Decoder with Nilay Patel - 当AI遇见Notion:Notion首席执行官Evan Zhao畅谈工具的未来 封面

当AI遇见Notion:Notion首席执行官Evan Zhao畅谈工具的未来

当AI遇上Notion:Notion CEO Evan Zhao 谈工具的未来

本集简介

我是Casey Newton,Platformer的创始人兼主编,也是Hard Fork播客的联合主持人。这是Nilay休育儿假期间,我主持的第二期以生产力为主题的Decoder系列节目。 今天,我邀请到了Notion的联合创始人兼CEO Ivan Zhao。我关注Notion已经很久了——我是它的忠实粉丝,并在Platformer的工作流程中使用Notion。因此,能请到Ivan来节目中聊聊他对生产力的理念、过去十年如何发展公司,以及他对未来这一领域的展望,我感到非常兴奋。 完整采访文字稿请阅读The Verge的报道。 链接: Introducing Notion AI for Work | Notion Notion Mail是极简却强大的电子邮件方案 | Verge Notion新问答功能让你用AI查询笔记内容 | Verge Notion推出转录功能,挑战AI笔记工具 | TechCrunch 优秀职场软件的不可能之梦 | Decoder 当AI的品味比你更好时 | Julie Zhuo / The Looking Glass 制作团队: Decoder由The Verge出品,隶属于Vox Media播客网络。 制作人为Kate Cox和Nick Statt,本期节目由Xander Adams编辑。 Decoder主题音乐由Breakmaster Cylinder创作。了解更多广告选择,请访问podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Speaker 0

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Speaker 1

本节目由Rince赞助支持。请问:谁在为您打理洗衣事务?通过Rince的一键预约服务,您可轻松享受上门取送服务,让生活更简单。

Support for this show comes from Rince. Here's a question. Who does your laundry? Well, you can simplify your life by having Rince do it for you. With one touch in app scheduling, pickup and delivery are effortless.

Speaker 1

专业洗衣团队精心处理的衣物将焕然一新、整齐叠放送回,随时可穿。Rince让洗衣干洗成为您每周最省心的环节。立即登录rinse.com注册,首单立减20美元。

Your clothes come back fresh, folded, and ready to wear, handled by laundry experts who get every detail right. Rinse makes laundry and dry cleaning the easiest part of your week. Sign up at rinse.com and save $20 on your first order.

Speaker 2

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Support for this show comes from Robinhood. Wouldn't it be great to manage your portfolio on one platform? With Robinhood, not only can you trade individual stocks and ETFs, you can also seamlessly buy and sell crypto at low costs. Trade all in one place. Get started now on Robinhood!

Speaker 2

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Trading crypto involves significant risk. Crypto trading is offered through an account with Robinhood Crypto LLC. Robinhood Crypto is licensed to engage in virtual currency business activity by the New York State Department of Financial Services. Crypto held through Robinhood Crypto is not FDIC insured or CIPIC protected. Investing involves risk, including loss of principal.

Speaker 2

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Securities trading is offered through an account with Robinhood Financial LLC, MemberCivic, a registered broker dealer.

Speaker 3

大家好,欢迎收听Decoder。我是Casey Newton,Platformer创始人兼主编,也是本播客的联合主持人。这是我在Neelai休产假期间制作的第二期以效率为主题的Decoder系列节目。今天与我对话的是Notion联合创始人兼CEO Ivan Zhao。我关注Notion已久,是其忠实用户——Platformer的工作流程很大程度上正是建立在Notion数据库功能之上。

Hello, and welcome to Decoder. This is Casey Newton, founder and editor of platformer and cohost of the podcast, and this is the second episode of my productivity focused decoder series that I'm doing while Neelai is out on parental leave. Today, I'm talking with Notion cofounder and CEO Ivan Zhao. I've known Notion for a long time now. I'm a big fan, and a big part of my workflow for platformer is actually built on top of Notion's database feature.

Speaker 3

因此我非常期待能与Ivan探讨他的效率哲学、过去十年如何发展公司,以及他对未来效率软件走向的见解。若您未曾使用Notion,可将其视为全能效率套件:它既具备Asana、Airtable等商业项目管理工具的功能,又融合AnyType、Obsidian等DIY笔记应用的特性,在协作类与'第二大脑'应用中独树一帜。Notion凭借其高度可定制性,既受像我这样的个人效率极客青睐,也深受各类规模企业的欢迎。

So I was really excited to get Ivan on the show to discuss his philosophy on productivity, how he's grown the company over the last decade, and where he sees productivity software going in the future. If you've never used Notion, you can think of it as an all in one productivity suite. It's comparable to a lot of the collaboration and so called second brain apps on the market from the more business y project management tools like Asana and Airtable to the more DIY note taking variants like AnyType and Obsidian. Notion sits pretty comfortably in the middle here since it can do a lot of what those kind of apps do very well all in one package. And at the same time, it allows for a really substantial amount of customization, which has made it popular both for individual productivity power users like me and for companies big and small.

Speaker 3

但Notion最初是一款截然不同的软件,过去十二年的发展历程充满了试错、一次重大重启以及诸多关键决策。在我看来,真正让Notion脱颖而出的,是Ivan对设计与工艺的执着追求,以及他打造既实用又极具美感的产品的驱动力。在这次对话中,你会频繁听到Ivan提及乐高积木——这种玩具积块是Notion的核心灵感来源,其模块化设计理念被转化为可配置模板,使Notion能适应从简单笔记清单到复杂数据库工作流等极其多样化的使用场景。

But Notion started out as a very different piece of software, and its evolution over the last twelve years or so has involved a lot of trial and error, one major reboot, and a lot of big decisions along the way. In my opinion, what really sets Notion apart from so many of its peers is Ivan's obsession with design and craft and this drive he has to make products that he sees as useful and beautifully aesthetic in equal measure. In this conversation, you're gonna hear Ivan talk about Lego blocks a lot. Legos, the toy bricks are a central inspiration for Notion, which employs its own blocks as a metaphor for configurable templates that let you use Notion in a really diverse set of ways. Everything from simple notes and lists to really complex databases and workflows.

Speaker 3

但与当今众多软件一样,Notion仍在持续进化。如今公司自称是'为你服务的AI工作空间',你将听到Ivan详细讲述OpenAI的GPT-4如何成为他和Notion的重要转折点。该公司推出OpenAI驱动的AI产品的时间远早于竞争对手(甚至在ChatGPT发布之前),过去几年还新增了大量AI功能。Ivan本人对AI的潜力也充满热情,他提到业余时间会用AI学习新知识,并将在对话中深入探讨他对AI代理的愿景——这些代理未来会在Notion等应用中为你承担越来越多的工作。

But Notion, like so much other software these days, is evolving. Today, the company calls itself the AI workspace that works for you, and you're gonna hear Ivan recount in detail how the launch of OpenAI's GPT four proved to be a big turning point for him in Notion. The company launched an OpenAI powered AI product much sooner than the competition even before the launch of ChatGPT, and it's added a host of new AI powered features in the past few years. Ivan himself is also pretty excited about the capabilities of AI. He said he uses it in his free time to learn about new subjects, and you'll hear him talk in-depth here about his vision for AI agents that will increasingly do more and more work for you inside of apps like Notion.

Speaker 3

但当前AI行业的普遍现象是:现有技术水平与大众期待之间存在巨大鸿沟。因此我特别想请教Ivan:我们该如何实现他预测的未来?需要多长时间?如果AI真能兑现那些宏伟承诺,未来的生产力与知识工作将呈现怎样的面貌?好的,现在有请Notion首席执行官Ivan Zhao。

But a common theme with the AI industry right now is the very large gap between what AI can actually do today and what lots of folks hope it will be able to do down the road. So I really wanted to ask Ivan how we might get to that future that he predicts, how long it's going to take, and what productivity and knowledge work will look like if AI can actually deliver on some of those lofty promises. Okay. Notion CEO, Ivan Zhao. Here we go.

Speaker 3

Ivan Zhao,作为Notion的联合创始人兼CEO,欢迎来到《解码器》节目。

Ivan Zhao, you are co founder and CEO of Notion. Welcome to Decoder.

Speaker 4

谢谢邀请。

Thanks for having me.

Speaker 3

那么从宏观层面来说,请为我们描述一下Notion。如果听众还没使用过,它是什么?它能做什么?

So at a high level, describe Notion for us. If listeners haven't used it yet, what is it? What does it do?

Speaker 4

嗯,我们是一款集所有功能于一体的生产力软件。人们用Notion做各种事情,记笔记、协作项目、管理文档、管理知识库。最近我们还推出了日历产品和邮件产品。你也在用Notion,应该由你来描述Notion是什么。

Well, we are all in one productivity software. People use Notion for all kinds of things, taking notes, collaborating on projects, manage your documents, manage your knowledge base. And most recently, we launched the calendar product and the mail product. You use Notion, so you should describe what Notion is.

Speaker 3

我我我觉得你刚才描述得非常好。我确实在用Notion,这也是我想和你聊聊的原因之一。因为每次我和自己使用其产品的CEO交谈时,都能给他们产品反馈,这让我很兴奋

I I I think you just did a really good job describing it. I do use Notion, which is one of the reasons I wanna talk to you. Because, you know, every time I talk to a CEO whose products I use, I get to give them product feedback, which is exciting for

Speaker 4

对我来说太完美了。

me. Perfect.

Speaker 3

那么你认为现在的Notion更适合团队而非个人使用吗?这是它目前的发展方向吗?

So do you see Notion today as more for teams than individuals? Is that the direction that it has found?

Speaker 4

我们为团队设计Notion。另一种描述Notion的方式是,我们称之为软件界的乐高。或许值得稍作解释我们的初衷。作为一个公司或团队,你需要使用十几种不同的工具来完成工作。而我们的目标是将这些工具整合到一个盒子里,并提供驱动所有这些用例的乐高积木。

We design Notion for teams. So another way to describe Notion is we call Lego for software. Maybe it's worth explaining the intent a little bit. If you're a company for a team, you have to use a dozen different tools to get your work done. And our goal is to consolidate those tools into one box and give you the Lego blocks that power all those use cases.

Speaker 4

你不仅可以在一个地方完成所有工作,还能用这些乐高积木创建和定制自己的工作流程。

You've not only you can do all your work in one place, but you can use those Lego to create and customize your own workflows.

Speaker 3

这些年来我们聊过不少关于乐高的话题。它们的设计哪一点吸引你?为什么它能很好地比喻你试图通过Notion实现的目标?

You and I have talked a fair amount about Legos over the years. What appeals to you about their design? Why is it such a good metaphor for what you're trying to do with Notion?

Speaker 4

因为这在软件领域几乎不存在。想想过去十五年的SaaS发展,人们主要构建的是垂直领域的点解决方案。对每个买家来说,每个点解决方案似乎都有道理。我们形容这就像为你的问题提供硬塑料解决方案。

Because it doesn't quite exist with software. Right? If you think about the last fifteen years of SaaS, largely people are building vertical point solutions. And for each buyer, for each point solution sort of makes sense. The way we sort of describe it is like a hard plastic solution for your problem.

Speaker 4

但当你拥有20种不同的硬塑料解决方案时,它们往往无法很好地协同工作,你无法对它们进行修补。作为终端用户,每天不得不在半打工具间来回切换。这不太对劲。我们也受到六七十年代早期计算机先驱的启发,他们认为计算应该更像乐高而非硬塑料。这正是我多年前在大学阅读计算机科学论文时,开始着手开发Notion的初衷。

But once you have 20 different hard plastic solutions, they sort of don't fit well together, you cannot tinker them. As an end user, have to jump between half a dozen of them each day. That's not quite right. We're also inspired by the early computing pioneers who in the sixties and seventies thought about computing should be more like LEGO like rather than hard plastic like. That's what got me started working on Notion a long time ago, during when I was reading the computer science paper back in college.

Speaker 3

你想打造能像乐高积木那样拼接组合的工具?

You wanted to make tools that would snap together the way the LEGO blocks do?

Speaker 4

我们想开发能放大人类创造力的工具。乐高充满创意,乐高很美。而大多数软件可能并非如此。

We want to make tools that amplify human creativity. LEGOs are creative. LEGOs are beautiful. And most software probably not as much.

Speaker 3

再谈谈你是如何被吸引进这个领域的。你一直对效率工具感兴趣吗?还是后来才产生的兴趣?

Say a little bit more about how you were drawn into this world. Were you always somebody who was interested in productivity tools, or did that come to you later in life?

Speaker 4

人们对Notion的误解在于将其单纯视为效率软件——虽然这是我们作为企业和产品的定位。但核心理念是我刚才描述的乐高精神,或许值得简述一下启发Notion的计算机产业历史。六七十年代,旧金山那些服用迷幻剂的嬉皮世代惊叹道:天啊,这个房间大小的计算器如果配上显示器,就能成为交互式设备。它可以成为一种新型媒介,帮助你更好地思考,更协作地解决问题。

I think misunderstanding for Notion is like, without Notion as a productivity software, that's what we do as a business, as a product. But the ethos of this is what I just described as the Legos ethos, which is maybe worth describing the history of the computing industry a little bit, which inspired Notion. Right? Like sixties and seventies, sixties, those hippie generation who took acid in San Francisco saying, holy shit, this room size calculator, if you put a monitor in front of it, it can be an interactive thing. It can be a new type of medium to help you think better, help you solve a problem more collaboratively.

Speaker 4

这就是为什么第一代个人计算和交互式计算始于湾区。那代思想家和先驱者将计算视为类似读写的能力。就像我们上学多年并非人人都能读写英语或德语等语言。它是工具——你可以成为诗人,可以撰写论文——但更是一种极具可塑性的媒介。

That's why the first generation of personal computing, interactive computing, was started in the Bay Area. And that generation of thinkers and pioneers thought about computing kind of like reading and writing. Like, we went to school multiple years, not everybody can read and write English or German, whatever language you are. It's a tool. Yes, you can be a poet, you can be writing essays, but it's a very malleable medium.

Speaker 4

因此他们致力于让计算变得可塑且可调试,让每个人都能创造自己的软件。到了八十年代,比尔·盖茨和史蒂夫·乔布斯这一代人将计算机带入了大众市场。对吧?让每个家庭、每张办公桌上都有一台电脑。他们某种程度上将计算固化成了这种应用程序的形式。

So they are set out to make computing malleable and tinkerable and everybody can create their own softwares. Then in the eighties, the Bill Gates and Steve Jobs generation took computer into mass market. Right? Put a computer every home and every desk. They sort of freeze computing into this application format.

Speaker 4

如果你想想应用程序,每个应用就像是一个计算的小型监狱,你无法对它做太多改变。有制作应用程序的工程师程序员,还有我们这些日常使用生产力工具的应用程序用户。所以当我读到六七十年代那些人的论文时,天呐,我们生活的世界简直像个监狱。如果说有什么区别的话,过去十五年的SaaS更像是更小的牢房,每个应用只能处理一小部分事情,对吧?这对我来说并不合理。

If you think about application, each application kind of like a mini prison of computing, you cannot change it that much. There's application makers who are engineer programmers and then there are application users who are the rest of us, the people who use the productivity tool every day. So when I was reading those paper back in of the sixties seventies people, holy shit, like the world that we're living is like a prison like world. If anything, the SaaS of the past fifteen years is where even smaller prison cells, like each application can only do slice of things, right? So that doesn't make it right for me.

Speaker 4

客户也有同感,这毫无道理——你每天的工作需要在20个不同工具间跳转才能完成。普通公司平均使用100多种不同的SaaS工具。这种碎片化对IT部门来说都是显而易见的。商业上有句话叫要么捆绑要么解绑。而Notion显然属于捆绑业务。

And the customer feels the same way, like it doesn't make sense, your daily job have to jump between 20 different tools to get some work done. The average company, average business use a 100 plus different tools, SaaS tools. The fragmentation is obvious even for the IT department. So there's another saying in business you either bundle or unbundle. So Notion is squarely in the bundling business.

Speaker 4

我们的工作是将SaaS捆绑成一个近乎全能的生产力工具,满足你最核心的日常需求,从而为你释放乐高积木般的创造力。

Our job is to bundle SaaS into one ish productivity tool for your most core use daily needs so we can unleash the Lego block creatively for you.

Speaker 3

这是个有趣的对话。这让我想到厨房小工具,因为那里也存在同样的矛盾——有些像立式搅拌机或手持搅拌棒这样的工具可以用来制作无数菜谱,而蒜泥压榨器却只能切蒜末。听起来你是在说,进入21世纪后生产力工具变成了一堆蒜泥器,而你想做的就是提出:如果我们只用立式搅拌机会怎样?

It's an interesting conversation. I it makes me think of kitchen gadgets because you see the same tension there where there are some kitchen tools like, I don't know, a stand mixer or an immersion blender that you can use to make many, many different kinds of recipes. And then there's like the garlic press, which is good for mincing garlic and nothing else. And it sounds like what you're saying is by the time we got into the 20, productivity was just a bunch of garlic presses. And you sort of wanted to come along and say, what if we just had a stand mixer?

Speaker 3

而且你可以用同一种食材做出很多道菜。

And you you could make a lot of recipes with one thing.

Speaker 4

你知道吗,我有个朋友用过和你类似的比喻。你见过牛油果切割器吗?

You know, a friend of mine used this metaphor similar to what you said. Have you seen avocado cutters?

Speaker 3

见过。

Yes.

Speaker 4

蒜泥压榨器,对,你可以用来压榨各种东西。但牛油果切割器就他妈只能切牛油果,其他什么都干不了。对吧。

Garlic press, you can use Yeah. Press bunch of different things. Your avocado cutter is made just for freaking avocados. You cannot do anything else. Right.

Speaker 4

相比之下,一把厨房刀是你能以千百种不同方式使用的工具。作为人类,你掌握技巧就能发挥它的潜能。所以我们想创造更像厨刀或乐高积木的软件,这正是我和我们公司感兴趣的方向。

So versus in comparison, a knife, a kitchen knife, is a tool that you can use for hundreds of a thousand different ways. You, as a human amplifies you, you have a technique. Right? So what it's like to create software that's more like a kitchen knife or a Legos, that's what interests me and interests us as a company. Yeah.

Speaker 4

但这个行业,你不能责怪它,因为回顾SaaS之前的世界,微软的Office生产力套件已经主导了整整十到二十年。SaaS借助互联网作为分发渠道,催生了新的商业模式。而新业务自然的分发方式就是寻找极其精准的垂直解决方案——比如那些牛油果保护套或沟槽压具——因为另一端很难找到买家。

But the industry, it's you can't blame the industry because if you think about it, if you rewind back before SaaS, the world was running on Microsoft's productive office for like a good solid ten, twenty years. SaaS, with Internet as a distribution, sort of allow new business to be created. And the natural way to go about distribution in new business is to find really precise point solution creating those avocado covers and gully presses because you can't find buyer on the other side.

Speaker 3

确实。那么放眼当下,你认为自己是在直接与微软Office、G Suite竞争吗?你们的愿景是与之比肩,还是另有所图?

Right. So as we move into today, are you do you think of yourself as competing directly against a Microsoft Office, a G Suite? Like, is the vision that big or is it something different?

Speaker 4

我们与它们共存。大多数客户仍在使用G Suite或微软Office,比如他们的身份验证服务、邮件和日历。我们目前也有邮件和日历客户端产品。初创公司完全可以完全在Notion上运营。

We coexist with them. Like, most of our customers still using G Suite or Microsoft Office. It's like they use their identity service, they use their mail and calendar. We have a mail and calendar product currently as a client, mail and calendar client. Startup can fully run some Notion.

Speaker 4

他们不必使用Microsoft 365的Word文档或Google文档,但这并非互斥关系。我们的优势更集中在需要数据库化的场景。换个角度想,Notion就像是2020年代AI原生的Microsoft Access。多数SaaS本质都是存储公司系统记录的关系型数据库,再叠加工作流功能。

They don't need to use Microsoft three sixty Word docs, or Google docs, but it's not as mutually exclusive. Their sweet spot is more on the thing that you need to put in the database. Another way to think about it is like, what is Microsoft Access but for 2020s and AI native? Right? Most SaaS is kind of like relational database storing some kind of system record of your company and one workflow on top of that.

Speaker 4

这部分正是微软和谷歌尚未触及的领域。虽然有电子表格,但数据库应用场景很少。我们想整合这些场景并使其模块化,就像提供数据库应用的乐高积木——无论是项目管理、工单追踪,还是用NER做CRM、管理申请追踪系统,或是管理销售线索和客户故事。这些都是典型的数据库用例。

That's the part that Microsoft nor Google touch today. There are spreadsheets, but there's not much database use cases. We want to consolidate and commoditize that and give people the legos of those database use cases, Such as project management, track your tickets, some companies use NER for CRM, manage your application trackers, reporters so that you can manage all your leads and the stories. Right? Those are database use cases.

Speaker 3

没错,我在Notion里也做过类似操作。我想问关于产品功能过载的反面问题:有些尝试Notion的用户反馈说'不知从何入手,空白页让人畏难,学习曲线陡峭'。

Yeah. And I and I do do some of that in Notion. Let me ask you about the flip side of building a product that has so much utility baked into it, which is that sometimes when I talk to people who have tried Notion, they say, I didn't know where to begin. I felt intimidated by the blank page. It seemed like there was a learning curve.

Speaker 3

你们如何应对这个挑战,帮助用户理解Notion的核心价值?

How do you think about that challenge and try to bring people along into understanding what what Notion is meant to do? Yeah.

Speaker 4

早期乐高只有基础积木,后来推出主题套装,现在甚至与漫威、F1合作推出专属套装。Notion目前正处于增加更多'主题套装'的阶段,这样用户就不必从零开始拼装——即使没有说明书。就像有人想要F1赛车模型,直接选择对应套装。

Early Legos, you get bricks, then later on, LEGO creates system and get boxes. And now, LEGO work with Marvels and F1s to create, like, really specialized boxes. Right? In some sense, Notion as a company, we're in the middle of adding more boxes so people, they don't have to start from empty set of bricks even with no instruction menu. You can imagine like, hey, I want a Formula one race car, I like that Lego box.

Speaker 4

拆箱后就能获得现成车辆,立即开始驾驶玩乐。如果不满意某些部件,因为是乐高制作,随时可以修改。这一直是我们的产品哲学,现在正加倍投入这个已被验证有效的策略。

When you open it, you have your car ready made for you. So you can restart driving that. You play that Lego toy right away. But if you don't like certain part of the cars, because they're made from Lego, you can change it. That has always been our philosophy and we're doubling down this approach because it works.

Speaker 3

我觉得Office这类大型生产力工具长期面临的挑战就是功能臃肿——百万个功能里每个只对0.5%的用户关键,既不能删除又导致界面日益复杂。Notion能避免这种困境吗?

I I feel like a key challenge that some of the other big productivity tools like Office have had over the years is bloat. Right? The app has a million features and each individual one is very important to like 0.5% of the user base. So you can't remove it, but also the app just gets harder and harder to use over time because it's so stuffed with buttons and menus and widgets. Can Notion avoid that?

Speaker 3

那么,你是否曾担心自己可能已经处于那种状态了?

And have there been times when you've worried you might be there already?

Speaker 4

这确实很棘手。如果你想支持更多功能,就需要引入更多组件。有两种实现方式:传统方式是硬编码添加功能,而我们采用的是更接近乐高的模块化方案。

It's definitely tricky. If you wanna support more power, you need to have more things. There are two ways to approach it. The classic way, which is adding that feature in a hard plastic way. We're taking a more Lego approach.

Speaker 4

通过添加基础模块,这些模块可以灵活组合实现不同功能。在我看来,这显然是更优的解决方案。

So adding the brick, the brick can be used for different things. In some sense, in my opinion, it's a much better approach.

Speaker 3

明白了。你们试图减少提供那些功能单一的具体模块,转而开发更多具有扩展性的抽象功能组件。

Got it. So trying to offer fewer discrete, very narrow features and more kind of, I don't know, abstract features that can be extended in various different ways.

Speaker 4

就像乐高系统,一端可以拼出玩具车,另一端也能组成芭比娃娃——本质上使用的是相同的积木。观察日常生产力工具的核心功能,无非就是20-30种基础组件:表格、关系型数据库、图表、批注、页面协同编辑等等,这些构成了所有协作与知识工作的基石。

Like like LEGO system, on one end, could be toy cars, the other can and it could be Barbie DOS, more or less use the same bricks. Right? If you look at the most common productivity tool or business tool used every day, if you just put your designer mind on it, there's like 20 or 30 pieces there. There's some kind of table, some kind of relational database feature, some kind of charts, some kind of commenting, page editing collaboration. Those are 20 things that are core to all collaboration and knowledge work.

Speaker 4

因此我们致力于将这些核心组件设计得直观易用,既支持单独调用,也能以功能包形式提供。

So we we try to do our best job to make them friendly approachable and break them into pieces and give you either as a piece or as a part of package.

Speaker 3

目前Notion中最受欢迎的模块是什么?

What bricks inside of Notion are most popular today?

Speaker 4

我们从文档和知识库模块起步,早期(2019-2020年)以块状编辑器闻名。如今数据库已成为最重要的突破——正如我所说,多数知识工作本质上就是云端的高级文件柜。

We start with bricks about document and knowledge bases. We're famous from our blog based editors. That's early days, it's like 2019, 2020. And then databases is our most important break today. Because like I mentioned, most knowledge work is there just fancy file cabinet, like in the cloud.

Speaker 4

知识管理离不开文件柜系统,而数据库正是其核心所在。

Knowledge will run some file cabinet, and database are the heart of that.

Speaker 3

确实。数据库是我最常用的Notion模块,这个说法很符合我的使用体验。

Yeah. Database is my number one Notion brick that that I use, so that that makes sense to me.

Speaker 4

人们尚未意识到这一点。我们需要更有效地让人们理解它的力量。本质上这就是工程师每天在做的事——将关系型数据库与上层的视图连接起来。我们该如何让这一过程大众化?这就是我们的使命。

People don't discover that. We need to do a better job to get people to understand its power. It's essentially what engineering does every day, is wire together relational database with views on top of that. Like, how do we democratize that? That's our purpose.

Speaker 3

这很有趣,因为如果...如果我从未听说过Notion,而你来告诉我'Casey,你应该建个数据库来解决这个问题',这就像让我在房子里多加个房间。我完全不知从何下手,感觉需要打电话求助。但实际上,你只需点击几个按钮,比如安装Notion网页剪辑器,就能轻松开始构建数据库。

Well, it's interesting because if you if if I had never heard of Notion and you came to me and you said, Casey, you should, like, build a database to solve this problem, that's, you know, telling me that I should, like, add another room to my house. Like, I I don't know where to begin. You know? I I feel like I need to call somebody and ask for help. But in practice, you click a couple buttons and, you know, in in my case, install the, like, Notion web clipper, and I'm well on my way to to having a database.

Speaker 3

所以我认为学习曲线并不陡峭,但能理解为什么从未尝试过这类操作的人会感到畏惧。

So, you know, I I don't actually think the learning curve is that steep, but I could understand why somebody might be intimidated by it if they had never tried to do that sort of thing.

Speaker 4

不是每个孩子都把乐高当作最爱玩具。Notion最能引起喜欢构建事物的人群共鸣,通常是技术人员——团队里那些擅长电子表格的成员。他们先爱上Notion,再为其他队友搭建系统。

Not every kid grow up liking Legos as their number one toy. I think Notion resonate the best with people who like to build, and they tend to be tech people, you know, the spreadsheet groups in each team. They like Notion, and then they set it up for the rest of their teammates.

Speaker 3

当公司内部有人自愿帮你做销售工作时,这总是很有帮助。

Well, that's always helpful when you can get people inside the company doing the sales part for you.

Speaker 4

知道吗?现在AI很擅长这个。因为AI的优势就在于拼接乐高积木。它能编写代码...

And you know what? AI can do this quite well now. Because, like, what AI is good at is, like, gluing together the Lego bricks. Right? AI can write in code.

Speaker 4

写代码只是另一种整合流程的方式。我们最新产品本质上让AI充当实施顾问,帮你搭建Notion工作区。这是种全新的客户引导方式,是过去一两年才解锁的新途径。

Writing code is just another way to gluing together your process and workflows, and our latest product essentially get AI to be the success person who will help you set up your Notion workspace for you. And that's talking about another way to onboard customer, that's another that's a brand new way to unlock in the past year, two years.

Speaker 3

必须说,在很多产品中,能用内置AI询问'这个怎么做'并得到答案非常强大。作为常年翻遍帮助菜单却找不到答案的人,这功能简直救星。

I will say that has been very powerful for me in a lot of different products, being able to use like the in app AI to say how do I do this and actually getting an answer. Like as somebody who has spent a lot of time in help menus over the years, like digging around and not finding what I was looking for, that has been super useful.

Speaker 4

没错。而且AI不只是教你操作,它越来越多地能直接代劳。这才是最大不同。

Yeah. And it's not just helping you then teach the human to do it. More and more AI can just do it. Right? That's the biggest difference.

Speaker 4

想想当前软件行业的变革:传统软件是给人使用的工具。现在越来越多公司意识到,我们有了语言模型这种'盒装迷你人类',应该设计能教会AI使用的软件。这样人类可以指挥AI操作工具,从而达成更多可能。

Actually, you think about what's happening in software right now, it's like software largely is people providing the tools for human to use And more and more companies realize, wait a second, we have this new thing called language model. It's like a mini human, mini interning a box. We should design our software to teach AI how to use it, so humans can tell us AI to do work and using the tools, and humans can do way more things with it.

Speaker 3

我们需要短暂休息一下,马上回来。

We need to take a quick break. We'll be right back.

Speaker 0

《解码器》节目由Shopify赞助支持。创业初期,待办事项往往与日俱增,新任务堆积如山。合适的工具不仅能帮你统筹全局,更能化繁为简。对数百万企业而言,这个改变游戏规则的工具就是Shopify。作为全球数百万企业的商业平台,Shopify支撑着美国10%的电商交易,从美泰、Gymshark等家喻户晓的品牌到初出茅庐的新秀。

Support for Decoder comes from Shopify. Starting a new business often means your to do list grows by the day, piling up endlessly with new tasks. The right tool doesn't just help you manage it all, it simplifies everything. For millions of businesses, that game changing tool is Shopify. Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world and 10% of all ecommerce in The US, from household names like Mattel and Gymshark to brands just getting started.

Speaker 0

Shopify让你拥有专属设计工作室。数百款现成模板助你打造与品牌风格匹配的精美网店。你还能像拥有专业营销团队般推广业务——Shopify让你轻松创建电子邮件和社交媒体广告,精准触达客户浏览的每个角落。若已准备开售,Shopify随时待命。让这个商业伙伴助你将宏大构想变为现实。

Shopify lets you get started with your own design studio. With hundreds of ready to use templates, you can build a beautiful online store to match your brand's style. You could even get the word out like you have a marketing team behind you because Shopify lets you easily create email and social media campaigns wherever your customers are scrolling or scrolling. If you're ready to sell, you can be ready with Shopify. You can turn your big business idea into reality with Shopify on your side.

Speaker 0

现在注册即可享受首月1美元试用,立即开启销售之旅:shopify.com/decoder。访问Shopify.com/decoder,即刻启程。

You can sign up for your $1 per month trial and start selling today at shopify.com/decoder. You can go to Shopify dot com slash Decoder. Shopify.com/decoder.

Speaker 5

本节目由.tech域名赞助播出。名字重要吗?实际上非常重要——尤其是创业之时。你可能费尽心思构思了完美名称来清晰传达商业理念。但查询.com域名时,往往会发现心仪名称已被注册,或者价格堪比帕罗奥图的房租。

Support for this show comes from Dot Tech Domains. What's in a name? Quite a lot, actually, especially when you're starting a business. And you probably took the time to craft the perfect name that communicates your business idea clearly. But when it comes to checking the .com, you might find the names already taken or at the very least priced like rent in Palo Alto.

Speaker 5

当然,你可以妥协选择怪异拼写或添加数字,但有了.tech域名就无需将就。在.tech上获得你真正想要的初创企业名称,绝不妥协。更重要的是,使用.tech域名能向客户和投资者传递明确信号:你正在用科技构建未来。若已有心仪名称,立即在GoDaddy等可信平台搜索.tech域名,或访问get.tech/decoder抢先注册。

And sure, you could settle for an odd spelling or extra numbers, but with Dot Tech Domain, you don't have to compromise. Get the startup name you actually want on .tech. Absolutely no compromises. What's more, when you use .tech, you signal to your customers and investors that you're building tech with just your domain name. So if you've got a name in mind, search for it now with .tech on a trusted platform like GoDaddy or visit get.tech/decoder to grab it.

Speaker 5

网址:get.tech/decoder。

That's get.tech/decoder.

Speaker 6

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Avoiding your unfinished home projects because you're not sure where to start? Thumbtack knows homes, so you don't have to. Don't know the difference between matte paint finish and satin, or what that clunking sound from your dryer is? With Thumbtack, you don't have to be a home pro. You just have to hire one.

Speaker 6

在应用内即可雇佣高评分专业人士、查看报价预估、阅读用户评价。立即下载体验。

You can hire top rated pros, see price estimates, and read reviews all on the app. Download today.

Speaker 3

现在继续与Notion首席执行官伊万·赵的对话,我们将深入探讨核心解码问题:他如何架构公司组织体系,以及制定Notion未来发展关键决策的框架。我想代尼尔向你提几个典型的解码问题。Notion四年前最后一轮融资时估值已达100亿美元,是什么支撑你们在不追加融资的情况下持续增长?公司目前是否盈利?

We're back with Notion CEO, Ivan Zhao, about to get into the core decoder questions about how he's organized the company and the framework he's used to make key decisions about Notion and its future. I want to ask you some of the decoder questions that that Neil I would ask if he were here. Notion was last valued at $10,000,000,000 nearly four years ago when you raised your last round of funding. What has allowed you to keep growing without raising more funding? Are you guys profitable?

Speaker 4

我们盈利了。是的,盈利且增长迅速,业务发展良好。就是这样。

We're profitable. So Yeah. Profitable, growing fast, business doing well. So.

Speaker 3

不错。感觉如何?

Nice. How does that feel?

Speaker 4

感觉很好。可以说,我们日常活动的主要驱动力是AI正在彻底改变软件行业。过去两年的SaaS时代与AI时代相比,简直像是沉睡期。这对我们执行策略的影响,远超过仅仅运营一家盈利企业。

Feels good. I would say the large driver of our everyday activity is like the software industry is completely changing with AI. So it feels like SaaS eras, AI eras of the past two years just make the SaaS era feels like sleeping days. That is a a bigger driver of our execution strategy than just running a profitable business.

Speaker 3

我想了解更多具体运作方式。是高管们看到AI改变各种工作场景后,认为需要找到自己的解决方案,于是来找Notion帮忙?还是你们的产品团队对可能性感到兴奋,不断开发新功能吸引客户?

And I'd like to hear more about how that is working. Is it the case that sort of executives see AI changing various workplaces? They think we need to figure out our version of this, and so they come to Notion to help them figure it out? Or is it that your product teams are so excited about the possibilities that you're just now seeing them build features and features and features, which are then drawing in new customers?

Speaker 4

目前客户处于滞后状态。大多数人还不清楚,每次新技术出现都这样,对吧?人们不知道如何利用它,客户也不会告诉你答案。

I would say customer are on the lagger at the moment. Most people don't know. We can't it happens with every new technology, right? You don't know what to do with it. The customer is not going to tell you.

Speaker 4

真正推动发展的是那些动手实验、构建产品,能预见未来几年甚至几个月变化的人。AI发展太快了。我们很多人亲自尝试后惊呼:天啊,这完全不同!它能解决传统软件无法解决的问题。你准备用它做什么?

It's the people who play with this, build things, maybe has imagination few years into the future, or even a few months in the future at this point. AI is changing so fast. A lot of us from ourselves play with this, realize, holy moly, this is a very different thing. You can do solving problem that you couldn't solve before with classic software. What are you going to do with it?

Speaker 4

有个有趣的故事。2022年底,我和联合创始人Simon比其他人都早获得GPT-4测试权限——当时还以为大家都拿到了。我们震惊了。

There's actually an interesting story. My co founder, Simon, and I got early access to GPT-four. So this is like late twenty twenty two, a little bit before everybody else. We thought everybody else get early access to this. So we thought, holy shit.

Speaker 4

相比GPT-3,GPT-4是全新物种,具备真正的智能推理能力。我们把自己关在酒店房间一周,紧急开发出首个Notion AI产品,比ChatGPT发布还早一个月。这种新型工具让我们充满创作激情。

Because compared to GPT-three, GPT-four, it's a brand new type of thing, right? It's like, it has a real intelligent reasoning in it. So we locked ourselves into a hotel room for about a week and just tried to rush out the first Notion AI product. We actually launched like a month before ChatGPT happened. It's like, we're excited about what you can do with this new type of material.

Speaker 4

Notion的能量正是来源于此。

That's for Notion that energy come from there.

Speaker 3

你们现在有多少员工?Notion目前规模多大?

How many employees do you have over there? How how big is Notion today?

Speaker 4

高三位数,900左右,可能接近一千,大概九点几的样子。

High three digits, 900, maybe approaching to a thousand, nine ish, there.

Speaker 3

你对公司规模怎么看?你觉得未来员工数量会是现在的五倍,还是希望保持现状?

How do you think about company size? Do you see a world where there's five times that many employees, or do you want to keep it somewhere around where it is right now?

Speaker 4

我认为绝对数字没有标准答案,但人才密度有答案。密度越高越好。

I think there's no right answer for the absolute number, but there's an answer for the density of the talent. The denser is better.

Speaker 3

你喜欢人才多而不是少?

You like having more talented people as opposed to fewer talented people?

Speaker 4

如果能用更少的人完成工作,沟通成本更低,员工更有主人翁意识,能跨领域协作。这样整体更好。公司运转更快。就像小车比大车转弯灵活。我们总把Notion比作小巴士。

If we can do the work with few people and there's less communication overhead, people have more ownership, People can work things across boundaries. That's just better overall. A company moves faster. Like, small car can turn corners much better than a big car. We always call Notion the small bus.

Speaker 4

我们尽量让这辆巴士保持紧凑。

We try to keep the bus as tight as possible.

Speaker 3

你们的组织架构是怎样的?Notion是如何组织的?

What's your org chart like? How is Notion organized?

Speaker 4

相当传统。我,联合创始人Simon和Akshay。Simon仍在每天写代码。Akshay负责产品、设计和研究。CTO Fuzzy管工程,CRO Erica管销售、营销和客户体验,CFO Rama,总法律顾问Hassani。

Fairly classics. Myself, my co founder, Simon Akshay. Simon is still coding every day. Akshay, he runs our product and design work and research. Our CTO, Fuzzy, all the engineering, our CRO, Erica, sales, marketing, CX, then CFO, Rama, and general counsel, Hassani.

Speaker 4

这就是我们经典的组织架构。

That's our classic org chart.

Speaker 3

所以你觉得没必要在这方面 reinvent the wheel 或创新,只是按传统公司部门划分,让大家各司其职?

So you didn't feel the need to reinvent the wheel there or do any innovating, just sort of create classic company divisions and let people go do their thing?

Speaker 4

典型的公司分工,高素质人才确保业务高效运转。这样才能让你们盈利。

Classic company division, high quality people keep the bus tight. So allow you to be profitable.

Speaker 3

你们如何做重大决策?有固定的决策框架吗?还是每次决策都不同?

How do you make big decisions? Do you have a framework you use, or is every decision different?

Speaker 4

通常有两种情况:单向门决策和双向门决策。单向门决策要快速决断,双向门决策则需要更谨慎思考,甚至先放一放。这类似于快思考与慢思考的区别。

Well, there's a typical thing. There's a one way door, there's a two way door. One way door, try to make it fast. Two way door, think a little bit carefully and sleep on it. Those are thinking fast and slow type of thing.

Speaker 4

我是个注重细节的人,喜欢做笔记。有些问题我擅长处理,而且个人也对此充满兴趣和精力。我喜欢深入一线,和大家并肩作战。比如我可以直接领导财务团队。

I'm pretty detailed. I like to work on the notes. So there are certain problems I'm good at and also personally gives me energy I'm interested in. I like to work on the ground, in the trenches with everybody. Certain parts, like, I can run our finance team.

Speaker 4

我们的CFO Ramas非常出色,她负责把关。但像产品设计权衡、工程取舍、市场营销和品牌建设这些领域,我都喜欢参与其中。

Our our CFO, Ramas, is really amazing. She take care of the vet. But certain things like design, making product trade off, engineering trade off, marketing and brand, I like to get involved.

Speaker 3

是的,你一直给我留下产品型CEO的印象。从第一次见面起,我就觉得你对公司最感兴趣的是正在打造的工具本身,而不是市场机会之类的东西。

Yeah. You've always struck me as a product CEO. Like, I think from the first time I met you, it seemed to me what was most interesting to you about your company was the the tool itself that you were building, as opposed to, like, the market opportunity or something like that.

Speaker 4

我开发Notion是因为我想做Notion,而不是因为想创业或开公司。是的,我就是想让这个产品问世。

I built Notion because I wanna build Notion, not because I wanna start a company or business. Yeah. I want this thing to exist.

Speaker 3

再问一个关于重大决策的问题。2015年你决定关闭1.0版本应用,搬到日本,最终重新推出2.0版本——也就是我们现在使用的Notion。这个决定是怎么做出的?

Let me ask you one more decision question about one of the bigger decisions you had to make. So in 2015, you decided to shut down the one point o version of the app, relocate to Japan, and eventually relaunch Notion two point o, which is kind of the Notion that we we think of when we use it today. How did you make that decision?

Speaker 4

当时别无选择,否则就会失败。我们当时在错误的基础上开发,虽然知道正确方向,但需要一年到一年半重建。公司只有5人左右,资金即将耗尽。唯一办法就是缩减到我和联合创始人Simon两人,重新开始。日本生活成本低,是个好选择。

Well, you have to, otherwise you die. Right? At that point, it's like we're building on the wrong thing, wrong foundation, and you know what the right thing is, but it's just gonna take you maybe a year, a year and a half to build to the right thing, and we're a company five ish people, we're going to run out of money. So the only way to do is shrink back to me and my Simon co founder, yeah, we start over. Japan is a good place because inexpensive.

Speaker 4

我们从未去过那里,很有趣,而且可以专注产品开发。

We've never been. It's interesting, and we can just focus on building.

Speaker 3

我认识其他曾处于这种境地的创始人,那正是他们放弃的时刻,因为他们心想:也许我能想出别的项目来做,但这看起来太耗神了。又要花一年时间。我已经为这个应用投入了一年半左右的心血,几乎倾尽所有。

I know other founders who have been in that situation, and that's the moment where they gave up because they thought, you know what? Maybe I could think of another thing to build here, but it seems exhausting. It's gonna take a year. I've already put a year and a half or so into this app. Like, I gave it everything I had.

Speaker 3

但没成功。是什么让你决定说'不,我们要继续坚持'?你们是认为这个愿景确实可以实现吗?

It didn't work. What was it that made you say, no. Like, I we're going to keep going on this. Like, we think that that there is a vision here that we can actually achieve.

Speaker 4

正如我提到的,目标从来不是创办企业。目标是打造这个东西——而这个东西尚未真正存在。Notion是少数几个整合型生产力软件工具之一,但类似乐高积木式的软件形态还不存在。

The goal is never to start a business, like I mentioned. The goal is to build this thing. And the thing doesn't quite exist. Like I mentioned, Notion is one of the few bundling, consolidating software productivity tool out there and doesn't quite exist. Software for Lego doesn't exist.

Speaker 4

所以如果我开公司也是做同样的事,那不如重新调整,继续和西蒙合作延长资金周转。实际上我上周刚从京都回来,当地有个科技活动,我们与京都市长进行了炉边对话,他们想探讨科技与京都的结合,用Notion作为科技与传统工艺融合的范例——因为我们深受京都匠人精神的启发,他们投入时间创造不是为了名利。

So if I start a company, I'll do the same thing. So why don't I just reset and go back to me and Simon so we can stretch the money a bit longer. Actually, I just got back from Kyoto last week where there's a tech event there and the Kyoto mayor we did a fireside chat with the Kyoto mayor about the story because they want they want to talk about Kyoto with tech and using Notion as an example of how we can blend tech and Kyoto's craft tradition. Right? Because we are also inspired really much by the craftspeople in Kyoto, how they dedicate their time to build something, not just for money, not just for fame.

Speaker 3

太巧了!我上周也在京都度假,第一次去就爱上了那里,京都太棒了。

That is so crazy. But I was actually also in Kyoto last week. I I was on vacation and went there for the first time and had an incredible time. Kyoto's amazing.

Speaker 4

你能感受到那种慢节奏,人们真正在乎事物的本质。

You got a sense. It's a little bit slower pace. People care about the thing. Right? People truly care.

Speaker 4

这才是核心——不是商业,不是其他周边因素。

That's the thing. It's the main thing. It's not the business. It's not the other surrounding.

Speaker 3

完全同意。那些千年古寺展现的匠心与虔诚令人震撼,与他们的信仰、文化、历史深刻交融,美得不可思议。

Oh, absolutely. I mean, like, you go to these temples that are, you know, a thousand plus years old and the care and the craftsmanship that they put into them is truly inspiring. Right? It's it's deeply beautiful. It's, you know, very connected to their their spirituality, their religion, the the culture, or the history.

Speaker 3

所以完全理解创始人会去那里汲取灵感。

So I could understand why, you know, a founder would go there and and take a lot of inspiration.

Speaker 4

那里的慢节奏也能让人更专注虚拟空间里的创造,比如电脑程序。

It's a little bit slower too, so you can focus on the the the thing on in the virtual space, computers.

Speaker 3

是啊。这里不像旧金山,有我们热闹的夜生活,有Waymo自动驾驶车,派对场景,应有尽有。

Yeah. It's it's not like San Francisco with our our go go nightlife, our waymos, the party scene, all of that.

Speaker 4

或者纽约,那里的这些元素甚至更丰富。

Or New York, even even more of that.

Speaker 3

再问一个——虽然严格来说不算解码器问题,但感觉精神上属于这类——你用过最棒的非Notion生产力工具是什么?

One more of these this isn't strictly a decoder question, but this it feels like spiritually decoder question that I wanted to ask you. What is the best productivity tool that you use that is not made by Notion?

Speaker 4

我喜欢那些聊天机器人产品,ChatGPT和TropicCloth。对,它们特别惊艳,尤其是对话模式的功能。懂我意思吗?我超爱这些。

I like the the those chatbot products, ChatGPT and TropicCloth. Yeah. It's quite amazing, especially if talking about feature, the conversation mode. Right? I love those.

Speaker 3

你喜欢语音模式?

You like the voice mode?

Speaker 4

语音模式。没错。它能帮我学各种东西。比如煮咖啡等水开时,就能和它聊上两分钟。明白吧?

Voice mode. Yeah. The voice mode, like, help me learn a lot of different things. I can just when I'm making coffee, waiting for the water to boil, just talk with this thing for a little for two minutes. Right?

Speaker 4

简直完美。

It's perfect.

Speaker 3

你都问它些什么?喜欢学哪方面的?

What are you ask it about? What do you like to learn about?

Speaker 4

呃,五花八门。最近的话...在日本时我读了本关于马歇尔·麦克卢汉的书,那位加拿大媒介理论家。媒介理论家,神学家。

Oof. All kinds. What's most recently? In Japan, I was reading a book about Marshall McLuhan, which is this Canadian Media theorist. Media theorists, theologists.

Speaker 4

他的很多概念很难理解,所以最好用语言模型来辅助——它就像最棒的导师。教育方式应该彻底改变。希望几年后能大不相同。

It's hard to many of his concepts are hard to interpret, so it's better just to work through with a language model that should help you guide the best tutor. Education should be very different. Hopefully, it'd be very different a few years from now.

Speaker 3

我想是的。这虽然不完全是个辅导用例,但我必须说,你知道,我上周在京都,我们在那个街区有些时间要打发。于是我打开谷歌地图,它自动定位到我们所在的位置。我截了张图发给ChatGPT,说:给我们讲讲这个街区吧。

I I think so. This isn't quite a tutoring use case, but I just have to say, you know, I was in Kyoto last week, and we were in the neighborhood and kind of had some time to kill. And so I just opened Google Maps and it, you know, sort of opens to where we are. And I took a screenshot and I just sent it to chat GBT. And I said, tell us a bit about this neighborhood.

Speaker 3

它给了我街区的历史,推荐了很棒的餐厅、咖啡馆,还有博物馆等步行可至的地方。说真的,这效果和我能想象到的任何导游服务一样好,而操作简单到只需上传截图。整个过程只花了十五秒,简直让我震惊。

And it gave me, like, a history of the neighborhood. It told me the cool restaurants, cool coffee shops, like a museum, places that we could walk to. I mean, like, it truly was as good as I can imagine getting from any guide, and it was as simple as uploading a screenshot. The whole thing took fifteen seconds. Like, it was it was wild to me.

Speaker 4

特别像我有个使用场景——当我参观著名建筑时,可以说:嘿,我在这地方,告诉我关于它的信息。我看着建筑的某个角落,问为什么设计成这样。对吧?

Especially, like, one use case I have, like, when if I go to a famous architectural building and say, hey, I'm at this place. Tell me about it. I'm looking at this part corner of this building. Tell me more about why is that the case. Right?

Speaker 4

因为如果足够著名,这些信息很可能已包含在模型的训练数据中。你完全可以获得导游服务,不需要另一个人,只需和你的机器对话。

Because if it's famous enough, it's probably part of the corpus of training, so they language the model knows about And you can just truly a guide tour, and you don't need another person. You're just talking with your machine.

Speaker 3

我们需要短暂休息一下,马上回来。

We need to take another quick break. We'll be right back.

Speaker 7

本月的《Explain It To Me》节目,我们将探讨健康话题。我们每年在胶原蛋白冰沙、冷水浴、普拉提课程和健身追踪器等所谓健康产品上花费近2万亿美元。但真正健康意味着什么?为何我们如此渴望健康?这些钱真让我们更健康快乐吗?本期由Pure Leaf呈现。

This month on Explain It To Me, we're talking about all things wellness. We spend nearly $2,000,000,000,000 on things that are supposed to make us well, collagen smoothies and cold plunges, pilates classes, and fitness trackers. But what does it actually mean to be well? Why do we want that so badly, and is all this money really making us healthier and happier? That's this month on Explain It To Me, presented by Pure Leaf.

Speaker 8

嗨,我是Paris。你知道我喜欢闪闪发光的东西对吧?比如星星。

Hey. It's Paris. You know I love sparkly things. Right? Like stars.

Speaker 8

废话不多说。多亏希尔顿和Auto Camp,我刚在星空下入眠。想象我在豪华房车外的篝火旁摆造型,和孩子们烤棉花糖,国家公园成为我们的背景板。户外野趣遇见希尔顿款待——这才叫火热体验。

Duh. And thanks to Hilton and Auto Camp, I just slept under them. Picture me serving looks by the fire outside my luxurious Airstream, making s'mores with the kids, while a national park is our backdrop. The great outdoors meets Hilton hospitality. That's hot.

Speaker 8

探索希尔顿全新住宿方式,请访问hilton.com。希尔顿,为停留而存在。

Explore all the new ways to stay at hilton.com. Hilton for the stay.

Speaker 9

沃尔玛APP提供大量孩子们喜爱的款式,最低只需4美元。新学期意味着全新的时尚形象——谁知道呢?找到写着'我随性但很酷'的滑板裙和洞洞鞋,还有宣告'这是我的教室,你们只是在这里学习'的闪亮运动鞋。

With a major selection of the looks your kiddos love starting at just $4 in the Walmart app, a new school year means a stylish new them. Who knew? Find skater skirts and Crocs that say, I'm casual but cool. Sparkly sneakers that say, it's my classroom. You're just learning in it.

Speaker 9

还有那些学院风 Polo 衫,仿佛在宣告‘我是老师的宠儿’,即便在家是妈妈的麻烦精。在应用内找到他们最爱的款式,起价仅需4美元。你曾以为熟悉的沃尔玛,如今已焕然一新。

And preppy polos that say, I'm the teacher's pet, even if they're mommy's menace at home. Find their favorite styles starting at just $4 in the app. The Walmart Walmart you thought you knew is now new.

Speaker 3

我们继续与Notion首席执行官Ivan Zhao的对话。此前我们讨论了他十年前重启Notion的重大决策,这个决定不仅让公司存活下来,最终还实现了盈利。现在我想请教他关于Notion与AI的结合,以及他如何看待这个生产力平台伴随新技术的发展。这似乎是个很好的过渡话题,我们已聊过Notion的演变历程。

We're back with Notion CEO Ivan Zhao. Before the break, we were discussing a major decision Ivan made to reboot Notion a decade ago, one that helped him keep the company alive and eventually grow it to profitability. But now I wanted to ask him about Notion and AI and how he sees his productivity platform evolving alongside the new technology. Well, that seems like a good segue into Notion and AI. We've talked about what Notion is, how it's changed.

Speaker 3

如今Notion自称是‘为你服务的AI工作空间’。对你而言,AI工作空间意味着什么?你希望它为用户带来什么?

Notion now bills itself as the AI workspace that works for you. So what does an AI workspace mean to you? What do you want it to be for us?

Speaker 4

回想我们在SaaS时代的策略,本质是捆绑整合——将知识工作所需的各种工具集中到同一平台。而近年的变革在于,当这些知识工作乐高积木都存在于Notion时,你不仅能提供工具,更能将它们组装成AI同事为你工作。

If you think about our strategy during the SaaS era, it's bundling. Right? Consolidating bunch of different tools for knowledge work into one place. And what's changing in the past couple years is now with all those soft knowledge work Lego in Notion, you can not only provide the tool, but you can assemble them as your AI teammates. They can do the work for you.

Speaker 4

很幸运我们能将这些知识工作积木集中管理,让你能以有趣的方式拼接。一端可以为你做会议记录,另一端能协助项目分级管理、文档撰写等基础工作。随着积木模块和智能模型的增加,本质上你正在雇佣Notion作为AI同事——这正是我们持续构建的未来图景。

And we're fortunate to have those knowledge work Legos in one place, so you can piece together in a very interesting way. One end can take notes for you, the other end can help you manage triage projects, writing document, those are basic things. But more and more with more Legos and smarter models, you're essentially higher Notion as your AI teammates. That's the future that we've been building or building more towards.

Speaker 3

没错。记得有次会面时你刚推出部分AI功能,演示Notion AI如何自动生成各类会议纪要。这让你能快速了解未参与的会议内容,实时掌握同事讨论动态。我当时就觉得这功能妙极了——不正是无数CEO梦寐以求的跨部门透视能力吗?

Yeah. I remember one time I was meeting with you and you just launched some of these AI tools and you were showing me that Notion AI was was taking notes about various meetings. And so you were able to dip into meetings at the company that you did not personally attend and just kind of quickly catch up on what your coworkers were talking about. And I thought, that's super interesting. Right?

Speaker 3

这种功能确实是许多企业管理者渴望的,但此前他们从未获得过这种层级的公司运营可见度。

That's like some that that's the kind of feature that I can imagine a lot of CEOs wanting, but before this point, they haven't had that level of visibility into their own company.

Speaker 4

几个月前我们刚发布三款产品,包括你提到的企业搜索升级版Notion AI for Work。同步推出的AI会议记录功能,能转录所有会议内容。本质上这为公司构建了集体记忆中枢,所有AI知识工作者都在Notion平台上协助转录纪要、解答疑问——现代技术带来的可能性令人振奋。

We just launched three separate product couple months ago, Notion AI for Work, including next version of this enterprise search product you talk about. So along with that was to launch AI meeting notes product, so all the meetings you can record and transcribe it. So essentially your company has a collective brain of what's going on and you have all the AI knowledge workers on top of Notion to help you transcribe the meeting notes, answer whatever question you may have. It's quite interesting what you can do with the technology now.

Speaker 3

在已上线的AI功能中,你个人最常用的是哪些?

Of all the AI features that you've added so far, which ones do you personally find the most useful?

Speaker 4

除了本次对话,我几乎为所有会议开启AI记录。既用于与他人共享纪要,也作为个人思维导图的起点。后续还能让AI将转录内容转化为正式文稿——这种从语音到文字的智能转换非常实用。

I use AI meeting notes. Almost every meeting except this one I record. And I use that for meetings so I can share notes with other people. I use for myself as a starting position to dump my thoughts. And I can remember later where I can use this to as AI to turn the transcription into writing.

Speaker 4

英语是我的第二语言,所以我写作速度不快。但如果我直接把脑海里的想法通过转录倾倒出来,AI能写出比我更好的内容。AI会议功能即将推出。

English is my second language, so I'm not the fastest writer. But AI can do a better writing than I can if I just dump out what I on top of my mind through the transcription. AI meeting will feature.

Speaker 3

当前关于AI的讨论很多,比如它是否会取代员工、整个工作流程或组织内的职能。你今天提到AI可以充当某种队友。你认为AI和Notion会发展到高管因此减少招聘的程度吗?还是更专注于帮助人们完成现有工作?

There's a lot of talk right now about AI and whether it might replace workers or entire workflows or functions within an organization. You've talked today about AI being able to serve as a kind of teammate. Do you think that AI and Notion will get to a point where executives will hire fewer people because Notion will do it for them? Or are you more focused on just helping people do their existing jobs?

Speaker 4

我们实际上准备在未来几周或一个月内就此发起一场宣传活动。我们想推广一个更积极的理念——关于它们能为你做什么。想象我们即将推出的广告牌:你在中心位置,而借助Notion这类工具或其他AI工具,你可以拥有AI队友。

We're actually doing putting out a campaign about this in the coming weeks or month. We wanna push out a more amplifying positive Notion about what they can do for you. So imagine the billboard we're putting out. It's you in the center. Then with a tool like Notion, or other AI tools, you can have AI teammates.

Speaker 4

对吧?想象一下,假设你让我创办公司。我们是两位联合创始人。打开Notion注册后,突然就有AI队友辅助——有的帮我们做笔记,有的处理事务分派,有的在我们睡觉时做研究。突然间我们就成了10人规模的团队。

Right? Imagine, hey, you let me start a company. We're two co founders. And open Notion, sign up Notion, and all of a sudden we're supplemented by AI or AI teammates, some taking notes for us, some triage, some doing research while we're sleeping. So all of a sudden we're a team of a company of 10 people.

Speaker 4

这样初创公司就能更快运转。这就是我们想向世界推广的理念和愿景:它更像是增强力量,而非零和博弈。

So then the startup can run much faster. That's the notion that's the that's the vision we wanna push more towards the world. It's more of an amplifying force rather than a zero sum force.

Speaker 3

你觉得这个愿景大概多久能实现?是触手可及,还是需要更多研究突破才能达成?

And, like, what time frame do you think that arrives on? Does that feel like it's almost within reach or do you think we're gonna need to see several more research breakthroughs before that sort of thing becomes possible?

Speaker 4

作为每天都在构建这个的人,我认为能力已经基本具备。知识工作有不同复杂度层级,而模型已经相当聪明。我认为欠缺的是释放模型潜力的管道工具——这正是Notion在用乐高积木式方法构建的底层设施。

From someone who's building with this every day, I think a capability, it's pretty much there. There are different spectrum complexity of knowledge work, right? The model is quite smart. I would say what's lacking are the plumbing, toolings that unlock the capability of the model. That's essentially what Notion is doing, with the Lego blocks, be the plumbing and tooling.

Speaker 4

这是一个制约因素。另一个制约是人们的使用方式和融入工作流程的速度。就像官僚制度,有时是好事有时是坏事。这次我认为反而是好事,因为它让进程放缓,给人们适应和学习新工具的时间。

So that's one constraint. The other constraint is just how people use it, how people plug into their workforce. Like bureaucracy, sometimes it's a good thing, sometimes it's bad thing. In this case, I think it's actually a good thing because it slows things down a little bit. Give people the time to adopt, to learn with this new tool.

Speaker 4

我觉得这样很好。能力大体已具备,就算现在不够,每三个月就有新突破。趋势只会持续加速,对吧?嗯。

I think it's good. So the capability, it's more or less there, and if not, every three months you got a new one. So the trend just keep coming. Right? So Mhmm.

Speaker 3

但与此同时,我认为当今AI模型最大缺陷是可靠性问题——它们无法百分百一致地回答相同问题。如果我依赖它处理关键任务,把它当作公司10个'员工'之一,让它收集数据却得到虚构结果,那就太糟糕了。如果是真实员工,我可能会启动绩效改进计划。你如何看待可靠性对服务设计的挑战?

You know, at the same time, I think the biggest flaw in the AI models that we have today is that they're not reliable. They don't answer the same question the same way a 100% of the time. And so if I'm relying on it for mission critical stuff, if it's one of the 10 quote unquote people at my company and I tell it to go grab some facts and figures and it just kind of hallucinates the wrong one, that's like really bad. Like, I I you know, if if that were a real worker, I would, you know, I don't know, put them on a performance improvement plan or something. So how do you think about reliability as a challenge to what kinds of services you wanna offer people?

Speaker 4

我认为总体而言这确实是个需要改进的问题。最贴切的心理模型就是把语言模型当作人类对待,就像对待实习生一样。人类会犯错。当你告诉另一个人某件事时,信任程度是没有保障的——这个人可能会搞砸或违背你的意愿告诉他人。因此以这种方式建立信任时,人们对软件的期望更高,因为长期以来软件只要没有漏洞,就必定会精确执行指令。

It's definitely an issue in getting I would say getting better in generally. I would say the best closest mental model is like a treating language model just like a human, just like an intern. Humans make mistakes. Your trust level, when you tell another human something, there's nothing guaranteed this human cannot mess it up or tell another person even though you don't want to. So fundamentally building trust this way, people's expectation for software is higher because software for the longest time is always do exact, if there's no bugs, it's always do exactly what you're told.

Speaker 4

对吧?AI是新型软件。我们尚未建立应对这种技术的预期标准。随着越来越多人习惯使用,随着我们学习调整使用习惯,企业调整工作流程,终将找到平衡点——放大技术优势的同时处理其短板。

Right? AI is a new type of software. Our expectation hasn't been set how to deal with this yet. I think as more people getting used to it, and as we learn, change our habit around it, and company change their workflow around it, I think we'll find an equilibrium that's like amplify the better part of this technology and deal with the short shortfall of it.

Speaker 3

没错。播客主Dorkash Patel说过类似的话:现在的AI比第一天上班的实习生强,但比不上第五天的实习生。因为第一天它们拥有人类历史全部知识,能用能力让你惊叹,但学习能力差——很难示范一次就让它们每次都可靠执行。而人类可以做到这点。

Yeah. I think the the podcaster Dorkash Patel said something like, an AI today is better than an intern on day one, but worse than an intern on day five. Because on day one, they have all knowledge of human history and they can dazzle you with their capabilities. But also, they have trouble learning and it's hard to show them how to do something once and then have them do it reliably every single time. Whereas a human being could do that.

Speaker 3

所以我非常好奇:AI何时能超越那个第五天的实习生?

So I'm personally very curious, what is the point when an AI is better than that day five intern?

Speaker 4

包括Notion在内,所有公司都在探索为这个'实习生'注入记忆与学习能力的技术。未来几个季度你们会看到内置这些功能的产品。

I think all company are, including Notion, are trying to figure out technique to inject memory and learning into this intern. In the coming quarters, you will see product with this baked in.

Speaker 3

现在我耳朵竖起来了,这听起来像是剧透啊。能透露你们正在开发什么吗?

Okay. Now now my my ears are perking up because it sounds like we're getting a little bit of preview. Do you wanna tell us what you're working on over there?

Speaker 4

几个月前我们推出了Notion AI工作版,包含企业搜索、AI会议纪要、深度研究辅助起草文档等功能。即将推出的产品中,每个AI都能成为专精某项技能的'实习生'。事实上你可以创建不同特长的AI同事,让它们常驻工作空间。

A couple of months ago, launched this Notion AI for Work. It has enterprise search, has AI meeting notes, has deep research to help you draft documents. The upcoming product, you can actually now each one imagine each one is the AI intern who can do specialized thing. Right? The upcoming product, can actually create different flavors of AI intern and AI teammates to live with you in your workspace.

Speaker 4

目前只能透露这么多。本质上Notion能完成人类能做的所有事情。

That's as far as wanna share. And Notion essentially can do everything you can do, a human can do.

Speaker 3

这听起来很棒。关于产品需求——你知道我一直有个夙愿:自从Notion几年前开始整合AI功能,我就提出希望与特定数据库对话。我新闻平台的所有历史链接都存储在Notion数据库里,多数还包含全文。

I I like the sound of that. Let me ask you about this is this is my product request, and you know this request because I've had it for a while now. But basically, when you first started adding AI features into Notion a few years ago, I put in this request because every link that has ever been in my newsletter platformer is stored in a Notion database. In many cases, that includes the full article text. And what I want is to be able to have a conversation with that particular database.

Speaker 3

这将对专栏研究和头脑风暴极有帮助。但问题是数据量高达数十万甚至数百万字,无法简单扔进上下文窗口直接对话。所以Ivan,我的这个梦想现在进展如何?

Right? It'd be so useful for research and brainstorming columns. At the same time, it's, you know, I don't know, hundreds of thousands and millions of words. It's not the sort of thing that you could easily, like, throw into a context window and just let me have that conversation. So my question, Ivan, is where are we on this dream of mine?

Speaker 4

要与Notion中成千上万的文章进行对话吗?是的,这很可能已经实现了,因为已有技术可以解决不必将所有内容塞进上下文窗口的问题。你可以为所有内容建立索引,进行嵌入处理,并在需要时提取信息片段。对吧?

To having conversation with all your thousands of articles in Notion? Yes. It's probably already there, because there are techniques invented correct that you don't have to fit everything into a context window. You can index everything, embedding everything, and piece information out as you need it. Right?

Speaker 4

过去一年左右流行另一种称为工具使用的技术。它本质上是教导语言模型(你的代理)掌握搜索方法。因此,如果初始接触窗口中没有某个问题的答案,代理可以像人类一样去查找更多相关信息。虽然往返会多花些时间,但最终会提供你所需的内容。我们的技术会让你描述的使用场景更加完善。

There's another technique that's been popular in the past year or so called tool use. It essentially teaches the language model, your agent, to know how to use search. So if you have a question that's not in the contact window initially, the agent can go there to, just like a human, find more information about it. It will take a little bit more time round trip, but eventually it will give you what you want. So our technique will make the use cases you're describing better.

Speaker 3

听起来不错。你们确实已经有类似‘询问Notion’的功能,我想它能获取我提到的部分内容。很多这类信息其实就在网上,也有其他获取方式,但我总想着,如果能像与同事聊天那样快速与这个数据库对话,那简直太酷了。

I like the sound of that. And and you do have like an ask Notion feature already that I imagine can access some element of what I'm talking about. And a lot of this stuff is just sort of on the web, there are other ways of accessing it, but I I just always think, man, if I could have a lightning fast way of just chatting with this database the way I would chat with a coworker, that'd be super cool.

Speaker 4

哦,这功能应该已经在你的Notion工作区里了。很乐意带你了解全新的企业级搜索功能,它规模庞大,完美适配这种需求。

Oh, it should already be in your Notion workspace. Happy to walk you through the new enterprise search which is large. It's perfect for that.

Speaker 3

好的,太棒了。那我们线下再具体解决这个问题。今天已经多次提到OpenAI了。

Okay. Great. Alright. We'll we'll troubleshoot that offline. OpenAI has come up a couple times today.

Speaker 3

你们与他们合作紧密。最近宣布可以用ChatGPT创建演示文稿和幻灯片。所有大型实验室都在研发这类全栈虚拟助手,声称未来某天可能完成远程工作者能做的任何事。你认为他们未来五年内能实现吗?在AI能力如此快速扩展的世界里,你如何看待Notion的角色?

You work closely with them. Recently, announced you can use ChatGPT to create presentations and slide decks. All of the big labs are working on these full stack virtual assistants that they say might someday be able to do anything a remote worker might be able to do. Do you think that they'll get there in the next, let's say, five years? And what role do you see Notion playing in a world where AI's capabilities are rapidly expanding that way?

Speaker 4

可以从这个光谱来理解:是更偏向个人消费者的B2C模式,还是团队优先的B2B模式。我认为目前大多数实验室产品更偏向个人助手类型,它能协助工作或帮忙完成作业。而B2C领域往往是赢家通吃,只有少数胜出者。像OpenAI这样的实验室全力投入这个方向是合理的。

One way to think about it on the spectrum of whether it's a more personal B2C flavor or it's like B2B team first flavor. I would say most labs product currently building is more of a personal assistant flavor. It can help you to do work or help you cheat on your homework. And usually B2C tend to be winner takes all, where there are a few winners. And I think it makes sense for labs like OpenAI to go really hard towards that direction.

Speaker 4

Notion明确是家B2B公司。我们的产品和商业模式服务于企业客户。在B2B领域需要做出不同的权衡,存在众多细分市场,且必须从团队优先出发。这就是为什么我们的AI队友、AI代理和AI助手本质上存在于你和公司其他员工共处的团队空间里。

Notion squarely is a B2B company. Our product, our business model is for business, other businesses. And inside B2B, there's required making different trade off. There's so many different subcategories, and it has to be team first to start. That's why our AI teammates, our AI agent, AI assistant fundamentally live in a team space that you or the rest of your company employee live in.

Speaker 4

这是我们采取的角度。在我看来,B2B领域会有许多不同的赢家,因为B2B通常不是赢家通吃的局面。而且需要做出非常不同的...

That's the angle we're taking. There will be, in my opinion, there'll be many different winners in the b to b because b to b usually is not winner takes all. And you need to make very different

Speaker 3

这个权衡很有意思。我还不完全理解。能否再详细说说,这个B2B的AI世界具体是怎样的?为什么这里会有许多赢家,而B2C可能不会?

That's trade interesting. I I'm still not sure I totally understand. Like, say a bit more about, like, what does this b to b AI world look like? And why is it that that will have many winners whereas b to c maybe doesn't?

Speaker 4

在专业场景下你不能这样思考。所有知识型工作,无论是律师、会计师、程序员还是客服,都各不相同。它们需要你做出略有不同的权衡取舍。你是一种不同类型的AI代理。

Well, you can't think about it in the professional setting. So if you think all knowledge work, there is lawyers, there is accountants, and there is programmers, there is customer support. And they're all different. They require you to make a little bit different trade off. You're a different type of AI agent.

Speaker 4

第一代AI代理已能看出这种差异。它们需要专业化,并能接入不同场景。而消费端你只想和AI聊天机器人对话,这是非常通用的。所以B2C领域上一代有iPhone和Android两大阵营。

You already can see this in the first generation AI agent. They need to be specialized and they can plug into different contexts. Versus the consumer side, you just want to chat with your AI chatbot. It's very universal. That's why in the B2C side, in the previous generation, there's iPhone and Android.

Speaker 4

主要有两点区别。B2B领域是SaaS的天下,有成千上万家公司、数百个不同类别。这迫使你的产品——无论是软件还是AI产品——必须做出截然不同的权衡。你不可能同时成为飞机和潜艇。

There are two things, largely. In the B2B, it's SaaS. There's thousands of different companies, hundreds of different categories. So they force your product to make, whether it's to be a software or AI product, make very different trade offs. You cannot be an airplane and a submarine at the same time.

Speaker 4

因此在专业场景里,你会看到律师会计、律师代理、财务代理。它们的行为模式差异巨大,与你每天醒来可以闲聊的个人助手完全不同。

That's why in the professional setting, see a lawyer's accountant, and there's a lawyer agent, there's a financial agent. They behave very differently. They need to behave very differently compared to your personal assistant that you wake up every day you can chat with.

Speaker 3

目前你们将AI工具作为企业方案的附加服务出售。我好奇这是否影响利润率?众所周知AI系统运营成本高昂且消耗大量算力资源。将这类资源密集型工具整合到现有订阅模式是否存在挑战?

Right now you sell AI tools as an add on in your business and enterprise plans. I'm curious if this hurts your margin at all. We hear a lot about how expensive and compute intensive, resource intensive AI systems can be to operate. Is it a challenge to integrate those sort of like resource hungry tools into your existing subscription?

Speaker 4

我们最近已将AI并入主套餐,因为超半数客户现在都会购买AI产品。简化定价体系将其纳入所有套餐是合理之举。虽然利润率确实不如纯SaaS软件,但AI功能实在太强大了,用户非常认可。

We actually recently merged AI into our main plan because more than half our sales now customer want to buy this product AI product. So it makes sense just simplify the whole planning pricing buckets to just include it into everything. It does make the margin not as good as as pure SaaS, pure software, but it's just so powerful. People appreciate it. Yeah.

Speaker 4

况且我们公司现金流仍为正,所以尽管利润率结构不同,CFO对此还是很满意的。

And still, our company is cash flow positive, so our our CFO loves that despite it's a different margin profile.

Speaker 3

我们已经看到部分公司转向AI按量计费模式——作为消费者我很反感这种模式,不想每次提问ChatGPT都要微支付。但这似乎是更优的商业模型,你如何看待其中的权衡?

We we've already seen some companies move toward usage based pricing for AI, which like, as a consumer, I hate. I don't want to make like micropayments to ask ChatGPT a question, but it does seem like that is maybe a better business model. How do you think about the trade offs there?

Speaker 4

我认为业界尚未找到最佳方案,尤其在B2B领域。第一代是客服场景,可采用基于问题解决结果的定价,这很合理。第二代是目前成熟的编程场景。

I don't think people figure it out, especially in the business setting, P2B. The first generation is kind of customer support. Customer support you can map to, they call outcome resolution based pricing. That makes sense. Then there's sort of the second generation, which is solid right now, coding.

Speaker 4

编程有基础费用,但用量大时需按量计费。这种模式合理,因为你最终获得的是可交付成果——代码文件或软件。这为程序员节省了大量亲自编写的时间,用户也认可其价值。

Coding, there's a C base, but if you use a lot, you have to go usage based. That sort of makes sense because your exchange is a piece of work. You get your file, get your software at the end of the day. Right? So people appreciate that and it saves programmers so much time than actually writing the piece of software themselves.

Speaker 4

知识工作难以量化。知识工作,你无法为其标价。比如这份文档值多少钱?你很难确切衡量。同样,如何评估一项知识工作的质量?你的产品规格书有多优秀?

Knowledge work is nebulous. Knowledge work, you can't put a price on a knowledge work. Like, it's this chunk of doc, how much is it worth? You can't really put that into like, it's and how good is a piece of knowledge work? How good is your product spec?

Speaker 4

你无法为其贴上价签,对于Notion这样的通用知识工作产品尤为困难。这是整个行业都需要解决的课题。

You can't put a dollar sign behind it, so much harder for a general purpose knowledge work product like Notion. That's the thing the whole industry needs to figure out.

Speaker 3

你希望AI在Notion中实现哪些目前尚未实现的功能?

What do you wish that AI would make possible in Notion that isn't quite yet possible yet?

Speaker 4

成本可以不断降低,速度可以持续提升,智能可以日益增强——这个趋势已成定局。这就要求企业必须采用全新的构建方式。软件行业现在正深刻意识到这一点。

You can always get cheaper and faster and smarter, but you know the train is coming for that direction. So it's a very it does require you build company in a different way. I think this is like the software industry is realizing this right now.

Speaker 3

请详细阐述。

Say more about that.

Speaker 4

首先说明,我并未经历过互联网泡沫时代。那时我还未入行。但据人们描述,那个时期网络标准瞬息万变,每隔几个月就会革新。

First of all, this is kind of like, I never worked during the .com era. That was a little bit before me. People said during that era, the web standard changes all the time. Every couple of months, few months, it's different. Right?

Speaker 4

我也未曾在英特尔鼎盛的摩尔定律时代工作过。那时人们可以预期:18个月后的新CPU就能驱动任何软件。而AI的发展节奏类似,但更为迅猛——每三个月新模型就能突破原有局限。这难道不迫使我们必须彻底改变软件开发、产品构建和企业运营的方式吗?

And I never worked with Intel's in the heydays, Intel, Moore's Law era. It's like, can just expect the next eighteen months from now, the next CPU can drive whatever software you do. AI sort of feels that, but even on steroids. Like, every three months, the next model, it almost can do what you couldn't do before. So does it require you to really change how you build software and build product and build a company?

Speaker 4

关键有两点:其一,由于技术持续迭代,且模型本身限制较少,你需要在关键环节建立约束机制。就像若沿着铁轨建造过多设施,下一班列车驶来时,这些建设就会过时。

A couple of things. One is, because it's constant changing, you can and the model itself doesn't lack too much restrictions. You need to build a harness just around the right places. So almost like if you build too much around the train track, the next train comes. It just makes what you should build obsolete, right?

Speaker 4

你应该平行于铁轨建设——这是首要原则。其二,语言模型具有非确定性,这与传统软件工程截然不同。我喜欢用这个比喻:传统软件工程如同铺设铁轨或建造桥梁。

You should build parallel to the train track. That's number one. Number two is the language model are not deterministic. It's different from classic software engineer. The metaphor I like to use is that classic software engineer is kind of like building train track or building bridges.

Speaker 4

遵循牛顿力学,一切皆可预测。只要你能构想出来,就终能建成——或许耗时三个月,或许半年,但终究可以实现。

Newtonian physics, everything's predictable. Right? And if you can imagine it, you can build it. Sometimes it takes three months, sometimes six months, but eventually you can build it. Right?

Speaker 4

这个语言模型的东西很灵活,它是有机的。我喜欢用酿造啤酒来比喻,你无法命令酵母说‘我的啤酒要这个味道,请按这个方式发酵’。你必须引导模型中已有的东西。

With this language model thing, it's squishy. It's organic. It's kind of the analogy I love to use is like brewing beer, right? You cannot tell the yeast, okay, my beer is going to taste this, please ferment yourself, become like that. You have to channel what's in the model.

Speaker 4

你最多能做的就是创造环境,调整数据,调整上下文,然后期待最好的结果。这需要更迭代的方法。你不能从愿景或客户需求出发,而要从技术能提供什么、啤酒能带来什么出发。这要求团队更注重实证和实验,减少瀑布式开发那种从需求到代码的直线思维,更多采用渐进迭代。

The best you can do is create an environment, massage the data, massage the context, the hope the best. This requires a much more of an iterative approach. You cannot come from your vision or customer need first. You have to come from what the technology gives you, what the ease, what the beer gives you. So really much allows your team to be more empirical, more experiment, less of this kind of waterfall class way of like spec to code should be more like incremental iterative.

Speaker 4

所有这些加在一起,迫使你设计出不同的工程产品设计工作方式。

All this add together and make force you have designed a different engineer product design work.

Speaker 3

这会改变你们的招聘方式吗?会改变团队结构吗?你描述的这种特殊性如何转化为一家不同的公司?

Does it change the way that you hire? Does it change the way that you structure teams? Like, how does that strangeness that you describe translate into a different company?

Speaker 4

人们需要更适应模糊性,甚至热爱模糊性。人们需要更具实验精神。角色之间的界限会更加模糊。

People need to be more okay with ambiguity. People need to love ambiguity. People need to be an AI more experimental. Right? The boundary between role is even greater.

Speaker 4

比如我们招聘的设计师要能应对这种变化——如果你既是工程师又是设计师,你的思维会更灵活。AI时代进一步放大了这点。当设计和产品人员与工程师并肩工作时,经常发现想要的东西无法实现,所以必须尝试多种方案。

Like, a notion we hire designer who can cope because if you're engineer and designer in one, you can think a lot more ambiguously, more fluidly. Right? AI time even pushed that even further. The design and product who sit side by side with engineers, oftentimes what you want cannot be built. So you have to really try a bunch of different things.

Speaker 4

这就是为什么你会看到很多完成度60%-70%的产品演示最终没成为真实产品——它们适合做演示,但要变成可靠的B端软件,需要极高的完成度,往往难以达到。

That's why you see a lot of product demos like sixty, seventy percent, but never become real product. That's like because it's good for making demo, but to get to a production b to b software, you need to be really good and to be reliable. Oftentimes, you never get there.

Speaker 3

我常想到语音助手这个例子:现在它们主要用于定时、查天气这类确定性任务。虽然公司想整合AI后端,但极其困难——如果用户设置定时器的成功率从100%降到93%,产品体验反而更糟。

I think about this a lot in the context of like these voice based assistants, which today, mostly what I use them for is, like, setting a timer or, like, asking what the weather is, like, these very deterministic things. And the companies that are building them are trying to integrate these new AI based back ends, but it it's incredibly hard because if the user is still using the product, they're still gonna wanna set the timer. And if it goes from doing it correctly a 100% of the time to, like, 93% of the time, that's, like, a much worse product. Right?

Speaker 4

但人类会逐渐明白这类技术最适合什么场景。就像语音交互时,你希望它有发散性,这是功能而非缺陷。整个AI软件行业和用户都还在探索边界,需要时间找到最佳应用方式。

But you I think as human, we all learn what's the best what is this type of technology best at, right? It's when you're having a conversation, like how you're using the voice mode, you want it to be ambiguous, you want it to go to different places. That's a feature, not a bug. I think us as a whole, as an industry who are making the software with AI, and who us as audience who use this, we haven't figured out the stance yet. It will take some time to figure this out, like, use the material for the best use.

Speaker 3

最后我想问:展望两年后(不谈五年),你希望Notion实现哪些现在尚未做到的事?

Well, I wanna end just by asking what you think Notion looks like a little bit into the future. And I will not ask you about five years from now because I don't think anybody has five years worth of visibility into anything. But if I could maybe ask for, like, two years from now, what do you hope Notion is doing that it's maybe not doing today?

Speaker 4

回到我们刚才讨论的话题,我认为软件的本质正在发生变化。它正从单纯的工具演变为一种有机体,能够主动为你完成部分工作。我们公司的核心在于SaaS软件领域,传统软件让用户构建工具——比如使用Slack或创建任何所需工具。而随着软件本质的转变,我们关注的是让你能创建AI同事,协助处理那些你最不愿重复的知识性工作。

I think going back to what we just talked about, the nature of software is changing. It's changing, evolving from just a piece of tools to this organic matter that tool can do some work for you. And the heart of this company in the SaaS software, classic software areas allow people to build tools. To allow people to use the Slack or to create whatever tools they want. Because the nature of software is changing, what we care about allows you to create AI teammates to help you take some of the most repetitive knowledge work you don't like to do.

Speaker 4

若能意识到这背后的深远影响,下一代建设者将以截然不同的方式运营公司,而我致力于解决这个问题。

If we can realize that there's a lot of implication, the next generation of builders gonna run on company very differently, and I care about solving that problem.

Speaker 3

好的。伊万,非常感谢你今天参与节目。

Alright. Well, Ivan, thanks so much for joining me today.

Speaker 4

谢谢邀请。

Thank you for having me.

Speaker 3

感谢伊万抽空接受访谈,也感谢各位听众。希望你们喜欢本期内容。若想分享对节目的看法或建议选题,欢迎来信。团队邮箱是decoder@theverge.com,他们确实会阅读每封邮件。

Thank you to Ivan for taking the time to speak with me, and thank you for tuning in. I hope you liked it. If you wanna let us know what you thought about this show or what else you'd like us to cover, drop us a line. You can email the team at decoder@theverge.com. They really do read every email.

Speaker 3

也可通过Threads或Blue Sky直接联系我。Threads账号@crumbler,Blue Sky账号Casey Newton。Decoder还有TikTok和Instagram账号@decoder pod,内容很有趣。

Or you can hit me up directly on threads or blue sky. I'm at crumbler on threads, and I'm Casey Newton on blue sky. Decoder also has a TikTok and an Instagram. You can check those out at decoder pod. They're a lot of fun.

Speaker 3

若喜欢Decoder,请分享给朋友并在你获取播客的平台订阅。Decoder是The Verge出品,隶属Vox Media播客网络。由Kate Cox和Nick Statt制作,本期由Xander Adams剪辑,主题音乐由Breakmaster Cylinder创作。

And if you like Decoder, please share it with your friends and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Decoder is a production of The Verge and is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Decoder is produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt. This episode was edited by Xander Adams. The decoder theme music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

Speaker 3

下次见。

See you next time.

Speaker 10

道路在召唤。以全电动奥迪Q6 e-tron拥抱驾驶激情,搭载轻松驾驭的动力与先进奥迪科技,奥迪新篇章已然开启。

The road is calling. Embrace the thrill of the drive with the fully electric Audi q six e tron. Featuring effortless power and advanced Audi tech, the next chapter of Audi is here.

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