Notion Founder: Who Ivan Zhao Is and How Notion Was Built

The founder of Notion is Ivan Zhao, who co-founded the company with Simon Last in San Francisco around 2013. Zhao is still Notion’s CEO as of October 2026, and Last is its CTO.

That’s the short answer. The longer one is more interesting: the product nearly failed, the founders rebuilt it from scratch in Japan, and the same founder has since steered it from a notes app into an AI-agent workspace. Here’s what reliable sources say, and where they disagree.

Ivan Zhao at a glance

Zhao is originally from China; a few profiles name Ürümqi as where he grew up, but that rests on less authoritative sites, so treat it as unconfirmed. He studied cognitive science at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver and later worked as a product designer at Inkling before starting Notion, according to the Station F interview and Forbes.

Who else founded Notion?

Zhao and Last are the two names you’ll see everywhere. The founding roster gets fuzzier after that:

• Simon Last is Zhao’s original partner and CTO. He went through the near-collapse and the Kyoto rebuild with him.
• Chris Prucha, Jessica Lam and Toby Schachman are listed as members of the early founding team in several databases.
• Akshay Kothari, Notion’s COO, carries a co-founder title. He previously co-founded the news app Pulse, which LinkedIn acquired, and he’s generally reported to have joined Notion around 2018, after the rebuild.

We couldn’t find an official Notion page that settles the exact list, so if you need it for something formal, check Notion’s own press materials.

The founding story: from near-failure to Kyoto

The original idea

Zhao and Last wanted to make a flexible, no-code tool, described in Contrary Research’s company report as a “LEGO of productivity tools” that non-technical people could use to build their own software. According to Forbes, First Round Capital’s Josh Kopelman wrote the largest check in an early $2 million seed round, partly won over by a pitch that wandered into the history of paper.

The near-collapse

The first version didn’t work. Accounts agree that the founders realized the product and its technical foundation weren’t going to get them where they wanted, and money was running low. They cut the team, sublet the San Francisco office and moved to Kyoto, Japan, to start over with very low costs. Most accounts place the move around 2015.

The rebuild

Figma’s write-up describes Zhao designing “frenetically,” barely sleeping and turning out version after version of what became Notion 1.0. Most sources date Notion 1.0’s launch to 2016.

One note on dates: a few sources mix up the Kyoto period and the launches, and give 2012 or 2016 as the “founding” year. The most consistent picture is founded in 2013, rebuilt in Kyoto around 2015, Notion 1.0 in 2016.

How the founder grew the company

Key product milestones

1. Notion 1.0 (2016): the rebuilt notes-and-docs product.
2. Notion 2.0 (2018): added databases, which turned Notion into a tool for project management and team workflows, per Forbes.
3. Notion 3.0 (September 2025): centered on AI agents. Reworked dates the launch to September 18, 2025, and reports that the agents can work on their own for up to about 20 minutes at a time, across many pages. Zhao presented it himself at Notion’s conference in San Francisco.

The $10 billion valuation

In October 2021, SiliconANGLE reported that Notion raised $275 million in a round led by Sequoia Capital and Coatue, taking its valuation from $2 billion to $10 billion. Sources disagree on whether to call that round a Series C or Series D, and estimates of total funding raised vary a lot. That $10 billion figure is still the one most outlets use. Higher numbers show up on some profile sites, but we couldn’t verify them, so we’ve left them out.

Zhao’s leadership style

Two ideas come up again and again when Zhao talks about running Notion.

• “Refounding.” Sequoia’s podcast episode with him is titled The Refounder and says he has refounded Notion twice. The first time was the Kyoto rebuild. The second was the shift to AI.
• “Jazz mode.” In the same conversation, he argues that some hierarchy is unavoidable, but a company can still improvise like a jazz band instead of marching in formation.

Both ideas help explain why Notion keeps changing direction instead of polishing one feature set forever.

What the Notion founder is focused on in 2026

As of October 2026, Zhao’s public message is about how companies actually use AI, not about building the biggest model. At a Notion Labs Japan media roundtable on October 1, 2026, reported by ASCII.jp, he said that at many companies AI use is still mostly limited to individuals. He laid out four levels of adoption, from using AI as a personal thinking partner up to using it as the company’s operating system.

His main point was positioning: Notion sees itself as the context layer, meaning the place where a team’s docs, projects and knowledge live, so AI agents have accurate information to work with. Notion doesn’t plan to compete head-on in the race to build models or agents. That ASCII.jp article is translated from Japanese, so the exact wording may differ slightly from what he said.

Earlier in 2026, Zhao was also previewing custom agents that can answer repetitive questions and triage tickets across an organization. Details and plan availability can change quickly, so check Notion’s official release notes for what’s actually shipping.

Why the founder matters if you’re evaluating Notion

If you’re deciding whether Notion fits your team long term, the founder’s track record is a useful signal:

• Notion has kept the same leaders. The same CEO has run it for over a decade, and the product direction has been steady: flexible building blocks first, then AI built on top of them.
• Expect big changes. A founder who calls himself a “refounder” has rebuilt the product more than once. The upside is new features. The downside is that workflows and plan features can shift under you.
• AI is the bet. Zhao’s current strategy treats your workspace content as the fuel for AI agents. If your team keeps its knowledge spread across many tools, you’ll get less out of that strategy.

Facts here are accurate as of October 2026. Funding figures, product features and leadership roles can change, so check recent reporting or Notion’s own announcements before relying on them.