Why cultivating agency matters more than cultivating skills in the AI era | Max Schoening (Head of Product, Notion)
5/3/20261 hr 27 min
Max Schoening is head of product at Notion, where he’s been especially effective at getting designers and PMs to ship code, prototype in the terminal, and launch extremely successful AI products. He was previously a PM at Google, ran design at Heroku, was VP of Design (and a part-time engineer) at GitHub, and is a two-time founder. He’s one of the most AI-forward product leaders out there and one of the deepest thinkers on how AI changes how we build and use software.
We discuss:
1. What’s most worked in getting designers and PMs to embrace AI
2. Why agency—not skills—is the thing that separates people who thrive from those who fall behind
3. How the first 10% of every project is now “free,” and what that means for product development
4. Max’s “tiny core” theory of great products: iPhone multitouch, the GitHub pull request, Notion blocks, Dropbox’s menu bar icon
5. Why the SaaSpocalypse is overstated
6. Why the amount of software has exploded but the quality hasn’t, and why that gap creates opportunity
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Episode transcript: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/why-cultivating-agency-matters-more
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Archive of all Lenny's Podcast transcripts: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/yxi4s2w998p1gvtpu4193/AMdNPR8AOw0lMklwtnC0TrQ?rlkey=j06x0nipoti519e0xgm23zsn9&st=ahz0fj11&dl=0
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Where to find Max Schoening:
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/max-schoening
• Website: https://max.dev
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Where to find Lenny:
• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com
• X: https://twitter.com/lennysan
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/
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In this episode, we cover:
(00:00) Introduction to Max Schoening
(01:55) The origin story of designers coding at Notion
(06:30) How much designers and PMs are shipping today
(08:24) The balance between shipping code and strategic work
(10:32) Why agency will help you thrive in the AI era
(11:49) Examples of high agency at Notion
(13:52) What we might lose as roles merge
(15:56) Advice for developing agency
(17:42) Malleable software explained
(20:43) The Dieter Rams video and design philosophy
(24:00) The SaaS apocalypse debate
(28:25) How product building has changed in the past two years
(30:27) What’s next in how we build products
(34:16) Token spend and ROI conversations
(37:39) Getting people to change how they work
(39:04) Max’s AI stack
(41:41) Which roles AI will transform next
(44:26) When companies will start caring about ROI
(48:38) Why Notion AI is so successful
(51:47) How to ship more quickly while maintaining quality
(56:40) Building taste through iterations
(1:00:09) What matters most in building successful products
(1:05:06) Using the jobs-to-be-done framework
(1:07:28) Hot take on universal basic income
(1:09:26) What Max would do with AGI
(1:10:53) Contrarian corner
(1:13:14) Failure corner
(1:16:20) Advice for young people in Silicon Valley
(1:19:20) Lightning round and final thoughts
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Referenced: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/why-cultivating-agency-matters-more
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Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com.
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Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed.
To hear more, visit www.lennysnewsletter.com
Clips
Showing 10 of 11Transcript preview
First 90 secondsMax Schoening· Guest0:00
Before, it was very easy to always say, "Well, I will never be able to do this because insert skill issue." We're realizing that even if you have the skills at your fingertips, the thing that matters is agency. I don't think agency is very evenly distributed in the world.
Lenny Rachitsky· Host0:14
Do you have a piece of advice for someone that wants to develop this within themselves?
Max Schoening· Guest0:18
I tell this to myself, if you drive Notion like it's stolen. One day you wake up and you realize the world is made up by people no smarter than you. It just really awakens you to the idea that you can just change things.
Lenny Rachitsky· Host0:28
If you think about your job a couple years ago, what's most changed?
Max Schoening· Guest0:32
The first 10% of every project are now free. It takes almost no effort to now build the first version of a startup.
Lenny Rachitsky· Host0:38
Taste comes up a lot now.
Max Schoening· Guest0:40
Taste actually means you're able to run a virtual machine in your head where, given an idea, you can predict for a certain in-group whether they're going to like it or not. You just have to do reps. It's almost like training a model.
Lenny Rachitsky· Host0:51
What do you think matters to building a successful product?
Max Schoening· Guest0:54
All the great products have something tiny that is a superpower. One tiny core that is so exceptionally good. One of the biggest pitfalls is if you get into the loop of, "If I just add one more thing to the product, it'll be finally great," that never works.
Lenny Rachitsky· Host1:08
You have this hot take on universal basic income.
Max Schoening· Guest1:10
We already have universal basic income. It's called knowledge work.
Lenny Rachitsky· Host1:13
[gentle music] Today my guest is Max Schoning. Max is a hard person to describe. He was a product manager at Google. He ran the design team at Heroku. He was a design leader and an engineer at GitHub under Nat Friedman. He's also a two-time founder and is now head of product