Notion co-founder on malleable software, monetizing agentic work, reinvention, more | Akshay Kothari

In this episode of Second Acts, Krish is joined by Akshay Kothari, co-founder at Notion.Akshay shares notes on: The founding insight behind his first startup, Pulse (acq. by LinkedIn in 2013) and how that led him to Notion, the now-storied Kyoto reset that transformed a flailing, early version of the product, how the idea of building “malleable software” can be traced back to the origins of modern computing, what’s informing Notion’s agent-native second act and its multi-layered moat, learning to price work/intelligence over seats/platforms, how Notion's Custom Agents made usage-based monetization an incontestable choice, why Akshay turns to the necessary pragmatism of Buffet and Munger, defiant narratives, and much more.—Chapters:00:00 — Episode highlights03:31 — Pulse06:12 — The Kyoto reset08:58 — “Everything is a block”11:16 — Malleable software13:27 — Sugar-coated broccoli15:26 — Selling work19:15 — Switzerland of LLMs23:32 — Pricing intelligence-as-a-service31:22 — Margins and agents35:02 — Think Together38:39 — Freeing demos42:13 — Munger’s valley—Referenced:NotionPulse Ivan ZhaoDouglas EngelbartAlan KayAugmenting Human IntellectMalleable softwareCustom AgentsNotes from Token TownLanding on usage-based pricingThink TogetherNotion Media FellowsPoor Charlie's Almanack—Connect with Akshay:LinkedInX—Connect with Krish:LinkedInX—About Chargebee:Chargebee helps thousands of recurring revenue businesses unlock second acts of scale with transformative AI monetization infrastructure.