be were both curious about it. But once you go to Kyoto, I don't

it. But once you go to Kyoto, I don't know, you probably been to Kyoto. It's a

very special city.

Very special.

Yeah.

Very inspirational.

Very inspirational. Those things are hundreds everything. Oh, this shop 150

hundreds everything. Oh, this shop 150 years old, right? I'll open that door.

The the shrine gone to a beautiful place in Thailand, Phuket, whatever. Do you

think you still would have pulled it off or was there something magical about the location that really worked?

Most of things are a story we tell ourself right?

Of course. What story is the true story?

The story we tell ourselves is like Kyoto is a special place. If you can pull off anywhere, you can pull off from Reborn in Kyoto. Then it's it's also inspiring just look at the surrounding

the craft is probably craft capital of Asia right so just make you okay if notion fundamentally is tool is a tool

for humans and those people are building knives ceramic cups tatami seats like they're the tools other tools for craft craft central

it's a craft central and like how do we how can you not be inspired by building a better software Okay, you still haven't answered my question, which is if you had gone to

whatever, let's pick some place in the Philippines and it was pretty, would you have pulled this off or was there something exceptionally important about being immersed in such a craft

ccentric place?

I think I pulled it off, but yeah, but the story is the better story.

Okay, fine. Okay. So, your big refounding, not easy.

Didn't immediately hit product market fit after. Still not easy.

fit after. Still not easy.

No, it took a while after that because it took a year and a half to rebuild from scratch.

Why didn't you just quit and start a new company at that point?

We never start a company for starting a company. You want to build something

company. You want to build something like I got obsessed about this notion shaped tool problem since last year college and Simon and I were both in

this kind of tools for thought community which is you can trace the lineage back to grateful that era is the the first generation computing pioneers around the Bay Area like the lineage trace way back

directly back to there. I want to continue that lineage. Um so to me it's not it wasn't like you had another idea kicking around. this is your life and

kicking around. this is your life and this is like bigger than I can ever chew on this idea. So I wouldn't do anything else. He's in that community. He's

else. He's in that community. He's

obsessed with this idea too. So if we don't work on this, we'll work on another company doing the same thing.

Okay. I'm going to I'm going to get back to the reffounding, but just on the Grateful Dead, uh you study very important computer scientists from the 60s. You're a

student of Steve Jobs. I'm sure there was sort of a craft ethos about the Grateful Dead and the music back then, but certainly about the company, certainly about jobs.

Is it still here? It seems like it's a lot more commercial than craft today in Silicon Valley. Have we lost that?

Silicon Valley. Have we lost that?

I think most people don't have it. Most

company don't have it.

I I I agree. like Steve Jobs I look up to him or people like him is like interception of humanity with technology

versus Silicon Valley at least tech is largely a technology and tinker culture and tinker culture doesn't even know the history of it's not even science it's tinkering right it's like people like to build things in their garage and

something works and maybe has a product market fit and grow a business out of this to be fair W and W was tinkering in the garage yeah but you required to meet someone to

to bring the human side of it, right? Um

I think tinker culture the the risk of us like you don't know what comes before you. Science at least you respect the

you. Science at least you respect the history. Like if we ask people who um

history. Like if we ask people who um Douglas Anglebar or Alan K those computing pioneers are most people in tech have no idea.

Honestly the only reason I know them is I work for this guy Ray Azie.

Ray Azi like who you would know of course because he's the father of notes but he was obsessed with those two and talked about them constantly. reality uh it's like

them constantly. reality uh it's like Microsoft CTO for a while too right so um that lineage is broken by the way the

people who remember this 807s and 80s they were sort of people don't even yeah they no longer work in tech today um so tech is like industry doesn't know its

past if you don't know his past you don't know history which is humanity I think your your your point of view is like what's in front of you what your

competitor is doing Versus if you bring humanity, you have all other discipline around you. You have all the history

around you. You have all the history behind you. There's way more good stuff

behind you. There's way more good stuff you can steal from. Um I wish more tech founders steal from aside or from behind.

I think they'd benefit from it too. Um

back to the refounding, lots of founders are going sideways. Uh

lots of companies that started in 2021 are going sideways. They've got 10 people. It's like maybe they're cash

people. It's like maybe they're cash flow break even. What's your advice to somebody? Is it a founder been going

somebody? Is it a founder been going sideways for a long time, got venture dollars in like you and working on product market fit? Like should

everybody just be like rip the band-aid off and shrink it and move to Kyoto and and refound if their body tell them so? Like I for

me it's like there's you just feel you have to do something drastic and um Simon during that time was he broke his he got his wisdom teeth taken out or

something. So I'm by him myself. I was

something. So I'm by him myself. I was

like I remember I was at my ex-girlfriend's studio. I just like

ex-girlfriend's studio. I just like inner urge like there's no way out. I

have to do this. And it's like then then you feel liberated once you land in Japan. I guess your advice would be is

Japan. I guess your advice would be is probably more people should do it and they should listen to their inner body and be more risk-seeking on that because they can get stuck for a long time in a

ventureback startup. They can spend 15

ventureback startup. They can spend 15 years of their career on something going sideways.

I think there's no better time than now to do that because the market dynamic is wide open.

Yeah, I agree. Okay. You refounded a second time when you had a thousand employees. Uh

employees. Uh back then it's probably 500. Yeah. Okay.

500 boys, different animal without telling the same story you've told a thousand times because I think everyone knows the lore. What was it like kind of behind the scenes? What did you feel?

Was it the same thing? Your body felt it like what was the story?

So, the second time was in Mexico Cancun, right?

Happen to be out somewhere, right? You're always in a nice place.

right? You're always in a nice place.

We just got early access GPT4 model. It

feels like the world is stopping. Like

when you first interaction with the GBD3 is fine. GBD4 is a religious experience

is fine. GBD4 is a religious experience for me. It's like holy [ __ ] It's a it's

for me. It's like holy [ __ ] It's a it's a full body religious experience. Like

you have to do something with this. This

is what change everything. Anything you

do if you don't do this it will be meaningless. Um I think the company has

meaningless. Um I think the company has been fairly there is be people doubt because remember that around three years ago that's the crypto era lending right?

A lot of people is this another crypto thing. There were a lot of doubters. Um

thing. There were a lot of doubters. Um

um some of them obvious no longer at the company but the conviction is so clear at least for me and Sam early days like we just have to do this.

Did you take two steps back in the business to go 10 steps forward? Like

did revenue really slow while you're rebuilding everything?

Our first products actually has a meaningful revenue boost. We launched

our uh first AI product actually two weeks before chat GPD happened. um it's

like AI writing product that has a boost but after that we've been pretty much want to build agent product in 2022 end of 2022 and that's a slo that took us a

year and a half to really didn't really work back then didn't work at all like Simon I would say my problem and Simon's problem we might be living too much into the future y

it bites you with new technology like we try everything built a model for us work openai finetuning or another

just none of them work that will like a year and a half just go with no error and morale is definitely low only start to work a year and a half our revenue

grow inflection this around the same time right when the AI product the underlying got better yeah it's like um but that was the that was a pretty painful period

was that the most painful period in notion history for you different type of pain what was the most painful just when those two three early days pre-product market fit is despair I just

like despair is that the word okay you don't know where it's coming from you don't you don't know where to go right um when your growth rate low like

during that period of time where we were try to rebuilding our AI foundation multiple times it's yeah that's not great um right now just

everything on fire it's a different type of pain Nice. So, a lot of people, 500 person companies, a lot of SAS companies

are doing the AI thing, but certainly haven't refounded. Advice

start with your product. We just talk about treat it like brewing beer, not building bridges because that's end of the day most tech

companies is the product, right? So um

start with the products cuz then you the founder has to be really hands-on to experience that way of building things.

Can nonfounder-led companies pull it off?

I don't know. Would be tough. I think

founder has the moral high ground to to change things. People are more tolerant

change things. People are more tolerant and forgiving with founders, right? Um I

think the person need to be use language modeling in in just know it like you got to feel the AGI feel the AI.

Yeah. You can't read about it. You can't

watch YouTube. You got to build feel you have build it. Building is one of the best way for your product or build for your internal systems. Build for yourself.

Yeah. Tinker on the weekend tinker on the side. you have to do that because

the side. you have to do that because like at the end of the day business are kind of like pathf finding entities right like we're in this thing called a

market there's equilibrium for your company with the market with with your shareholder with your company like we're just finding local optimas local

maximums for different our niches when this new brand new ingredient got introduced into the market in this case language model doors are path that are opened up and we are Each company at

different point in the market each you have different angle you have different niche you have to taking this internalize this new ingredient figure

out which path got opened for you the truth is with the customer with yourself if you don't know how this this can do you cannot find a new path I think you have to do something you have to feel

this you feel the AI feel AGI I think you're right you use a word that I cringe at but I think is good called a lot of companies calcify as they get older. Let's just say you're a company

older. Let's just say you're a company that's calcified. How do you get

that's calcified. How do you get uncalcified?

We intentionally do a lot of acquisitions. We have 50 60 founders at

acquisitions. We have 50 60 founders at notion.

And were they aqua hires?

Aqua hires. Equires acquisitions. Um

founders are are kind of this kind of like little decalcified meatthead machinery just trying to break things, right? So

right? So keep your regenerating.

I agree with that.

Yeah. Um I find that really helpful. So

founders found for a reason and now all of a sudden they're in a thousand person company. How do you keep them motivated

company. How do you keep them motivated and not leaving and starting something new?

Well, first some of them work on a domain that they were working on before like the person who leading our AMO has a startup of AMD notes before the company the person leading our enterprise search is a founder of

enterprise search product. So you give actually give them a better platform support to do this. They people feel appreciated like I just had lunch with the founder who start enterprise search

product before it's like you give them leverage they give them you give them leverage they actually people care about the thing they're building right versus fighting for product market think really crowd the market they don't you can argue that it

might be more difficult to start new companies today compared to even a year ago okay because the world's getting more noisy

like the shipping cadence from existing companies are just increasing. It's like

the PE everybody got Twitter fatigit, right? So,

right? So, and the SAS companies have got the memo.

Most of them got the memo and are shipping fast now. You were ahead of everyone but yeah, people like it's still like HubSpot's cranking.

That's good. No, that people are still kicking that they're they have to kick in different gear. You know,

my thing these days is like it's it could it's never been easier to start, man. has never been harder to scale

man. has never been harder to scale because like in every little micro segment if there's a little traction like there's hundred competitors two days later and the thing I've also noticed about the startup land is almost

in every one of these verticals it's a duopoly there's like a one and a two and then 50 tied for third they're way off when you look back in time that the the

the great companies were often founded in shitty times because people who are really grinders and people who really want to start a company and really have a vision didn't start in like 2022 2023 a terrible time to start in times like

2026 you get a lot of tourist entrepreneurs and so I've heard people say you know 2026 ventures is going to be crap even though the valuations are like crypto crypto vibe energy yeah a little bit

a little bit um I don't disagree market will do the thing market is kind of beautiful in that way yeah advice to founders of reasonable

sized companies who are a little scared to refound You know, I I'm CEO of a 500 person company. It's going pretty well.

person company. It's going pretty well.

I'm doing some AI stuff. Uh my board's kind of happy with me. Um

but there's a birdie inside of me listening to Ivan and maybe I should refound advice. Does a person need to

refound advice. Does a person need to feel the AGI first? If you feel you realize most tech industry is support different flavor knowledge work

that we're at the beginning of how this can do due to this industry. I agree

with you. How do you think organizations look like? So they're changing a lot

look like? So they're changing a lot now. What do you think they look like in

now. What do you think they look like in like three, four years? Is your

knowledge work? You're right at the center of this. I think truth is probably somewhere there's a Dorothy Jack Dorsey's thing.

Uh there is the traditional hierarchical ones. Um

ones. Um I like to think what are invariables like let's look invariable in this case human nature are rather static like we all

we don't change that fast we don't human don't change humans as a species doesn't change that's where I think it should it will be a hierarchical organization if just observe bamboo chimpanzees right it's

like very if you watch nature program there's hierarchy that doesn't change this every hasn't changed left us since we left Africa. Um, division and labor

make sense. Um, so um people have

make sense. Um, so um people have different interests. You you look at all

different interests. You you look at all the different like personality tests, right? They're just different way to

right? They're just different way to saying like people are different.

They're not 10,000 flavor of them there, but there are probably a dozen flavor of humans. They cluster around this

humans. They cluster around this different dozen things. And we'll know that our legal system well at least right now there's no autonomous

companies, right? It's the CEO CF will

companies, right? It's the CEO CF will have to sign up for something. So it

will be a small team of human to start.

So those to me are the invariables. So

this invariable tells me you need to figure out how those group of human collaborate. The group of human all have

collaborate. The group of human all have different biases, preferences, different values. Um and it will be somewhat a

values. Um and it will be somewhat a small some kind of hierarchal system there. Then how do we use this new techn

there. Then how do we use this new techn new ingredient to passing information decision around a small midsize group of humans? That's how I think about it.

humans? That's how I think about it.

I kind of think about it as like right now in companies the AI system makes very few of the decisions. Let's call it 1%. But as that system gets more context

1%. But as that system gets more context using notion for example, it'll make better decisions than humans. It'll have

more context and more history and then humans will be more training that system and giving it context and giving it taste and I think over time the system makes more and more of the decisions

instead of the humans but the humans are still really necessary.

Yeah. People say AI researchers in 18 in 15 months will not be able to make decision to improve AI models, right?

Kind of the same thing but they're just in a bleeding edge for this.

Yes. By the way, I think you're incredibly well positioned for all this.

Oh yeah. I I

I I worked for a while with this guy Rayazi. It was a company called Groove

Rayazi. It was a company called Groove Networks. We were in the knowledge

Networks. We were in the knowledge management industry, which is a [ __ ] industry cuz chief knowledge officers have no money and it was never urgent.

In theory, it sounded great. Now,

knowledge management is actually incredibly important and works incredibly well.

I know it's like what's that industry called in the ' 90s? People hire

consultant to map out their orchart and information flow. that become like what

information flow. that become like what AI and for deployment and totally and your platform is ideally suited for it.

Yeah. Um I think we always forget that modern knowledge work is only about 150 years old.

It's invented. It's not as old as fire or language. It's only 150 years old.

or language. It's only 150 years old.

Yeah.

Right. So

why can I be a new flavor of it?

Okay. I want to talk about you.

Okay.

I don't know you super well. You're

softspoken and I thought you were an introvert, but in getting to know you better. Was I wrong about that?

better. Was I wrong about that?

I think I'm still introverted.

Okay.

Yeah, I like one-on-one conversation one too many. I train myself to do company

too many. I train myself to do company all hands just by doing a lot.

A lot of founders are introverts. The

world is sort of built for e I'm kind of extroverted extroverts.

Advice for founders who just don't like talking to other you don't like the whole extrovert game. I have to evolve a lot like I hate doing force yourself like how to work a

significant other push you no I force myself okay um to lead the group of human you need to do one to many communications otherwise people don't trust you they want to hear from you

writing is one mode which is like sometimes ling num but even more so is face to face to the all hands so for a while I try to delegate all hand to my

co-founders to other exeacts no way I have to now at every all and I'm open the mic. I do it. I lead all hands. Now

the mic. I do it. I lead all hands. Now

I'm pretty comfortable with it. Uh I

still don't love it, but I'm well it's not I don't dread it.

Okay. Advice for people doing all hands.

Everyone seems to do it differently.

Oh, get a teleprompter.

I'm the opposite. I can't I can't read fast enough for the teleprompter.

Really? Yes. I hate a teleprompter.

Well, that changes me because like Well, English is my second language, so it's like if I have to think and speak, it's hard. So I just prefer to spoken before

hard. So I just prefer to spoken before and right now all those like uh speech to text model locals are so good.

They're so good.

So good. I literally like okay the night before or then I just like talked to myself and got what I'm roughly want to say and the time doing all hands teleprompter there.

Do you do them once a week? Once a month once like what's your cadence?

We're actually changing our cadence.

used to be once a month. Right now it's every other week uh for all hands and every other week again for AMA. AMA. So

every week now. So

you ever step on yourself on an AMA? You

ever say something you're like I got a crush for that?

Yeah. Everybody has it, right? Or just

you miss a good opportunity. You can

actually rally people about something, but you you give a non-answer. That's

the worst. and non-answers.

We in at least at HubSpot in the company meetings in the AMAs, there would be a Slack channel on it and you go back and look at it and be like, what just like if I said something stupid or I missed an opportunity like it would

really show up in there.

That's good.

How do you manage your time in your schedule and your deep work? Like how do you manage your energy? Like for me, my energy is pretty good right now. It kind

of goes up and down during the day more than I would like. Is that the case for you? How do you deal with that? How do

you? How do you deal with that? How do

you deal with your introvert versus extrovert? Like, how do you do it?

extrovert? Like, how do you do it?

What's your schedule like?

It's actually not that crazy. Um,

wake up 7 7 a.m. make coffee for my wife. Um,

wife. Um, I usually like to do work in the morning, do some thinking, writing at home, come to office. I come to work every day. Uh, come to office. Um,

every day. Uh, come to office. Um,

sometimes I'm a new habit I'm trying right now is doing the gym during the day.

Okay.

Yeah, that's a good idea. Perk you up.

Elevate my energy during the middle of the day and work in the office till 7ish.

Usually social dinner with my wife, back to work, sleep out till midnight. Around

midnight.

When do you have time to get down the claw rabbit hole?

We can't We can't My happy time. No. Um

you describe that as your habitat.

Yeah. You can you can be led by your curiosity rather than by your responsibility. Right. And like usually

responsibility. Right. And like usually Saturday, Sunday morning, I I have a bit time to read the books I want to read.

Um sometimes it's for work related, sometimes purely just for my guilty pleasure.

And during the day, like half hour like I'm seeing found one of my founders here in New York say who it is. He's got his schedule in 10 minute blocks meeting wise.

Yes. Like what does your day look like?

A lot of 25 minutes blocks. I usually

like five minutes between meetings and 25 25.

My team pack my meetings together. So I

have one or two hour chunk to think but most my thinking time is in the morning or in the evening. Usually I get too tired in the evening. I can't think really well. Um morning is better. And I

really well. Um morning is better. And I

do a lot of Slack. My my wife joke my Slack is my social media.

Why doesn't not build a slack killer?

We're shut. Definitely.

Yeah.

A lot of your team said you're humble and I think you are too. Why?

I wouldn't use the word humble. I use

the word your team uses that truth seeeking probably they use humble.

I think you seek truth you know you're just one perspective of the truth or pluralism. There are multiple flavor of

pluralism. There are multiple flavor of truth in the world. You know the story of blind people touching elephant.

Yes.

As um where just different blind people touching different part of elephant.

Sometimes could be the tail, the elephant's a snake, sometimes the trunk is a treat, right? That's my worldview.

Okay. Tonight we're you we're going to have dinner with a bunch of founders and some are somewhere like 10 employees and they hope to go and build a thousand person company in the next several

years. What advice do you have for them?

years. What advice do you have for them?

It's a game. It's a game that's a a social game.

It's like there's all the good part and bad part of social game. like humor or status is human thing, right? like um

power is this the CEO game is full of that game just like entertainment just like sports you have that like high school college lunch sessions right you

you watch that in real in in the tech scene it also could be a pursuit of your personal values this is something I realized more in the past three four

years it's like I need to be in equilibrium with my own value of what this company I want to build with that give me more gen more sustainable energy

source. I cannot just chase something or

source. I cannot just chase something or competition for competition's sake like I I'm really competitive. I need to compete to win. That's part of me. But

at the same time, I need to be true to my own values. the value of building good tools, the craft, the human side of things, the social part of being a CEO,

the market dynamic just compete for competing sake and the value the person I wouldn't say there are this is some slightly this is somewhat a zero sum

game. So you need to figure out where do

game. So you need to figure out where do you want to sit in this spectrum and your personality might be different.

Some people might just compute for comput sake doesn't care about what they're building. Some people just want

they're building. Some people just want to be popular. If you just only care about craft that you don't build a business, it might as well just be a artist.

Took me a while to realize where's my equilibrium.

Are you someone that that that like tries to fix your weaknesses or you just lean into your strengths and what's your advice on that?

Definitely lean on your strength.

There's a necessary thing you have to do like one too many communication likely you need to do with your company scale.

Maybe you can lean more on on writing rather than speaking. But there's

there's certain invariable that works right. Um within the boundary of that

right. Um within the boundary of that you should amplify what you're good at because capabilities are become more and more commoditized with machines. So it's

your own point of view your strength that you can live with that's that's more lasting.

Okay. Something I assume that isn't your strong suit is building an enterprise sales or which seems like you're in the process of building that. And when I

hear it's going exceptionally well, how did you get your head around it? Um, how

did you hire? Sounds like you hired the right person. So many companies are PLG

right person. So many companies are PLG and are desperate to move to the enterprise and the founders are similar mold to you. Can you talk about that?

We had a mistake. I mentioned like we sort of did not buy traditional sales motion for a good two-ish years, right?

If we because notion sales could start earlier but we want to first principle our way into it which is we're going to design our own system that doesn't work like again it's a reflection of human

nature a lot of things you want to talk to a seller there's a lot of the reason the modern sales playbook has been around for twoish decades right so I think enterprise sales is like the last function like

I agree with you it's like that you want to see a human you feel comfortable you don't want to have be a doctor from a robot? No. Then why should you buy a

a robot? No. Then why should you buy a expensive thing from a robot, right? So

um it's not that hard I would say. Okay.

But you need to know like a lot of smart people might think they can create something new like fundamentally you should not reinvent new things unless it's really absolutely necessary. I was

trying to reinvent a new go to market motion. That's stupid.

motion. That's stupid.

Okay. Like

I did mine.

You really build Hubspot.

Yeah. Right. May that's but that's the thing made hotspot right like this inbound that was the thing you should only have each company should only preserve your innovation point to

few places go a couple places you cannot spread everywhere like otherwise you're spread too thin you're like you're trying to like reinvent the wheel well

too many times we try to put our in innovation point onto sales back then just just go classic sales it works um but you and make a lot more efficient

today with a lot of tools we're building internally. Um, that's different.

internally. Um, that's different.

Okay. So, you woke up one day, one day you're like, we got to get good at enterprise sales. What' you do? What are

enterprise sales. What' you do? What are

the mistakes everyone makes when they do it? Did you miss a hire or two before

it? Did you miss a hire or two before you got the right person?

I thought this somewhat solved today, right?

I kind of do, but people struggle with it.

Um, enterprise sales has changed very little since I did it in the 1990s.

Yeah. So we tried um initially only half uh PLG flavor of sales like system thinker sales system sales leader um

didn't quite work. It's just like then you're just taking orders and no like the PRG give you the luxury that your customer want to buy your product. You

just easy to sell that you you it's like fulfilling demand.

You cannot get your sellers to do something difficult when there's so much easier thing they can do. just doesn't

work. Then we realize okay yes we still need to respect the system. So our CRO is Erica's one she was CRO of GitHub before it's a system thinker right we

pair Erica with our head of sale PVesh which is the rah rah like the meat eater meat eater right so beans in his teeth per perfect pairing and so we have

sellers with raoy proves but also respect working with Erica's overall system this is when things start to work in the past a year and a half got it and so many of the organization I deal with the engineers look at how much

money the sales people make and look at the rah rah and they roll their eyes and they complain. I assume that happened

they complain. I assume that happened here.

No, we we actually notion culture is always pretty receptive for different people are different. So we never have an organ rejection of sellers in the company. Our our engineering team love

company. Our our engineering team love work with sales team.

Okay. Awesome. Speaking of culture, I saw online some people refer to you as a cult leader and some people referred to me as a cult leader back in the day. I

didn't particularly like that. How does

that land with you?

I like that.

Okay.

A company is it's sort of a religion is you have a point of view. You have your value system project to the world through a business, through a product. Like my

favorite saying is Catholic Church is one of the most successful companies of all time. 2,000 years. They have their

all time. 2,000 years. They have their ritual, their business models. They're

still around kicking. great founder in Jesus and a great head of sales in Paul, right?

Yeah.

And there are a lot of sellers and uh um referral system, viral marketing, viral marketing, OG viral marketing.

Yeah. And to me, religion or belief system or value system are again one of the few dozen thing that's ingraining human nature. Like people want to

human nature. Like people want to believe in something to find meaning and purpose. That's why wartime make this

purpose. That's why wartime make this more fun, right? your purpose and meaning got amplified. Um work and company give people that camaraderie give people that. That's why we play

sports, right? It's the same energy.

sports, right? It's the same energy.

The first four words in culture are cult.

Yeah, I probably I need to look up the roots. But yeah, it's like what is all

roots. But yeah, it's like what is all hand? People go to church every Sunday.

hand? People go to church every Sunday.

All hands every week. Same thing. We

used to have a thing with our all hands that Dsh and I wanted it to be so inspirational that people would well up or cry during the all hands. Like we

really really worked on our all hands.

Yeah. Nothing I don't think anything wrong with that.

No.

Okay. Thank you for coming on the pod.

Thank you for building notion. Thank you

for being inspiration for tons and tons of founders.

I'm glad hopefully to be helpful for others.

Appreciate you.

Thank you for your time.

Okay. I hope you like that episode with Ivan. One of the things I like about

Ivan. One of the things I like about him, there's a there's a famous quote by Oscar Wild. Be yourself, everyone else

Oscar Wild. Be yourself, everyone else is taken. I like to think I am myself.

is taken. I like to think I am myself.

Like I'm pretty quirky and I've embraced that quirkiness. And I think at the end

that quirkiness. And I think at the end of the day, companies really reflect those CEOs. And I don't think CEOs

those CEOs. And I don't think CEOs should be afraid to really be themselves and kind of build the company around them. Ivan's really done that nicely.

them. Ivan's really done that nicely.

That might be a good plan for you, too.

The second kind of takeaway I had is, you know, I work with lots of startups and there are so many companies, let's say less than 500 million in revenue

growing like 30%.

They're kind of stuck and there's infinite numbers of stuck companies out there. If you're in that boat, I'd

there. If you're in that boat, I'd recommend a refounding moment. And the

refounding is harder than it looks. It

typically involves like a big step back and two steps forward. It's going to be hard. Your numbers will look worse in

hard. Your numbers will look worse in the short term. Ivan didn't do this, but when we wanted to do a refounding at HubSpot at one point, we started a new company inside of HubSpot that was

completely independent from it, and that served us well. That's how Apple did it back in the day. But if you're stuck, and a lot of companies are stuck, be risk

and do what Ivan did. like he was a ye old SAS company and now he's a rocket ship AI company. I think he's on to it.

The last takeaway I have on Ivan kind of starts back in a podcast interview I did with Jack Dorsey a few weeks ago. And it

does seem to me there's a new way to build and run companies today. That's a

pretty big departure from the way people have done it the last 30 years. Jack's

iterating on it. Ivan's iterating on it.

a lot of the call it vintage 2025 startups are iterating on it and this is something I'm thinking a lot about. I

think there needs to be a new playbook on how to be a CEO in AI native in the kind of era we're in. Um and I'm early in the iteration but just roughly the way I kind of think about the way

they're organized is historically there is a triangle-shaped org chart. Those

org charts have been around a long long time since the Roman Empire. They're a

very inefficient way to run a company, but they've been the best way to run a company uh because there's been no better one. I think the problem with

better one. I think the problem with them is the bigger that org chart gets, the more that information gets distorted across and up and down and the slower it

gets. And so it's pretty inefficient.

gets. And so it's pretty inefficient.

the new way that Dorsy described and I didn't quite get into it with Ivan but I suspect it's similar is it's a circle and in the middle is all of the context

in the AI system and initially humans are making all the decisions but over time as you give that that kind of centralized AI system more context it gets smarter and you're feeding in

context and you turn over more and more of the decisions to them I don't think it happens overnight I think it's gradual but it's an IT task to get it right you have to be legible. I don't

love that word, but you have to have a legible set of systems. You have to kind of record everything. But I think this is the new way. Companies who are doing this seem to be just moving a lot faster

than the companies that aren't. Um, and

Ivan is moving at breakneck speed. And I

think there's a lot of things that fall out of it. They don't need as many people. Um, they move much faster

people. Um, they move much faster because of that. They have much shorter planning cycles. All of those kind of

planning cycles. All of those kind of one-way doors that Bezos used to talk about are really two-way doors cuz nothing takes that long to do. Anyway, I

think there's this new playbook. I'm

interested in it. I'm going to be talking about in the podcast and on X.

If you're interested in it, too. Hit me

up on Ballagan. Thanks for tuning in.