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TOKENAI is producing counter-intuitive competition. Notion’s connected ecosystem, architecture, and cash make it a threat…if the hyperscalers don’t eat the app layer.
AI is rewriting the playbook on competition: as software gets easier to build, the advantage shifts to products that own connected context across apps, which make agents feel truly magical. Eric and John argue that Notion’s app ecosystem, database-first architecture, and financial position could realistically challenge HubSpot, while the biggest looming risk for both is whether hyperscalers (Google, Amazon, Microsoft) bundle an “agent checkbox” product and eat the app layer altogether.
[upbeat music] I wanna dig into how far Notion has to go in order to, you know, let's say, take out HubSpot or meaningfully compete with them, you know, across the surface area.
Right.
But zooming out, we started this episode by talking about how it's difficult to predict what's gonna happen in the near term with AI. You know, and, and maybe a little bit easier to predict, you know, what's gonna happen in the long term, not that we have a crystal ball. But
I wanna talk about why we believe that Notion has a chance in the near term to be a major player. So I'm gonna give you the Eric Dodds-
Oh, boy!
... quick hot take, um, on why this is possible and what it explains about sort of near-term and, and long-term market dynamics. So there is a tried-and-true playbook that has generally been true for most business models for a long period of time, maybe since the beginning of time, which is, uh, find a very specific problem for a very specific
person, company, et cetera, and solve that problem better than anyone else. As your starting point, if you're starting something new, how do you get traction? You solve a very specific problem for a very specific person-
Right
AI has transformed how we find information, and Trey Grainger literally wrote the book on how that happened. John asks him 7 questions about his career and AI.
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