what a great city

I found the SpaceX IPO surprisingly emotional today. It reminded me of why I came to the US as an 18-year-old. Even then, I knew that I wanted to build stuff, and that the place to do it was America. There was no second option in the world. The concept of American exceptionalism is nothing new, but I have come to appreciate the culture that justifies it. SpaceX is yet another case in point. America’s risk-taking culture celebrates wild successes while embracing the legitimacy of hard-earned failure. American culture doesn’t celebrate inherited wealth, nor does it frown upon inherited poverty. It doesn’t seek to create equal outcomes, but rather equal opportunity. It is not immediately obvious that this is unique in the world. Truly unique. I’m Canadian, and I love many aspects of Canadian culture, but Canadian culture does not offer people the same environment in which to take risks. I write this because I was dismayed to see US politicians complaining of the extreme wealth created by the SpaceX IPO. Say what you will about wealth inequality, or a single man’s politics, but don’t tell me that immense wealth creation in America is bad. Do not tell me you’d rather SpaceX not exist, exactly as it does. That you’d rather this company exist in some other country or culture. Thankfully, despite today’s politics, SpaceX could not have been a Chinese company, or a Canadian one, or a French one. It could only ever have been an American one. If nationalism is pride in your birthplace, then it’s merely tribalism, which serves to divide us. But if it’s pride in your culture, a culture that lets people achieve incredible things like this, then under those terms I am a nationalist. I want to protect and enhance our culture of risk-taking, of celebrating wins, and of celebrating failures along the way. I think it is amazing that America created a trillionaire out of a risk-taking immigrant. It is absolutely fucking absurd, of course, but isn’t that the point? SpaceX is not a reason to be pissed off; it’s a reason for every person in the world who wants to build stuff to see themselves as American, no matter where in the world they live. p.s. — this is entirely from my brain, with AI used only for fixing typos and grammar. :^)

Fun showing @jamesblake around the @NotionHQ office. Every bit as thoughtful and gracious as you’d hope. A class act!

“Ivan found Simon, my third co-founder, on Twitter - just following the work he was doing. @simonlast was in college. He dropped out to join Notion as an intern. And then he never went back. He went from intern to being @ivanhzhao's partner as we rebuilt Notion many times over.” - @akothari

Declare this the photo of the year already.

The amount of people RT-ing this because they want a story around model quality to be the reason is astonishing. The degraded performance was a temporary service disruption. This happens. It happens to Notion, GitHub, AWS, your OpenClaw, and everything in between. Ideally we don’t have to make you aware of this. That’s what Auto is for. We would ideally also not have to name upstream service providers. It’s bad form. Everyone can have a bad day. Unfortunately with model serving this can’t always be avoided. The real unlock: Anthropic model availability is restored. Have a great Sunday. 🤖 🚀

inspiration is everywhere.

This thing blew up, haha. People love domain stories! A couple of clarifications, since so many people asked: - “Ronny” is not a typo! Ronny is Ron Conway’s son. Like his dad, he’s one of the kindest humans in Silicon Valley. He also happens to be Notion’s largest outside shareholder. We’re lucky to get to work with him. - The broker who helped us get notion.com was @BillSweetman. I’m sure he’d appreciate a DM if you’re interested in buying a domain. - And yes, I tagged the wrong Ivan. I might be out of a job soon! 😅

so this happened last night. turns out people want to Think Together™ in a backroom in chinatown. dm me for the next one. utmost discretion guaranteed (except for @jacksondahl).

“I’m interested in the intersection of technology and storytelling, and seeing how that can push the bounds of creativity to create deeper and richer experiences for audiences.” I read this quote from Martin Scorsese today, and it feels like the closest thing I’ve found to my own life mission.

Enjoyed chatting with @nakul on his new pod. Here’s a clip of what keeps me up at night:

The outlook is bright.

We're finally shedding the .so (thank you Somalia!), and using the .com for @NotionHQ. And for this beautiful moment, I want to share a fun story: Back in 2018, I had just joined Notion, and one of the first things @ivan asked me to do was figure out how we could own notion.com. I had never done a big domain purchase before, so I reached out to a few domain brokers to understand the landscape. We tried different brokers, kept things anonymous, and attempted to surface a price the seller might consider. A year went by… nothing. Meanwhile, it was pretty clear this was only going to get more expensive as we grew. We needed a different approach. A fellow founder connected me to a broker who took a very different tack. Less transactional, more long-term relationship builder. He spent months getting to know the domain owner. Turns out owner was a fellow entrepreneur in the west coast… and a huge Grateful Dead fan. So we figured, why not get creative? Something beyond just price. So I called up our investor Ronny Conway and asked if there was any way he could help set up a private meeting between the domain owner and the Grateful Dead. Ronny is one of those people who somehow makes impossible things possible. A week later he calls me back: “New York City. Halloween. 15 minutes after the concert. Done.” The broker went back to the owner with an offer: some cash, some equity, and a private meeting with the Grateful Dead. That got his attention. He didn’t take the band meeting in the end, but he did lean into the equity (great call, in hindsight). We shook hands, and a few weeks later, the deal was done. I’ve been waiting years for the day we move our product to notion.com. Looks like 2026 is finally the year. Safe to say I’m unreasonably excited about this update!

artificial intelligence doesn’t have to be bad. artificial intelligence can be good (for our lives, for the economy, for our society) if we’re willing to work very, very hard to make sure that artificial intelligence is good.

Sanjay Mehrotra isn’t well known but he cofounded Sandisk (now worth ~250B), then left a decade ago, became CEO of Micron (now ~$1T). The US denied Sanjay’s visa 3 times before he got in.

Come hang with the @NotionHQ @AnthropicAI design teams on June 24th for an evening of pizza, drinks, and courtroom justice 🧑‍⚖️ Register → luma.com/77nyyvwh Like last year's Config event, I suspect this one will be quite packed fun, so sign up early 👀

i haven't done a single interview in over 6 years. then, a few months ago, @akothari introduced me to @jacksondahl and i immediately knew that now was the time to talk. and boy, do i have a lot to say. over the last century, the word has changed a lot. we have more acquaintances than any generation before yet feel so isolated. over 40m americans have no close friends at all; 50% report feeling lonely. some of the best parts of being human are when the people in our lives expand our world in unpredictable ways. seeing sides of ourselves that only another person can help us discover. i want to live in a world with more, not less of these moments and i'm hopeful a mutual friend will help enable this. thank you, jackson, for a wonderful conversation.