Co-founded Notion, went through two major refoundings (Kyoto 2015, Cancun 2023), transformed Notion from a struggling SaaS to an AI-native productivity platform with ~1000 employees and 50-60 former founders on team via acqui-hires.
no scored calls yet — needs a stated position or a categorical verdict, with a matured window vs SPY
Early GPT-4 access in Cancun was a 'full body religious experience' that convinced Zhao and co-founder Simon Notion must become AI-native despite internal skepticism, leading to a painful 1.5-year agent-building slog before model improvements unlocked revenue inflection.