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person2013–present

Ivan Zhao

Disciplines:
entrepreneurship
product design
usa/canada/usa
notion

Summary

Chinese-Canadian entrepreneur who co-founded Notion with Simon Last — building it into the dominant all-in-one workspace for notes, docs, databases, and project management — known for Notion's beautiful design, flexible building blocks, and cult-like user community.

Core Contribution

Created the building block model of knowledge work software — Notion's insight that notes, databases, wikis, and project boards are all expressions of the same underlying blocks (and should be combined fluidly rather than bought as separate tools) created a new category and a passionate user community.

Key Spikes & Highlights

  • Everything Is a Block (Ivan's core product philosophy: instead of building separate apps for notes, spreadsheets, tasks, and wikis, represent everything as composable blocks with properties — the same block can be a task, a row in a database, a card in a kanban, a page, or an embed — this flexibility is why Notion can replace six different tools)

Historical Influences

Douglas Engelbart Alan Kay Ted Nelson

Intellectual Lineage

University of British Columbia San Francisco Notion

Contemporaries & Peers

Stewart Butterfield Tobi Lütke Airtable

Minds Influenced

Workspace software categoryLenny's Podcast

Intellectual Posterity

Notion Block-based workspaceIvan Zhao as product design

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Ivan Zhao

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