First Block, a Notion series - hosted by Notion's Co-Founder Akshay Kothari - where founders and executives from some of the world’s leading companies tell us what it was like to navigate the many firsts of their startup journey — and what they learned from that experience.

In this episode, Akshay sits down with Notion co-founders Ivan Zhao and Simon Last to talk about everything Notion — where we started, how we got where we are now, and where we’re headed.

00:00 Intro

01:06 The Founding Story

04:55 The Early Days

11:43 Reaching Product-Market-Fit

17:53 Building a Lean Team

19:58 Building for All: The Tradeoffs

27:09 Creating a Global Community

30:19 Scaling Company Culture

37:13 The Future of AI

44:32 A Day in the Life of Ivan Zhao and Simon Last