Intel / podcast

Why cultivating agency matters more than cultivating skills in the AI era | Max Schoening (Head of Product, Notion)

Source: lennysnewsletter.com
Author: Lenny Rachitsky
Date: Published May 3, 2026

Context

Working prototypes can teach designers how an AI product behaves in ways that static screens cannot. In his interview, Max Schoening, head of product at Notion, describes creating a small, separate code playground where designers could prototype chat interfaces with AI assistance.

His reason for encouraging code is to help people understand the behavior they are designing, including the repeated decisions and actions inside an . The prototype may later be discarded. Its value is that designers can test an interaction directly and develop a better understanding before engineering takes it into production.

Terms in this piece · Glossary

AI agent — An AI system that doesn't just answer once but works toward a goal in a loop — taking actions, reading the results, and deciding what to do next.
agent skill — A reusable instruction file that teaches an agent how to do one job well — the procedure, the tools, and what counts as done.

Key quotes

“The first 10% of every project are now free.”
Max Schoening

“We already have universal basic income. It's called knowledge work.”
Max Schoening

“The reason I like thinking in code is because it forces you to consider the medium.”
Max Schoening

“You're able to run a virtual machine in your head where given an idea, you can predict for a certain in-group whether they're going to like it or not, right?”
Max Schoening

“All the great products have something tiny that is a superpower.”
Max Schoening

Chapters

00:00Introduction to Max Schoening
01:55The origin story of designers coding at Notion
06:30How much designers and PMs are shipping today
08:24The balance between shipping code and strategic work
10:32Why agency will help you thrive in the AI era
11:49Examples of high agency at Notion
13:52What we might lose as roles merge
15:56Advice for developing agency
17:42Malleable software explained
20:43The Dieter Rams video and design philosophy
24:00The SaaS apocalypse debate
28:25How product building has changed in the past two years
30:27What's next in how we build products
34:16Token spend and ROI conversations
37:39Getting people to change how they work
39:04Max's AI stack
41:41Which roles AI will transform next
44:26When companies will start caring about ROI
48:38Why Notion AI is so successful
51:47How to ship more quickly while maintaining quality
56:40Building taste through iterations
1:00:09What matters most in building successful products
1:05:06Using the jobs-to-be-done framework
1:07:28Hot take on universal basic income
1:09:26What Max would do with AGI
1:10:53Contrarian corner
1:13:14Failure corner
1:16:20Advice for young people in Silicon Valley
1:19:20Lightning round and final thoughts

Read the source www.lennysnewsletter.com