Zhao: Learned English and Western humor from SpongeBob and The Simpsons
Ivan Zhao · Notion's lost years, near collapse during COVID, staying small to move fast, building horizontal · Mar 6, 2025 · at 7:19
Ivan Zhao, co-founder and CEO of Notion, explains how he developed cultural fluency in English after moving from China to Canada.
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“Yeah, it's real. I moved to Canada pretty late 16 years ago, and what I learned is, yeah, in, in China, you can learn English, but it is typically just grammar and doing exams. What you're missing is the context, the culture. So you have to watch SpongeBob or Simpsons to get a sense of humor, essentially.”
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