First Block: Interview with Jesse Zhang, Co-Founder and CEO of Decagon

First Block: Interview with Jesse Zhang, Co-Founder and CEO of Decagon

From Notion Podcast by Notion

November 18, 2025 · 22 min

About this episode

In this episode, Jesse Zhang discusses the early lessons and challenges faced by Decagon as a rapidly growing AI startup.

Welcome to First Block, a Notion series where founders from the world’s leading companies tell us what it was like to navigate the many firsts of their startup journey—and what they learned from that experience.In this episode, we spoke with Jesse Zhang, Co-founder and CEO of Decagon. In just a year since coming out of stealth, Decagon has become a $1.5 billion AI unicorn, transforming customer service for companies with AI agents. Chapters 00:00 Intro 01:40 Rethinking Customer Experience 02:45 Early Startup Lessons 05:18 Agent Operating Procedures 09:58 Building Enterprise Trust 14:04 Scaling Fast 15:53 Hiring Philosophy 19:12 The Tool Stack 20:12 Advice Block For a full video, transcripts, and custom Notion x Decagon templates, please visit: ⁠https://ntn.so/nfxioe⁠ To learn more about how Notion is supporting startups, please visit: https://ntn.so/u28v7x

People in this episode

Host: Notion

Guest: Jesse Zhang

Topics covered

  • startup journey
  • customer service
  • AI technology
  • scaling businesses
  • hiring philosophy

Keywords

  • AI unicorn
  • customer experience
  • startup lessons
  • enterprise trust
  • scaling fast

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Decagon

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