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Akshay Kothari

Co-Founder and COO, Notion · 2 appearances on the record.

computed by AI from the episodes · how this works → · full disclaimer →

founderexecutiveoperatorinvestor@akothari ↗LinkedIn ↗notion.com ↗

Akshay Kothari co-founded and helped scale Notion into a collaborative workspace platform, overseeing operations, product strategy, and key fundraising rounds. Previously, he co-founded the mobile news app Pulse and served as VP of Product and Head of LinkedIn India.

36statements → 17claims → 8claims resolved → 75%fully supported → 3.94/5average certainty → 1.72/5average debate potential → 4.2/5argument clarity · the sources → 8said about them ↓

6 supported 1 partly supported 1 contradicted 2 not yet assessed 7 not checkable as stated how the 17 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

17 assertions · 1 opinion · 6 insights · 11 disclosures · 1 what if · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertions are the 17 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 8 are resolved, 2 are not yet assessed, and 7 name no date, number or outcome precise enough to check. Everything else (opinions, insights, what ifs, disclosures) can never be settled by the record, so it carries no assessment.

The record, in short

What the tape says about how Akshay argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.

Their most notable supported claim

Assertion Supported
Notion avoided hiring product ops and researchers early on via feedback automation
“We didn't have to hire as many support people. We did not have to hire a product ops person, and we also did not have research early days. In fact, all of these were given to the engineer directly to be able to tap into that feedback and actually solve that pr…”
Akshay Kothari Sep 18, 2024 ▶ 4:19 Akshay Kothari: How Notion Has More Money Than Ever & Why Startup Fundraising is Broken | E1203 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings

Their most notable contradicted claim

Assertion Contradicted
Kothari: Notion Did Not Launch Its Product For Four Years
“And for many years, I thought I lost all my money in Notion because it hadn't launched a product for, I think, four years. And then when it did in 2017, it took off.”
Akshay Kothari Apr 17, 2020 ▶ 4:42 20VC: Notion's Fundraise with Index: The Most Anticipated Deal in The Valley: How It Came To Be | The Future of Remote Work |How Notion Approach The Balance of Growth and Profitability

Expressed certainty vs assessment result

none yet certainty 1
none yet certainty 2
50% certainty 3
88% certainty 4
100% certainty 5

weighted support: a fully supported claim counts one, a partly supported claim counts half. Each filled bar is clickable and opens exactly those claims; "none yet" means nothing said at that certainty level has resolved yet

Argument clarity: do they answer the question? how? →

4.2 / 5 directness 4.4 · coherence 4.4 · precision 4 · compression 3.6

redirected or did not address 3 of 34 assessed questions (9%). Watch them ▸

This is a score against a rubric. It is not a rank. Every host question → answer exchange is scored with names hidden on directness, coherence, precision and compression, 1–5 each, on meaning alone: disfluencies are ignored, and only raw unedited episodes count. This is the score that measures thought. Every scored exchange, scores shown → · The rubric and its checks →

How they sound: speaking style how? →

256 words/min while actually speaking · 23.8 um and uh per 1k words · 27.9 false starts per 1k · 32.8% of pauses land inside a clause

English is their second language (first language: Gujarati). These numbers measure fluency in English. They do not measure thought; the argument clarity score above is read from substance alone.

Measured by listening to the audio itself: 7,213 words across 1 episode of raw-level tape, transcribed verbatim with every um and uh kept, each one attributed only where the alignment onto our timed stream is unambiguous. These are measurements of speaking style. We do not rank them: across this corpus, fluency and argument quality are nearly uncorrelated (ρ≈0.2), and smooth talking does not signal clear thinking. How it's measured →

How the interview went all their pushback → series average →

Across 2 rated episodes:

host pushback ▾ 3.5/10
pushed back at the host ▾ 2/10
setup questions received 56%

Everything Akshay Kothari said on 20VC that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →

Insight
Kothari: Founder mode only works if the founder is right a lot
“Founder mode is really good if you have a founder who's right a lot. If they're not, God bless that company.”
Akshay Kothari Sep 18, 2024 ▶ 0:00 Akshay Kothari: How Notion Has More Money Than Ever & Why Startup Fundraising is Broken | E1203 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Assertion Supported
Notion avoided hiring product ops and researchers early on via feedback automation
“We didn't have to hire as many support people. We did not have to hire a product ops person, and we also did not have research early days. In fact, all of these were given to the engineer directly to be able to tap into that feedback and actually solve that pr…”
Akshay Kothari Sep 18, 2024 ▶ 4:19 Akshay Kothari: How Notion Has More Money Than Ever & Why Startup Fundraising is Broken | E1203 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Insight
Kothari: Omitting sales quotas hurt Notion's early growth
“Some of the best salespeople They join because there is a quota, because they can hit a number, because they can outperform that number. And so actually not having that and not having, you know, the attribution really hurt us, I think the first year or two.”
Akshay Kothari Sep 18, 2024 ▶ 13:22 Akshay Kothari: How Notion Has More Money Than Ever & Why Startup Fundraising is Broken | E1203 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
What-if
Kothari: Reinventing Notion's sales machine cost the company three years
“If I had to do it one function all over again, I would do sales. And the way I would do it is to not try to like overthink it, just do it the way it is run, like a proper sales machine. I think it would have saved three years in that journey.”
Akshay Kothari Sep 18, 2024 ▶ 15:53 Akshay Kothari: How Notion Has More Money Than Ever & Why Startup Fundraising is Broken | E1203 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Disclosure
Notion gave up only 2-3% equity and granted zero board seats
“I think there's essentially two to three percent ownership that we gave out. And so, you know, we were able to essentially not give out board seats.”
Akshay Kothari Sep 18, 2024 ▶ 36:27 Akshay Kothari: How Notion Has More Money Than Ever & Why Startup Fundraising is Broken | E1203 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Disclosure
Kothari: Notion Was Profitable For Two Years Prior To $50M Raise
“It's allowed as a company to be profitable over the last two years.”
Akshay Kothari Apr 17, 2020 ▶ 24:39 20VC: Notion's Fundraise with Index: The Most Anticipated Deal in The Valley: How It Came To Be | The Future of Remote Work |How Notion Approach The Balance of Growth and Profitability
Assertion Supported
Kothari: Notion holds more cash than its total funds raised
“There's more cash in Notions Bank today than the history of its race. So it's like, in some ways, like, we've produced cash. We haven't spent any of it.”
Akshay Kothari Sep 18, 2024 ▶ 0:06 Akshay Kothari: How Notion Has More Money Than Ever & Why Startup Fundraising is Broken | E1203 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Kothari: Notion founders personally conducted final interview for first 500 hires
“I think for up to about 500 people, we're about 700 people today, but up to 500 people, the last interview was always with Ivan or myself.”
Akshay Kothari Sep 18, 2024 ▶ 6:44 Akshay Kothari: How Notion Has More Money Than Ever & Why Startup Fundraising is Broken | E1203 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Assertion Not publicly verifiable
Kothari: Notion employs under 20 product managers and 12 designers total
“I think even if I think about today, like all of Notion, with all the different surfaces we have under 20 product managers, and we have about 12 designers.”
Akshay Kothari Sep 18, 2024 ▶ 7:57 Akshay Kothari: How Notion Has More Money Than Ever & Why Startup Fundraising is Broken | E1203 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Insight
Kothari: Hiring more people and expanding projects actually slows startups down
“I think you may feel like you're going faster by hiring more people and saying yes to more projects, but in effect it is actually going slower.”
Akshay Kothari Sep 18, 2024 ▶ 8:48 Akshay Kothari: How Notion Has More Money Than Ever & Why Startup Fundraising is Broken | E1203 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Kothari: 46% of Notion's business stems from personal use
“We actually did this study recently, and we found that you know, something like 46% of our business in in, you know, it can be attributed back to someone using Notion in their personal life.”
Akshay Kothari Sep 18, 2024 ▶ 17:30 Akshay Kothari: How Notion Has More Money Than Ever & Why Startup Fundraising is Broken | E1203 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Opinion
Kothari: Expecting a return to 100x revenue valuations is unrealistic
“Hoping that we're gonna be back to a hundred times revenue, a hundred times ARR valuation, I think that's a bit challenging.”
Akshay Kothari Sep 18, 2024 ▶ 21:24 Akshay Kothari: How Notion Has More Money Than Ever & Why Startup Fundraising is Broken | E1203 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Assertion Supported
Kothari: Notion reached $100 million in ARR around 2022
“So Notion got to about a hundred million in ARR a couple of years ago”
Akshay Kothari Sep 18, 2024 ▶ 25:12 Akshay Kothari: How Notion Has More Money Than Ever & Why Startup Fundraising is Broken | E1203 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Disclosure
Kothari: Notion missed its quarterly financial target about 1.5 years ago
“One of the, I remember one quarter where we missed our this was maybe like a year and a half ago or something where we missed a quarter where we sort of like missed our number.”
Akshay Kothari Sep 18, 2024 ▶ 35:05 Akshay Kothari: How Notion Has More Money Than Ever & Why Startup Fundraising is Broken | E1203 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Disclosure
Former LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner declined offer to join Notion's board
“Jeff Wiener, who was my old boss at LinkedIn. Ivan and I actually tried very hard to get him to be a board member at you know, our first board member at Notion, and he said no, because in deep down, he wanted to be, you know, the CEO's coach.”
Akshay Kothari Sep 18, 2024 ▶ 39:16 Akshay Kothari: How Notion Has More Money Than Ever & Why Startup Fundraising is Broken | E1203 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Disclosure
Kothari: Notion Has A 10-Year Runway Even At Zero Revenue
“Even if our business were to go to zero tomorrow, we now have about a ten-year runway to kind of continue Building notion.”
Akshay Kothari Apr 17, 2020 ▶ 28:41 20VC: Notion's Fundraise with Index: The Most Anticipated Deal in The Valley: How It Came To Be | The Future of Remote Work |How Notion Approach The Balance of Growth and Profitability
Assertion Partly supported
Kothari: Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has 40 direct reports and no 1-on-1s
“Jensen has like, 40 direct reports and doesn't do one-on-one.”
Akshay Kothari Sep 18, 2024 ▶ 5:08 Akshay Kothari: How Notion Has More Money Than Ever & Why Startup Fundraising is Broken | E1203 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Kothari: Notion became cashflow positive around 2019
“So I think I'll just talk a little bit about notions, very nuanced, but we got there pretty early. I think we got there like five years ago.”
Akshay Kothari Sep 18, 2024 ▶ 19:05 Akshay Kothari: How Notion Has More Money Than Ever & Why Startup Fundraising is Broken | E1203 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Insight
Kothari: SaaS companies average 5x to 10x long-term revenue multiples
“Unless you're trying to just, like, get acquired, you will be valued at a multiple of your revenue or a multiple of your cash flows that you're generating, and they tend to be an average of, like, you know, what, five to 10 X on the revenue multiple side”
Akshay Kothari Sep 18, 2024 ▶ 20:26 Akshay Kothari: How Notion Has More Money Than Ever & Why Startup Fundraising is Broken | E1203 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Assertion Supported
Kothari: Notion raised $50M at $2B valuation in early 2020
“So we did we raised fifty million at two billion at the start of COVID like pretty much like a couple of weeks into COVID in 20, 20, 20, 20.”
Akshay Kothari Sep 18, 2024 ▶ 22:32 Akshay Kothari: How Notion Has More Money Than Ever & Why Startup Fundraising is Broken | E1203 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Assertion Supported
Kothari: Notion raised $270M at a $10B valuation in late 2021
“We raised around two hundred and seventy million at ten billion.”
Akshay Kothari Sep 18, 2024 ▶ 27:31 Akshay Kothari: How Notion Has More Money Than Ever & Why Startup Fundraising is Broken | E1203 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Insight
Kothari: High valuations matter internally for startup employee morale and stock retention
“Well, valuation matters internally, I think, to employees. I think they, it matters that, like, you know, the stock that they did get is able to be valued that much and continue to grow in value over the years.”
Akshay Kothari Sep 18, 2024 ▶ 31:28 Akshay Kothari: How Notion Has More Money Than Ever & Why Startup Fundraising is Broken | E1203 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Kothari: Few 2021-2022 unicorns can show leaders a path to growing into valuations
“I think it is a challenge for a lot of companies when you can't show them a path. And I think it was a bigger challenge in twenty-twenty-two. I think some companies have been able to sort of like show a path or have gotten there. But I think they're probably m…”
Akshay Kothari Sep 18, 2024 ▶ 31:52 Akshay Kothari: How Notion Has More Money Than Ever & Why Startup Fundraising is Broken | E1203 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Insight
Kothari: Almost all startup advice is genius for some and rubbish for others
“I think in general, I would say like almost all advice is genius for a subset of people and completely rubbish for the rest of them.”
Akshay Kothari Sep 18, 2024 ▶ 41:55 Akshay Kothari: How Notion Has More Money Than Ever & Why Startup Fundraising is Broken | E1203 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings

Show 12statements(12 left)

The other half of the tape: Akshay Kothari's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 8 times in 3 episodes on 20VC. every mention, with the transcript →

Who brings them up most Harry Stebbings 4Olivia Nottebohm 2Phin Barnes 1Dannie Herzberg 1

Every mention by year

Appearances (2)

EpisodeDateSpeaking time
Akshay Kothari: How Notion Has More Money Than Ever & Why Startup Fundraising is Broken | Sep 18, 2024 35m
20VC: Notion's Fundraise with Index: The Most Anticipated Deal in The Valley: How It Came Apr 17, 2020 13m
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