Agency beats skills in the AI era

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

—

Brought to you by:

WorkOS—Make your app Enterprise Ready, with SSO, SCIM, RBAC, and more: https://workos.com/lenny

Vanta—Automate compliance, manage risk, and accelerate trust with AI: https://vanta.com/lenny

—

Episode transcript: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/why-cultivating-agency-matters-more

—

Archive of all Lenny's Podcast transcripts: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/yxi4s2w998p1gvtpu4193/AMdNPR8AOw0lMklwtnC0TrQ?rlkey=j06x0nipoti519e0xgm23zsn9&st=ahz0fj11&dl=0

—

Where to find Max Schoening:

• X: https://x.com/mschoening

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/max-schoening

• Website: https://max.dev

—

Where to find Lenny:

• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com

• X: https://twitter.com/lennysan

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/

—

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

—

Referenced: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/why-cultivating-agency-matters-more

—

Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com.

—

Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed.