Simon Last

Founders / operators · Founder/Entrepreneur · milestone at age 23 ·T2 Field-leading

Milestone (age 23)

Co-founded Notion with Ivan Zhao around 2013 at about age 23, serving as technical co-founder/CTO on the all-in-one workspace product that later became a multi-billion-dollar company.

Engineering-focused co-founder who partnered with Ivan Zhao in the early 2010s; sources describe him as in his early twenties when hired/partnered for Notion. The duo rebuilt Notion after a near-failure period and shipped the product that defined modern modular workspaces.

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Starting point

Not fully documented; partnered with Ivan Zhao in early twenties as Notion technical co-founder (~2013).

Current position (2025)

Co-founder and CTO of Notion; continues as core product/engineering leader of the multi-billion workspace company.

How this path compounded

01 Starting advantages

6/24 starting-position score

Strongest documented signals: Exceptional peer / cofounder, Frontier geography, Early online platform.

Describes the starting position, not what the person later made of it.

Cohort percentile: 40

02 Built or converted leverage

11/25 multiplying-capacity score

Strongest observed levers:Complementary team, Scarce skill depth, Structural wave / timing.

Measures what was present, not whether it was inherited, earned, self-built, external, or mixed.

Cohort percentile: 31

03 Compounding trajectory

5 documented steps

The timeline below shows the sequence of work and transitions around the selected early milestone. It is evidence of a path, not proof that every step was necessary.

Milestone at age 23

04 Observed career standing

T2 · Field-leading

Dominant figure at the top of a field. The tier summarizes documented career recognition through the data cutoff—not Simon Last's worth or future potential.

How tiers work →

Question four · where did the leverage come from?

Simon Last's leverage provenance

Each non-zero lever gets a best-supported origin, evidence signals, and confidence. Unresolved is the honest default when the biography cannot distinguish self-built, advantage-enabled, earned, external, or mixed.

Complementary team2/2

Advantage-enabledmedium confidence

One or more documented starting advantages plausibly enabled this lever.

Exceptional peer / cofounder (2/2)Early online platform (1/2)

Scarce skill depth2/3

Advantage-enabledmedium confidence

One or more documented starting advantages plausibly enabled this lever.

Early online platform (1/2)

Structural wave / timing2/3

Externalmedium confidence

A structural wave is external to the person, even when their position improved access to it.

Frontier geography (1/2)Early online platform (1/2)

Concentration intensity2/3

Advantage-enabledmedium confidence

One or more documented starting advantages plausibly enabled this lever.

Adversity / constraint catalyst (1/2)

Domain proximity1/2

Advantage-enabledmedium confidence

One or more documented starting advantages plausibly enabled this lever.

Direct domain exposure (1/2)Frontier geography (1/2)

Prior reps1/3

Advantage-enabledmedium confidence

One or more documented starting advantages plausibly enabled this lever.

Early online platform (1/2)

Elite ecosystem network1/3

Advantage-enabledmedium confidence

One or more documented starting advantages plausibly enabled this lever.

Frontier geography (1/2)Exceptional peer / cofounder (2/2)

This is a bounded inference from the current annotations—not a claim about private effort, merit, or the percentage of Simon Last's outcome attributable to any origin.

Luck is not a leftover score.

Structural luck, Encounter luck, Event luck, Outcome variance can change every arrow in the path. This successful-only dataset cannot observe the near-identical paths that did not break through, so luck stays visible and unscored.

Within Founders / operators, Simon Last's starting-advantage total is at the 40th percentile. Separately, their built or converted leverage total is at the 31th percentile. Other T2 profiles average 7.9 / 24 starting advantage and 12.3 / 25 leverage. Similar scores appear in other tiers, so these figures describe positioning—not a cause.

Trajectory

2013 · age 23
Co-founded Notion with Ivan Zhao and raised early angel capital.
2015 · age 25
Helped rebuild Notion from near-collapse into a shippable modular workspace.
2018 · age 28
Notion gained viral product-led growth among knowledge workers.
2021 · age 31
Notion reached multi-billion valuations and global scale.
2024 · age 34
Notion expanded AI features and passed 100M users (company-reported).

Primary leverage engine

Scarce technical / intellectual depth

Secondary engine

Product / domain insight

Built/converted leverage

11 / 25

evidence: Medium

Built or converted leverage

Multiplying capacity documented later in the path. Measures what was present, not whether it was inherited, earned, self-built, external, or mixed.

Started serious reps before 20

0/1

Prior reps

1/3

Scarce skill depth

2/3

Native distribution

0/3

Elite ecosystem network

1/3

Complementary team

2/2

Structural wave / timing

2/3

Concentration intensity

2/3

Capital safety

0/2

Domain proximity

1/2

Starting-advantage scores (0–2 each)

Access or conditions documented near the beginning of the path. Zero means "no clear evidence in reviewed sources," not "advantage was absent."

Family financial platform

0/2

Parent / family domain

0/2

Inherited audience / network

0/2

Elite institution pipeline

0/2

Frontier geography

1/2

Rare early tools

0/2

Dedicated mentor / coach

0/2

Exceptional peer / cofounder

2/2

Early online platform

1/2

Direct domain exposure

1/2

Prodigy / innate ability

0/2

Adversity / constraint catalyst

1/2

Family context

Not documented in reviewed sources.

Parent / family domain

Not documented in reviewed sources.

Archetype & tags

High-trust peer teamZhao partnershipfull-stack rebuildproduct craftSF startup scene

Evidence summary

Last is consistently described as Notion's technical co-founder from ~2013 (CSV birth 1990 → ~age 23). The pair nearly shut down, then rebuilt the product; advantage is complementary cofounder intensity and product craft rather than documented family capital. Public biographical detail is thinner than for Zhao.

advantage confidence: Medium · source count: 3 · audit: not_independently_audited · status: subagent_researched_beta

Sources

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