Why cultivating agency matters more than cultivating skills in the AI era | Max Schoening (Notion)
In a Nutshell
In the AI era, agency—high initiative to experiment, prototype in code, and treat the world as malleable—outweighs specialized skills, enabling anyone to build the first 10% of projects cheaply and iterate via demos over memos. Successful products hinge on a tiny core superpower (e.g., Notion's blocks, iPhone's multi-touch), cultivated taste from reps, and malleable software like Notion that empowers users as creators rather than rigid SaaS consumers. Develop agency by making things, blurring roles (designers/PMs coding), and realizing "the world is made by people no smarter than you," while balancing rapid shipping with specialist engineering for scale and quality.
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Before, it was easy to say 'I will never be able to do this because [skill issue].' Now, even with skills at your fingertips, agency matters most. Agency is not evenly distributed. Advice for developing agency: 'Drive Notion like it's stolen.' One day you realize the world is made by people no smarter than you, awakening the idea that you can change things.
Most changed in jobs: The first 10% of every project is now free; it takes almost no effort to build the first version of a startup. Taste means running a virtual machine in your head to predict if an in-group will like an idea. Develop taste through reps, like training a model.
Great products have one tiny core superpower that's exceptionally good. Biggest pitfall: 'If I just add one more thing to the product, it will be great.' That never works.
Max Schoening: Product manager at Google, ran design team at Heroku, design leader and engineer at GitHub under Nat Friedman, two-time founder, now head of product at Notion. One of the most successful AI-forward product leaders and deep thinker on AI's impact on building and using software.
Host excited about Max's unique insight as roles merge (designers becoming PMs, engineers, etc.). Max embodies this: hard to describe what he is; he's done all the things.
Broad question: What changes for product teams and building as AI integrates into workflows? At Notion, Max pushes designers and PMs to ship code.
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